Raimonds Staprans paintings
Raimonds Staprans museum show 2017
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We are currently buying Raimonds Staprans paintings. Please email images, dimensions and details to modernart@gmail.com Additionally, please let us know if you would like to see newly available Raimonds Staprans artworks as they become available.
Born: 1926, Riga, Latvia
Education: 1954 MA, Graduate School of the University of California, Berkeley, CA
1952 BA, University of Washington, Seattle, WA
1947 School of Art, Esslingen, Stuttgart, Germany
Raimonds Staprans Selected Solo Exhibitions:
2017 Crocker Musuem, Sacramento, CA
2006 Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
Pasadena Museum of California Art, Pasadena, California
1999 Mendenhall Gallery, Beverly Hills, CA
1998 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
1997 Kunstmesse, Cologne, Germany
Galerie Redmann, Berlin, Germany
1994 Marburg Art Center, Marburg, Germany
Galerie Redmann, Berlin, Germany
Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
1991 State Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
Galerie Brockstedt, Hamburg, Germany
1989 Sun Valley Art Center, Sun Valley, Idaho
1988 Galerie Redmann, Berlin, Germany
1986 European Art Expo, Cologne, Germany
Art Expo, Zurich, Switzerland
1985 Galerie Elephas, Friedenberg, Germany
Hanson-Howard Gallery, Ashland, Oregon
1984 Maxwell Galleries,San Francisco, CA
Brubaker Gallery, Sarasota, Florida
1982 Topoi Swope Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1981 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
1979 De Saisset Art Museum, Santa Clara, CA
1978 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
1973 Soviet Latvian Cultural Committee
Nightingale Gallery, Toronto, Canada
Art Gallery, Northern Arizona University, Arizona
1962-72 Maxwell Galleries, Bi-Annual Exhibition, San Francisco, CA
1961 Galerie St. Etienne, New York O Hana Gallery, London
Galerie Andre Weil, Paris
1959 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
Ross Veden Art Colony, Cleveland, Ohio
1956 Galerie Marcel Bernheim, Paris, France
Edgargo Acosta Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
1955 Maxwell Galleries, San Francisco, CA
Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon
1953 Gleason Gallery, Salem, Oregon
1951 Lincoln Art Center, Oregon
Art Gallery, Oregon State University, Oregon
1950 Elfstrom Gallery, Salem, Oregon
Raimonds Staprans Selected Group Exhibitions:
2000 "The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration" , The Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art and the San Jose Museum of Art
1993 "California Dreaming", Fresno Museum of Modern Art, Fresno
1990 State Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
1983 "Western Artists", Hamilton-Lawler Gallery, Denver, CO
1982 "Western Artists", Sid Deutsch Gallery, New York, NY
1979 Invitational, San Francisco Arts Festival, San Francisco, CA
1976 Invitational, Bicentennial Exhibition of American Landscape
1967 Invitational, American Academy of Arts and Letters, New
1962 Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honor
1959 "The Painted Flower", Oakland Art Museum, Oakland, CA
1957 Northwest Artists, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
1956 Oregon Artists, Portland Art Museum, Portland, OR
1954 Bay Area Artists, Richmond Art Center, Richmond, CA
1953 Redding Art Center, Redding, CA
1946 Esslingen Expo, Stuttgart-Esslingen, Germany
Raimonds Staprans Selected Collections:
Palace of the Legion of Honor, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA
The Oakland Museum of California, Oakland CA
Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX
Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Portland Art Museum, Portland OR
John F. Kennedy University Museum of Art, Orinda, CA
M. H. de Young Art Museum, San Francisco, CA
State Museum of Art, Riga, Latvia
Raimonds Staprans Selected Bibliography:
2000 Landauer, Susan, The Lighter Side of Bay Area Figuration, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
1997 Karlstrom, Paul J., "West Coast," Archives of American Art Journal, 37, pp. 49-54
Karlstrom, Paul J. & Peter Mendenhall, Raimonds Staprans, Mendenhall Gallery, Pasadena, CA (exhibition catalogue)
1967 Raymonds Straprans, Maxwell Galleries, Ltd., San Francisco, CA (exhibition catalogue)
Raimonds Staprans (Latvian: Raimonds Staprāns) is a well-known artist and playwright both in the United States and his native Latvia. Staprans was born in 1926 in Riga, Latvia. He now lives in San Francisco, California with his wife, scientist Ilona Staprāns. He has two daughters, Maretta Staprāns-Barlow and Alda Staprāns-Mednis.
After living in occupied Latvia and in a Displaced Persons camp during World War II, Staprans immigrated to the United States with his family in 1947. He studied art at the University of Washington under Alexander Archipenko and Mark Tobey, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to begin graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley. He studied with Hans Hofmann and Karl Kasten, among others, and graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in 1954.
Staprans' work is held in the permanent collections in the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the San Jose Museum of Art, and the Portland Art Museum, among others. A career retrospective of his art opened at the Pasadena Museum of California Art in March, 2006, was shown in San Francisco and traveled to Riga, Latvia where it was exhibited in the Latvian National Museum of Art later that year.
Staprans' skillfully constructed still life and landscape paintings are notable for the artist's sensitive response to light and color. A recent review of his work exhibited in Los Angeles compared the "tasteful seriousness" of his paintings to that of Cézanne. Staprans is said to examine the "architecture" of everyday objects in his art using explosive color and flattened compositions, creating a "tension between representation and abstraction that plays with viewers' expectations."
Staprans is also an accomplished playwright. Most of his plays are set in Latvia during the 20th century. His play "The Freezing" was produced in 1979 by the San Francisco Little Theater and the Latvian National Theater in 1980. His 1989 play, "Four Days in June", depicted the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940. It was performed in Riga to more than 100 sold-out audiences, and later won first prize in the Baltic Theatre Festival. "Four Days in June" is regarded as having played an integral part in the pro-democracy movement in Latvia during the momentous changes following the end of the Soviet Union.
In 2003, Staprans was awarded Latvia's highest civilian honor, the Order of the Three Stars, the Latvian equivalent of the United States Presidential Medal of Freedom.
An extensive interview with Raimonds Staprans was conducted by the Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, by Paul Karlstrom in 1997. Karlstrom later published a fully illustrated book entitled "Raimonds Staprans: Art of Tranquility and Turbulence"
Staprans in his painting studio