T.F. Simon Pencil Signed Oriental Etching outlet Chinese Beggars, Shanghai 1928

Chinese Beggars, Shanghai is an original pencil signed etching of street beggars published by well known Czech artist T.F. Simon in 1928 in a Limited Edition of 100.

Title: Chinese Beggars, Shanghai
Artist: Tavik Frantisek Simon - (1877-1942) - Czech artist
Technique: Original Etching
Signature: Signed and numbered in pencil by the artist, and signed in the plate.
Date Published: 1928
Edition: From a small Limited Edition of 100. This one is No. 65.
Dimensions: Sheet size - 8-7/8 x 11 inches, Image size - 5-5/8 x 7-3/4 inches.
Condition: Excellent Condition without any flaws.
References: Novak catalog - No. 480, Baker catalog - No. 264.
Printing: A strong impression printed by the artist in black ink on cream wove paper.
Presentation: Unmatted and unframed. Blank on the back, not laid down. Ships in a plastic archival sleeve.
Description: In the 1920s T.F. Simon traveled throughout the Far East creating etchings from such countries as Japan, China, Ceylon and India. This image shows a young Japanese woman at what appears to be a tea house. She holds a tray of tea in her hands as she poses shyly for the artist. This etching was made from a pencil study that Simon made in late 1927 or early 1928.

Tavik Frantisek Simon was born in Bohemia, which is now part of the Czech Republic. He was a painter, etcher, and woodcut artist. Simon was born Frantisek Simon and later adopted the additional name 'Tavik', which was his mother's maiden name. He signed his work T.F. Simon or with the initials TFS. As a student at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague, he received a scholarship that allowed him to travel to Italy, Belgium, England and France. He had his first solo exhibition in Prague in 1905, and a Paris exhibition in 1906.

His extensive travels would eventually also take him to New York City, London, the Netherlands, Spain, Morocco, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), India, and Japan. Images from all of those places appear in his work. After spending 1905-1913 based in Paris, Simon returned to Prague and became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Prague. In 1917 he became a founding member of the Hollar Association of Czech Graphic Artists, which he later chaired. Many of his most notable images are of Prague, New York, and Paris, but also include portraiture and self-portraiture and images of the Czech and Slovak countryside.

Simon's style was strongly influenced by the French Impressionists and, perhaps through them, by Japanese printmaking techniques, in particular color aquatints with soft ground etching. Simon was also a master of the mezzotint but completed very few prints in this difficult medium, most of them being female nudes in subtle tones of black. He died in Prague in 1942. Largely ignored during the Communist era in Czechoslovakia, his work has received greater attention outlet in recent years.

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