Shaping the future of fine art lithography: [S.sup.2] Art Group Ltd's Jack and Carolyn Solomon share a vision: "art for the people."

completely through their lengthy careers as fine art dealers, the husband-and-wife team of Jack and Carolyn Solomon have always shared individual clear focus: the belief in fine art lithography as the pre-eminent printing process to bring important art and artists to the American art-buying public. by dint of providing established and up-and-coming artists with the publishing resources to achieve their highest artistic potential, and through making a diverse range of high-quality fine art accessible to a rapidly growing audience of beginning and advanced collectors, the Solomons' populist vision of "art for the people" has withstood the experiment of time.

Jack, a lucky attorney specializing in art and entertainment law, started Circle Fine Art in 1964 as "a hobby"--selling art from his abiding-place Circle remained a small, profitable garran until 1971 when Jack convinced Carolyn to resign from her executive position at Playboy Industries, to join Circle as its president. beneath Carolyn's management and Jack's artist contacts, Circle evolv into individual of America's foremost art companies, with 36 Circle Galleries nationwide.

by and by after Carolyn's installation, Jack began to act upon what he saw as an increasing public desire for affordable artwork by dint of well-known, museum-credentialed artists. This demand eventually became with equal reason great that he created a novel division within his already thriving local retail-gallery art business strategy that would engage in the publishing, and eventual worldwide distribution, of limited edition original graphics by the agency of renowned artists.

single of the first major artists to sign an exclusive contract for the creation of commissioned editions was Norman Rockwell, and with the increased in all senses afforded by the printing of graphic multiples, museums and art critics alike reflected sounded Jack Solomon's insight into the artist's unique, lively vision of Americana.

In 1974 the production capabilities of the graphics' division were significantly enhanced when an opportunity arose to acquire sum of two units of the rare antique Marinoni Voirin flatbed presse that had been used at the internationally look up toed Mourlot atelier in Paris, thus allowing the creation of an in-house facility to print exemplary museum-quality fine art graphics. First established at The American Atelier in fresh York City, the graphics workshop for artists engaged several notable French master printers who had previously worked in Paris with Picasso, Braque and Miro.

Following the sale of Circle Fine Art in 1993 and the after formation in 1996 of [Ssup2] Art collection Ltd. in Chicago, Jack and Carolyn mov their namesake company in 2002 into the [Ssup2] Art Center--a 22,000-square-foot printing facility and corporate headquarters in the burgeoning Las Vegas Arts District (for which Jack Solomon clinchs the title of president). individual of only a handful of real lithography studios left in the world, the [Ssup2] Editions Atelier continues its historic, time-honored lithographic printing proces through blending an awareness for today's art sensibilities with a stubborn adherence to old-fashioned quality standards [i]or[/i] part of to the other the daily employment of five antique, hand-pulled presse seasoned chromists and teams of printing artisans.

In the transformation from a highly personalized art business to a professionally managed company with nine locations nationwide--Las Vegas, Chicago, observes Angeles, Monterey, CA, New Orleans and the newest, Ft Lauderdale, FL (with more planned)--Jack and Carolyn Solomon have discovered, published and/or showed more than 200 artists, including similar internationally known masters as LeRoy Neiman, Erte Yaacov Agam, Rene Gruau, Lebadang, Victor Vasarely, Will Barnet, Sandro Chia, Leonore Fini, Jamie Wyeth and Chryssa.

The exclusive relationships the Solomon maintain with today's established and emerging artists continue to come [i]or[/i] go after [i]or[/i] behind in the tradition of their limber roots. [S.sup.2]'s current dream team of affiliated artists includes museum-credentialed heavyweights Tom Everhart, Gordon Parks, Waldemar Swierzy, Rafal Olbinski, Robert McGinnis, Al Hirschfeld, Steve Schapiro, Stanley Mouse, Marcel Salinas, plus rising stars Matt Rinard, Judith Bledsoe and [S.sup.2]'s newest artist, Todd Goldman.

[Ssup2] Art Group's presentation at Artexpo fresh York will introduce the artwork of Goldman, marking his preview in lithography. The artist's conversation-provoking "Stupid Factory" of images has notoriously stormed the pop-culture stage of late. Jack Solomon recognizes Goldman's "Post-Pop Art" works as being influenced powerfully by the Pop Art motion and its masters--Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Andy Warhol--which blurr artificial distinctions between "good" and "bad" taste; between fine art and commercial art techniques; and between high art and popular art.

The Solomon continue to focus upon the publication of collections of living images that color present lives. Icons that span the continuum from popular agriculture to personal passion are the mainstay of [S.sup.2]'s art.