The Annex Galleries

04/11/2025

CALIFORNIA: it's the big Prop 50 VOTING DAY. Have you cast yours?

's handmade and printed board game is more prescient than ever. Please vote today, fellow Californians. Artists and all practitioners of free speech are counting on you.

25/09/2025

"As something having in it the presence of all the colors of a crisp autumn day, Brown County, Indiana, is perhaps very well named. The colors are one of those obvious facts that delight the soul of the artist not yet concerned with the need for abstracting inner meaning from outer appearance." -Gustave Baumann.
"Road of a Morning," color woodcut, 1916/printed 1927. Chamberlain 40.2; Baumann 6. We hope you have a lovely autumn! 🍂

25/09/2025

So excited to see the marionette portion of the exhibition, "Gustave Baumann: the Artist's Environment"! This third and final stage of their expansive, four-venue retrospective of Baumann's life and work takes place Saturday, September 26th, at the Goodwin and Clarke galleries. Beyond his marionettes, there are woodcits, furniture, sculptures, drawings, paintings, and much more. What an honor to be present for such an occasion. Hope to see you there!

11/09/2025

Jesus Romero (Mexican/American: 1950-2008): "No Intervencion," color lithograph, ca. 1984. Bay Area-based printmaker Jesus Romero rarely spoke about his process or the meaning of his Surrealist work, leaving it open to interpretation. He worked for the Ernest DeSoto workshop, Kala Institute, and other prominent SF Bay Area art hubs before moving to Texas.
This work is available on our website (link in bio). #

09/05/2025

Janet Turner (American: 1914 -1988): "Immature Golden Eage," color woodcut and linocut with silkscreen, 1975. One of her last handpulled prints of such a large size and complexity, Turner's 23"x30" mixed technique blockprint is a stunning testament to an artist whose life was dedicated to her craft and to nature with equal passion. Here, a young Golden Eagle perches on a fence post whose barbed wire parallels the distant valley floor. She's chosen a landcape similar to that of her Chico, California hometown, with rolling hills and a broad, ooen sky. In keeping with the bird of prey's name, the color palette is shades of gold and bronze, and Turner incorporates the grain of the wood - no easy feat, to find a solid piece of that size and fine grain for carving and printing - into the sky, as if it were wind currents.

This and other extraordinary large format blockprints by Turner can be found on our website (link in bio).

#

17/04/2025

John Ihle (American: 1925-2002): "Enchanted Mesa," color collagraph, 1983. From his later career, when he focused on non-editioned, variant multiples that he referred to as paintings, this deeply embossed collagraph shows evidence of Ihle's time as a botanical illustrator for Chicago Natural History Museum. There is a sense of finite detail and outward growth, like an expanding seed, and he uses the brightest of natural tones: turquoise, rust, rose madder, and algae green.

Find this and other works by Ihle, and learn more about his extraordinary career, on our website (link in bio). #

13/02/2025

We're on - are you?

Purveyors of original fine prints and other artworks on paper since 1972. Abstract Expressionism 1930s-'70s, WPA, Arts & Crafts, Gustave Baumann Estate. Serving Sonoma County, the San Francisco Bay Area, and the world. www.annexgalleries.com

05/07/2024

Print of the Day!! Friday, July 5, 2024 is by Czech-American printmaker Max Pollak (1886-1970). "Paris: Vogelmarkt," (Birdmarket), small plate, is an intaglio - an etching, printed in a sepia ink, done around 1915. The platemark measures 9 x 8-1/4 inches. This impression is pencil signed and titled by the artist in the lower margin and has the red FPC (Friedl Pollak Collection) stamp in lower left sheet corner. It is pencil annotated "printed a 10" and is stamped "Made in Austria" on the verso. It was printed by the artist on a sheet of ivory laid paper that measures 17-3/8 x 14-1/4 inches. Our inventory number for this work is 22677: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/detail/22677/Max-Pollak/Paris-Vogelmarkt-Birdmarket-small

This expressive color intaglio by Max Pollak is available from the gallery for purchase. 

Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

Check out our virtual booth at the Satellite Print Fair's on-line website: OnPaper.art: https://onpaper.art/the-annex-galleries
and our website exhibition: 'Women Artists: Known and Unknown': https://www.annexgalleries.com/exhibitions/view/23

Pollak did this etching around 1915 in Paris. He used many of the etching techniques developed by Whistler a few decades before; focusing the viewer's attention on the elements that interested him, indicating a context using a few well chosen lines and adding brown color to the ink when printing the plate to suggest a "color" to the composition.

The subject is the famous Parisian Bird Market, the "Marché aux Oiseaux" which takes place in the Louis Lépine flower district on the Il de la Cité on Sunday each week.

Now expanded to a pet market, dealers set up, often in antique cages, offering for sale various birds; finches, doves, canaries, parrots, as well as chickens, ducks and domestic fowl. On the ground are aquariums, hamsters, etc. It now is one of the last remaining pet markets in Europe.

This impression has a pencil inscription in the artist's hand that reads "Printed a 10". Though he anticipated an edition of 100 it appears he only printed 10 impressions. A larger, color aquatint plate of the subject was confiscated by the N***s in the 30s and it is likely this plate was also.

Max Pollak, painter and printmaker, was born in Prague, Czechoslovakia in 1886. He was raised in Vienna and, in 1902, he entered the Vienna Academy of Art where he studied under William Unger and Ferdinand Schmutzer. In 1912, Pollak traveled to Italy, France, and Holland to study and paint. During the First World War, he was appointed painter of the Austrian Army.

The Pollaks immigrated to the United States in 1927, living for a time on the east coast where Max produced a series of color aquatints of New York, Cincinnati, and Detroit. His first exhibition was at the 57th Street Art Gallery in New York and he was commissioned by author Theodore Dreiser in 1929 to illustrate his book, My City. In 1938, Pollak and his wife, Friedl, moved to San Francisco, California. Pollak was inspired by his new city and its environs and produced beautiful views of San Francisco Bay Area. Later travels included trips to Mexico and Guatemala.

Max Pollak was a member of the Chicago Society of Etchers and the California Society of Etchers. His work is represented in the collections of the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, Berkeley, California; the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon, Eugene; the British Museum, London; the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library, New York; the Oakland Museum of California Art; the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, California; and the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.

To purchase this work, see other works, or read a biography for Max Pollak use this link to our website: http://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/1894/Pollak/Max

Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory?q=

The Annex Galleries Los Angeles Fine Print Fair Victoria and Albert Museum Los Angeles Printmaking Society Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Museum of the City of New York Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Printmaking News The Art Institute of Chicago The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens Philadelphia Museum of Art LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art Print Club of New York Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Allentown Art Museum The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia - MOCA GA The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art National Print Museum The Print Club of Cleveland Oakland Museum of California MoMA The Museum of Modern Art San Diego Museum of Art Whitney Museum of American Art

04/07/2024

Print of the Day!! 4th of July, 2024 is by printmaker Jami Taback (born 1953). Have a Happy Fourth!! Beware the use of fireworks in this heat. "Flowers of Fire", is a color intaglio that uses copper plate etching and spit bite, done in 2009 by California woman printmaker Jami Taback (born 1953). The platemark measures 9-7/8 x 7-7/8 inches. This impression is pencil signed, titled and editioned "7/25" by the artist in the lower margin. It was printed by the artist on a white wove 'Pescia' paper that measures 14-3/8 x 12-3/8 inches. Our inventory number for this image is JATA106: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/detail/JATA106/Jami-Taback/Flowers-of-Fire

This exuberant intaglio by printmaker Jami Taback (born 1953) is available from the gallery for purchase.

Contact the gallery with any condition or other questions. Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

"Flowers of Fire" was done as an etching, using a copper plate. in addition to the traditional etching Taback employed the use of "spit-bite" (a mixture of nitric acid and Gum Arabic - or saliva) spattered on the surface of the plate to achieve the tonal effect she wanted for this composition.

Taback etches a "flower" that explodes like a comet or a pinwheel firework over the surface. With the spit-bite she creates a dark center surrounded by a red glow hovering over what could be the edge of the planet - or the garden.

Jami Taback was born in Queens, New York on December 16, 1953. In the 1960s, she studied at the Paul Margin Painting Studio in Westbury, New York and, in the 1970s, she studied printmaking with Ruth Leaf. Taback learned the techniques of viscosity etching under Krishna Reddy at New York University and later worked at Robert Blackburn's Printmaking Workshop in Manhattan. She continued her education at the Penland School of Crafts in North Carolina where she explored the use of the glass etch process in printmaking under Harvey Littleton. In 1980, she studied the techniques of the Renaissance painters with Mari Klarwein in New York.

Taback is a member, past president of, and has exhibited with the California Society of Printmakers and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts and she has been involved as a board member of the CSP. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and was selected for a Painting Prize at the Arad Biennale 2005 in Romania, and a Strathmore Paper Artists Award.

To purchase this work or see other works by Jami Taback use this link: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/4366/Taback/Jami

Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/

The Annex Galleries Los Angeles Fine Print Fair Victoria and Albert Museum Los Angeles Printmaking Society Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Museum of the City of New York Lucas Museum of Narrative Art Printmaking News The Art Institute of Chicago The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens Philadelphia Museum of Art LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art Print Club of New York Museum of Fine Arts, Boston Allentown Art Museum The Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia - MOCA GA Films at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art National Print Museum The Print Club of Cleveland Oakland Museum of California MoMA The Museum of Modern Art San Diego Museum of Art Whitney Museum of American Art Wichita Falls Museum of Art at MSU Texas Colby College Museum of Art Cincinnati Art Museum Crocker Art Museum Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Utah Museum of Fine Arts Women Artists To Know Art by Women - Women in Arts National Museum of Women in the Arts

02/07/2024

Print of the Day!! Tuesday, July 2, 2024 is by American printmaker Joseph A. Mugnaini (1912-1992). "Icarus" (also called: 'Daedalus & Icarus') is a lithograph, done in 1953 by American printmaker, Joseph Anthony Mugnaini (1912-1992). It is pencil signed, titled, and editioned 1 of 20 by the artist and the image measures 8-11/16 x 6-1/4 inches. It was printed by the artist and Los Angeles Master Printer Lynton Kistler on ivory Rives wove paper that measures 12-1/8 x 8." This lithograph is accompanied by an authentication label from Kistler which is pencil signed by Mugnaini. References include: illustration for "The Age of Fable; or Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Thomas Bulfinch, published by Heritage Press and Limited Editions Club in 1958; and Georgetown University 1959, brochure no. 10 . Our inventory number for this lithograph is 23767: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/detail/23767/Joseph-Anthony-Mugnaini/Icarus--aka--Daedalus--Icarus?

This mythological lithograph by California printmaker Joseph Mugnaini (1912-1992) is available from the gallery for $400.00.

Contact the gallery with any condition or other questions. Shipping costs will be discussed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

Check out our virtual booth at the Satellite Print Fair's on-line website: OnPaper.art: https://onpaper.art/the-annex-galleries

Joe Mugnaini began his long-time collaboration with author Ray Bradbury in 1952, during which time he interpreted and illustrated many of Bradbury's books, including "Fahrenheit 451" through the "Martian Chronicles".

Daedalus is a lithograph done by Joe Mugnaini in 1953, working with the California Master Printer, lithographer Lynton Kistler, from a series of mythological themes done in editions of only 20. This impression is accompanied by an 'authentication' from Kistler and signed by Mugnaini. "Daedalus" was one of twenty-four lithographs created by Mugnaini to illustrate a reprint of Bullfinch's "The Age of Fable" that was published by the Limited Editions Club. Mugnaini's images are reversed in the book, indicating the Kistler lithographs were photographed and the images transferred to another matrix for printing in a larger scale by lithographer George C. Miller. The lithographs were included in the 1959 exhibition Joseph Mugnaini Prints and Drawings at Georgetown University.

Icarus was the son of Daedalus, an inventor, craftsman, and creator of the labyrinth. They were trapped in exile on Crete and then imprisoned in the top of a tower by King Minos. Daedalus, ever the inventor, studied the flight of birds and then created a means to escape. Icarus and Daedalus took flight using wings of wax and feathers but Icarus, thrilled with his god-like flight, ignored his father's warning about flying too close to the sun.

They were the first humans to fly, which angered the gods. As Icarus's flight took him higher and higher, the sun melted the wax causing Icarus to fall to the earth. In this image, Daedalus is flying low seemingly riding the air currents using his elaborately made wings while Icarus is beginning his descent as the wax binding his feathers melted and he plunged to his death.

Joseph Anthony Mugnaini was born Giuseppe Mugnaini in Viareggio, Tuscany, Italy, on 12 July 1912. Shortly after his birth his family emigrated to the United States and settled in Riverside, California. Eleven years later they moved to Los Angeles and, in 1941, Mugnaini became a naturalized citizen.

He attended the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles from 1940 to 1942, before serving the U.S. Army during World War II. After his discharge, Mugnaini returned to Otis Art Institute on the G.I. Bill and three months later he joined the faculty of Otis where he eventually became head of the Drawing Department. He retired in 1976.

Author of five books on art techniques and materials, he is best known as being the primary illustrator of the science fiction books of Ray Bradbury. Mugnaini earned an Academy Award nomination and the Golden Eagle Award for his paintings for the film Icarus, a Bradbury collaboration. Mugnaini began his long-time collaboration with author Bradbury in 1952, during which time he interpreted and illustrated many of Bradbury's books, including "Fahrenheit 451" through the "Martian Chronicles".

John C. Tibbetts interviewed Mugnaini and he later described his essence:
"I will never forget the bristling energy and vitality of Joseph Mugnaini. I can still see him, scowling amiably at me from beneath his hat brim, bursting into hearty laughter and expostulations as he as he talked. His hands were always in motion, and after finding some note paper in my hotel room, he happily scrawled away, the restless lines dashing and skittering across the surface in quick, rapier-like jabs and thrusts. He seemed to be conducting with the pen, as an orchestra leader would gesture and cajole sounds from his players. His dynamic lines seemed to gather themselves of their own accord into forms which coalesced into living images."

01/07/2024

30/06/2024

Artwork of the Week!! Sunday, June 30, 2024. "Ischia" is a drawing in ink and charcoal by British-born American modernist sculptor Pamela Boden, done around 1939. The image and paper measure 13-1/2 x 20-1/2 inches. It is pencil titled and initialed "PB" by the artist in the lower left image. It is drawn on a sheet of buff colored Fabriano watermarked wove paper.

This rare drawing by surrealist sculptor Pamela Boden (1905-1981) is available from the gallery for purchase, click on the prededing link.

Please contact the gallery with any questions. Time payments can be arranged. Shipping costs will be discussed, special crating will be needed. California residents will have sales tax added. Out of state residents may be responsible for use tax, depending on state law.

Check out our virtual booth at the Satellite Print Fair's on-line website: OnPaper.art: https://onpaper.art/the-annex-galleries

Visit our current gallery exhbition:"WITNESS : Women Artists Depict Women...," https://issuu.com/annexgalleries/docs/women_s_art_show_2024_pdf

This surreal drawing by Pamela Boden appears to be a self portrait, viewed from above and wedged into the right side of the composition. In the background are structures that resemble many of her sculptures, ancient building ruins, threatened by violent, stormy skies, which two figures appear to be addressing. The Italian island of Ischia is a volcanic island located in the Gulf of Naples and has been inhabited since the 9th century with a colorful history.

Boden lived and exhibited in Paris in the 1930s and was associated with the Surrealists and Dadaists. She was a close friend of composers Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Stanley Bate (to whom she was briefly married as an inside joke, both were gay). She designed the decor for Bate's 1939 revival of 'Perseus.'

After moving to America from Portugal in 1945 and exhibiting her sculptures in 1946 at Peggy Guggenheim's Art of This Century Gallery, Pamela Boden moved to Taos, New Mexico area and was exhibiting there at Eulalia Emetaz's Galeria Escondida which featured the Taos modernists and surrealists.

There is an experimental film by "Dunite" artist Elwood Decker done in 1947 that uses Boden's sculpture in the beginning of the film. It can be seen at: https://trakt.tv/movies/color-fragments-1948

Pamela Boden's work is discussed and shown on pages 76 through 81 of volume I in Emerging from the Shadows: A Survey of Women Artists Working in California, 1860-1960.

To purchase this work, see other works, or read a biography for Pamela Boden use this link to our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory/artist/222/Boden/Pamela

Use this link to view our complete inventory on our website: https://www.annexgalleries.com/inventory?q=