Description: Jacques Villon litho H.C. 8/30, La Brouette from the loose collection of prints from the book "Regards sur Paris.” The original edition was of 150, as well as 30 hors commerce impressions, published by André Sauret, Paris. 1962. This print is H.C. 8/30.  Original lithograph on watercolor paper from Griffin Gallery, NYC. Size: 23¾” x 15½” in 26” x 18” sleeve with H.C. # 8/30 notation. 

Jacques Villon (July 31, 1875 – June 9, 1963) was a French Cubist painter and printmaker, and the elder brother of Marcel Duchamp. To distinguish himself from his siblings, Gaston Duchamp adopted the pseudonym of Jacques Villon as a tribute to the medieval poet François Villon. In Paris, he worked in graphic media, contributing cartoons and illustrations to Parisian newspapers as well as drawing color posters. In 1903 he helped organize the drawing section of the first Salon d'Automne in Paris. In 1904-1905 he studied art at the Académie Julian. By 1906, he began to devote more of his time to working in drypoint, an intaglio technique. During WWI, Villon worked as a cartographer for the army. He was influenced by Edgar Degas and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, but later he participated in the fauvist, Cubist, and abstract impressionist movements.

In 1913, Villon created seven large drypoints in which forms break into shaded pyramidal planes. He exhibited at the Armory Show in New York City, helping introduce European modern art to the United States. His reputation expanded so that by the 1930s he was better known in the United States than in Europe. In May 2004, an oil painting by Villon dated 1913 entitled "L'Acrobate" and measuring 39 ¼ by 28 ¼ inches sold at Sotheby's for $1,296,000 (US dollars).

The Golden Griffin Gallery/Arts Inc. operated in downtown Manhattan - New York City, New York from the 1950s to the 1970s. In the mid 1940s, Arts, Inc. was established as a publishing house specializing in European scholarly and artistic works. In the 1950s, Arts, Inc., the parent company, expanded to create, first, the Golden Griffin Bookstore, and then the Griffin Gallery, which dealt primarily with contemporary American and European artists. The Golden Griffin was known as the “Continental Bookstore” because of its stock of European titles.