Original Art

Item Description

Artist:  Michael Vollbracht

Title:  On a Tiger Rug

Medium:  Collage

Frame Size:  14.5 x 26.5 inches

Date:

Signed:  Yes

Reserve Bid is $2,400

Courtesy of Wally Findlay Art Gallery, New York

Item Special Note

Michael Vollbracht is a true renaissance man. For over forty years, he has worked for some of the most powerful institutions in the art and fashion fields. 

Michael Vollbracht, the fashion designer, clients have included Elizabeth Taylor, former First Lady Laura Bush, Barbara Walters, Janet Jackson, Cher, Mrs. Al Gore, and many more. Even Joan Crawford, Peter Allen, Trisha Nixon and Larry Hagman have worn his clothes. Oprah, Angelina Jolie, Julia Roberts and Beyonce have worn Vollbracht on the cover of O, Voque, Vanity Fair, and In Style respectively. Michael Vollbracht, the artist and illustrator, became a New York celebrity when his Face shopping bag for Bloomingdales became a super-ubiquitous piece of pop art.

WWD's millennium issue called him one of the most important illustrators in the second half of the 20th century. In 1989, The New Yorker magazine selected Vollbracht as one of its lead illustrators, producing collages and drawings for the magazine for over half a decade. Michael Vollbracht was born in Quincy, Illinois. He studied for three years at Parsons School of Design in New York City, where his drawings and sketches quickly gained prominent attention. He was chosen to receive the coveted Norman Norell award. Bill Blass, who became a mentor, presented the award. Geoffrey Beene selected Vollbracht to become a member of his design team, and he became an integral part of the house. Mr. Beene chose him to design Beene Bazaar.  His talents were recognized by Donald Brooks who hired him to work under his label as the designer for the boutique Donald Brooks for two years. Vollbracht then launched the Michaele Vollbracht Collection, which was known for its bold shapes and graphic prints. After just one year of business, Vollbracht received the prestigious Coty American Fashion Critics Award: Designer of the Year. In 2001, Rizzoli republished Vollbracht's visual diary of his thirty years in New York City and the glamorous personalities he interacted with from the worlds of fashion, stage and screen. Nothing Sacred is now a collectors item both online and in rare bookstores. After almost ten years in his own business on Seventh Avenue, he left the fashion industry only to return when long-time mentor and friend, Bill Blass, asked him to return to work with him to help design his retrospective exhibition at the I.M. Pei designed museum at Indiana University. Almost immediately, Vollbracht became the Creative Director of Bill Blass LTD, a position he occupied for five years. Today, Michael Vollbracht produces a small collection of clothes and furs for private customers and exclusive stores. In 2009, Vollbracht was tapped by the television-shopping network HSN to design a collection of items both for the home and women's wear called Very Vollbracht. At this point in my career, it's exciting not only to dress the world's most powerful women, but a broad spectrum of American women; that's the power of television and the internet.