Items Similar to "Montmartre Street Scene, Paris, France" Thomas Pradzynski, Architecture
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7
Thomas Pradzynski"Montmartre Street Scene, Paris, France" Thomas Pradzynski, Architecture
About the Item
Thomas Pradzynski (1951 - 2007)
Montmartre Street Scene, Paris, France
Oil on canvas
16 x 32 inches
Signed lower right
At the age of 26 Thomas Pradzynski left his native Poland for Paris with the aspiration of becoming an artist. The year was 1977. Knowledge of architecture and a love of art were his main interests. His ideal was to "romanticize the empty streets and the traces of the past and to preserve places that are slowly disappearing." The path he laid before him was paved with warmly lit Parisian streets, dark windows and open doorways. The art he was about to create would not only echo his surroundings but also communicate his passion for their preservation.
The artist was born in Lodz, Poland, on November 29, 1951. His childhood was greatly influenced by his aunt Joanna, an artist in Krakow. Joanna recognized his talent and soon became his tutor. When he was nine, his family moved to the Montmartre district of Paris, where the city galvanized his creative spirit. The excitement of the modern city was like no other he had experienced. He was enamored by the freedom expressed by its inhabitants, most importantly, by the street painters with their brightly colored canvases. Upon returning to Poland in 1965, he resumed his artistic studies in painting and drawing.
Bowing to family demands that he pursues a more practical course in life, Thomas eventually took degrees in Sociology and Economics. In 1977 he exiled to Paris with his wife Joanna. Paris continues to inspire Pradzynski through its urban charm. The labyrinthine streets of Montmartre and the Latin Quarter have become his outdoor studios. Pradzynski's work explores and the streets of Paris like a solitary lover whom every window, doorway and cafe is filled with meaning. Much of Pradzynski's mood is created upon the stage of old Parisian buildings and storefronts. The actors become a window, two chairs, or a doorway whose interplay with light and shadow perform for the audience of our memories and dreams.
Throughout the 19th century and for half of the twentieth, Paris served as a beacon for artistic expression, drawing artists from all over Europe and the United States. Writers, painters, musicians and poets have all been inexorably drawn to this creative mecca. To name a few: Delacroix, Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Van Gogh, Edward Hopper, Camus, Sartre and Hemingway. Within the confines of smoky cafes, Pradzynski found the creative atmosphere conductive to his own inspirations. Much like his contemporaries, Pradzynski's inspirations turned into though provoking creations.
The street scenes portrayed in Pradzynski's paintings appear to be within the category of "realism." The term "realism," however, is as varied as the individual. The Realist artists discover that their external reality is inescapable from their own subjectivity. The depiction of a scene is primarily interpreted by the artist and secondarily interpreted by the viewer. Through this dual interpretation the artist is able to achieve a shared experience from an otherwise personal environment. As a realist, Pradzynski focuses his composition on the amount of content he can add to the subject matter. In order to reveal more than one would ordinarily see with the naked eye, Pradzynski utilizes his talents of "photo realism." The canvas ultimately contains more subject matter than the eye would normally perceive, therefore taking the perspective of a camera. Details in the painting provide the viewer with a sense of intimacy by bringing the subject within the range of public scrutiny.
The Realist painters of the 19th century were initiated in France by Gustave Courbet, who believed that "painting is an essentially concrete art, and can consist only of the representation of things both real and existing." Although Pradzynski maintains close tradition with Courbet in style, in theme he is more closely related to Edouard Manet. Manet believed that realism in technique could be mixed with myth in subject matter. Pradzynski's painted buildings are not entirely true to their Parisian location and in their assemblage become fictional. Manet's definition of Realism would still include Pradzynski's fictitious arrangement of subject matter since his style remains true to life. This theme of "fictitious Realism" found its way to the 20th century and onto the canvases of contemporary artists. What makes Pradzynski's work distinct, is the psychological introspection that elevates it from mere reportage to poetry. Although one is tempted to react first to the work with a sense of nostalgia, one quickly realizes that this is not the emotional key with which to unlock meaning and beauty.
In both mood and method Pradzynski bears close relation to the great American artist Edward Hopper. Where Hopper's painting embrace unique interplay of light to isolate his subject, Pradzynski's light is softer and the subjects are more intimate. With Hopper, the viewer in an intruder on the scene, an uneasy voyeur of uncomfortable truths, while
Pradzynski allows the viewer to participate in the scene. Similar to the mood of Padzynski's street scenes. Hopper's still cross sections of the city life portray a mood suspended in time. Both artists use similar forms of Realism to record a memory of relevance in their own lives. The similarity of content in their street scene is notable: vacant streets, open windows, and the warmly lit presence of inhabitants within decorated storefronts. In Pradzynski's paintings, Paris is viewed in perspectives that are devoid of people. This requires one to place himself at he scene and to explore an inner reaction; a technique also used by Hopper. The space created between the viewer and the scene in Pradzynski's paintings allows a pedestrian perspective to develop. Although their portrayals are of separate cities, the Realistic method complimented by a somber mood are threads common in both the paintings of Thomas Pradzynski and Edward Hopper. Pradzynski's use of light is comparable to Realist Richard Chiriani, who describes his subject matter's form through light and shadow. Not unlike Chiriani's paintings of aquatic life, Pradzynski's wandering shadows compliment his details with abstract shapes and take the viewer's imagination inside the quiet buildings where life takes form. As seen in the work of both artists, light is applied with a sensitivity that renders a subdued ambiance while embracing elements of expectation.
Feelings of anticipation are stirred upon viewing the white chair in "Le Cafe," and the bicycle in "Une Bicyclette a Florence." In a seemingly static environment these objects take on a life of their own; catalysts capable of initiating action at any moment, provoking the feeling that someone may occupy the chair or ride the bicycle away. Metaphorically, they act as a human presence, an abstraction of Pradzynski's own persona. Often Pradzynski paints more than one central scene, allowing the viewer an opportunity to view not only the immediate urban environment, but also to venture into the more intimate vignettes within the work. By carefully controlling his use of vanishing perspectives, Pradzynski creates a rhythmic transition between the multiple scenes. In "Le Cafe," a dark and intimate passage lures the viewer to explore both the private inner garden of sunlit trees and the colorful frontal shops. They are surveyed with equal interest and curiosity. The realistic detail used in Pradzynski's paintings reveals vulnerability on the buildings' surface while their solidity of design reassures us of their permanence. The buildings encompass their own dignity as well as reflecting a humble endurance toward time. Abstract shapes formed upon the building's stone surface in "Une Bicyclette a Florence" create the layered appearance of antiquity, a style comparable to that of earlier realists like Maurice Utrillo.
Pradzynski's architectural forms, while remaining classic in design, create mysterious shadows as well as secret passageways. The effect of light is naturalistic as well as allegorical. The shadows give the natural feel of depth and contour, while they romantically embrace each building as if to preserve its most intimate details. Pradzynski's light further acts to convey the meaning of continuous time and can best be analyzed in "Twilight on Rue de Madrian." Light coming from different angles reflecting upon the damp streets and weathered facades creates alternate perspectives. Thus, light seems to have more of a symbolic connotation rather than a naturalistic presence. The artist has created a prismatic collage of time itself.
Nostalgia informs much of Pradzynski's work. It is a feeling he searches out in the deserted streets, a mood he discovers in an image reflected off a window or in a building's crumbling facade. Whether it is empty street, the riderless bicycle propped against a wall, an unattended table in a small cafe, his images reveal the impulse in us
all to hold tight to traces of the past, while the occasional open doorway lends the imagery mystery and suggests a future, inevitable yet unknown.
No simple interpretation of Thomas' work is either fitting or rewarding. His great popularity is due, at least in part, to the accessibility of his imagery. Pradzynski's work is readable yet psychologically and emotionally complex.
Thomas Pradzynski has successfully laid claim to a re-imagined Paris, one completely his own. Its streets are empty but the complex experience of human emotion has not deserted them. His city is a unique configuration of dream and remembrance; mystery and anticipation. He has transformed the alleyways, cafes and open doorways into metaphor.
Pradzynski's Paris is nothing less than a hauntingly evocative street map of our own emotions.
- Creator:
- Dimensions:Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 36 in (91.44 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU184129919912
About the Seller
5.0
Platinum Seller
These expertly vetted sellers are 1stDibs' most experienced sellers and are rated highest by our customers.
Established in 2021
1stDibs seller since 2022
63 sales on 1stDibs
Typical response time: <1 hour
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: New York, NY
- Return PolicyA return for this item may be initiated within 3 days of delivery.
More From This SellerView All
- "Tuesday - 8 O'clock, " Frank Boros, View of Manhattan Skyline, New York CityLocated in New York, NYFrank J. Boros (1943 - 2017) Tuesday - 8 O'clock Oil on canvas 48 x 51 inches Signed lower right Accompanied by original purchase invoice and letter from the artist. Provenance: T...Category
1990s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- "Brooklyn Bridge, New York City, " Foggy Day with Boats, Cityscape, East RiverBy Henry BensonLocated in New York, NYHenry Benson (1930 - 1998) Brooklyn Bridge, East River, 1971 Acrylic on canvas 34 x 28 inches Signed upper left corner: Henry Benson Provenance: Golden Door Gallery, New Hope, Penns...Category
1970s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsAcrylic, Canvas
- "Tree, Trunk, and Roots, New York" Joseph Stella, American ModernismBy Joseph StellaLocated in New York, NYJoseph Stella (1877 - 1946) Tree, Trunk, and Roots, Bronx, New York, circa 1924 Oil on canvas 12 x 16 inches inscribed in another hand Joseph Stella/Estate and bears Joseph Stella Estate stamp (on the reverse) Provenance: The Estate of the Artist Rabin & Kreuger, New Jersey Parke Bernet Galleries, New York, March 14, 1968, Lot 147 ACA Galleries, New York Thence by descent Stella was born June 13, 1877 at Muro Lucano, Italy, a mountain village not far from Naples. He became painter laureate of Muro Lucano when he was in his teens with a representation of the local saint in the village church. Stella immigrated to America in 1896 and studied medicine and pharmacology, but upon the advice of artist friend Carlo de Fornaro, who recognized his undeveloped talent, he enrolled at the Art Students League in 1897. Stella objected to the rule forbidding the painting of flowers, an indication of his lifelong devotion to flower painting. He also studied under William Merritt Chase in the New York School of Art and at Shinnecock Hills, Long Island in 1901-1902, displaying the bravura brushwork and dark Impressionist influence of Chase. Stella liked to paint the raw street life of immigrant society, rendering this element more emotionally than the city realists, the Aschcan School headed by Robert Henri. Stella went through a progression of styles--from realism to abstraction--mixing media and painting simultaneously in different manners, reviving styles and subjects years later. The "Survey" sent Stella to illustrate the mining disaster of 1907 in Monongah, West Virginia, and in 1908 commissioned him to execute drawings of the Pittsburgh industrial scene. Steel and electricity became a major experience in shaping his responses to the modern world, and Stella succeeded in portraying the pathos of the steelworkers and the Pittsburgh landscape. Stella went abroad in 1909 at the age of thirty-two, lonely for his native land. He returned to Italy, traveling to Venice, Florence and Rome. He took up the glazing technique of the old Venetian masters to get warmth, transparency, and depth of color. One of Stella's paintings was shown in the International Exhibition in Rome in 1910 and was acquired by the city of Rome. The influence of the French Modernists awakened his dormant individuality. His friendship with Antonio Mancini, a Futurist, also played a role in his new style. At the urging of Walter Pach...Category
1920s American Modern Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- "Mount Rockwell, Glacier National Park, Montana, " Mountain Lake Landscape ViewBy Charles Warren EatonLocated in New York, NYCharles Warren Eaton (1857 – 1937) The Shadow of Mount Rockwell, Glacier National Park, Montana, 1921 Oil on canvas 20 x 24 inches Signed lower right: CHAS WARREN EATON. Provenance: The artist The Macbeth Gallery, New York Private Collection Sotheby's New York, American Art, April 14, 1989 ConocoPhillips, Houston Simpson Galleries, Houston, Fine Art & Antiques, May 18, 2019, Lot 447 Exhibited: New York, The Macbeth Gallery, Paintings of Glacier National Park by Charles Warren Eaton, December 13, 1921 - January 2, 1922, no. 2. Literature: "Two Exhibitions at Macbeth's," American Art News, New York, Vol. XX, No. 10, December 17, 1921. A contemporary critic wrote that the paintings of Charles Warren Eaton appeal to “the dreamers who find in them the undiscovered scenes in which their fancy long has dwelt.” Eaton’s contemplative landscapes exude a spiritual quality that moves the observer into a similar frame of mind. He loved to depict the ethereal light of dawn and dusk in late autumn or winter, usually without any reference to human or animal figures or buildings. These Tonalist paintings, with their subdued palette and relatively intimate scale, marked a definite break with the fading popularity of the panoramic and romantic views of the Hudson River School painters. Charles Warren Eaton was born in Albany, New York to a family of limited means. He began painting while working in a dry-goods store. At age 22, he enrolled at the National Academy of Design in New York City and then studied figure painting at the Art Students League. By 1886, he was successful enough to quit his day job and make a living as a landscape painter. That year, he traveled to Europe with fellow Tonalist painters Leonard Ochtman and Ben Foster. In France, Eaton visited popular artist’s spots such as Paris, Fontainebleau and Grez-sur-Loing, and fell in love with the loose brushwork and moody style of French Barbizon painting. Returning to the United States, Eaton fell under the spell of George Inness, the foremost exponent of Barbizon style in the United States. In 1888, Eaton settled near Inness in Bloomfield, New Jersey, where Eaton lived until his death in 1937. In this period, he painted shadowy and ambiguous landscapes inspired by rural scenery in the northeastern United States. His signature theme was a cropped view of the branches, trunks, and foliage of a pine grove silhouetted against a delicately illuminated sunset or moonlit sky. He painted this vision so often between 1900 and 1910 that he picked up the sobriquet ‘‘The Pine Tree Painter.” After 1910, Eaton responded to the popularity of Impressionism by using brighter colors and painting sunlit daytime scenes. In 1921, he was hired to paint Glacier Lake, in Glacier National Park by the Great Northern Railroad Company as part of their ‘See America First’ campaign. He produced more than 20 paintings, among the artist's last works, that now poignantly remind viewers of the vast disappearing glaciers. Eaton tended to approach this mountain scenery from an oblique vantage point; he liked to capture small episodes, showing mountaintops nearly obscured by dramatically attenuated screens of fir trees. Eaton, like many Tonalist artists of his generation such as Henry Ward Ranger, John Francis Murphy, and Charles Melville Dewey...Category
1920s Tonalist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Paint, Oil
- "Wellfleet, Cape Cod, " Gerrit Beneker, American Impressionism, ProvincetownBy Gerrit BenekerLocated in New York, NYGerrit Beneker (1882 - 1934) Wellfleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, New England, 1926 Oil on canvas 20 x 16 inches Signed, titled, and dated lower left Provenance: Louis H. Barnett, Fort Worth, Texas In 1905, Gerrit Beneker began his art career as an illustrator. He married Flora Judd, his high school sweetheart from Grand Rapids and they moved to Brooklyn, NY. Gerrit's early passion was to create an art that would inspire and provide honor to the workingman. As such, he had no interest in painting portraits of pretty women, which were so often seen on the magazine covers of the day. Rather he wanted to seek out workingmen on the bridges, tunnels and skyscrapers of NYC, and paint them in their environments. He completed over 150 magazine covers, numerous ads including many for Ivory Soap...Category
1920s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings
MaterialsOil, Canvas
- "A Cloudy Day, " View of Montclair, New Jersey, Tonalist, Barbizon SceneBy George InnessLocated in New York, NYGeorge Inness (1825 - 1894) A Cloudy Day, 1886 Oil on canvas 25 x 30 inches Signed and dated lower center Provenance: The artist Estate of the above Fifth Avenue Galleries, New York, Executor's Sale of Paintings by the Late George Inness, N.A., February 12 - 14, 1895, Lot 132 Joseph H. Spafford, acquired from the above Mrs. Spafford, by bequest from the above Leroy Ireland, New York, 1951 Ernest Closuit, Fort Worth, Texas Meredith Long & Company, Houston, Texas, circa 1960 Private Collection Shannon's Fine Art, American and European Fine Art Auction, October 27, 2016, Lot 42 Exhibited: New York, American Fine Arts Society, Exhibition of the Paintings Left by the Late George Inness, December 27, 1894, no. 90. Literature: LeRoy Ireland, The Works of George Inness: An Illustrated Catalogue Raisonne, Austin, Texas, 1965, p. 336, no. 1324, illustrated. Michael Quick, "George Inness: A Catalogue Raisonne," Vol. II, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 2007, pp. 282-83, 311, no. 966, illustrated. George Inness, one of America's foremost landscape painters of the late nineteenth century, was born in 1825 near Newburgh, New York. He spent most of his childhood in Newark, New Jersey. He was apprenticed to an engraving firm until 1843, when he studied art in New York with Regis Gignoux, a landscape painter from whom he learned the classical styles and techniques of the Old Masters. In 1851, sponsored by a patron, Inness made a fifteen-month trip to Italy. In 1853 he traveled to France, where he discovered Barbizon landscape painting, leading him to adopt a style that used looser, sketchier brushwork and more open compositions, emphasizing the expressive qualities of nature. After working in New York from 1854 to 1859, he moved to Medfield, Massachusetts, and four years later to New Jersey, where through a fellow painter he began to experiment with using glazes that would allow him to fill his compositions with subtle effects of light. Duncan Phillips remarked on Inness’s mellow light as a unifying force, saying, “…he was equipped to modernize the grand manner of Claude and to apply the methods of Barbizon to American subjects." At this time also, Inness developed an interest in the religious theories of Emanuel Swedenborg...Category
1880s Hudson River School Landscape Paintings
MaterialsOil, Paint, Canvas
You May Also Like
- TwilightBy Daisy ClarkeLocated in Deddington, GBDaisy Clarke Twilight Original Painting Oil on Canvas Canvas Size: H 30cm x W 40cm Signed Sold Unframed Please note that insitu images are purely an indication as to how a piece may...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Fix MeBy Daisy ClarkeLocated in Deddington, GBDaisy Clarke Fix Me oil on canvas, inspired by the musician Becks song Fix me. Size: H:60 cm x W:78 cmCategory
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsOil, Canvas
- Turquoise SnapshotLocated in Deddington, GBTurquoise Snapshot [2022] original Oil on canvas Image size: H:30 cm x W:30 cm Complete Size of Unframed Work: H:30 cm x W:30 cm x D:2.5cm Frame Size: H:35 cm x W:35 cm x D:5.5cm Sold Framed Please note that insitu images are purely an indication of how a piece may look Inspired by weekends on the beach in Cornwall, in particular Polzeath and Daymer Bay...Category
2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Armenian Contemporary Art by Kamsar Ohanyan - Night in YerevanBy Kamsar OhanyanLocated in Paris, IDFOil on canvasCategory
2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Chinese Contemporary Art by Jia Yuan-Hua - Cheerful MorningBy Jia Yuan-HuaLocated in Paris, IDFArtwork framed: 52 x 47,5 x 5 cm This artwork shows a part of the Garden of the Forbidden City in Beijing. The birds are flying, playing and singing in the morning. The bridge use knife...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
- Chinese Contemporary Art by Jia Yuan-Hua - SeascapeBy Jia Yuan-HuaLocated in Paris, IDFArtwork framed: 75 x 65 x 5,5 cm The panda is regarded as the national treasure of China. There are only about 1,000 in the world. All live in China. They are very well protected. W...Category
2010s Contemporary Landscape Paintings
MaterialsCanvas, Oil
Recently Viewed
View AllMore Ways To Browse
Paris France Vintage
Paris Architecture
Paris Theme
Paris France French Photos
Space Age Architecture
Thomas Vintage
Vintage Love Paris
Thomas Maier
Paris Separates
Vintage Shops In Paris
Paris Vintage Shop
French Street Names
Vintage Shops In Paris France
Urban Vintage Paris
Architectural Cross
French Quarter Art
French Quarter Painting
Painting Of French Quarter