7.5 × 9.5 in
 in
 cm
$3,000
Richard Ciccimarra’s untitled charcoal sketch is simple in its stark black lines while still evoking the Expressionist style he so often adopted. In it, one can see the essence of other charcoal and watercolour pieces in his oeuvre. Seeming to move across the page of their own accord, the two figures are clearly rendered with an expert despite their minimalism. They stride side by side, arms a-swing, detailless faces in shadow, perhaps awaiting the sepia-toned wash Ciccimarra often applied to his charcoal figures. The two seem comfortable in one another’s company, as though this stroll is a daily journey they take together.
| Medium | Works on paper |
| Signature | Signed |
| Frame | Framed |
| Condition | very good |
| Seller | Private |
| Location | Vancouver, Canada |
| Provenance | Winchester Galleries, Victoria, B.C; Private Collection, Vancouver. |
Richard Ciccimarra arrived in Victoria, BC, in 1955, one year after Herbert Siebner. He was born into a cultured bourgeois Viennese family and moved to England in 1948. In 1949, he and his wife moved to the West Indies. The couple and a friend bought a yacht in Barbados to run charters for tourists hopping between the islands. There, he made loose watercolour sketches mainly of landscapes, charming in their simplicity and vibrant colour. At this time, the lives of the Bahamian people fascinated him, although many of his strongest impressions did not emerge in his completed works until six or seven years later after he settled in Victoria.
The work he created during his first few years in Victoria reflected West Indian subject matter, such as Laughing Woman and Woman with Oranges. Like Bates and Siebner, Ciccimarra’s work explores Expressionism, especially the influences of the Viennese Expressionist painters. Like the work of Austrian portrait painter, Egon Schiele, Ciccimarra’s work has a haunting sense of ennui. At the start of the 1960s, he suffered bouts of serious depression, and his work, such as Descent (1968), became more tentative and existential. Colin Graham exhibited Ciccimarra’s work in exhibitions in 1958, 1962, 1964, and curated his memorial exhibition in 1974.
https://aggv.ca/emuseum/people/2159/richard-ciccimarra;jsessionid=461EF92184E7D4478B7DF7A967768923
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