Maurice Sapiro

Art Brokerage: Maurice Sapiro American Artist: b. 1932. Tonalism veers toward lyrical abstraction in the work of Maurice Sapiro. Born in 1932, Sapiro could be considered one of the elder statesmen of contemporary tonalist landscape painting. He adopts the tonalist practice of severely limiting his color range and linear delineation in favor of atmosphere and a marriage of subtle and dramatic modulations of value and hue. Over the course of his career, Sapiro has explored a wide range of style and subject matter: more or less traditional tonalist landscapes tinged with abstraction, semi-abstract sky scapes, still lifes, and portraits, as well as entirely abstract poured paintings. During the course of his career, his practice has evolved from a more deliberate, traditional approach to a far more intuitive one. As he always has, he starts with gessoed hardware-store hardboard which he stains with a semitransparent imprimatura underpainting (he usually uses burnt sienna thinned with liquid). He then "stipples" the underpainting with the rough tip of a brush to create an underlying texture in the densest areas of the future composition, such as trees or rocks, bringing life to a surface that would otherwise be flat. Listings wanted.