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Rudy Ernst is a (Swiss born) U.S. painter, sculptor, poet and
writer. His career marks the transition from the old (analog) world
of European painting to the digital media of the 21st Century, and
his extensive body of works reflects that profound changeover.
Johann Rudolf Othmar Ernst was born in 1937 into one of the leading
Swiss banking and industrialist families of the ancient patrician
city of Winterthur. He grew up in a rural village on the River
Rhine, near Schaffhausen, which belonged to the church parish of
Laufen, above the Rhine Falls, where Carl Jung's father was the
pastor and where the famous psychologist spent the first years of
his life. While growing up among farmers, Ernst also spent much of
his formative years among the rich and famous of the world in the
Swiss ski resort of Klosters-Davos, where his family moved every
year from December to March, just a few miles from the place where
Alberto Giacometti went to school and was influenced by those
mysterious tall pine trees that almost come alive as spooky giants
against the snowy mountain silhouettes in the middle of a crispy
night under a full moon. To be a patron of the arts was a given in
the Ernst family, but the possibility of ever having the only male
descendant become a full-time career artist never crossed anybody's
mind. Which is why, after pursuing other activities (including a
Ph.D. in economics), Ernst was a latecomer to the scene of serious
artists. In 1965, following a horrendous accident, Ernst suffered a
32-minute cardiac arrest during surgery. His yearlong recovery
would change his life forever and be the determining factor for
becoming a dedicated artist. 50 years later, Ernst fully recovered
and shows no handicap anymore when seen in action. That was
then
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...And this is now (2008 Action Painting).
Link:
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Early on, and throughout his life, Ernst drew countless small,
original, surreal line pictures by putting down his pen, but never
knowing what the outcome would be. Those creative small icons have
come to be known as his Dream Drawings, while -later in life- he
shall do large pen and ink drawings of 30 x 22 inch.
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During the second half of the 1970s, Rudy Ernst became a serious
artist when he started interpreting his favorite Impressionist
works from postcard-sized reproductions onto canvases of many
different dimensions. He had grown up with some originals of these
masterworks and was taught early on about Impressionist painting
techniques. Now, the Impressionist Painters of the 19th century
became his virtual teachers through the legacy of their works.
1982: After Camille Pissarro
Just as the masters had done a century earlier, Ernst usually
finished these paintings within hours, or sometimes in a couple of
days, using a very small palette of oil colors: Titanium White, a
light Cadmium Red, a Cadmium Yellow, two different blues
(ultramarine and phtalo blue-green), but mixing black from a
combination of phtalo blue, red, and a touch of yellow, which was a
(mostly forgotten) technique that the Impressionist masters
commonly used. In 1982, Ernst immigrated to New York City with his
wife and two sons and will spend the next 120,000 hours of his
active professional life to become an accomplished, multifaceted
artist. He started painting his own subjects in the very same
Impressionist style as the old masters had used. But rather than
doing landscapes, Ernst developed a personal approach by magnifying
and distorting small objects and painting them onto his
canvases.
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1986: Pine Cone 1 Oil on Canvas 30 x 24
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By 1989, Ernst has become a poor man. His art now undergoes a
radical change. Since he cannot afford expensive art materials any
longer, he begins painting and sculpting with inexpensive building
materials, including roof tar, glues gesso, wire mash, etc. He
attaches random objects found at construction sites in his
neighborhood of Manhattans Upper West Side, where he works in a
large studio space in a basement on West 68th Street, listening all
day long to requiems and to Haydns Mass in Time of War. At a very
early age (from about age 8 to 15) Ernst was sent to the highly
respected painter Arnold Oechslin in Schaffhausen for regular
private painting lessons. The boy also works at the metal foundry
and carpentry shops of the family-owned textile factory, as well as
with the blacksmith and two local carpenters and cabinet makers of
his rural hometown. Yet, many years shall pass before Ernst
realizes that, in the early years of his childhood, he not only had
a well rounded education as a craftsman, but was also learning
various Tricks of Trades from professional craftsmen in an
environment that he has since come to call His Own Bauhaus.
In his book Sculptomania 25 Years of Sculpting -pp 88 to 93-
Rudy Ernst remembers:
My Own Bauhaus
Well known artists are generally born into artist families and
are discovered at a very young age. I was enjoying none of these
privileges, nor did I exhibit any special artistic gift; and nobody
around me nourished the farfetched thought that one day I would end
up as an artist. All the members of my extended family were patrons
of the arts, many of them supporting starving artists. Our walls
were filled with valuable paintings, and early on I was dragged
into many European museums, theatres and operas. Since my early
childhood, I knew exactly what I was going to be: An entrepreneur,
a money man, a Wall Street guru! This is why I showed no interest
whatsoever in craftsmanship; it is also why I hated the assignments
to use my hands for painting in watercolors, design and build
furniture, do wood carvings, manufacture household objects in
copper, weld metal pieces together, or cast special objects in
bronze and other metals. In our small rural town of Flurlingen, in
the northern part of Switzerland, where I grew up, I was running
around barefoot from April through October among farmers and in our
family-owned vineyards. My family also owned a large hemp and jute
manufacturing plant at the top of the hill, where five hundred
people, mostly blue collar workers, were employed. Since imports
into Switzerland were very limited during the two World Wars, the
factory needed to be entirely self sufficient. This is why we had
our own metal, wood and foundry shops and facilities to keep the
manufacturing plant in perfect working condition.
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Under the circumstances, it only appeared natural to my fathers
twisted mind that the only male descendant from my
great-grandfather would become a skilled manual laborer. And what
better way to accomplish that strange and noble goal than to force
a child to perfect its craftsmanship abilities with Christmas and
birthday presents of all sorts, all year long. Thank God, my
teachers, Arnold Oechslin (The Artist), Brtsch (foreman of our
foundry), Hberli (carpenter), Walser (metal shop and welding) and
Alborn (cabinet maker) were my good friends and had more
understanding than my father for my personal priorities, including
soccer and a myriad of dangerous ventures. But when the family
celebrations came up, my handcrafted works would invariably trigger
such enchanted reactions as Oh, Rudy-Boy, how beautiful this
bottle-carrier is, and what a gifted artist and craftsman you
already are ! I couldnt stand such compliments, but wouldnt tell
them that my teachers had usually assisted me with their helping
hands, since I needed to be with my pals to pursue all of those
other (infinitely more interesting) activities. * Only recently, at
a MoMA Bauhaus exhibition in New York City, did I realize that I
had been privileged to experience my own Bauhaus Apprenticeship at
a very young age. Indeed, while familiarizing myself with the
Bauhaus Movement once again, I realized that I had gone through my
own Bauhaus Phase so to speak: From about age seven all the way up
to my late teens I remembered having learned the trades of metal-
and woodworks early on in life. But the idea of using those devices
to create artworks had never crossed my mind.
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Long after our move to New York City, in 1982, and my decision
to focus on creating art, I became aware that those manual skills
had long ago become a part of me. I suddenly discovered that I knew
how to weld and cut metal, cut, sand down and glue wood, work with
ropes, strings, burlap and cardboard, use tar, gesso, canvas and
wires, plant nails and screws with hammer and screwdriver, and
-last, but not least- I appeared to have real knowledge and a
natural talent for assembling and sculpting them into art pieces.
Here in Manhattan I found a myriad of wonderful objects that I
could use to make complex works of art. It also dawned on me that I
had been involved in construction throughout my life, and had
knowledge about concrete, cement, plaster, paint, brickwork,
carpentry, and trimmings: You name it. Suddenly, out of the blue,
things were falling into place. I had long ago acquired all the
necessary skills to become an accomplished artist and -more
specifically- a sculptor.
*
In 1988, when I built my new artist studio in southwest
Virginia, I suddenly realized that this was an extension of the
Bauhaus-Memories that I had grown up with.
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In May of 1989, Ernsts beloved German Mother-in-Law dies in his
arms. She leaves behind a large inventory of hand-spun and -woven
family linen that he begins to use for his series of Humanoid
Sculptures that he shall continue to create for the next 25 years.
Later, he shall remember this period as the most intense of his
artistic career. Ernsts Dark Period also marks the beginning of his
ability to break through his controlling mind that gets in the way
of his spontaneous creations. He now creates his pieces directly
from what he calls his Guts, his subconscious level, thus becoming
his own observer of what happens in the artistic process. It is in
disbelief that he suddenly realizes how his new works have not only
become dark and monochrome, but carry distinct religious elements,
of which he has been unaware, since -in spite of his upbringing-
Ernst has never been a religious person. A question arises: Are we
all carrying deep within an intense longing for beauty and harmony
that appear to be common denominators in all human cultures that we
came to discover for the past thirty thousand years?
1991 Venetian Night 24 x 36
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Beginning of Rudy Ernsts Digital Works (1996/97) During the
early 1990s the world begins to become digitized. Ernst, who grew
up with slide rulers and multiplication tables, has had a lifelong
fascination with technological advancements. He now begins to learn
and integrate the new digital technologies into his traditional
artworks. His son, Rudi Jr., who became the director of the
ABC/Disney New Media Center in New York City, helps him
computerizing his first multi-media art installation, Project
Mysterialism, which shall become a part of Ernst's series Between
Spirit and Matter. In 1997, Rudy Ernst creates his first animated
digital film, The Odyssey, created on an SGI Computer with the help
of his friend Bill Shepard. That same year he joins ArtNet as one
of its first customers.
Computer Aided Art (CAA) (2002-2009) By the turn of the Century,
Ernst has become fully computer literate. He is fluent in the
Photoshop computer program and does a series of 200 unique
computer-manipulated images of his own traditional artwork, which
he exhibits in several prime New York spaces and at the Kodak
Company Headquarters in Rochester, New York. He calls his technique
Computer Aided Art, or CAA.
1997: Odyssey Mountain
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2002 Ice Dance
2003 Night View of Ernsts Park Ave Exhibition at 55th St. New
York
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Sculptomania (1989-2015) While his first sculptures reach as far
back as 1989 (into his Dark Period) Rudy Ernst revisits his work on
the Abstract Human Figure around 2008. It is his philosophical and
artistic response to the collective hypes of our modern world,
which has reached every corner of our lives, including the price
hypes of the worldwide art markets. Rudy Ernsts humanoid sculptures
have sometimes been shrugged off as an attempt to copy the tall
figures of Alberto Giacometti. Nothing could be further from the
truth. Ernst has been a lifelong idea generator in every field he
ever worked in, and never a copyist. He goes as far as pointing his
finger at many of his artist friends who copy their own style by
giving in to the marketing dictates of repetitiveness, in order to
achieve high commercial values for their art pieces. Giacometti and
Ernst have both grown up just a few miles from each other and have
been profoundly influenced by their common natural environment.
Whats more, Ernsts humanoids are the result of his long-held
philosophical views of human evolution. Indeed, back in the 1980s,
Ernst did a series of sound recordings with his artist friend,
Charles K. Lassiter, at the Philip Glass Studio in Manhattan, that
begins with the following question: My friend, there have been
80,000 generations of human beings before you, and of those
generations, only one eighth of one percent have been living within
the past 2,000 years. My friend, I ask you: Where do you come from,
where are you going where ARE you? Ernsts abstract humanoids have
no arms, and are not even standing on two legs. They are but a
vague abstraction of the human body as a reflection of Ernsts
philosophical thoughts. Here below are some of those humanoids in
bronze and in their initial stages:
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Final Cut Pro and Soundscape Symphonies (2002-Present) In 2002,
Ernst also takes on the difficult task of becoming literate and
familiarizing himself with the professional filmmaking tools of
Final Cut Pro. It is an endeavor that will take him several years
to accomplish, but creates a foundation for directing, shooting and
edit his own films and to compose music. Since 1994, Ernst has
composed a series of musical Soundscape pieces (musique concrte) on
his computer, the latest of which is a 21-minute composition that
he calls Sound Symphony of my Life and which can be heard on
Youtube. By 2005, Rudy Ernst has achieved his goal of becoming an
accomplished multi-media Artist. He has become comfortable in many
different media, including mural works of super-large dimensions,
and he now navigates freely among them. Rudy Ernsts 2008 retrospect
exhibition of Small is BIG at the QCC Museum/Gallery of the City
University of New York bears testimony of his achievements in the
fields of paintings, drawings, sculpting, Computer Aided Art, and
Soundscapes. Here is the Link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V3duKcwdkQ&feature=youtube
Back to traditional Abstract works (2013-2015) Now that Rudy
Ernst has become comfortable in his daily use of new technologies,
he feels every bit as comfortable moving back and forth from and to
his traditional works of sculptures and paintings, often applying
his technological knowhow to the creation of pictures and videos to
record his artistic creations. During the past three years, Ernst
has produced a great number of abstract works in Acrylics, a
painting material that he particularly likes for its fast drying
properties. At the beginning of 2015, Ernst is working on his
second consecutive Catalogue Raisonn, as well as on a number of
videos (MP4) and sound recordings (MP3) that he shares on YouTube
with a wider audience. The prominent QCC Art Gallery / Museum (New
York City University) and its director, Dr. Faustino Quintanilla,
have been tremendously helpful by publishing Ernsts work
catalogues. Here are two of Rudy Ernsts recent Abstract
Paintings:
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2013: 13-LAP #15 Multi Media on Canvas 2013: 13-LAP #5 Multi
Media on Canvas 20 x 16 30 x 27
Ernsts Action Paintings (2008 to Present) During the past thirty
years of his life as an artist, Rudy Ernst has increasingly learned
that the only way his paintings can have artistic value is to Paint
from the Guts, as he has come to call his technique. The minute he
involves his thought process, he ruins the quality of his work. It
took him many years to achieve this present stage of working
intuitively, but after an initial dependence on a few glasses of
wine to break through the barrier of his subconscious level, he has
now reached a point where the brain is no longer getting in the way
of his artistic creations. The many Action Paintings Ernst has
performed in recent years are part of this natural evolution
process. And so, in 2009, Ernst does a series of Action Paintings
on super large canvases, including one of 80 feet in length and
83-inch high, which he paints in just 90 minutes at the fabulous
QCC Art Museum/Gallery of the City University of New York. His
action paintings originally pay tribute to his idea of Dadanomics,
by writing into his artwork the actual number of the worldwide
economic derivatives in 2009 of 485 trillion 748 billion 296
million 478 thousand 325 dollars and 78 cents. Here is that link
again:
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A self-proclaimed Dadaist (2008-2011) With a Ph.D. in economics
under his belt, Ernst has become increasingly worried about the
growing discrepancy between the economic realities and what he
calls the Dadanomics of our global economy. Suffice it to say that,
between 2009 and 2015, the global Financial Derivative markets have
increased from about 500 to 700 trillion dollars, and the
(unfunded) debt of the United States Government now stands at about
4 times the countrys annual GDP. In 2008, these scary facts have
prompted Rudy Ernst to become a self-proclaimed Dadaist. He
rediscovers and reshapes the word Dada to fit his own views of the
Universe, realizing that it applies retroactively to many of his
more recent nonsensical surreal artworks. And so, in 2009, Ernst
writes his book The Story of Dada
Ernst as a Writer, Philosopher and Poet As far back as he can
remember, Rudy Ernst has been wondering about the Origins and
Meanings of Life. During his school years and in his leisure time
he had formally studied the teachings of most philosophers
throughout history, but to this day, his selective memory
steadfastly refuses to recall the encyclopedic knowledge of all
those great thinkers, rather incorporating their theories into his
own views about Life and the Universe, which has always been
greatly influenced by that incomprehensible notion of Infinity that
escapes the human mind. For many years, Ernst has also been a
feverish writer. He has been living in many radically different
cultures and economic segments of human society. Being fluent in
German, French, English and Spanish, he is also intimately familiar
with these cultures. Rudy Ernsts uniquely diverse life experiences
are not only reflected in his art, but also in his spiritual
thoughts, writings, and in his German poetry. In 2015, Ernst is
about to publish his third German poetry book.
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About Rudy Ernst Contact Address: 119 West 72nd Street, New
York, NY 10023 T. 212-769 1800 Mobile 917-776-6558 Virginia Studio:
Box 212, Union Hall, VA 24176 E-Mail: [email protected] Education
and Exhibitions Born in Zurich, Switzerland, 1937 Lives and works
in New York City and in southwest Virginia Grew up in Flurlingen,
Switzerland. 1947-1957 Studied painting with two local artists:
Arnold Oechslin and Werner Schaad 1945-1953 Learned carpentry and
metal works, including welding in family owned factory (his own
Bauhaus) Education 1964 Ph.D. in Economics from the University of
Lausanne, Switzerland 1973-81 Studied and interpreted Old Masters
and Impressionist Painters on canvas, Zurich, Switzerland 1989
Studied with Michael Irmer in Dusseldorf, Germany 1993 Studied
Etching and Monoprint Techniques at the State University of New
York 1991-08 Studied the integration of personal art into the
digital techniques of Video Toaster, SGI 3-D modeling, Photoshop
and Final Cut Pro with Bill Sheppard (J. Walter Thompson), Rudi
Ernst Jr. (Director, ABC New Media Center) and Ryan Servant
(Air-Sea-Land Production Studios) Awards 2009 Midtown Arts
Districts Association Grant, NY Selected Solo Exhibitions 2011 Rudy
Ernst The Large Dream Drawings - QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY
2010 Dawn of the Digital Age - QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY
2009 Breaking News - Multimedia Exhibition & Performance, New
Art Center, New York, NY 2009 Dada Action Painting QCC Art
Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2008 Small is BIG - QCC Art
Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY 2006 Filling Void - New Art Center, New
York, NY 2003/5 City Light - JP Morgan Chase, Park Avenue Branch,
New York, NY 2003/5 Computer Aided Art - 410 Park Avenue
Alternative Space, New York, NY Computer Aided Art- Kodak
Headquarters, Rochester, NY 2001 Computer Aided Art - Perspective
Galleries, Hardy, VA
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2001 Computer Aided Art - Zurich and Glarus, Switzerland 2001
Computer Aided Art - Barcelona, Spain 1999 Structures (Textures) -
Galerie Reinold Ketelbuters, Sablon, Brussels, Belgium 1997 Project
Mysterialism - sculpture, painting and new media installation, in
Collaboration with the Electrical Engineering Department (Dr. Alan
Peters) of Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 1992 Impressionist
Reflections - Putnam Trust Bank, Riverside, CT 1989 Virginia
Impressions - Piedmont Art Museum, Martinsville, VA 1988 Othmar
Impressions, Morin Miller Gallery, catalogue with an essay by
Sandra Hochman, New York, NY Selected Group Exhibitions 2009
Artexpo New York 2009 - Javits Center, New York, NY 2008 CAN
(Contemporary Artists Network), New York, NY 1999 Pocket Art -
Roxis Art Gallery, Hamburg, Germany 1998 JubilArt Exhibition in
Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel,
Jerusalem 1998 Artists For Gardens - Benefit Show, The Puck
Building, New York, NY 1993 State of The Art 93, Convention Center,
Boston, MA 1992 Annual Art Show, Greenwich Art Society, Greenwich,
CT 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in Trbes,
France 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in Rodez,
France 1989 Movement Translation - City Hall Group Show in
Castelnaudary, France 1988 Wacko Drawings - Morin Miller Galleries,
New York, NY 1986 Washington Heights Art Show, Fort Tryon Park, New
York, NY 1985 North Gallery of the American Academy & Institute
of Arts and Letters, New York, NY 1985 Washington Heights Art Show,
public space, New York, NY Videography 1996-09 The Universe of Rudy
Ernst - featuring paintings, sculptures, films and writings 2001-03
The Fulton Fish Market - documentary (approx. 80 minutes) 2008
Small is Big - April 18, 2008, opening at the QCC Gallery. Written,
directed and edited by Rudy Ernst, performance by Al Rodriguez,
photography by Arpi Pap (5 minutes) 2008 The Art of Rudy Ernst - a
video compilation since 1991 (17 minutes) 2004 The North American
Lobster Pine - (4 minutes) 1998-13 Personal Website:
www.RudyErnst.com 2013 Personal Website for German Poetry:
http://DasDeutscheGedicht.com Audio Projects 2008 Dada Symphony of
Life (21 minutes) 1996 Othmars Third - computer generated sound
symphony by Rudy Ernst (11 minutes) 1995 God is Random w/ Charles
K. Lassiter, recorded at Philip Glass Studios, New York, NY (6
minutes)
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1995 Othmars Second - computer generated sound symphony by Rudy
Ernst (approx. 6 minutes) 1994 Othmars First - computer generated
sound symphony by Rudy Ernst (10 minutes) Selected Reviews
Arts/Antiques/Auctions Project Mysterialism - September, 1999
Brohman, Susan Secrets to Long Life: Art, Fish and 93 Octane -
Pontiac Performance, Summer 2004 Cimino, Joanna, The Mysterialism
of Rudolph Othmar Ernst - State of the Art 93, An Introduction
Fitzgerald, Denis Artist Explores Media, Both Big And Small -
Queens Chronicle, May 8, 2008 Hochman, Sandra, Othmar Ernst - A
Profile, Catalogue, Morin Miller Galleries, 1988 Image King Visual
Solutions, Fine Art Exhibit, 2004 Pain, Lee Oils by Rudolf Ernst in
Riverside Reflect Impressionism - Greenwich Times, October 1st,
1992 Peters, Richard Alan II, Project Mysterialism, The Art of
Rudolf Othmar Ernst, A Joint Venture with the Image Processing and
Computer Vision Research Laboratories, Department of Electrical
Engineering - Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, Paper of March
23,1994 Von Kreitor, Nikolaj The Return of Romanticism - The
Paintings of Othmar Ernst Wepman, Dennis Othmar Ernst Reinvents
Nature - Manhattan Arts, February 1988 Washington Heights Art Show
Periodical, November 1986 Published Books by Rudy Ernst (Available
at www.Amazon.com) 2009 The Story of Dada and how to activate your
Dada-Gene. Art history book, published by QCC Art Gallery Press,
The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2010 Magic - Computer
Aided Art (CAA) published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City
University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 Anatomy of a Dada Mind -
Drawings, Writings, Sculptures - published by QCC Art Gallery
Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011
SCULPTOMANIA - 25 Years of Sculpting published by QCC Art Gallery
Press, The City University of New York, Bayside, NY 2011 New York
West Side Stories - Funny Stories from the Upper West Side
published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New
York, Bayside, NY 2011 Kurz belichtet und verdichtet a selection of
German Poetry, New York, NY 2011 Lmmelgeschichten - Ungeschminkt -
German Childhood Stories of a tramp, published by Frankfurter
Verlagsgruppe (Public Book Media Verlag) Frankfurt a/M, Germany
2012 Journey into the Digital Age - Rudy Ernst: Journey of an
artistic evolution, published by QCC Art Gallery Press, The City
University of New York, Bayside, NY 2012 The Ribbons of Fame - If
historys great masters of paintings were alive today published by
QCC Art Gallery Press, The City University of New York, Bayside,
NY
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Selected Collections City of New York, New York, NY Dr. Arman
Roksar, New York, NY Drs. Marika and Thomas Herskovic, Franklin
Lakes, NJ Israel Government Coins & Medals Corp. Ltd.,
Jerusalem, Israel Kodak Corporate Collection, Rochester, NY
Kunsthaus, Zurich, Switzerland Muse de Bgles, Bordeaux, France Alex
Nyerges, Director, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Charles V. Payne,
Wall Street & Fox Business News Piedmont Art Museum,
Martinsville, VA QCC Art Gallery/Museum, Queens, NY