NEW YORK, NY.- Manhattan print and drawing dealer David Tunick is presenting a Summer Showcase, “Dealer’s Choice” at David Tunick, Inc. at 19 East 66th Street from July 8th through August 30th.

David Tunick says, “Master drawings are often the first creative expression by an artist. When you look at drawings by artists such as Rembrandt, Leger, Toulouse-Lautrec and Salvador Dali, you can’t help but be reminded that you are seeing what essentially was that artist’s initial, unfiltered vision.”

“Drawings and prints have qualities not seen in other mediums by iconic artists. The originality and spontaneity makes collecting them a very special experience. It allows you to see the original spark that motivated the artist.”

Among highlights of David Tunick’s summer show are two notable drawings: The first, Salvador Dali’s “Aerodynamic” Melancholy, is a pencil and pen and ink on paper dating to 1933-34.

Tunick says, “Dali creates his own theories of perspective, here suggesting perhaps a rush forward in time in an unnatural dream universe semi-filled with fantastic figures and images, but with white clouds overhead in an almost normal sky. The image verso may be a study for ‘Grasshopper Child,’ Dali’s 1934 etching. Drawings from Dali’s 1930’s Surrealist period, when his creative powers were at their strongest, are increasingly rare,” Tunick adds.

The second drawing, Fernand Leger’s circa 1940 “Mural #2” is a gouache, brush and India ink drawing on paper.

Tunick says, “Leger’s gouache seems to be the basis of a large 1952 oil on canvas titled ‘Project pour une peinture murale.’ It is also apparently one of a number of studies, possibly the first, used in the creation of the very large and much more recent mosaic on the front of the Musee Leger in Biot.”

In Rembrandt’s 1633 etching, “Descent from the Cross: The Second Plate,” Rembrandt depicts the sad and difficult business of taking Jesus down from the crucifix, emphasizing the physical and psychological effort required.

Tunick says, “Despite Christ’s miraculous acts while alive, in death he is a man whose lifeless body, like that of other men, is heavy and limp. Rembrandt’s interest in human emotion and relationships is manifest in the looks and gestures of the figures. Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus and two other men work together in an effort to be as gentle as possible. Rembrandt shows an individualized and unsightly Christ rather than an archetypal and glorified one. Here, he has a contorted body, distended stomach and a head hung from a twisted neck. The print is especially striking for its painterly quality arising from Rembrandt’s technical expertise, which allowed him to exploit all the qualities of etching to produce texture, modeling of figures, and nuances of light and shade.” The print is considered to be after an oil on wood painting of the same subject, and with a similar composition in reverse, in the Alte Pinakothek in Munich. Both were executed about the same time, one of a series from the Passion that Rembrandt made for the Dutch stadtholder Prince Frederik Hendrik.

Toulouse-Lautrec’s “The Seated Clowness,” dating to 1896, is a color lithograph portrait of a female clown who had changed her name from “Chahut-Chaos” (the chahut was a high-kicking, vulgar dance) to the more oriental, and therefore more fashionable, “Cha-U-Kao.” She entertained at the Nouveau Cirque and the Moulin Rouge, of which Lautrec was a habitué.

Tunick adds that, “Toulouse-Lautrec devoted great efforts to the art of the print. Between 1891 and 1899 he made about 350 plates and playbills, which became an important contribution to the flourishing lithography of the last decade of the 19th century. The artist’s success prompted the publisher Gustave Pellet to order the series of lithographs titled, ‘Elles’, published in April, 1896. The opening print ‘Seated Clowness’ is one of Toulouse-Lautrec’s most remarkable images. It was this work of all the series that had the greatest success, and all of its copies were quickly sold to collectors.”

Tunick says a 1788 soft-ground etching with roulette work by George Stubbs, “A Lion Devouring a Horse,” is one of several variations on the theme which fascinated Stubbs. “It was the first soft-ground etching for Stubbs and perhaps the image for which he is best known.”

From the American artist Mary Cassatt, Tunick is showing “The Banjo Lesson,” a circa 1893 drypoint, aquatint and monotype in colors from two plates on blue, laid paper.

“Many artists honed their signature style by experimenting with drawings and prints before touching a paint brush to canvas. These artworks have fascinated scholars for centuries as they allow them to see just what distinguished the genius of one legend from another.”