TONY AGOSTINI Italian-French, 1916-1990 Louis Armstrong and the Jazz Band Lithograph Color lithograph depicts a jazz ensemble in a bold, expressionist style: a drummer and upright bass player rendered in the upper register, and a trumpet player (Louis Armstrong) shown in close-up in the foreground, playing a bright yellow-gold trumpet against a deep blue and charcoal-toned background. The piece is hand-signed in pencil "Tony Agostini" and numbered "36/170" in the lower margin. Unframed. plate: 20 x 13 inches; sheet (approx.) 22.5 x 15.5 inches $120-160
ARTIST PROFILE: Tony Agostini (born Antoine Sylvestre Agostini, 1916-1990) was a French painter and lithographer born in Bastia, Corsica in 1916, and he died in Antony, Hauts-de-Seine, in 1990. Largely self-taught, Agostini came to painting after an earlier administrative career, during which he became acquainted with fellow artist Gen Paul, along with writers Francis Carco and Marcel Ayme, in Montmartre in 1944. He worked as a painter of lively scenes, figures, cityscapes, interiors, and still lifes, as well as flowers, and was also active as a gouache painter and designer, working in a post-cubist style; stylistically he may have been influenced by Gen Paul's bold, sometimes jarring color choices, while in form he adhered closely to Cezanne's principles, occasionally inflected by Cubism. Early in his career he focused on painting the crowds, squares, and streets of Paris before turning his attention increasingly to still-life subjects. He settled in the town of Antony in 1957, where he would live for the rest of his life. From 1953 onward he exhibited regularly in the annual Paris salons, including the Salon of Painters Witnesses of Their Time and the Paris School exhibitions at the Galerie Charpentier, as well as thematic shows, and he took part in group exhibitions abroad in New York and San Francisco.
