Salt V by Adja Yunkers

This is a darkly dramatic lithograph by noted American artist Adja Yunkers. It dates from 1960 and is titled Salt V. It is done in the abstract expressionist style. The piece is extremely energetic with intense cloud-like imagery in black and gray with white to provide contrast. There is a single small spot of red above and to the left of center that adds to the disorientation of the image. It is from a series of 5 lithographs titled Salt I through Salt V. Initially intended as a book, they were printed by Joe Funk and issued as a suite of five independent prints by the Tamarind Lithography Workshop in Los Angeles. Each image was issued in an edition of 100. This workshop was founded in 1960, so these works are some of the first produced. This image is held in many major museum collections including the National Gallery of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. While difficult to see, the piece is signed in pencil lower right, Yunkers. This example is in excellent condition. The printing is crisp and the colors are unfaded. The piece is archivally framed and matted, frame size 28 x 18 inches. The image size is 16.75 x 12.5 inches. The piece was not examined out of the frame but there are no tears or paper loss and no other soiling or staining was noted. A strong piece by this iconic abstract expressionist printmaker.

Adja Yunkers (1900-1983) Yunkers was born in Latvia, Adolf Eduard Vilhelm Junker. His artistic talents were recognized early, but documentation of his formal training is lacking. However, he followed a peripatetic path across the Western world that led him to interact with some of the most notable artists of the early 20th century. These include the Sturmgruppe (Emil Nolde, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Carl Friedrich Schmidt during his time in Germany, Wassily Kandinsky, Marc Chagall, and Alexander Archipenko from a stay in Russia, and Diego Rivera in Mexico. Despite these diverse influences (or perhaps because of them) Yunkers developed a distinctive abstract style that encompassed a wide range of artistic media including painting, drawing, and murals. He is best known as a printmaker coming to attention with a woodcut series from the 1930s on the Ten Commandments. His reputation as a graphic artist was established by the mid-1930s, but really took off in the post-war period. He moved to the United States in 1947, working and teaching across the country including Barnard College and Cal-Berkeley. He founded the Rio Grande Workshop in Albuquerque and taught there for many years. He came to lithography relatively late in his career, learning the technique in New Mexico at the Tamarind Workshop. This would become his dominant medium for the rest of his career. His work is held in major collections internationally including the Hamburg Kunsthalle, the Rijksmuseum, the Bibliotheque Nationale, and the Victoria and Albert Museum. United States collections include the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Corcoran Gallery, the Guggenheim, and the MoMA.