The Artists of the WPA
Officers
Harold Porcher
Director
hporcher@swanngalleries.com
(212) 254-4710 ext. 67
Deborah Rogal
Director, Photographs & Photobooks
drogal@swanngalleries.com
(212) 254-4710 ext. 55
Todd Weyman
Vice President & Director, Prints & Drawings
tweyman@swanngalleries.com
(212) 254-4710 ext. 33
Lisa Crecenzo
Dept. Manager & Client Relations
lcrecenzo@swanngalleries.com
(212) 254-4710 ext. 51
Nicholas D. Lowry
President, Principal Auctioneer
nlowry@swanngalleries.com
Lauren Cooper
Associate Director
lgoldberg@swanngalleries.com
(212) 254-4710 ext. 57
George S. Lowry
Chairman
Nicholas D. Lowry
President, Principal Auctioneer
924899
Andrew M. Ansorge
Vice President & Controller
Alexandra Mann-Nelson
Chief Marketing Officer
2030704
Todd Weyman
Vice President & Director, Prints & Drawings
1214107
Nigel Freeman
Vice President & Director, African American Art
Rick Stattler
Vice President & Director, Books & Manuscripts
Administration
Andrew M. Ansorge
Vice President & Controller
aansorge@swanngalleries.com
Ariel Kim
Client Accounting
akim@swanngalleries.com
Diana Gibaldi
Operations Manager
diana@swanngalleries.com
Kelsie Jankowski
Communications Manager
kjankowski@swanngalleries.com
Shannon Licitra
Shipping Manager
slicitra@swanngalleries.com
Edward laning (1906-1981)
Black Friday.
Black and sepia ink with gouache highlights on paper, 1939. Signed, Laning, lower right. 356x260 mm; 14x10¼ inches.
Edward Laning had a rich career as artist and illustrator creating numerous commissioned works. Funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA) he completed a triptych for the Richmond County Administration Building, Rockingham NC in 1937, and in 1942 he created a mural for the William H. Natcher U.S. Courthouse in Bowling Green, KY. Under the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration Laning created murals for the dining hall in the Administration Building at Ellis Island, (partially destroyed with remaining works moved to the Brooklyn Courthouse), and perhaps his most spectacular murals created for the main branch of the New York Public Library's McGraw Rotunda.
This drawing is from a series Laning did in the year 1939 depicting the stock market crash of 1929.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Edward laning (1906-1981)
Study for Black Friday: Richard Whitney and the Stock Exchange.
Black and sepia ink on illustration board, 1939. Signed, Laning, lower right. Signed, Edward laning, and inscribed Black Thursday on verso. 400x355 mm; 15¾x14 inches.
This drawing is a study for Laning's 1939 oil painting titled Black Friday: Richard Whitney and the Stock Exchange, commissioned by Life Magazine in 1939, and illustrated in Life Magazine, depicting important events from the year 1929.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Hansel mieth (1909-1998)
Unemployed father with son at Worker’s Alliance Meeting, North Platte, Neb.
Silver print, the image measuring 343x260 mm; 13½x10¼ inches, with Mieth’s signature, title, and negative date in ink, and her stamp on verso. 1939; printed 1980s.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Arthur rothstein (1915-1985)
Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma.
Silver print, the image measuring approximately 481 mm;19 inches square, with Rothstein’s signature and edition notation 104/300 in pencil on recto. 1936; printed circa 1980.
Estimate
$1,400 – $1,800
Jack delano (1914-1997)
Man speaking to group * Workers from the nearby powder plant having dinner at their boarding house in Childersburg, Ala.
Together, 2 silver prints, the images measuring 168x220 mm; 6⅝x8⅝ inches and 184x241 mm; 7¼x9½ inches, the sheets slightly larger, each with Delano’s signature in ink, his F.S.A. credit stamp and a Farm Security Administration stamp, and the RA number in pencil, on verso; the second also with the typed title and date, also on verso. 1941.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
The Mission.
Lithograph. 309x449 mm; 12⅛x17⅝ inches, full margins. Edition of only 25. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1933.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. Cole 27.
Among Soyer’s most celebrated lithographs, The Mission is a Depression-era view of homeless men in a New York soup kitchen (it is also commonly seen as a companion print to the equally important Bowery Nocturne, lithograph, from the same year, see Cole 28). Soyer was an avid printmaker throughout his career, creating more than 250 lithographs and etchings over the span of some 65 years.
Estimate
$6,000 – $9,000
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Bread Line— No One Has Starved.
Etching. 165x303 mm; 6¼x11⅞ inches, wide margins. Sixth state (of 6). Edition of approximately 20. Signed and numbered “19” in pencil, lower margin. 1932.
A brilliant, early impression of this scarce print with strong contrasts. Sasowsky 139.
Born in Paris, the second son in a well-to-do family, Marsh attended Yale University and then moved to New York where, during the early 1920s, he worked as an illustrator and took classes at the Art Students League. Marsh was equally influenced by his art teachers in New York, notably John Sloan (1871-1951), as well as American Regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) and Old Masters such as Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. He wholly rejected the modern artistic movements gaining strength in America at the time-Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction. Instead he pursued a style that is best summed up as social realism: depictions of everyday life in New York, Coney Island beach scenes, vaudeville and burlesque women, the jobless on the streets of New York and the railroad yards and freight trains in New York and New Jersey.
He participated in the federal art programs under the WPA, painting two murals in Washington, DC, and, funded by the Treasury Relief Art Project, completed a series of frescoes in the New York Customs House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, that depict eight New York Harbor scenes and eight portraits of great navigators. It is one of the most celebrated mural installations created under the New Deal in New York City.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Russell lee (1903-1986)
Entrance to courthouse, Gatesville, Texas * Courthouse, Gatesville, Texas * Old timers in front of courthouse, San Augustine, Texas.
Together, 3 silver prints, the images measuring 178x241 mm; 7x9½ inches, and slightly smaller, the sheets slightly larger, each with Lee’s F.S.A. stamp and a Farm Security Administration stamp, the typed title and date, and the RA number in pencil, on verso. 1939-40.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Uprooted.
lithograph on paper. Full margins. Signed and titled in pencil in lower margin. 260x400 mm; 10¼x15¾ inches.
William Gropper was adept working in various media. His contributions included easel painting, print making, poster design, illustration, and murals. Working in oil on canvas, Gropper completed three mural projects: Two canvases for the Freeport, New York Post Office, 1938; Three canvases for the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior building, Washington, DC, 1936-7 and installed in 1940; One canvas, painted for the Northwestern Brach post Office, Detroit, later moved and installed at Wayne State University Student Center, Detroit, Michigan. This print is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others.
Estimate
$150 – $250
John sloan (1871-1951)
Two etchings.
Girl and Beggar. 101x152 mm; 4x6 inches, wide margins. Edition of 85 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed by the printer, Peter Platt, in pencil, lower left. 1910 * Bonfire</i>. 25x184 mm; 5x7¼ inches, full margins. Second state (of 2). Edition of 75 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1920.
Very good impressions. Morse 150 and 198.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Joseph hirsch (1910-1981)
Sleeping Beggar.
Pen and ink and wash on Arches. 230x377 mm; 9⅛x14⅞ inches. Signed in ink, upper left recto. 1910.
Provenance: Kennedy Galleries, Inc., New York, with the label; private collection, Columbus, Ohio.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975) (after)
Homecoming—Kaw Valley.
Offset lithograph. 300x372 mm; 11¾x14⅝ inches, full margins. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1951.
A very good impression of this scarce print.
Benton created this print as a fundraiser for Kansas City flood victims in 1951. According to Fath, he made it “In a special edition for the members of the Congress of the United States and sent it to them on October 13, 1951.” This was also used as the cover image for the November, 1951, issue of the New Republic. Fath page 6-7.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Georges schreiber (1904-1977)
Two lithographs.
Rain. 250x332 mm; 9⅞x13 inches, wide margins. Circa 1944. * Spring Strom. 240x340 mm; 9½x13⅜ inches, wide margins. 1943. Both edition of 250. Both signed in pencil, lower right. Both published by Associated American Artists, New York.
Very good impressions.
Schreiber was born in Brussels, Belgium, his education spanning several European cities before moving to New York in 1928. He was employed by the Works Project Administration between 1936-1939 which allowed him to travel throughout the United States as an artist. When the United States entered World War II, he was commissioned by the US Navy to illustrate posters popularizing the cause.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Flood.
Lithograph. 235x310 mm; 9⅛x12¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 196. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1937.
A very good impression. Fath 16.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for many of the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Hugo gellert (1892-1985)
Three prints.
Machinery and Large-Scale Industry: The Factory. Lithograph. 572x384 mm; 22½x15⅛ inches, full margins. Edition of 133. Signed in pencil, lower right. Printed by Atelier Desjobert, Paris. From Karl Marx Capital in Pictures. 1933 * The Professional Patriot (The Trumpeter). Lithograph. 335x300 mm; 13¼x11¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 33 (from an intended edition of 50). Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Covici Friede, New York. From Æsop Said So. 1936 * The Fifth Column. Color lithograph and screenprint. 385x332 mm; 15¼x13 inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 54. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by International Workers Order, New York. From Century of the Common Man: Two Speeches by Henry A. Wallace. 1943.
Very good impressions.
Estimate
$400 – $600
John sloan (1871-1951)
Bonfire.
Etching. 132x188 mm; 5⅛x7⅜ inches, full margins. Second state (of 2). Edition of 75 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1920.
A superb impression with strong contrasts. Morse 198.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Election Night, Times Square.
Lithograph. 275x353 mm; 11⅞x13⅞ inches. Edition of 50. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1934.
A very good impression. McCulloch 88.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Strike.
Lithograph. 255x276 mm; 10x11 inches, full margins. Edition of fewer than 100 (from an intended edition of 300). Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by the Contemporary Print Group, New York. 1933.
A superb, dark impression of this extremely scarce, early lithograph.
This is one of Benton’s (1889-1975) earliest lithographs and was published in the second portfolio circulated by the Contemporary Print Group, The American Scene, Series 2, along with prints by John Steuart Curry, William Gropper, Russell Limbach, Charles Locke and Raphael Soyer. According to Cole, “probably fewer than 100 impressions were printed as the project was not successful,” The Lithographs of John Steuart Curry, New York, 1976, number 22. Fath 5.
Estimate
$8,000 – $12,000
John steuart curry (1897-1946)
Manhunt.
Lithograph. 248x328 mm; 9¾x12⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 100 (from an intended edition of 300). Signed, titled and dated in pencil, lower margin. Published by the Contemporary Print Group, New York. 1934.
A very good impression. Cole 22.
A key Regionalist at the time the New Deal was implemented, Curry participated as a muralist for the The Treasury Section of Fine Arts, a merit based program rather than a relief program. He was commissioned to create the murals for the Kennedy Department of Justice Building in Washington, DC in 1937, and the Norwalk City Hall, in Norwalk, Connecticut in 1936.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Sara berman beach (1890-1978)
William L. Patterson calls for Clemency for the Rosenbergs.
Oil on masonite. Signed, S.B. Beach, lower right. 610x508 mm; 24x20 inches.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Rockwell kent (1882-1971)
Night Flight.
Chiaroscuro wood engraving printed in black and gray. 216x162 mm; 8½x6⅜ inches, full margins. Edition of 150. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1941.
A very good impression with strong colors. Burne-Jones 132.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Rockwell kent (1882-1971)
Starry Night.
Wood engraving. 177x125 mm; 7x5 inches, full margins. Edition of 1750. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by the Literary Guild of America. 1933.
A very good, evenly-printed and dark impression. Burne-Jones 103.
Kent was a WPA muralist whose commission for the Post Office in Washington, DC (now the Clinton Federal Building) was highly controversial. The mural portrayed Puerto Rico’s first airmail delivery and seemed to sympathize with the cause for Puerto Rican independence. A woman is shown with a letter in Kuskokwim Eskimo dialect that reads “To the people of Puerto Rico, our friends! Let us change chiefs. That alone can make us equal and free!”
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Rockwell kent (1882-1971)
Prometheus Unchained.
Lithograph. 357x290 mm; 14x11⅜ inches, full margins. Small edition; there was no published edition. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1938.
A superb impression of this very scarce lithograph. We have found only 4 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years. Burne-Jones cites only 8 impressions in public collections. Burne-Jones 119.
Kent was born in Tarrytown, New York and attended the Columbia University School of Architecture and studied painting from well known American artists such as Robert Henri. After moving to Maine, Kent took up wood engraving and gained a reputation as a prolific graphic artist in the 1920s. An intrepid traveller, Kent went on a number of trips to the most remote parts of the world, which heavily inspired his artwork. In 1937 he was commissioned by the Federal Public Works Administration to create two murals for the New Post Office in Washington DC, today the William Jefferson Clinton Federal Building.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Stabbed in the Back.
Oil on canvas, 1939.
641x508 mm; 25¼x20 inches. Signed, Gropper, and dated, ‘39, lower left.
Exhibited: ACA Galleries, NY, Gropper 1940, Feb. 11 - Mar. 2, 1940.
Literature:1940, Gropper 1940, ACA Gallery, ilus. plate 17.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
William gropper (1897-1977)
Three lithographs.
Johnny Appleseed. 336x227 mm; 13¼x8⅞ inches, full margins. 1941 * Joe Magarac. 340x221 mm; 13⅜x8¾ inches, full margins. From American Folk Heroes. 1948 * Davy Crockett. 320x207 mm; 12⅝x8⅛ inches, full margins. Circa 1951. Each signed in pencil, lower right. Each from an edition of 250. Each printed by George C. Miller, New York. Each published by Associated American Artists, New York.
Very good impressions.
Gropper, born in New York, was a cartoonist and social realist painter who attended to the National Academy of Design (then the New York School of Fine Arts and Design). He worked briefly for the New York Tribune as a cartoonist before becoming involved in the communist party and spending a year in Moscow working at a Russian newspaper Pravda. Gropper produced three murals under the WPA, two in Freeport, New York in 1938 and one in Detroit, Michigan completed in 1941.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Three lithographs.
Paul Bunyan. 343x226 mm; 13½x8⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of 193. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1939 * Rip Van Winkle. 340x225 mm; 13⅜x8¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1945 * Finn McCool. 335x225 mm; 13¼x8⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1947. Each printed by George C. Miller, New York. Each published by Associated American Artists, New York.
Very good impressions.
Gropper, born in New York, was a cartoonist and social realist painter who attended to the National Academy of Design (then the New York School of Fine Arts and Design). He worked briefly for the New York Tribune as a cartoonist before becoming involved in the communist party and spending a year in Moscow working at a Russian newspaper Pravda. Gropper produced three murals under the WPA, two in Freeport, New York in 1938 and one in Detroit, Michigan completed in 1941.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Three lithographs from Capriccios.
Pegasus * Crisis * Tornado. 412x310 mm; 16¼x12¼ inches (sheets), wide margins. Artist’s proofs, aside from the edition of 50. Each signed by the artist’s wife, Sophie, in pencil, lower right, and one inscribed “A.P” in pencil, lower left. Printed by George C. Miller, New York. Each 1953-57.
Very good impressions.
Gropper, born in New York, was a cartoonist and social realist painter who attended to the National Academy of Design (then the New York School of Fine Arts and Design). He worked briefly for the New York Tribune as a cartoonist before becoming involved in the communist party and spending a year in Moscow working at a Russian newspaper Pravda. Gropper produced three murals under the WPA, two in Freeport, New York in 1938 and one in Detroit, Michigan completed in 1941.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Three lithographs.
Swing Low Sweet Chariot, 1951 * Diogenes, 1952 * Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho, 1946. Each edition of 250. Each signed in pencil, lower right. Printed by George C. Miller, New York. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. Various sizes and conditions.
Very good impressions.
Gropper, born in New York, was a cartoonist and social realist painter who attended to the National Academy of Design (then the New York School of Fine Arts and Design). He worked briefly for the New York Tribune as a cartoonist before becoming involved in the communist party and spending a year in Moscow working at a Russian newspaper Pravda. Gropper produced three murals under the WPA, two in Freeport, New York in 1938 and one in Detroit, Michigan completed in 1941.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Three lithographs.
Horsemen (Horserace). 243x330 mm; 9⅝x12⅞ inches, full margins. 1944 * Swing Low, Sweet Chariot. 320x220 mm; 12⅝x8¾ inches, full margins. 1951 * Diogenes. 247x325 mm; 9¾x12⅞ inches, full margins. 1952. Each signed in pencil, lower right. Each an edition of 250. Each printed by George Miller, New York. Each published by Associated American Artists, New York. Each a very good impression.
With—Rest. Edition of 200. Signed by Sophie Gropper, the artist’s wife, in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists. 1948.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Despair.
Oil on canvas. 402x505 mm; 15¾x19⅞ inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto.
Provenance: Private collection, Philadelphia; thence by descent to current owner, private collection, Philadelphia.
Working in oil on canvas, Gropper completed three mural projects: Two canvases for the Freeport, New York Post Office, 1938; Three canvases for the Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior building, Washington, DC, 1936-7 and installed in 1940; one canvas, painted for the Northwestern Branch post Office, Detroit, later moved and installed at Wayne State University Student Center, Detroit, Michigan.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Harry herzog (dates unknown)
Injunction Granted / WPA Federal Theatre Project’s Living Newspaper.
Color silkscreen poster on board. 559x349 mm, 22x13¾ inches. New York, 1936.
Sponsored by the Newspaper guild of N.Y, with “USA Work WPA” printed in the bottom right corner.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Kyra markham (1891-1967)
Flag Raising in Leroy Street.
Lithograph. 320x245 mm; 12⅝x9⅝ inches. Edition of 25. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed “Ed. 25” in pencil, lower margin. 1942.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. We have found only 7 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years.
An artist as well as an actress, Markham’s works seek out every day dramas, assisted by her use of high contrast and shadows. Markham attended the Art Institute of Chicago from 1907 to 1909, when she left the Institute to work at Chicago’s Little Theater and later with the Provincetown Players in Massachusetts. She became an illustrator to supplement her acting career and in 1930 attended classes at the Art Students League in New York, where she started to work in lithography. Her employment with the Federal Art Project in 1936 coincided with what are considered the finest examples of her lithographic œuvre. The New York Herald Tribune named Markham among the Federal Art Project’s Graphic Arts Division artists who “assist particularly in carrying on the project’s graphic work to a success unsurpassed by any of its other departments” after viewing the spring 1937 exhibition of “Recent Fine Prints” at the Federal Art Project Gallery in New York.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Letterio calapai (1902-1993)
11:45pm.
Relief print from an intaglio plate in violet ink. 502x302 mm; 19¾x11⅞ inches, full margins. A unique color variation, aside from the edition of 35 printed in black. Signed, dated, titled, inscribed “Unique print - 2 of 2” and with printer’s instructions, lower margin. 1947.
A very good, richly inked impression.
Among Calapai’s best known images, this print combines elements from his traditional study at the Art Students League, New York, with the influence of Stanley W. Hayter’s Atelier 17, where Calapai worked in 1946-47.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Burlesque Queen.
Lithograph. 297x245 mm; 11⅝x9½ inches, full margins. Edition of 100. Inscribed “100 prints” in pencil, lower margin. Published by the American Artists School, New York, with the ink stamp verso. 1933.
A very good impression. Davis 61.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Dress Rehearsal.
Lithograph. 300x359 mm; 11¾x14⅛ inches, full margins. One of approximately 2 proofs. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. From Some Critical Moments in Musical Comedy’s Early Life”. 1933.
A very good impression of this extremely rare lithograph. McCulloch 68.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Gene kloss (1903-1996)
Indian Friendship Dance
Drypoint. 209x303 mm; 8¼x12 inches, wide margins. Edition of 200. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by The Society of American Graphic Artists, New York. 1953.
A superb, richly-inked impression with velvety burr. Kloss 450.
Born Alice Geneva Glasier in Oakland, California, Kloss was an American artist known today primarily for her many prints of the Western landscape and ceremonies of the Pueblo people. She first visited New Mexico in 1925 and returned numerous times throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Kloss received widespread recognition and awards during the 1930s. From 1933 to 1944 she was the sole etcher employed by the Public Works of Art Project. Her series of nine New Mexico scenes from that period were reproduced and distributed to public schools across the state. She also created watercolors and oil paintings for the WPA. In 1935, she was one of three Taos artists who represented New Mexico at a Paris exhibition called "Three Centuries of Art in the United States."
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Rockwell kent (1882-1971)
Diver.
Wood engraving. 201x138 mm; 7⅞x5⅜ inches, full margins. Edition of 150. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1931.
A very good, well-inked impression. Burne-Jones 88.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Mabel dwight (1875-1995)
Book Auction.
Lithograph. 187x216 mm; 7⅜x9 inches, full margins. Edition of 40. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. Printed by George C. Miller, New York. 1932.
A very good impression. Robinson/Pirog 63.
With—ADOLF DEHN. Greeting of the House of Weyhe, lithograph. 180x127; 8x5 inches, full margins. 1930. A very good impression. Lumsdaine/O’Sullivan 163.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Harry sternberg (1901-2001)
Two prints from Circus.
Circus #3 The Wheel * Circus #4 The Rings. Both etchings with aquatint. Both 230x301 mm; 9x11⅞ inches, full margins. Both an edition of 30. Both signed, titled and inscribed “ /30” in pencil, lower margin. Both printed by the artist, New York. Both 1929.
Both very good, richly-inked impressions with strong contrasts and the artist’s tackholes for drying at the extreme edges.
While growing up in Brooklyn, Sternberg became friends with fellow artists Peter Blume and Philip Reisman through their school’s art club. He took art classes at the Brooklyn Museum and attended the Art Students League. In 1926 Sternberg and Reisman learned etching under Harry Wickey. After some success as an artist, Sternberg was hired to teach etching, lithography, and composition at the Art Students League in 1933. It is around this time that Sternberg became active in artists’ rights organizations, creating the American Artists Congress, and later as a member of the Artists Equity Association. In 1935 Sternberg began working as the technical advisor for the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project. During his time there he completed three murals. In 1937, Carrying the Mail for the Sellersville, Pennsylvania post office, also in 1937 Chicago: Epoch of a Great City for the Lakeview Post Office, and the last in 1939 in Ambler, Pennsylvania’s post office titled The Family Industry and Agriculture.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Vaudeville.
Lithograph. 492x285 mm; 19⅜x11⅛ inches, wide margins. Edition of 25. Signed “Yasuo Kuniyoshi” by the artist’s wife, Sara Mazo Kuniyoshi, and her signature in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1927.
A very good impression. Davis 16.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Irving Place Burlesque.
Lithograph on Chine appliqué. 247x292 mm; 9¾x11½ inches, full margins. Edition of 25. Signed and inscribed “25 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1928.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. Sasowsky 15.
Born in Paris, the second son in a well-to-do family, Marsh attended Yale University and then moved to New York where, during the early 1920s, he worked as an illustrator and took classes at the Art Students League. Marsh was equally influenced by his art teachers in New York, notably John Sloan (1871-1951), as well as American Regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) and Old Masters such as Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. He wholly rejected the modern artistic movements gaining strength in America at the time–Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction. Instead, he pursued a style that is best summed up as social realism: depictions of everyday life in New York, Coney Island beach scenes, vaudeville and burlesque women, the jobless on the streets of New York and the railroad yards and freight trains in New York and New Jersey.
He participated in the federal art programs under the WPA, painting two murals in Washington, D.C., and, funded by the Treasury Relief Art Project, completed a series of frescoes in the New York Customs House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, that depict eight New York Harbor scenes and eight portraits of great navigators. It is one of the most celebrated mural installations created under the New Deal in New York City.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Huber’s Museum.
Lithograph on Chine appliqué. 222x346 mm; 8¾x13½ inches, full margins. Edition of approximately only 35. Signed and inscribed “35 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1928.
A very good impression of this scarce, early lithograph. Sasowsky 14.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Albert pels (1910-1998)
Sax Player.
Oil on canvas. Signed, Pels, lower center. Signed, Pels, and inscribed, #116, on verso. 762x407 mm; 30x16 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Albert pels (1910-1998)
One Wheel Bike Rider, Met Museum.
Oil on canvas. Inscribed as titled on verso. 534x508 mm; 21x20 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Albert pels (1910-1998)
The Street Entertainers.
Oil on canvas, 1984. Signed, Pels, and dated, 84, lower right. 508x1117 mm; 20x44 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Funded by the Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts, Albert Pels completed the following two murals: Normal, Illinois Post Office, Development of the State Normal School, 1938; U.S. Courtroom of the Willmington Post Office, Landing of the Swedes at the Rocks in Willmington, Willmington, Delaware. Later moved to the Rodney Square Station Post Office, Willmington, Delaware.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Fritz eichenberg (1901-1990)
City Lights.
Wood engraving. 159x120 mm; 6¼x4¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 200. Signed, titled and inscribed “Ed. 200” in pencil, lower margin. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1934.
A very good impression.
With—The Steps. Wood engraving. 160x122 mm; 6¼x4¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 200. Signed, titled and inscribed “Ed. 200” in pencil, lower margin. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1934.
Eichenberg was born in Cologne, Germany and studied at the Municipal School of Applied Arts, Cologne, and the Academy of Graphic Arts, Leipzig. He learned various forms of printmaking during his studies and apprenticed for a printer. He worked as an illustrator in Germany, but in 1933, as Nazi Germany rose to power, he immigrated to the United States. He participated in the Federal Arts Project during the 1930s, and had a successful career as a book illustrator and teacher at the New School for Social Research, Pratt Institute and the University of Rhode Island. Eichenberg’s urban scenes of New York from the 1930s captured the essence of the bustling, growing city.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Don freeman (1908-1978)
On the Fly Rail.
Lithograph. 244x300 mm; 9⅝x7⅞ inches, full margins. Artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 50. Signed and inscribed “ap” in pencil, lower margin. 1934.
A very good impression.
Freeman was born in San Diego, California and studied at the San Diego School of Fine Arts. He moved to New York in 1929, just days before the stock market crashed, and continued his studies at the Art Students League, with John Sloan (1871-1951) as one of his instructors. He developed a social realist style, often depicting life around Times Square. During the 1930s he worked in the graphics division of the WPA. Later in his career he illlustrated and wrote childrens’ book, most famously Corduroy. McCulloch 97.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Designer unknown
USA Work Program / WPA.
Color lithograph poster, paper. 800x800 mm, 31½x31½ inches.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Peggy bacon (1895 - 1987)
Frenzied Effort.
Drypoint. 150x230 mm; 6x9⅛ inches, wide margins. Signed, titled and dated in pencil, lower margin. 1925.
A very good impression. Flint 57.
This print depicts a life drawing class at The Whitney Studio Club, with portraits of artists including Mabel Dwight (far left with the hat), George O. “Pop” Hart (with pipe and glasses) and Bacon herself (wearing glasses, left background).
Bacon was best known for her realistic representations of everyday life and her satirical caricatures. She studied at the Art Students League, New York, with Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan and George Bellows, and taught herself drypoint there in between drawing classes. Looking back at her time at the League, Bacon said, “The years at the Art Students League were a very important chunk of life to me and very exhilarating. It was the first time in my life, of course, that I had met and gotten to know familiarly a group of young people who were all headed the same way with the same interests. In fact it was practically parochial.” From the 1910s to the 1930s, she worked mainly in drypoint printmaking and also doing illustrations for the satirical magazine Bad News, while her later drawings appeared as illustrations in publications including The New Yorker, New Republic, Fortune and Vanity Fair. She further went on to illustrate over 60 books, 19 of which she also wrote.
Bacon exhibited frequently in New York from the 1910s onward, with galleries including Alfred Stieglitz’s Intimate Gallery, the Weyhe Gallery and the Downtown Gallery (she had more than 32 solo exhibitions during her career), and was closely connected with other artists with ties to these galleries, including Katherine Schmidt and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
John sloan (1871-1951)
Nude Standing on a Stairway.
Etching. 177x139 mm; 6⅞x5½ inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Edition of 70 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1933.
A very good impression. Morse 266.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Robert philipp (1895-1981)
Half Nude #2.
Oil on canvas. 228x152 mm; 9x6 inches. Signed, Phil, upper left. Signed, Philipp, on verso.
Provenance: Associated American Artists, New York; The Collection of Gladys and Tully Filmus; Thence by descent to the current owner.
Robert Philipp participated in the Easel Project division of the WPA/FAP.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
Nude in an Interior.
Oil on canvas, c. 1949. Signed, Raphael Soyer, lower left. 508c406 mm; 20x16 inches.
Provenance: Forum Gallery, NY.
The Graphic Arts Division of the WPA created print workshops. Raphael Soyer used these facilities and created prints he exhibited in the Fourteenth Municipal Art Committee Exhibition., October 21 - November 8, 1936. As an early participant in the programs, Soyer played a role in calling for the establishment of the American Artists’ Congress. He was awarded two mural projects: In 1936 he completed two murals for Queens Borough Public Library, Queens, New York; Working along side Moses, the Soyer brothers painted two murals for the Kingsessing Station Post Office, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1939. These murals were later moved to the Philadelphia Metro District Facility, and are no longer on public view.
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
In the Studio.
Lithograph. 310x240 mm; 12¼x9½ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1944.
A very good impression. Cole 63.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Milton avery (1885-1965)
Standing Nude.
Drypoint. 364x195 mm; 14¼x7¾ inches, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered 32/60 in pencil, lower margin. 1941.
A brilliant, richly-inked impression with strong contrasts. Lunn 21.
After moving from Hartford to attend classes at the Art Students League in New York, Avery befriended fellow students Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman, among others. Avery struggled financially in during the early years of the Great Depression and though he showed at several galleries, including at Temporary Galleries, New York’s municipal art gallery, funded by the city, he only found a small income with few art sales. In 1938, Avery started a brief period as an artist in the Easel Division of the WPA Federal Art Project.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Myrrah.
Oil on unstretched canvas, 1933. Inscribed, “Myrrah,” by Ilya Bolotowsky authenticated by, and signed, Esphyr Slobidkina, on top overlap. 508x457 mm; 20x18 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina, (first wife of the artist); The Slobodkina Foundation, NY, accession number SF0254.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Myrrah.
Oil on unstretched canvas, 1933. Inscribed, IB 1933 Myrrah, on bottom overlap by Esphyr Slobodkina. 330x406 mm; 13x16 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina, (first wife of the artist); The Slobodkina Foundation, NY, accession number SF0339.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Irene rice pereira (1902-1971)
Untitled, (Figure).
Charcoal on paper, 1933. Signed, Pereira, and dated, 33, lower right. 673x520 mm; 26½x20½ inches.
Irene Rice Pereira worked in the Easel Division of the New Deal work projects. She also served as a faculty member of the fine arts division of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Design Laboratory.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Irene rice pereira (1902-1971)
Seated Male Nude.
Charcoal on paper, 1928. Signed, Pereira, and dated, 1928, lower right. 597x438 mm; 23½x17¼ inches.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Robert gwathmey (1903-1988)
Self Portrait.
Lithograph. 445x407mm; 17½x16 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 26/50 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George C. Miller and Son, Inc., New York. Published by Terry Dintenfass, Inc., New York. 1961.
A very good impression. Williams 13.
According to Williams, this print was made for the opening of the Terry Dintenfass Gallery, New York when Dintenfass asked each of the gallery artists to make a lithograph self-portrait. This is the only self-portrait Gwathmey ever made.
Gwathmey is one of the most celebrated painter-printmakers of African-American life in the southern United States. As an outsider to the African-American rural communities, his works are that of an observer, picturesque scenes of everyday life. He managed unbiasedly to imbue humanity and an unromanticized dignity into his subjects.
In 1941 Gwathmey was commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts to comeplete a mural, The Countryside for the post office in Eutaw, Alabama.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Three etchings.
A Youth. 150x101 mm; 6x4 inches, full margins. Edition of 25. Signed and numbered xxi/xxv in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Stem Graphics, New York, with the blind stamp lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1928 * Delayed Departure. 175x146 mm; 6⅞x5¾ inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 45/50 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Stem Graphics, New York, with the blind stamp lower right. Published by Sylvan Cole Gallery, New York. From Isabel Bishop, Eight Etchings 1930-1959. 1935 * Lunch Counter. 186x980 mm; 7¼x3⅞, wide margins. Edition of 50. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Stem Graphics, New York. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. From Eight Etchings I, 1938-1959. 1940.
Each a very good impression. Teller 6, 18A and 24.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Ben shahn (1898-1969)
Miner working with Consolidated Coal Company, Kentucky.
Silver print, the image measuring 162x241 mm; 6⅜x9½ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with the Library of Congress stamp and numeric notations in pencil on verso. 1935; printed circa 1960-70.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
(dorothea lange) (1895-1965)
A group of 5 promotional photographs, including Migrant Mother, accompanied by the publication Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime.
Migrant Mother, Nipomo, California, 1936 * Mexican Migrant Fieldworker, Imperial Valley California, 1937 * Family on the Road, Oklahoma, On the Great Plains, near Winner, South Dakota, 1938 * Family Farmstead, Nebraska, 1940. Silver prints, the images measuring 238x191 mm; 9⅜x7½ inches, and smaller, and the reverse, the sheets slightly larger, each with a typed credit and title label on verso; enclosed in a folder with the publication information on a typed label on the front. 1936-40; printed 1982.
Dorothea Lange. Dorothea Lange: Photographs of a Lifetime. Text by Robert Cole and an afterword by Therese Heyman. Illustrated with numerous reproductions of Lange's iconic photographs. Small folio, silver-stamped gray cloth; photo-pictorial dust jacket. (Millerton, New York): Aperture, (1982)
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Russell lee (1903-1986)
A selection of 4 photographs, including two images from Delano’s well-known Pie Town series.
Silver prints, the images measuring 248x337 mm; 9¾x13¼ inches, and slightly smaller, the sheets slightly larger, each with Lee’s signature in pencil or ink on verso, and one also with the title in pencil in an unknown hand, a third also with his address credit stamp, and the title and date also in pencil in an unknown hand, on verso. Circa 1939-40; printed circa 1980.
Ice for sale, Harlingen, Texas, 1939 * Lunch at all day community sing, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940 * Musicians, a farmer, his wife, and brother in close harmony, Pie Town, New Mexico, 1940 * Spanish-American women replastering an adobe house. This is done once a year. Chamisal, New Mexico, 1940
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Daitz, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Jack delano (1914-1997)
Tobacco farmer and wife, Connecticut.
Selenium-toned silver print, the image measuring 238x175 mm; 9⅜x6⅞ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Delano’s signature in pencil, two Library of Congress stamps, and the title, date, and RA number in pencil in an unknown hand on verso; also with Delano’s signature in pencil on the overmat and a Witkin Gallery label with the printing information on mat verso. 1940; printed 1976.
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Z. Daitz, New York.
Estimate
$500 – $750
Arthur rothstein (1915-1985)
North Dakota farmers waiting for their grants in Resettlement Administration office, North Dakota * Migrant worker’s wife, Robstown, Texas * Guardian of the peace, dance for enlisted men, El Rancho Grande, Brownsville, Texas.
Together, three silver prints, the images measuring 171x191 and 241x178 mm; 6¾x7½ and 9½x7 inches, the sheets 254x203 mm; 10x8 inches, the first with Rothstein’s F.S.A. stamp, the typed title and date, and the RA number in pencil, and the others with the Library of Congres stamp and numeric notations and the title and date in pencil on verso; the first in a later mat with Rothstein’s signature in pencil on the overmat, and each with Witkin Gallery labels. 1936 & 1942; the second two printed circa 1960-70.
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Z. Daitz, New York.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Jack delano (1914-1997)
Interior of Negro rural house, Greene County, Georgia.
Silver print, the image measuring 178x235 mm; 7x9¼ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with the Library of Congress stamp and numeric notations in pencil on verso. 1941; printed circa 1960-70.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Allie Mae Burroughs, Wife of a Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama.
Silver print, the image measuring 213x165 mm; 8⅜x6½ inches, the Crescent board mount 432x343 mm; 17x13½ inches, with Jack Welpott’s printer’s credit, Evans’ credit, and the dates in pencil in an unknown hand on mount verso. 1936; printed circa 1950.
Provenance: Collection of Jan Welpott Danielle, a gift from her father, photographer and educator, Jack Welpott (1923-2007). While studying photography with Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University, Jack Welpott printed this photograph from the original Walker Evans negatives, which were on loan to Smith from the FSA Collection (housed in the Library of Congress, D.C.).
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Floyd Burroughs, A Cotton Sharecropper, Hale County, Alabama.
Silver print, the image measuring 248x197 mm; 9¾x7¾ inches, with Welpott’s signature “Jack,” his Evans credit, and the negative date in pencil on verso. 1936; printed circa 1950.
Provenance: Collection of Jan Welpott Danielle, a gift from her father, photographer and educator, Jack Welpott (1923-2007). While studying photography with Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University, Jack Welpott printed this photograph from the original Walker Evans negatives, which were on loan to Smith from the FSA Collection (housed in the Library of Congress, D.C.).
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Minna citron (1896-1991)
Study for “Buffeted”.
Pencil on artificial vellum. 152x122 mm; 6x4¾ inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right recto. 1925.
Provenance: Private collection, Toronto.
With—Buffeted, etching. 125x100 mm; 5x4 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 100. Signed and inscribed "etch AP" in pencil, lower margin. 1935.
A very good impression.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
John sloan (1871-1951)
Isaac L. Rice, Esq.
Etching. 357x279 mm; 14x11 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Edition of only 25 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1915.
A superb impression of this large, scarce etching.
A New York attorney specializing in corporate law and patents, Rice (1850-1915) was also a renowned chess player. He sponsored chess tournaments and invented a chess move known as the “Rice Gambit.” Morse 178.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Alexander brook (1898-1980)
Portrait of an Artist.
Oil on canvas. Signed, A. Brook, lower right. Inscribed, #133 portrait of an Artist, on stretcher. 203x503 mm; 8x6 inches.
The sitter for this portrait is believed to be the artist, Phillip Guston.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Alexander brook (1898-1980)
Man Talking.
Oil on canvas, 1934. Signed, A. Brook, lower left. Stamped, May 16 1934, and inscribed, #116, and as titled on stretcher. 203x153 mm; 8x6 inches.
Alexander Brook contributed two murals to the large art project at the Clinton Federal Building, Washington, D.C., completed in 1939 and funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA).
Estimate
$300 – $500
Alexander brook (1898-1980)
Head.
Oil on canvas. Signed, A. Brook, lower right. Inscribed, #134 Head, and signed, Brook, on stretcher. 228x178 mm; 9x7 inches.
The sitter for this portrait is believed to be the artist, Peggy Bacon.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Ben shahn (1898-1969)
Untitled, (Portrait of Barry Oppenheim).
Oil on tin, 1933. 508x330 mm; 20x13 inches.
During the Great Depression, Shahn was commissioned by the WPA to create murals and worked with the RA to design posters and pamphlets, but he was also hired as a part-time staff photographer for the FSA, due to a recommendation from Walker Evans. (Shahn’s entrée to photography was a studio space shared with Evans in 1929.) Shahn traveled across rural America photographing the plight of the communities there and capturing the strength of will of their residents.
Estimate
$700 – $900
John sloan (1871-1951)
Robert Henri, Painter.
Etching. 355x279 mm; 14x11 inches, full margins. Eighth state (of 8). Edition of 60 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1931.
A superb, richly-inked impression with strong contrasts. Morse 246.
According to Morse, approximately 30 impressions were pulled from the plate in the seventh state and another 30 were taken in the eighth state, which differs in the heavy diagonal shading in the plate upper right, to account for the total published edition of 60.
Sloan made this portrait as a memorial to his teacher, mentor and friend, fellow Ashcan artist Robert Henri (1865-1929). Henri had died unexpectedly, after being hospitalized at St. Luke’s Hospital in New York, of cardiac arrest early in the morning of July 12, 1929. His sudden death had a strong impact on the scores of artists he had taught and mentored for several decades, including Sloan, George Bellows, Rockwell Kent, Stuart Davis, and Edward Hopper. The artist and student of Henri, Eugene Speicher said, “Not only was he a great painter, but . . . I don’t think it too much to call him the father of independent painting in this country.”
Sloan based the current work, one of his largest portrait etchings, on a drawing he had made of Henri in 1905, now in the collection of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery, University of Nebraska, Lincoln. In his diary, Sloan noted, “I am pleased with the plate and hope that it conveys some of the kindly strength and helpful wisdom which this great artists so freely gave toothers.”
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
Self-Portrait.
Lithograph. 343x280 mm; 13½x11 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 94/100 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Burr Miller, New York. A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. Gettings 110.
According to a statement by Soyer, published in the Gettings catalogue raisonné of his printed work, he noted, “This is the last self-portrait I did on stone. It is one of my favorite lithographs.”
Soyer was born in Russia and immigrated to New York at the age of twelve. He studied at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design and with Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958) at the Art Students League. He is known as a Social Realist, depicting the daily struggles of those living in New York City. His chosen subject matter became especially poignant at the onset of the Great Depression, and, after he began to exhibit his work in the late 1920s, he cemented his reputation among the top American realist artists of the 20th century.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Milton avery (1885-1965)
Man with Pipe.
Drypoint. 162x148 mm; 6⅜x5¾ inches, wide margins. Signed, dated and numbered 22/60 in pencil, lower margin. 1938.
A very good, richly-inked impression of this scarce print. Lunn 14.
A portrait of the artist Vincent Spagna (1896-1994), whom Avery knew from Hartford and was also a artist in the WPA.
After moving from Hartford to attend classes at the Art Students League in New York, Avery befriended fellow students Adolph Gottlieb, Mark Rothko, and Barnett Newman, among others. Avery struggled financially in during the early years of the Great Depression and though he showed at several galleries, including at Temporary Galleries, New York’s municipal art gallery, funded by the city, he only found a small income with few art sales. In 1938, Avery started a brief period as an artist in the Easel Division of the WPA Federal Art Project.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Moses soyer (1899-1974)
Study for the Lover of Books.
Oil on canvas, 1934. Signed, M. Soyer,</i> lower right. 610x305 mm; 24x12 inches.
The Lover of Books, for which this painting is a study, is in the collection of the Jewish Museum, and is considered one of Moses Soyer’s most important paintings from the New Deal era. The Lover of Books is published in Norman Kleeblatt and Susan Chevlowe’s, Painting a Place in America: Jewish Artists in New York 1900-1945, p. 81; and Ori Z. Soltes’, Fixing the World: Jewish American Painters in the Twentieth Century, pp. 34-35.
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Josef presser (1907-1967)
Older Woman, (Portrait).
Charcoal and gouache on paper laid to card. Signed, J. Presser, upper right. 120x172 mm; 4¾x6¾ inches.
Estimate
$200 – $400
Josef presser (1907-1967)
Young Girl, (Portrait).
Pastel on paper. Signed, J. Presser, lower center. 172x120 mm; 6¾x4¾ inches.
Estimate
$200 – $400
Josef presser (1907-1967)
Three Girls.
Pencil, pastel and watercolor on strathmore paper laid to board. Signed, Presser, upper left. 559x762 mm; 22x30 inches.
Born in Lublin, Poland, Presser attended the Boston Museum of Fine Arts School and thereafter maintined residency in the American northeast. He was a member of the Philadelphia Watercolor Club as well as the New Haven Paint and Clay Club.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Irene rice pereira (1902-1971)
Cubist Portrait.
Pencil on light gray paper. Signed, Pereira, lower right. 356x279 mm; 14x11 inches.
Irene Rice Pereira worked in the Easel Division of the New Deal work projects. She also served as a faculty member of the fine arts division of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Design Laboratory.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Max weber (1881-1961)
Still Life with a Pitcher.
Lithograph with hand coloring in pastel. 230x185 mm; 9¼x7½ inches, wide margins. Signed in pencil, lower right. Circa 1930.
A Jewish-American painter originally from the Polish city of Bialystok, then part of the Russian Empire (he emigrated to the United States in 1891), Weber is considered among the foremost American modernist artists, helping to introduce Cubism to America in the early 1900s. While loosely associated with the WPA, Weber taught for decades, beginning in the 1920s, at the Art Students League, New York, and contributed a design to the 1939 pamphlet 12 Cartoons Defending the WPA by Members of the American Artists Congress.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Artificial Flower.
Lithograph on Chine appliqué. 413x252 mm; 16¼x10⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of 30. Signed, dated and inscribed “30 P” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Emil Ganso, New York. 1934.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. Davis 63.
Kuniyoshi, born in Okayama, Japan came to the United States in 1906, settling in New York after briefly exploring the West Coast. During the mid-1930s, he worked in the graphics division of the Federal Arts Project while exhibiting his work internationally. Though his work was characterized as poetic and surreal, his fantastic scenes turned somber during World War II while he worked with the Office of War Information.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Two lithographs.
Still Life— (Peaches and Grapes). 298x413 mm; 11¾x16¼ inches, wide margins. Edition of 25. Dedicated in pencil, lower right. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1927 * Taxco, Mexico. 276x362 mm; 10⅞x14¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 35. Signed, dated and dedicated in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1935.
Both very good impressions. Davis 6 and 69.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Peggy bacon (1895-1987)
Group of 4 drypoints.
Bouquet. 125x100 mm; 5x4 inches, full margins. Signed, dated, and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1925 * Nymph. 150x115 mm; 5⅞x4½ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and dated in pencil, lower margin. 1931 * Satyr. 150x115 mm; 5⅞x4½ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and dated in pencil, lower margin. 1931 * The Rival Ragmen. 148x225 mm; 5⅞x8⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of 139. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1936-38. Published by Associated American Artists, New York.
Each a very good impression. Flint 54, 102, 105, and 130.
Nymph and Satyr were after copyists Bacon saw at the Uffizi, Florence and Louvre, Paris, respectively.
Bacon was best known for her realistic representations of everyday life and her satirical caricatures. She studied at the Art Students League, New York, with Kenneth Hayes Miller, John Sloan and George Bellows, and taught herself drypoint there in between drawing classes. Looking back at her time at the League, Bacon said, “The years at the Art Students League were a very important chunk of life to me and very exhilarating. It was the first time in my life, of course, that I had met and gotten to know familiarly a group of young people who were all headed the same way with the same interests. In fact it was practically parochial.” From the 1910s to the 1930s, she worked mainly in drypoint printmaking and also doing illustrations for the satirical magazine Bad News, while her later drawings appeared as illustrations in publications including The New Yorker, New Republic, Fortune and Vanity Fair. She further went on to illustrate over 60 books, 19 of which she also wrote.
Bacon exhibited frequently in New York from the 1910s onward, with galleries including Alfred Stieglitz’s Intimate Gallery, the Weyhe Gallery and the Downtown Gallery (she had more than 32 solo exhibitions during her career), and was closely connected with other artists with ties to these galleries, including Katherine Schmidt and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
Vegetables.
Lithograph with hand coloring in watercolor. 180x245 mm; 7x9⅝ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1939.
A very good impression. Cole 8.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
Fruits.
Lithograph with hand coloring in watercolor. 190x255 mm; 7½x10 inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1939.
A very good impression. Cole 7.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Robert brackman (1898-1980)
Still Life with White Cloth #3.
Oil on canvas. 410x509 mm; 16¼x20 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto, and counter signed and titled in oil, verso.
Brackman was born in Odessa, Russian Empire (now in Ukraine), and immigrated to the United States in 1908 or 1910. He studied at the National Academy of Design from 1919 to 1921, and the Ferrer School in San Francisco. Starting in 1931, he had a long career teaching at the Art Students League of New York where he was a life member. Brackman painted portraits of John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Charles Lindbergh, and John Foster Dulles, as well as portraits commissioned by the United States Air Force Academy and the State Department.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Ben-zion (1897-1987)
Still Life with Red Tray.
Oil on canvas, 1946. Signed, Ben-Zion, lower right. 508x610 mm; 20x24 inches.
Exhibited: Bertha Schaefer Gallery, 1947; The Jewish Museum, Ben-Zion 1933-1959: A Retrospect, 1959; Tweed Gallery of the University of Minnesota, Duluth, 1953; This painting was included in the Dayton Art Institute’s lending program, No. 7C.
One benefit of the New Deal’s artist’s work programs that is often not emphasized is the comradery created in such a setting. The group shows, print workshops, and large scale easel projects allowed artists to work together, socialize, and exchange ideas. The Ten was a group of progressive thinking artists that banded together to find strength in numbers so that they could express themselves freely through their art work and exhibit their works on their own terms. Ben-Zion, Ilya Bolotowsky, Adolph Gottlieb, Louis harris, Yankel Kufeld, Mark Rothko, Louis Schanker, Joseph Solman, and Nahum Tschacbasov were the original members of this important American artist’s collective. After Kufeld and Tschacbasov dropped out of the group Earl Kerkam and Ralph Rosenborg joined.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Hendrik glintenkamp (1887-1946)
Village View.
Oil on board. Signed, Glintenkamp, lower left. 197x146 mm; 7¾x5¾ inches.
Provenance: Graham Gallery, NY; Private collection.
Born in Augusta, NJ in 1887 Henry Glintenkamp was a successful Painter & Illustrator. He began his artistic training in 1903 at the National Academy Of Design, completing his studies in 1906. In 1907 & 1908 Glintemkamp, studied under Robert Henri whose teachings are described as less rigid, essentially teaching his pupils to paint “Inside out”. In 1913 Henry exhibited artwork at The Armory show. From there he continued to become an accomplished artist, perhaps best known for his anti-war illustrations which appeared in The Masses magazine.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Gene kloss (1903-1996)
Pacific Cove.
Etching. 378x229 mm; 14¾x9 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 36/75 in pencil, lower margin. 1981.
A very good, richly-inked impression. Kloss 596.
With— Night at the Golden Bough, etching. 192x130 mm; 7½x5 inches, full margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1928.
A very good impression of this scarce, early etching. Kloss 116.
The Golden Bough Playhouse is a historic theater in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, on Monte Verde Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues.
Born Alice Geneva Glasier in Oakland, California, Kloss was an American artist known today primarily for her many prints of the Western landscape and ceremonies of the Pueblo people. She first visited New Mexico in 1925 and returned numerous times throughout the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Kloss received widespread recognition and awards during the 1930s. From 1933 to 1944 she was the sole etcher employed by the Public Works of Art Project. Her series of nine New Mexico scenes from that period were reproduced and distributed to public schools across the state. She also created watercolors and oil paintings for the WPA. In 1935, she was one of three Taos artists who represented New Mexico at a Paris exhibition called “Three Centuries of Art in the United States.”
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Shallow Creek.
Lithograph. 360x240 mm; 14¼x9½ inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1939.
A very good impression. Fath 32.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Gene kloss (1903-1996)
Winter Stream.
Etching, drypoint and aquatint. 200x252 mm; 8x10 inches, full margins. Edition of 35. Signed and titled “Winter Creek” in pencil, lower margin. 1934.
A very good impression. Kloss 284.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Arthur rothstein (1915-1985)
Mountain landscape * View of River Valley, possibly in the Wasatch Range.
Silver prints, the images measuring approximately 302x222 mm; 11⅞x8¾ inches, the sheets 356x279 mm; 14x11 inches, and the reverse, each with Rothstein’s signature in pencil on recto and the second (horizontal) image with his credit stamp on verso. 1940; printed 1970s.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Moses soyer (1899-1974)
Untitled (In the Park)
Watercolor. 230x305 mm; 9x12 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto.
Provenance: Private collection, Hawaii.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Karl knaths (1891-1971)
Untitled.
Pencil and watercolor on paper. Signed, Karl Knaths, at lower right. 286x362 mm; 11¼x14¼ inches.
Karl Knaths painted one mural for the Rehoboth Beach Post Office, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware in 1940. This mural was commissioned by the Federal Treasury Section of Fine Arts.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Irene rice pereira (1902-1971)
Untitled (Lizzie and Walter).
Pencil on paper. Signed, Rice Pereira, lower right. 432x552 mm; 17x21¾ inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; Andre Zarre Collection, NY; Acquired from above by the current owner.
Irene Rice Pereira worked in the Easel Division of the New Deal work projects. She also served as a faculty member of the fine arts division of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Design Laboratory.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Adolph gottlieb (1903-1974)
Untitled, (Rockport, MA), and ii) Untitled, (Horses).
i) Watercolor on paper. Signed, Adolph Gottlieb, lower left. Signed, Adolph Gottlieb, and inscribed, 155 State Street/Brooklyn/NY, on verso. 127x203 mm; 5x8 inches.
ii) Watercolor on paper. Signed, Adolph Gottlieb, lower right. Signed, Adolph Gottlieb, and inscribed, 155 State Street/Brooklyn/NY, on verso. 127x203 mm; 5x8 inches.
Provenance: Private collection.
These watercolors reflect Adolph Gottlieb's early figurative style similar to his mural painting from 1941. Commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA) artist's work program, Homestead on the Plain, is Gottlieb's contribution to the mural division. This painting was created for the Yerington Nevada Post Office. Adolph Gottlieb benefited from the New Deal programs working in the easel division as well as the Treasury Department funded mural division. In these programs he met many like minded artists and formed The Ten, who showed together in private exhibitions. After World War II Gottlieb was a key contributor to the Post-War art movement, Action Painting, with his 1940s works, 1950s Blast series and beyond.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Marshall hibbard (1910-1989)
Untitled, (Coast of San Francisco, California).
Oil on canvas, 1947. Signed, Marsh Hibbard, and dated, 1947, lower left. 635x762 mm; 25x30 inches.
Estimate
$2,000 – $4,000
Sol wilson (1896-1974)
Untitled, (Coastal Scene).
Gouache on black paper. Signed, Sol Wilson, lower right. 508x660 mm; 20x26 inches.
Sol Wilson created two murals commissioned by the Treasury section of Fine Arts (TSFA). In 1940 he completed The Indian Ladder for the Delmar NY Post Office, and in 1942 he painted Outdoor Sports for the Westhampton Beach Post Office.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Will barnet (1911-2012)
Child Reaching.
Woodcut on Japan. 183x285 mm; 7¼x11¼ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 58/60 in pencil, lower margin. 1940.
A very good impression. Szoke 83.
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Barnet attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1928-30. He later won a 3-year scholarship to the Art Students League, New York, where he focused on printmaking. Throughout his career, he mastered a variety of techniques, including etching, woodcut and lithography, such as the current lot. An extremely dynamic artist, Barnet changed his style significantly throughout his career. His earliest graphic works captured the social and economic despair which resulted from the Great Depression; during these years he also worked for the WPA, producing prints for the graphics arts division.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Albert pels (1910-1998)
Mother and Child.
Oil on masonite. Signed, Pels, lower right. inscribed, #133, and dated, 1950-58, on verso. 762x610 mm; 30x24 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; thence by descent to the current owner.
Funded by the Treasury Department’s Section of Fine Arts, Albert Pels completed the following two murals: Normal, Illinois Post Office, Development of the State Normal School, 1938; U.S. Courtroom of the Willmington Post Office, Landing of the Swedes at the Rocks in Willmington, Willmington, Delaware. Later moved to the Rodney Square Station Post Office, Willmington, Delaware.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Will barnet (1911-2012)
The Bassinette.
Etching. 280x355 mm; 11x14 inches, full margins. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1939.
A superb impression of this extremely scarce etching.
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Barnet attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1928-30. He later won a 3-year scholarship to the Art Students League, New York, where he focused on printmaking. Throughout his career, he mastered a variety of techniques, including etching, woodcut and lithography. An extremely dynamic artist, Barnet changed his style significantly throughout his career. His earliest graphic works captured the social and economic despair which resulted from the Great Depression; during these years he also worked for the WPA, producing prints for the graphics arts division.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Walker evans (1903-1975)
A Coal Miner’s Home, Vicinity Morgantown, West Virginia.
Silver print, the image measuring 191x238 mm; 7½x9⅜ inches, with the Resettlement Administration Photograph stamp with Evans’ credit in ink and a numeric notation in pencil on verso. 1935.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Arthur rothstein (1915-1985)
Sharecropper’s Daughter, Wilmington, N.C.
Silver print, the image measuring 194x248 mm; 7⅝x9¾ inches, with the Resettlement Administration Photograph stamp with Rothstein’s stamped credit and the title, RA number, and other numeric notations in pencil on verso. 1935.
Claiming, “photography is a universal language, transcending the boundaries of race, politics, and nationality,” Arthur Rothstein documented American life in black-and-white photographs both artful and direct. A founding member of the Photo League, he believed that documentary photography was a tool for social change. He began his career as a photographer with the Resettlement Administration (later the Farm Security Administration), bringing the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression into the public eye. During this time, he took his most iconic photograph, Dust Storm, Cimarron County, Oklahoma (1936), which became emblematic of the Dust Bowl. Rothstein served as a Signal Corps photographer during WWII, and documented the Great Famine in China in 1946–47. Back in the U.S., he spent the remainder of his career editing photographs for Look and Parade and teaching the craft he had mastered so beautifully.
Estimate
$3,000 – $4,500
Joseph hirsch (1910-1981)
Window, (Male Nude in Window / Female Nude in Window).
Lithograph on paper. Full margins. Signed, Joseph Hirsch, and numbered, 2/100, in pencil, lower margin. 229x190 mm; 9x7½ inches each.
Born in Philadelphia, Hirsch began studying art at the age of 17. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School, and furthered his studies with Henry Hensche (1899-1992) in Provincetown, Massachusetts and George Luks (1867-1933) in New York. He learned social realism under Luks, which he embraced throughout his career. During the 1930s, he was engaged in the easel painting division of the WPA. He also worked on murals during this time, painting them for the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America Office Building, the Family Court Building and the Benjamin Franklin High School in Philadelphia.
Estimate
$150 – $250
Will barnet (1911-2012)
Makeshift Kitchen.
Etching and aquatint. 175x200 mm; 6⅞x7⅞ inches, full margins. Artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 20. Signed, titled and inscribed “A.P.” in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by the artist, New York. 1935.
A very good impression of this scarce, early etching. Szoke 14.
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Barnet attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1928-30. He later won a 3 year scholarship to the Art Students League, New York, where he focused on printmaking. Throughout his career, he mastered a variety of techniques, including etching, woodcut and lithography. An extremely dynamic artist, Barnet changed his style significantly throughout his career. His earliest graphic works captured the social and economic despair which resulted from the Great Depression; during these years he also worked for the WPA, producing prints for the graphics arts division.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
John sloan (1871-1951)
The Women’s Page.
Etching. 127x177 mm; 5x7 inches, wide margins. Second state (of 2). Edition of 100. Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. From New York City Life. 1905.
A superb, richly-inked impression with very strong contrasts. Morse 132.
Sloan (1871-1951) produced his New York City Life series of ten etchings from 1905-06, recording the lives of the city’s tenement dwellers. Sloan found these prints difficult to market to buyers, as they were not accustomed to seeing such honest depictions of everyday life.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Marion post wolcott (1910-1990)
Corn husking Day near Tallyho, N.C.
Silver print, the image measuring 114x152 mm; 4½x6 inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Wolcott’s signature, title, negative date, and dated inscription to Evelyne Daitz in pencil on recto, and an extended note to her also in pencil on verso; the original envelope is attached to the mat verso. 1939; printed 1982.
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Daitz, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Instruction.
Lithograph. 265x315 mm; 10⅜x12⅜ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1940.
A very good impression. Fath 41.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
John sloan (1871-1951)
Man, Wife and Child.
Etching. 125x175 mm; 5x7 inches, full margins. Edition of 85 (from an intended edition of 100). Fifth state (of 5). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed and inscribed “imp” by the printer, Ernest D. Roth, New York, lower left corner. From New York City Life. 1905.
A very good impression. Morse 135.
Sloan (1871-1951) produced his New York City Life series of ten etchings from 1905-06, recording the lives of the city’s tenement dwellers. Sloan found these prints difficult to market to buyers, as they were not accustomed to seeing such honest depictions of everyday life.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Will barnet (1911-2012)
Makeshift Kitchen.
Etching and aquatint. 175x195 mm; 7x7¾ inches, full margins. Artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 10. Signed, titled and inscribed “Artist’s Proof” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Stem Graphics, New York, with the blind stamp lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1935.
A very good impression. Szoke 14.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Martin lewis (1881-1962)
Late Traveler.
Drypoint. 247x300 mm; 9⅞x11⅞ inches, full margins. Signed “Martin Lewis P.L.” by the artist’s daughter-in-law, Patricia Lewis, lower right. Printed by Edna Myers, Montreal. 1949, printed circa 1982.
A very good, richly-inked impression of this scarce print with dark contrasts.
According to McCarron, “Late Traveler is remarkable for the black tones that make up the kiosks, in particular their fish-scale patterned roofs, which are difficult to see except in the strongest light. All subway kiosks, like those depicted by Lewis, were torn down by the City of New York. A reconstructed example, built by the city at great expense, stands at Astor Place and Fourth Avenue, the entrace to the Astor Place station of the Lexington Avenue line.” McCarron 143.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Otto hagel (1909-1973)
Hiring Hall, San Francisco Long Shore Union.
Silver print, the image measuring 327x263 mm; 12⅞x10⅜ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Hagel’s signature, title, and negative date in pencil and his copyright stamp on verso. 1936; printed circa 1970.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Daniel celentano (1902-1980)
Untitled, (Subway), and Untitled, (Demonstration).
Oil on board. Estate stamp on verso. 470x400 mm; 18½x15¾ inches.
Participoating in the mural division of the New Deal artist’s work programs, Daniel Celentano was selected for three projects. In 1936 he completed a mural, funded by the Work Relief program (WPA) for the Queensborough Public Library, Flushing Branch, NY. His mural titled, Children in Creative and Cultural Activities was completed in 1940 under the Work Relief Program for P.S. 150 in Queens, NY. A mural commissioned by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts was Celantano’s third and final project, created for the Vidalia City Hall, Vidalia, GA.
Estimate
$10,000 – $12,000
Fritz eichenberg (1901-1990)
Subway.
Wood engraving. 157x120 mm; 6¼x4¾ inches, wide margins. Edition of 200. Signed, titled and inscribed “Ed. 200” in pencil, lower margin. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1934.
A very good impression.
Eichenberg was born in Cologne, Germany and studied at the Municipal School of Applied Arts, Cologne, and the Academy of Graphic Arts, Leipzig. He learned various forms of printmaking during his studies and apprenticed for a printer. He worked as an illustrator in Germany, but in 1933, as Nazi Germany rose to power, he immigrated to the United States. He participated in the Federal Arts Project during the 1930s, and had a successful career as a book illustrator and teacher at the New School for Social Research, Pratt Institute and the University of Rhode Island. Eichenberg’s urban scenes of New York from the 1930s captured the essence of the bustling, growing city.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Woman and Child Climbing the Subway Stairs.
Charcoal and wash on grayish tan laid paper. 420x275 mm; 16½x10⅞ inches. Signed by the artist’s wife, Lydia Freeman, and initialied “LF” in pencil, upper right recto, and with the estate ink stamp, verso.
Provenance: Private collection, Toronto.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Bronx Landscape.
Oil on canvas, 1929. 515x407 mm; 20¼x16 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina, (first wife of the artist); The Slobodkina Foundation, NY, accession number SF0255.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Berenice abbott (1898-1991)
Columbus Circle.
Silver print, the image measuring 330x273 mm; 13x10¾ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Abbott’s signature and the title and date also in pencil in an unknown hand on verso. 1936; printed 1980s.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Howard cook (1901-1980)
Greetings from the House of Weyhe.
Wood engraving on Japan paper. 195x113 mm; 7¾x4½ inches, full margins. Edition of 100. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. 1929.
A very good, dark and evenly-printed impression. Duffy 111.
Cook’s view of the Weyhe Gallery, which operated in the same New York location, a brownstone at 794 Lexington Avenue, from 1923 to 1994. The Weyhe Gallery organized a solo exhibition of Cook’s prints and drawings in February 1929.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Francis criss (1901-1973)
Untitled (Under the El).
Lithograph. 246x388 mm; 9x15¼ inches, full margins. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. 1931.
A very good impression of this scarce print.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Abraham harriton (1893-1986)
Untitled, (Brooklyn Waterfront).
Oil on canvas laid to masonite, c. 1936. Signed, Harriton, and dated indistinctly upper right. 508x635 mm; 20x25 inches.
Abraham Harriton contributed one mural funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA) in 1941. His mural, Plantation, Transportation, Education was created for the Augusta GA Post Office. It was later moved to to the Augusta Convention and Visitor’s Bureau in the Old Enterprise Mill.
Estimate
$700 – $900
Joseph biel (1891-1943)
Untitled, (New York City).
Oil on canvas. Signed, Joseph Biel, lower right. 610x762 mm; 24x30 inches.
Joseph Biel was born in Grodno, Poland (later considered part of Russia). He studied at the Russian Academy in Paris, and at the Workman’s College in Melbourne, Australia. While living in Australia he established the first Jewish library in Melbourne. Upon his arrival in the United States, he studied with George Grosz at the Art Students League.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Eugene higgins (1874-1958)
24th Street, New York Night.
Watercolor on paper. 570x385 mm; 22¾x15¼ inches. Signed in watercolor, lower left recto.
Provenance: ACA American Masters Gallery, Los Angeles, with the original label; private collection, New York.
Higgins was born and raised in Missouri and studied at the St. Louis School of Fine Arts before continuing his studies in Paris at l’École des Beaux-Arts and the Académie Julian. After returning to the United States, Higgins set up his studio in New York. He worked in a social realist style, depicting sympathetic portrayals of the downtrodden. In the late 1930s and early 1940s he was engaged by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts to paint murals in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee and Shawano, Wisconsin.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Albert gold (1916-2006)
Brewerytown, Philadelphia.
Gouchae on illustration board. Signed, Albert Gold, lower right. Signed, Albert Gold, and inscribed as titled on verso. 565x762mm; 22¼x30 inches.
Albert Gold exhibited his work in the 1939 New York World’s Fair. When World War II broke out he enlisted in the Army Corps of Engineers and served as one of a handful of combat artists.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William samuel schwartz (1896-1977)
A Bridge in Baraboo Wisconsin.
Oil on canvas, circa 1938. Signed, William S. Schwartz, lower right. Signed, William S. Schwartz, inscribed, Painting #357, and as titled on verso. 762x915 mm; 30x36 inches.
Provenance: Boyer Galleries, NY; Leonard Start, Naperville, Illinois, until 1979.
William Schwartz received two commissions for murals from the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA). In 1936 he painted Old Settlers for the Fairfield, IL Post Office, and in 1937 he completed Mining in Illinois for the Eldorado, IL Post Office. Schwartz also served on the Advisory Board for New Deal Projects.
Estimate
$10,000 – $15,000
Leo j. meissner (1895-1977)
Cabby?
Linoleum cut on cream paper, 1929. 229x145 mm; 9x5¾ inches, full margins. Signed, dated, titled and numbered 22/50 in pencil, lower margin.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
East Side Street.
Lithograph. 200x255 mm; 7¾x10⅛ inches. Edition of 50. Signed and titled “East Street” in pencil, lower margin. 1928.
A very good impression of this scarce, early lithograph. Cole 13.
Soyer was born in Russia and immigrated to New York at the age of twelve. He studied at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design and with Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958) at the Art Students League. He is known as a Social Realist, depicting the daily struggles of those living in New York City. His chosen subject matter became especially poignant at the onset of the Great Depression, and, after he began to exhibit his work in the late 1920s, he cemented his reputation among the top American realist artists of the 20th century.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
John sloan (1871-1951)
Sculpture in Washington Square.
Etching. 203x254 mm; 8x10 inches, full margins. Edition of 75 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1925.
A very good impression. Morse 218.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Cecil c. bell (1906-1970)
Under the El.
Gouache and pencil on cream wove paper. 211x270 mm; 8¼x10⅝ inches. Signed in pencil, lower edge. Circa 1940.
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Z. Daitz, New York.
Born in Seattle, Bell studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before moving to New York in 1930. In New York, Bell painted everyday scenes of city life and studied at the Art Students League with John Sloan (1871-1951) while working in advertising (most notably for the Donut Corporation). In 1936, the Whitney Museum of American Art purchased Bell’s watercolor, Ice Skaters, Central Park along with several works by WPA artists.
Estimate
$500 – $700
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Three drawings.
Figural Studies, watercolor and pen and ink on cream wove paper. 340x540 mm; 13¼x21¼ inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1945 * Study for Women at Subway, watercolor on cream wove paper. 335x458 mm; 13x18 inches. Circa 1960 * Seven Women. 330x490 mm; 13x19 inches. Both signed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1968.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
Farewell.
Lithograph. 412x321 mm; 16x12½ inches, wide margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1943.
A very good impression of this extremely scarce lithograph. Cole 61.
Cole notes an edition of approximately 100, but we have found only one other impression at auction in the past 30 years, indicating a significantly smaller edition.
Soyer was born in Russia and immigrated to New York at the age of twelve. He studied at Cooper Union, the National Academy of Design and with Guy Pène du Bois (1884-1958) at the Art Students League. He is known as a Social Realist, depicting the daily struggles of those living in New York City. His chosen subject matter became especially poignant at the onset of the Great Depression, and, after he began to exhibit his work in the late 1920s, he cemented his reputation among the top American realist artists of the 20th century.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Group of 4 drawings.
People Walking, watercolor on cream wove paper. 465x375 mm; 14 1/2x18 1/4 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto. With figural studies in ink verso. Circa 1975 * Standing Nude, ink and watercolor. 233x168 mm; 9¼x6½ inches. Initialed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1970 * Girl Walking, pen and ink with watercolor. 235x275 mm; 9⅜x10¾ inches. Initialed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1972. * Study of Youths Walking, watercolor. 193x400 mm; 7½x15¾ inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1975.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Group of 4 etchings.
Ice Cream Cones No. 2, 1945 * Seated Woman with Hat, 1949 * Fourteenth Street Oriental, 1950 * Two Girls Outdoors (Helping with the Veil, 1953. Each printed later, 1981. Each signed in pencil, lower right. Various sizes.
Very good impression with strong contrasts.
Bishop was born in Cincinnati, though moved often as a child. She began studying art at age 12 in Detroit at the John Wicker Art School. In 1918, she moved to New York and continued her studies at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Art Students League where she studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller who greatly influenced her.
She acquired her studio in Union Square in 1926 and become part of a group of artists known as the Fourteenth Street School who depicted the urban environment and its inhabitants in a realist manner. She often depicted the New Woman that first emerged in the 1920s who worked outside the home; her subjects were often shopping, riding the subway and enjoying urban life. She looked towards Old Masters, particularly Dutch and Flemish artists, in how she rendered the form and movement of city dwellers.
In 1938, she worked as a Muralist for the WPA, and completed a mural for the U.S. Post Office in New Lexington, Ohio. Teller 37, 44, 45 and 49.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Spectators.
Etching. 177x125 mm; 7x5 inches, full margins. With the artist’s signature ink stamp, lower right, and numbered 50/50 in pencil, lower left. Published by the Sylvan Cole Gallery and Midtown Galleries, New York. From Eight Etchings: 1927–1934. 1933 (printed 1989).
A very good impression. Teller 15.
Bishop was born in Cincinnati, though moved often as a child. She began studying art at age 12 in Detroit at the John Wicker Art School. In 1918, she moved to New York and continued her studies at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Art Students League where she studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller who greatly influenced her.
She acquired her studio in Union Square in 1926 and become part of a group of artists known as the Fourteenth Street School who depicted the urban environment and its inhabitants in a realist manner. She often depicted the New Woman that first emerged in the 1920s who worked outside the home; her subjects were often shopping, riding the subway and enjoying urban life. She looked towards Old Masters, particularly Dutch and Flemish artists, in how she rendered the form and movement of city dwellers.
In 1938, she worked as a Muralist for the WPA, and completed a mural for the U.S. Post Office in New Lexington, Ohio.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Mabel dwight (1875-1955)
Fish.
Color lithograph. 261x273 mm; 10½x10¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 60. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. Printed by George C. Miller, New York. 1928.
A very good impression. Robinson/Pirog 30.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Café No. 2.
Lithograph. 317x250 mm; 12½x9⅞ inches, wide margins. Edition of 100. Signed, dated and inscribed “Ed. 100” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. Published by Hamilton Easter Art Field Foundation. 1935.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. Davis 67.
Kuniyoshi, born in Okayama, Japan came to the United States in 1906, settling in New York after briefly exploring the West Coast. During the mid-1930s, he worked in the graphics division of the Federal Arts Project while exhibiting his work internationally. Though his work was characterized as poetic and surreal, his fantastic scenes turned somber during World War II while he worked with the Office of War Information
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Café du Dôme.
Lithograph on Chine appliqué. 215x305 mm; 8½12 inches, wide margins. Edition of 30. Signed and inscribed “30 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1928.
A very good impression. Sasowsky 2.
Born in Paris, the second son in a well-to-do family, Marsh attended Yale University and then moved to New York where, during the early 1920s, he worked as an illustrator and took classes at the Art Students League. Marsh was equally influenced by his art teachers in New York, notably John Sloan (1871-1951), as well as American Regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) and Old Masters such as Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. He wholly rejected the modern artistic movements gaining strength in America at the time-Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction. Instead he pursued a style that is best summed up as social realism: depictions of everyday life in New York, Coney Island beach scenes, vaudeville and burlesque women, the jobless on the streets of New York and the railroad yards and freight trains in New York and New Jersey.
He participated in the federal art programs under the WPA, painting two murals in Washington, DC, and, funded by the Treasury Relief Art Project, completed a series of frescoes in the New York Customs House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, that depict eight New York Harbor scenes and eight portraits of great navigators. It is one of the most celebrated mural installations created under the New Deal in New York City.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Musicians Hangout.
Watercolor and pen and ink on board. 235x280 mm; 9½x11⅛ inches. Signed in crayon, upper right recto, and titled in crayon, lower left recto. Circa 1932.
Provenance: Private collection, Toronto.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Abraham mark datz (1889-1969)
Washington Square.
Oil on cotton fabric, 1935. Signed, A.M. Datz, lower left. Signed, A. Mark Datz, Dated, 1935, and inscribed, G Garibaldi, on verso. Inscribed as titled on stretcher. 610x685 mm; 24x27 inches.
Born in Chernova, Russia and immigrating the United States in 1903 Abraham Mark Datz is primarily known for his paintings, and etchings. He studied at the National Academy of Design, Cooper Union Art School, and Beaux-Arts Institute of Design. Syracuse University maintains the Datz archive, and his works are rarely sold at auction. His art remains in the collections of The Whitney Museum of American Art, Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Oshkosh Museum of Art, Los Angeles Museum of Art, and The New York Public Library.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Three lithographs.
The Municipal Building. 200x251; 7⅛x9⅞ inches, wide margins. Edition of approximately 20. Signed, dated and numbered 3/10 in pencil, lower margin. 1931 * The Clown’s Story. 237x315 mm; 9¼x12⅜ inches, full margins. Published by American Artist’s Group, New York. 1937 * The Passing Show.
Lithograph. 236x270 mm; 9¼x10⅝ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1941.
Very good impressions. McCulloch 26, 127.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Two for the Show.
Lithograph. 295x355 mm; 11⅝x14 inches, full margins. Edition of less than 35. Signed and inscribed “Shubert Alley— Casting Day” in pencil, lower margin. 1933.
A very good impression of this rare lithograph. McCulloch 71.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Two lithographs.
Shubert Alley Intermission. 251x318 mm; 9⅞x12½ inches, wide margins. Signed, titled “Shubert Alley” and dated in pencil, lower margin. 1932 * Four to Go. 295x356 mm; 11⅝x14 inches, full margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 1933. Both editions of approximately 35.
Very good impressions. McCulloch 59 and 74.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Bowery—Upright.
Lithograph on Chine appliqué. 245x180 mm; 9⅝x7⅛ inches, wide margins. Signed and numbered 18/21 in pencil, lower margin. 1932.
A very good impression of this extremely scarce lithograph. Sasowsky 26.
Born in Paris, the second son in a well-to-do family, Marsh attended Yale University and then moved to New York where, during the early 1920s, he worked as an illustrator and took classes at the Art Students League. Marsh was equally influenced by his art teachers in New York, notably John Sloan, as well as American Regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton and Old Masters such as Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. He wholly rejected the avant-garde artistic movements gaining strength in America at the time—Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction. Instead he pursued a style that is best summed up as modern social realism: depictions of everyday life in New York, Coney Island beach scenes, vaudeville and burlesque women, the jobless on the streets of New York and the railroad yards and freight trains in New York and New Jersey.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Charles locke (1899-1983)
Newstand, Rainy Day.
Lithograph. 310x225 mm; 12x8¾ inches, full margins. Edition of only 25. Signed and inscribed “25 prints” in pencil, lower margin. Circa 1930.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph.
Locke was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and studied at the Ohio Mechanics Institute (later the Cincinnati Art Academy), and at the Art Students League with Joseph Pennell (1857-1926). He became a teacher at the Arts Students League, teaching lithography between 1922 and 1937. During the 1930s, he was engaged as a printmaker by the WPA.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
Railroad Waiting Room.
Lithograph. 306x241 mm; 12x9½ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1954.
A very good, dark impression. Cole 69.
Soyer is known for his social realist depictions of daily life around New York City. He participated in the WPA as a muralist, completing the murals at the Kingsessing Station Post Office in Philadelphia with his brother Moses (1899-1974) in 1939, and painting two murals for the Queens Borough Public Library in 1936. He was also engaged as a printmaker, and the WPA published many of his lithographs during that time.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Don freeman (1908-1978)
Dress Up Day
Watercolor, pen and ink and pencil on cream wove paper. 215x280 mm; 8½x11 inches. Signed and initialed “LF” by the artist’s wife, Lydia Freeman, lower left recto.
Provenance: Private collection, Toronto.
With—Ladies of the Evening, lithograph. 235x162 mm; 9¼x6>AF3/8> inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 50. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1937.
A very good impression.
This work closely relates to Freeman’s 1934 lithograph of the same name, which was his first print made for the Public Works of Art Project. McCullough 117.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
John sloan (1871-1951)
Two etchings.
Girls Sliding. 109x151 mm; 4¼x6 inches, full margins. Fourth state (of 4). Edition of 105. Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed by the printer, Peter Platt, in pencil, lower left. 1915 * Growing up in Greenwich Village. 165x83 mm; 6½x3¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 80 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed by the printer, Ernest Roth, lower left in pencil. 1916.
Very good impressions. Morse 171 and 180.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Tattoo—Shave—Haircut.
Etching. 252x245 mm; 9⅞x9⅝ inches, full margins. Tenth state (of 10). Numbered 34/100 in pencil, lower left. Printed by Andersen-Lamb, Brooklyn. Published in 1969 by the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with the blind stamp lower right. 1933.
A very good impression. Sasowsky 140.
This scene beneath the El on the Bowery is also depicted in Marsh’s tempera painting Tattoo and Haircut of the same year, now at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Louis lozowick (1892-1973)
Spring on Fifth Avenue.
Lithograph. 303x193 mm; 12x7⅝ inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 10/20 in pencil, lower margin. 1940.
A very good impression of this extremely scarce lithograph. Flint 185.
Lozowick was born in Ludvinovka, a small village near Kiev and moved to the larger city of Kiev with his brother as a child. He studied at the Kiev Art School before following his brother again to New York in 1906 where he settled in New Jersey, got a job at a factory, and learned English. He continued his studies, at the National Academy of Design, taking courses with Emil Carlsen and Leon Kroll. They pushed Lozowick to seek a personal viewpoint in his artwork beyond the traditional training. He took a break from making art while he was a student at Ohio State University and joined the army during World War I.
The modern European art movements had a profound effect on Lozowick, and between 1920 and 1924 he traveled to Europe and spent time meeting modern artists and enmeshing himself into artistic and cultural communities. He was particularly drawn to Cubist and Futurist styles, and in 1923, when he was introduced to lithography, he applied their principles to American subject matter.
Lozowick was among a small group of artists, including Jan Matulka and Howard Cook, who depicted the industrial city. Embracing these European movements while choosing specifically American subject matter was typical of Precisionism, and while artists like Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford never organized, they shared the approach of paring down their compositions to the simplest of forms. After the fall of the stock market and as the country turned towards despair in the 1930s, Lozowick adapted his concept of the city. Along with many artists, he turned toward depicting the social reality of its residents who were affected by the Depression. Throughout his career, New York remained his primary subject matter, and he reflected in 1943, “From the innumerable choices which our complex and tradition-laden civilization presents to the artist, I have chosen one which seems to suit my training and temperament. I might characterize it this: ‘Industry harnessed by Man for the Benefit of Mankind.’”
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Mabel dwight (1875-1955)
Sunday Afternoon.
Lithograph. 260x320 mm; 10¼x12½ inches, wide margins. Second state (of 2). Edition of only 15. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1934.
A very good impression of this extremely scarce lithograph. Robinson/Pirog 73.
Dwight (1876-1955) was born in Cincinnati and travelled extensively as a child and young adult. She studied at the Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco in the late 1890s, though gave up her nascent reputation as an artist once she was married in 1906. In 1917, she separated from her husband and resumed painting, joining the Whitney Studio Club in New York. With the encouragement of Carl Zigrosser, who often urged American artists to make a pilgrimage to the Atelier Desjobert, she traveled to Paris in 1927 to learn lithography. He said of her, “Dwight did not just skim the surface of the comic and incongruous, but probed into the depths, ever imbued with pity and compassion, a sense of irony, and the understanding that comes of profound experience… There is detachment also, the sense of seeing life from afar, the long view of things.” After returning to New York, her mature style blossomed, blending social realist subjects with her unique brand of satire. In 1928, she produced her first American lithographs and printed 17 works in collaboration with George Miller. She went on to produce lithographs for the Federal Arts Projects during the Great Depression.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
David fredenthal (1914-1958)
Manhattan and Me.
Watercolor on paper, 1949. Signed, David Fredenthal, lower right. 476x635 mm; 18¾x25 inches.
Provenance: The Downtown Gallery, NY; Peridot Gallery, NY; The New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, (De-Accessioned).
David Fredenthal was commissioned to create two murals under the Treasury Section of Fine Arts (TSFA). He created <iLogging</i> for the Manistique Michigan Post Office in 1941, and Mail on the Farm that same year for the Caro Michigan Post Office. A separate commission by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Works Relief Program along with John Tabaczuk, Edgar Yaeger, and Gustave Hildebrand to create art for the Detroit Naval Armory, Detroit Michigan.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
William gropper (1897-1977)
Old Country.
Oil on canvas. Signed, Gropper, lower left. 457x559 mm; 18x22 inches.
Provenance: [Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles, CA]; Private collection; [Christie’s, NY, September 1, 2010, Lot 39].
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Albert gold (1916-2006)
Banana Boat.
Watercolor on paper. Signed, Albert Gold, upper left. 590x432 mm; 23¼x17 inches.
Albert Gold exhibited his work in the 1939 New York World's Fair. When World War II broke out he enlisted in the Army Corps of Engineers and served as one of a handful of combat artists.
Gold's works are in the collections of: The Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Washington, DC; Philadelphia Art Museum, (Atwater Kent collection), Philadelphia, PA; and others.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Joseph wolins (1915-1999)
Spring, Hester park, Lower East Side.
Oil on canvas, 1939. Signed, Wolins, dated, 1937, lower left. Signed, Joseph Wolins, dated, 1939, and inscribed as titled on stretcher. 610x762 mm; 24x30 inches.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Howard cook (1901-1980)
Market Scene, Taxco.
Pencil on cream wove paper. 245x335 mm; 9⅝x13¼ inches. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1932.
Provenance: The Estate of Evelyne Z. Daitz, New York.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Isaac friedlander (1890-1968)
East Side (New York).
Etching. 195x138 mm; 7¾x5½ inches, wide margins. Artist’s proof. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed “ap” in pencil, lower margin. 1931.
A superb, richly-inked impression of this very scarce etching.
Friedlander was born in Latvia. In 1912, he went to Italy where he met and worked with the Russian artist Maxim Gorky. During this period he also received his only art training, studying etching, drawing and relief printing at the Academy of Rome. In 1937, he emigrated to New York where he worked full time as an artist until his death. He is best known for his woodcuts and etchings, many of which are embued with a sharp social commentary reflecting the despair of the WPA era. His work is in many major American museums, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC, and the Brooklyn Museum, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Isabel bishop (1902-1988)
Three etchings.
Sisters, 1948 * Interlude, 1952 * Summer Travelers No. 2, 1958. Each printed later, 1981-85. Each signed in pencil, lower right. Various sizes.
Very good impressions.
Bishop was born in Cincinnati, though moved often as a child. She began studying art at age 12 in Detroit at the John Wicker Art School. In 1918, she moved to New York and continued her studies at the New York School of Applied Design for Women and the Art Students League where she studied with Kenneth Hayes Miller who greatly influenced her work.
She acquired her studio in Union Square in 1926 and become part of a group of artists known as the Fourteenth Street School who depicted the urban environment and its inhabitants in a realist manner. She often depicted the New Woman that first emerged in the 1920s who worked outside the home; her subjects were often shopping, riding the subway and enjoying urban life. She looked towards Old Masters, particularly Dutch and Flemish artists, in how she rendered the form and movement of city dwellers.
In 1938, she worked as a Muralist for the WPA, and completed a mural for the U.S. Post Office in New Lexington, Ohio. Teller 43A, 48 and 52.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Kyra markham (1891-1967)
Two lithographs.
And He Said. 308x250 mm; 12⅛x9⅞ inches, full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 25/50 in pencil, lower margin. 1943 * Penny, Lady?. 245x325 mm; 9¾x12¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 50. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed “Ed 50” in pencil, lower margin. 1936.
Very good impressions.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Mabel dwight (1875-1955)
Two lithographs.
Children’s Clinic (#2). 245x303 mm; 9½x11⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 100. Signed in pencil, lower right. Printed by George Miller, New York. Published by American Artist Group, New York, with the ink stamp verso. 1935 * In the Subway. 233x185 mm; 9¼x7 inches, full margins. Edition of 30. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. 1927.
A very good impression. Robinson/Pirog 18 and 79.
Dwight was born in Cincinnati and travelled extensively as a child and young adult. She studied at the Hopkins School of Art in San Francisco in the late 1890s, though gave up her nascent reputation as an artist once she was married in 1906. In 1917, she separated from her husband and resumed painting, joining the Whitney Studio Club in New York. With the encouragement of Carl Zigrosser, who often urged American artists to make a pilgrimage to the Atelier Desjobert, she traveled to Paris in 1927 to learn lithography. He said of her, “Dwight did not just skim the surface of the comic and incongruous, but probed into the depths, ever imbued with pity and compassion, a sense of irony, and the understanding that comes of profound experience… There is detachment also, the sense of seeing life from afar, the long view of things.” After returning to New York, her mature style blossomed, blending social realist subjects with her unique brand of satire. In 1928, she produced her first American lithographs and printed 17 works in collaboration with George Miller. She went on to produce lithographs for the Federal Arts Projects during the Great Depression.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Louis lozowick (1892-1973)
Loading (Loading Girders).
Lithograph. 272x190 mm; 10¾x7½ inches, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered IX/X in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George C. Miller and Son, New York. 1930, printed 1972.
A very good impression. Flint 75.
Lozowick (1892-1973) was born in Ludvinovka, a small village near Kiev and moved to the larger city of Kiev with his brother as a child. He studied at the Kiev Art School before following his brother again to New York in 1906 where he settled in New Jersey, got a job at a factory, and learned English. He continued his studies, at the National Academy of Design, taking courses with Emil Carlsen and Leon Kroll. They pushed Lozowick to seek a personal viewpoint in his artwork beyond the traditional training. He took a break from making art while he was a student at Ohio State University and joined the army during World War I.
The modern European art movements had a profound effect on Lozowick, and between 1920 and 1924 he traveled to Europe and spent time meeting modern artists and enmeshing himself into artistic and cultural communities. He was particularly drawn to Cubist and Futurist styles, and in 1923, when he was introduced to lithography, he applied their principles to American subject matter.
Lozowick was among a small group of artists, including Jan Matulka and Howard Cook, who depicted the industrial city. Embracing these European movements while choosing specifically American subject matter was typical of Precisionism, and while artists like Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford never organized, they shared the approach of paring down their compositions to the simplest of forms. After the fall of the stock market and as the country turned towards despair in the 1930s, Lozowick adapted his concept of the city. Along with many artists, he turned toward depicting the social reality of its residents who were affected by the Depression. Throughout his career, New York remained his primary subject matter, and he reflected in 1943, “From the innumerable choices which our complex and tradition-laden civilization presents to the artist, I have chosen one which seems to suit my training and temperament. I might characterize it this: ‘Industry harnessed by Man for the Benefit of Mankind.’“
In the 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression, Lozowick turned toward depicting the social reality of New York City and its residents who were affected by economic despair. He also worked for public programs that supported artists, such as the New York Graphic Arts Division of the WPA and the Treasury Relief Art Project creating numerous prints and, most notably, in 1936, a mural for the New York City General Post Office.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Charles turzak (1899-1986)
The Workers.
Wood engraving. 153x115 mm; 6x4½ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 24/50 in pencil, lower margin. Circa 1935.
A very good, evenly-printed impression.
Turzak attended the Art Institute of Chicago while working as a freelancer. He excelled in creating woodcut prints and taught the medium at the Academy of Fine Arts. After returning from his studies in Europe, Turzak was employed by the WPA Federal Arts Project in Chicago, where his prints depicted the city’s preserverence and strength in the face of hardship and loss of faith.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Leonard pytlak (1910-1998)
Untitled (Foundry).
Color screenprint. 400x320 mm; 15¾x12⅝ inches, wide margins. Signed twice in pencil, lower right. 1946-47.
A very good impression with strong colors.
Pytlak, a native of Newark, New Jersey, attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Art as well as the Art Students League in New York. He was a painter as well as a printmaker and executed murals while working for the WPA in the 1930s. In 1938, Pytlak joined the special screenprinting unit led by Anthony Velonis in the Federal Art Project’s Graphic Arts department in New York, where he was among the first artists to use screenprinting as a fine art medium. He was a founder of and became president of the National Serigraph Society and was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship for printmaking in 1941. He would continue to promote the medium through exhibiting and teaching throughout his career. Between 1941 and 1949, Pytlak is estimated to have created 96 screenprints, and during these years he had several solo exhibitions, including at the ACA Gallery, New York in 1942; the Weyhe Gallery, New York, in 1944; the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., in 1948; and the Serigraph Gallery, New York, in 1949.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Louis lozowick (1892-1973)
Graphic Arts (December).
Lithograph. 250x330 mm; 9⅞x13 inches, full margins. Artist’s proof. Signed and inscribed “A.P.” in pencil, lower right recto. Printed by George Miller, New York. From A Tribute to American Industry. 1943-44.
A very good impression. Flint 211.
In 1943, E.F. Schmidt Company, Milwaukee, commissioned Lozowick to create a series of 12 lithographs for a 1945 calendar. According to Flint, only a few artist’s and printer’s proofs were printed of each image.
Lozowick was born in Ludvinovka, a small village near Kiev and moved to the larger city of Kiev with his brother as a child. He studied at the Kiev Art School before following his brother again to New York in 1906 where he settled in New Jersey, got a job at a factory, and learned English. He continued his studies, at the National Academy of Design, taking courses with Emil Carlsen and Leon Kroll. They pushed Lozowick to seek a personal viewpoint in his artwork beyond the traditional training. He took a break from making art while he was a student at Ohio State University and joined the army during World War I.
The modern European art movements had a profound effect on Lozowick, and between 1920 and 1924 he traveled to Europe and spent time meeting modern artists and enmeshing himself into artistic and cultural communities. He was particularly drawn to Cubist and Futurist styles, and in 1923, when he was introduced to lithography, he applied their principles to American subject matter.
Lozowick was among a small group of artists, including Jan Matulka and Howard Cook, who depicted the industrial city. Embracing these European movements while choosing specifically American subject matter was typical of Precisionism, and while artists like Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford never organized, they shared the approach of paring down their compositions to the simplest of forms. After the fall of the stock market and as the country turned towards despair in the 1930s, Lozowick adapted his concept of the city. Along with many artists, he turned toward depicting the social reality of its residents who were affected by the Depression. Throughout his career, New York remained his primary subject matter, and he reflected in 1943, “From the innumerable choices which our complex and tradition-laden civilization presents to the artist, I have chosen one which seems to suit my training and temperament. I might characterize it this: ‘Industry harnessed by Man for the Benefit of Mankind.’” Flint 75.
In the 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression, Lozowick turned toward depicting the social reality of New York City and its residents who were affected by economic despair. He also worked for public programs that supported artists, such as the New York Graphic Arts Division of the WPA and the Treasury Relief Art Project creating numerous prints and, most notably, in 1936, a mural for the New York City General Post Office.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Paul meltsner (1905-1966)
Untitled.
Oil on canvas. Signed, Paul Meltsner, lower right. 610x558 mm; 24x20 inches.
Paul Meltsner worked in the mural division of New Deal Works Programs. Begun in 1935 and completed in 1936, U.S. Treasury funds were used to build a post office in Bellevue, Ohio. In 1937, Meltsner was awarded and completed a mural project for the post office.
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Richard crist (1908-1985)
Steel Mill.
Oil on canvas, 1939. Signed, Richard Crist, and dated, 39, lower right. 660x915 mm; 26x36 inches.
Born in Cleveland in 1909, Richard Crist began his art education at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, followed by the Art Institute of Chicago. He returned to Pittsburgh in the 1930’s and joined the WPA Art Project, painting easel work and one large school mural. He later traveled to Mexico where he met Diego Rivera and worked under David Siqueiros. Returning to Pittsburgh, Crist was encouraged by Buck’s County Modernist, Lloyd Ney, to paint non-objectively. His works were in museum exhibitions at such venues as the Cincinnati Art Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Guggenheim Museum. Much of Crist’s work is owned by Pennsylvania State University, University of Pennsylvania, and Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh. The last decades of Crist’s life were spent as part of the Woodstock art colony from 1960 until his death in 1985.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Nick buongiorno (1908-1985)
Stuyvesant Town, 14th Street Eastbound.
Watercolor on paper, c. 1945. Signed, Buongiorno, lower left. 787x572 mm; 31x22½ inches.
Born in New York City in 1908, Buongiorno contributed paintings as part of the easel division of the artists works program in the Municipal Art Galleries’ third retrospective held between their 47th and 48th exhibitions, June 1938 through April 1939. The galleries were closed after the 48th exhibition and the Municipal Art Committee disbanded.
Estimate
$300 – $500
Irene rice pereira (1902-1971)
Cape Mercy.
Ink on brown paper. Signed, Irene Rice Pereira, and dated, 36, lower right. 584x444 mm; 23x17½ inches.
Irene Rice Pereira worked in the Easel Division of the New Deal work projects. She also served as a faculty member of the fine arts division of the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Design Laboratory.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Nicolai cikovsky (1894-1984)
On the Waterfront.
Oil on canvas. Signed, M. Cikovsky, lower right. 229x305 mm; 9x12 inches.
This painting is a study for an important work of the same title. The larger version is documented with a full page illustration in Nancy Heller's book, The Regionalists, Watson-Guptil Publications, 1976.
Nicolai Cikoivsky worked in the mural division of the New Deal artist's work programs. He was awareded three mural projects. In 1937, he created a large oil on canvas for the Silver Spring Post Office, Silver Spring, MD. He completed four murals for The Stewart Lee Udall Department of the Interior Building, Washington, DC, 1938. In 1939, he completed five tempera panels for the Post Office in Townsend, MD. All of these works survive. The Silver Spring, MD Post Office mural is on permanent display in Silver Spring's Brigadier General Charles E. McGee Library.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
Men on the Docks.
Ink on paper, c. 1930s. Signed, Raphael Soyer, Lower left. 248x190 mm; 9¾x7½ inches.
Provenance: Forum Gallery, NY.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Joseph biel (1891-1943)
Untitled, (Wharf Scene).
Oil on canvas. Signed, Joseph Biel, lower left. 710x915 mm; 28x36 inches.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Leo j. meissner (1895-1977)
Shine?
Linoleum cut on cream paper, 1928. 293x216 mm; 11½x8½ inches, full margins. Signed, dated, titled and numbered 5/30 in pencil, lower margin.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
John sloan (1871-1951)
Shine, Washington Square.
Etching. 125x175 mm; 5x7 inches, full margins. Fifth state (of 5). Edition of 80 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed and inscribed “imp (old paper)” by the printer, Ernest D. Roth, New York, lower margin. 1923.
A very good impression. Morse 206.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William gropper (1897-1977)
Machine Operator.
Lithography crayon and ink on paper laid to board. Signed, Gropper, lower right. Stamped, William Gropper Croton-On-Hudson, on frame backing. 18¼x12¼ inches.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Negroes’ Barbershop Interior, Atlanta, Georgia.
Silver print, the image measuring 191x241 mm; 7½x9½ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Evans’ credit and negative date in Jack Welpott’s hand in pencil on verso. 1936; printed circa 1950
Provenance: Collection of Jan Welpott Danielle, a gift from her father, photographer and educator, Jack Welpott (1923-2007). While studying photography with Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University, Jack Welpott printed this photograph from the original Walker Evans negatives, which were on loan to Smith from the FSA Collection (housed in the Library of Congress, D.C.).
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Ben shahn (1898-1969)
Amusements, Circleville, Ohio.
Silver print, the image measuring 165x238 mm; 6½x9⅜ inches, the mount 279x356 mm; 11x14 inches. 1938; printed 1960s.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Joseph wolins (1915-1999)
Chicken Market.
Oil on canvas, 1938. Signed, Wolins, and dated, 1938, lower right. Signed, Joseph Wolins, dated, 1938, and inscribed as titled on stretcher. 610x1016 mm; 24x40 inches.
Joseph Wolins began studying art in 1935 at age 20. During his time at New York City’s National Academy of Design, he studied under Leon Kroll. In 1937 he traveled to Europe, there discovering the works of Italian Renaissance painters Piero Della Francesca and Giotto. While in Europe Wolins also had the opportunity to see the Contemporary Paris Exhibition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne. Among the modern works exhibited were Picasso’s Guernica, and Alexander Calder’s Mercury Fountain whose influence Wolins would carry with him throughout his career.
After returning home Joseph joined The Federal Art Project, a branch of the WPA (Works Progress Administration) which employed as many as 10,000 artists at any given time. Typically known for the jarring images of life’s difficulty during The Great Depression (1929-1939) Wolins work revealed a more cubist/impressionistic approach very much motivated by his time in Europe.
In 1947 Wolins would have his first solo exhibition. He would go on to be featured at the 1964/65 New York World’s fair, The Whitney Museum, The Smithsonian and many others. Joseph Wolins, died in 1999, in New York City.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Marion post wolcott (1910-1990)
Signs on store fronts advertising sales during tobacco auction in Zebulon, North Carolina.
Silver ferrotyped print, the image measuring 184x244 mm; 7¼x9⅝ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with Wolcott’s F.S.A. credit stamp, a Farm Security Administration stamp, the typed title and date, and the RA number in pencil on verso. 1939.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Minna citron (1896-1991)
Demonstration.
Lithograph. 300x215 mm; 11¾x8½ inches, full margins. Signed, dated, numbered 10/25 and inscribed “Will Goldberg imp” in pencil, lower margin. 1933.
A very good impression.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Ben shahn (1898-1969)
Untitled, (Sholes and Glidden Typewriter).
Ink on paper. Signed, Ben Shahn, lower right. 350x241 mm; 12x9½ inches.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Billboard, Birmingham, Alabama * Country Store, Vicinity Moundville, Alabama * Butcher’s Sign, Mississippi.
Together, 3 silver prints, the first two images measuring approximately 191x241 mm; 7½x9½ inches, the sheets slightly larger, with Evans’ credit and negative date in Jack Welpott’s hand in pencil on verso; the last image measuring 162x197 mm; 6⅜7¾ inches, the Crescent board mount 432x349 mm; 17x13¾ inches, with Welpott’s notation “Walker Evans photograph Printed by Jack Welpott from original negative around 1950” in ink on mount verso. 1936; printed circa 1950.
Provenance: Collection of Jan Welpott Danielle, a gift from her father, photographer and educator, Jack Welpott (1923-2007). While studying photography with Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University, Jack Welpott printed these photographs from the original Walker Evans negatives, which were on loan to Smith from the FSA Collection (housed in the Library of Congress, D.C.).
Estimate
$5,000 – $7,500
Raphael soyer (1899-1987)
The Tailor.
Pencil on paper, c. 1949. Signed, Raphael Soyer, lower right. 432x356 mm; 17x14 inches.
Provenance: Christie’s, NY, May 26, 1988, lot 342; Forum Gallery, NY. This is a study for the painting of the same name which is illustrated in Lloyd Goodrich’s book, Raphael Soyer, p.124; and Forum Gallery’s publication that accompanied an exhibition, Raphael Soyer: Finding America, January 28 - March 5, 2005.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Ernest fiene (1894-1965)
Man at a Sewing Machine.
Conte crayon on paper. Signed, Ernest Fiene, lower right. 482x635 mm; 19x25 inches.
This drawing is a study for the mural Victory of Light Over Darkness, completed in 1940, which commemorates the Labor Movement following the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in 1911. The mural survives and is located at The High School of Fashion Industries (formerly the Central High School of Needle Trades), NY. The building was constructed under the New Deal.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Kindred mcleary (1901-1949)
Scenes of New York, Harlem, (Mural Study).
Tempera on fiberboard, c. 1937. Inscribed, ORIGINAL SKETCH FOR MURAL - MADISON SQUARE POSTAL STATION / KINDRED MCLEARY MURAL PAINTER, in bottom margin. 610x508 mm; 24x20 inches.
Working from 1937 until 1939, Kindred McLeary completed eight frescoes for the Madison Square Station Post Office located on East 23rd Street, New York, NY. The theme of the murals is postal delivery in the various neighborhoods of the five boroughs of New York, this study depicting Harlem. The murals are still visible by visitors to the main room of the post offce.
McLeary completed four mural projects during the works programs in Pittsburg, PA, Norwalk, Ct, Washington, DC, and the before mentioned work in New York City.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
James daugherty (1887-1974)
Study for The Life and Times of General Israel Putnam of Connecticut.
Pencil, ink, and watercolor on paper, 1935. Estate stamp at lower right margin and on verso. 387x710 mm; 15¼x28 inches.
Provenance: Estate of the artist; Private collection, Connecticut.
James Daugherty completed many murals in the state of Connecticut under the Public Works Art Project, (PWAP), including: Junior Senior High School, (now Town Hall) Darien, CT; Stamford High School, Stamford, CT. He also created a mural for the Greenwich Town Hall under the Federal Arts Project, (FAP), completed in 1935. This mural now hangs in the Greenwich Public Library, Greenwich, CT. His only mural project awarded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, (TSFA) was completed in 1939 for the Virden, IL Post Office. This study was created for a mural commissioned by the Town of Greenwich, CT Originally housed in the office of the First Selectman in the Town Hall. The mural was moved to the Hamilton Avenue School in 1940. The project was funded by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) Federal Arts Project (FAP).
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Anonymous.
Mural Study.
Oil on masonite. 610x1219 mm; 24x48 inches.
Estimate
$500 – $700
Anatol schulkin (1899-1961)
Untitled, (Mural Study).
Pencil and ink on tissue paper laid to board. 380x495 mm; 15x19½ inches.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Study for Williamsburg Housing Project Mural.
Pencil, ink, and gouache on illustration board, c. 1936. Inscribed by artist’s first wife, Esphyr Slobodkina, Ilya Bolotowsky (by ES), lower right. 159x342 mm; 6¼x13½ inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina; Sid Deutsch Gallery, NY; Private collection, NJ.
In 1936 the Federal Art Project (FAP), Works Progress Administration (WPA) work relief program commissioned Paul Kelpe, Ilya Bolotowsky, Balcomb Greene, and Albert Swinden to create murals for the community rooms of the Williamsburg Public Housing Development in Brooklyn, NY. Thought destroyed, these murals resurfaced during a renovation having been sealed behind false walls for decades. The four abstract murals are now on permanent loan from the New York Housing Authority, and on display at the Brooklyn Museum. This study, signed by the artist’s first wife (inverted from the final variation of the composition) shows both the hard-edge and biomorphic abstract forms employed by the artist at this point in his career.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Untitled.
Pencil and gouache on paper. Inscribed by artist’s first wife, Esphyr Slobodkina, Ilya Bolotowsky (by ES), lower right. 406x533 mm; 16x21 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina; Sid Deutsch gallery; Private collection, NJ.
This study has several forms that relate to Ilya Bolotowsky’s 1939 mural commissioned by the Federal Art Project (FAP), Works Progress Administration (WPA) work relief program for The Hall of Sciences as part of the New York Wold’s Fair, now part of the Art Institute of Chicago’s permanent collection. The pencil and gouache work is most probably an early study as the artist developed his final composition submitted for the project. Bolotowsky would complete four Federal Art Projects between the years1936 and 1942.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
Mural Studies.
Ink on paper. Inscribed by artist’s first wife, Esphyr Slobodkina, Ilya Bolotowsky (by ES), lower right. 406x508 mm; 16x20 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina; Sid Deutsch gallery; Private collection, NJ.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Esphyr slobodkina (1908-2002)
Untitled, (Mural Study).
Pencil on paper, circa 1938. 102x254 mm; 4x10 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Private collection.
Esphyr Slobodkina marrried Ilya Bolotowsky in 1933, separating in 1936, and divorcing in 1938. Circa 1938 she created drawings and five oil paintings that were studies for murals. Bolotowsky’s influence can be seen in her use of biomorphic and hard-edge abstract forms similar to the compositioinal elements of his Williamsburg mural.
Slobodkina’s time in the employ of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (FAP)(WPA) began in 1936, serving as an assistant to Hananiah Harari in the mural division. There is no record she nor Harari were awarded any mural projects.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Hananiah harari (1912-2000)
Untitled.
Ink on paper, 1949. Signed, Harari, and dated, 49, lower right. 229x305 mm; 9x12 inches.
Hananiah Harari worked in the mural division of the Federal Art Project of the Works Progress Administration (FAP)(WPA). There is no record Harari was awarded any mural projects.
Hananiah Harari’s works move freely from abstraction to representational forms. In the forming of the American Abstract Artists group, he and other members such as Carl Holty pushed back against those demanding that the future of Modernism rest firmly in Non-Objective painting.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Will barnet (1911-2012)
Strange Bird.
Lithograph on reddish orange wove paper. 252x338 mm; 10x13¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 300. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Published by Laurel Gallery, New York. From Laurels Number One. 1947.
A very good impression. Szoke 94.
Born in Beverly, Massachusetts, Barnet attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston from 1928-30. He later won a 3-year scholarship to the Art Students League, New York, where he focused on printmaking. Throughout his career, he mastered a variety of techniques, including etching, woodcut and lithography. An extremely dynamic artist, Barnet changed his style significantly throughout his career. His earliest graphic works captured the social and economic despair which resulted from the Great Depression; during these years he also worked for the WPA, producing prints for the graphics arts division.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Hananiah harari (1912-2000)
Weather Signals.
Etching on cream wove paper, 1938. 175x136 mm; 7x5½ inches, full margins. Signed, Harari, dated, 38, numbered, 11-35, and inscribed as titled in pencil, lower margin.
Estimate
$700 – $900
Esphyr slobodkina (1908-2002)
Sketch for One of the first Abstractions.
Pencil on paper, c. 1940. Signed, Esphyr Slobodkina, and inscribed, Sketch for one of the first abstractions (approx. 1938-40), at right margin. 152x228 mm; 6x9 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Private collection.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Railroad.
Lithograph on Chine collé. 262x230 mm; 10⅜x9 inches, full margins. Signed, dated and numbered 13/28 in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Desjobert, Paris. 1928.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. We have only found two other impressions at auction in the past 30 years. Davis 45.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Sol wilson (1896-1974)
Bridge 5.
Watercolor on paper. Signed, Sol Wilson, lower left. Inscribed, Bridge 5 (C4625), on verso. 495x629 mm; 19½x24¾ inches.
Sol Wilson created two murals commissioned by the Treasury section of Fine Arts (TSFA). In 1940 he completed The Indian Ladder for the Delmar NY Post Office, and in 1942 he painted Outdoor Sports for the Westhampton Beach Post Office.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Dorothea lange (1895-1965)
Three families camped on the plains along U.S. 99 near Formosa, Calif. They are camped behind a billboard with serves as a partial windbreak. All are in need of work.
Silver print, the image measuring 184x241 mm; 7¼x9½ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with the Library of Congress stamp and Lange’s credit, the title, and numeric notations in pencil on verso. 1938; printed circa 1960-70.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Reginald marsh (1898-1954)
Erie R.R. and Factories.
Etching and engraving. 200x300 mm; 7⅞x11⅞ inches, wide margins. Sixth state (of 6). Edition of approximately 46. Signed and numbered “#21” in pencil, lower margin. 1930.
A very good impression of this scarce etching. Sasowsky 90.
Born in Paris, the second son in a well-to-do family, Marsh attended Yale University and then moved to New York where, during the early 1920s, he worked as an illustrator and took classes at the Art Students League. Marsh was equally influenced by his art teachers in New York, notably John Sloan (1871-1951), as well as American Regionalists like Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975) and Old Masters such as Rubens, Titian and Tintoretto. He wholly rejected the modern artistic movements gaining strength in America at the time-Cubism, Surrealism, Abstraction. Instead he pursued a style that is best summed up as social realism: depictions of everyday life in New York, Coney Island beach scenes, vaudeville and burlesque women, the jobless on the streets of New York and the railroad yards and freight trains in New York and New Jersey.
He participated in the federal art programs under the WPA, painting two murals in Washington, DC, and, funded by the Treasury Relief Art Project, completed a series of frescoes in the New York Customs House, now the National Museum of the American Indian, that depict eight New York Harbor scenes and eight portraits of great navigators. It is one of the most celebrated mural installations created under the New Deal in New York City.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Reynold weidenaar (1915-1985)
Last Run.
Etching and aquatint. 190x280 mm; 7¾x11 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Associated American Artists, New York. 1950.
A very good impression.
Weidenaar was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and studied etching at the Kansas City Art Institute. Upon returning to Michigan, he married the painter Ilse Eerdmans in 1944. He taught drawing and painting at the Kendall School of Design and worked as an illustrator.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Louis lozowick (1892-1973)
Steel Valley.
Lithograph. 240x341 mm; 9½x13⅜ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1936.
A very good impression. Flint 141.
Lozowick was born in Ludvinovka, a small village near Kiev and moved to the larger city of Kiev with his brother as a child. He studied at the Kiev Art School before following his brother again to New York in 1906 where he settled in New Jersey, got a job at a factory, and learned English. He continued his studies, at the National Academy of Design, taking courses with Emil Carlsen and Leon Kroll. They pushed Lozowick to seek a personal viewpoint in his artwork beyond the traditional training. He took a break from making art while he was a student at Ohio State University and joined the army during World War I.
The modern European art movements had a profound effect on Lozowick, and between 1920 and 1924 he traveled to Europe and spent time meeting modern artists and enmeshing himself into artistic and cultural communities. He was particularly drawn to Cubist and Futurist styles, and in 1923, when he was introduced to lithography, he applied their principles to American subject matter.
Lozowick was among a small group of artists, including Jan Matulka and Howard Cook, who depicted the industrial city. Embracing these European movements while choosing specifically American subject matter was typical of Precisionism, and while artists like Charles Sheeler and Ralston Crawford never organized, they shared the approach of paring down their compositions to the simplest of forms. After the fall of the stock market and as the country turned towards despair in the 1930s, Lozowick adapted his concept of the city. Along with many artists, he turned toward depicting the social reality of its residents who were affected by the Depression. Throughout his career, New York remained his primary subject matter, and he reflected in 1943, “From the innumerable choices which our complex and tradition-laden civilization presents to the artist, I have chosen one which seems to suit my training and temperament. I might characterize it this: ‘Industry harnessed by Man for the Benefit of Mankind.’” Flint 75.
In the 1930s with the onset of the Great Depression, Lozowick turned toward depicting the social reality of New York City and its residents who were affected by economic despair. He also worked for public programs that supported artists, such as the New York Graphic Arts Division of the WPA and the Treasury Relief Art Project creating numerous prints and, most notably, in 1936, a mural for the New York City General Post Office.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Paul landacre (1893-1963)
Three Kids and a Horse.
Wood engraving on Japan. 190x256 mm; 7½x10 inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 8/100 in pencil, lower margin. 1941.
A very good impression. Wien 246.
Landacre was born in Columbus, Ohio and attended the Ohio State University as a student-athlete in track and field. An Olympic hopeful, his dreams were thwarted when in his sophomore year, he contracted a life-threatening streptococcus infection that left him permanently disabled. It is during this time that Landacre first took a drawing class. In 1918 Landacre got a job as an illustrator and returned to school in 1923 at the Otis Art Institute, where he would encounter wood engraving for the first time. During the Great Depression Landacre worked for the graphics department of the California WPA.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Miners’ Houses, Birmingham, Alabama.
Silver print, the image measuring 152x250 mm; 6x9⅞ inches, flush mounted, with Evans’ credit in pencil on mount verso; and an “The American Federation of Arts” label with the artist’s name, title, exhibition’s title “Guggenheim Fellows in Photography,” exhibition number, and circulation dates on the frame back. 1935; printed no later than 1966.
Provenance: Christie’s East, NY, October 4, 1983, lot 149; to the Present Owner.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Walker evans (1903-1975)
Church Interior, Rural Alabama.
Silver print, the image measuring 267x340 mm; 10½x13⅜ inches, the sheet slightly larger, with the Library of Congress stamp and numeric notations in pencil on verso. 1936; printed circa 1960-70.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Dorothea lange (1895-1965)
Farmers idling around court house, Roxoboro, North Carolina.
Silver print, the image measuring 191x197 mm; 7½x7¾ inches, the sheet 254x203 mm; 10x8 inches, with Lange’s F.S.A. credit stamp and a Farm Security Administration stamp, the typed title and date, and the RA number in pencil on verso. 1939.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Dorothea lange (1895-1965)
Court House, Pittsboro, North Carolina. Note ever present C.S.A. Monument.
Silver print, the image measuring 191x197 mm; 7½x7¾ inches, the sheet 254x203 mm; 10x8 inches, with Lange’s F.S.A. credit stamp and a Farm Security Administration stamp, the typed title and date, and the RA number in pencil on verso. 1939.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Russell lee (1903-1986)
Post office * Garage at Rawson, McKenzie County, North Dakota * Lumberjacks using peaveys to remove legs from banks of Little Fork River near Little Fork, Minn.
Together, 3 silver prints, the images measuring 191x238 mm; 7½x9⅜ inches, and slightly smaller, two of the sheets slightly larger, each with Lee’s F.S.A. credit stamp and the Farm Security Administration stamp, two with typed titles (one with a date) and one with a typed credit line, and each with the RA number in pencil, on verso. Circa 1936-40.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
December Afternoon.
Lithograph. 228x302 mm; 9x11⅞ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1941.
A very good impression. Cole 16.
The artist’s first lithograph. Wood was urged to make lithographs by the New York art dealer Reeves Lowenthal (founder of Associated American Artists) in 1934. Three years later, Wood created Tree Planting Group and subsequently, in several years following, the remaining 18 lithographs which comprise his entire printed oeuvre.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was also involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Farmer’s Daughter.
Lithograph. 248x337 mm; 9¾x13¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1944.
A very good impression with strong contrasts.
The artist’s description of this lithograph by Benton, which was selected for “Fifty Prints of the Year, 1944,” by the publisher, reads, “Along the dirt roads that run at various angles off the highways of central Missouri, there are hundreds of houses that look just like this one. The tenant farmers who occupy them, for longer or shorter times, always have little children who play around the houses while the grownups work the fields. Even when the women folk are in the kitchen, the children of these places look lonely, lonely like the places themselves. The little girl who works the pump is doing so ‘just because.’ For a moment there is nothing else to do.” Fath 62.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Prayer Meeting.
Lithograph. 227x313 mm; 9x12¼ inches, wide margins. Edition of 300. Signed and dedicated in pencil, lower margin. Published by the University of Missouri, Kansas City. 1949.
A very good impression of this rare lithograph.
Though the total edition is 300 according to Fath, we have found only 16 impressions at auction in the past 30 years, indicating that the intended edition of 300 was not fully realized and is likely much smaller. Fath 73.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Joseph wolins (1915-1999)
Untitled, (Street Scene).
Oil on canvas laid to plywood, 1942. Signed, Wolins, dated, 42, lower left. 559x457 mm; 22x18 inches.
Estimate
$500 – $700
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Bookplate for Stanley Durlacher.
Collotype on cream laid paper. 141x100 mm; 5½x4 inches. 1932.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for many of the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Peter hurd (1904-1984)
The Texas Nomads.
Lithograph. 305x416 mm; 12x16½ inches, full margins. Signed, titled and numbered 19/40 in pencil, lower margin. 1937.
A very good impression. Meigs XLI.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Gene kloss (1903-1996)
Christmas Eve Fires.
Drypoint and aquatint. 304x454 mm; 12x17⅞ inches, wide margins. Signed, titled, inscribed “imp” and numbered 14/35 in pencil, lower margin. 1960.
A very good impression of this scarce print. Kloss 487.
Kloss was born in Oakland, California she went to school at the University of California at Berkeley where she learned etching taking two additional years of schooling at the California School of Fine Arts in San Francisco and the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. It was on her honeymoon in 1925 that Kloss would develop an interest in the landscape of the American Southwest and the Indigenous people in the area, During the Great Depression Kloss was the sole etcher employed by the WPA and produced prints for them.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Barbara latham (1896-1989)
Taos Street Scene.
Woodcut. 113x172 mm; 4½x6¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 25. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1932.
A very good impression.
Latham was born in Walpole, Massachusetts and graduated from the Pratt Institute in New York in 1919. She continued to study painting under Andrew Dasburg at the Art Students League in New York. In 1925, Latham relocated to Taos to work as an illustrator and join the burgeoning artist colony. She met fellow artist Howard Cook (19101-1980) and the two married in 1927. They traveled extensively before settling back near Taos in 1938. Latham is best known for her Taos scenes, like the present work, and her illustrations for children’s books.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Sunday Morning.
Lithograph. 242x323 mm; 9⅝x12¾ inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1939.
A very good impression. Fath 26.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for many of the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Theo ballou white (1902/03-1978)
Water Tank Hill— Boulder Dam.
Lithograph. 220x297 mm; 8⅝x11¾ inches. Titled and numbered 10/23 in pencil, lower left. Circa 1935.
A very good impression.
With— Delaware Avenue. Lithograph. 380x295 mm; 15x11⅝ inches, full margins. Edition of 20. Signed, titled and numbered 20/13 in pencil, lower margin. Circa 1930.
Theophilus Ballou White was a Philadelphia-based architect and artist born in Norfolk, Virginia. During the Great Depression, he worked as an artist for the Public Works of Art Project and his lithographs were shown in the Division of Graphic Work’s December-January 1933-34 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. These lithographs were based on sketches White made during the summer of 1932 in remote West Virginia. Later that summer, White worked on documenting the history of the Church of England and the parishes along the James River. In addition to his research, he completed the series of lithographs, Seven Old Churches in Virginia. Many of the artist’s early prints feature architecture. In the winter of 1932, White created seven portfolios entitled Colonial Mansion in Fairmount Park. Later, White took on a more modernist style.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Peter hurd (1904-1984)
The Sentinels— Santa Fe Trail.
Lithograph on cream wove paper. 331x495 mm; 13x19¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 500. Signed, titled, dedicated and inscribed “Ed 500” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Linton Kistler, Los Angeles, with the blind stamp lower left. Circa 1946.
A very good impression.
According to Hurd (1904-1984), prints of The Sentinels— Santa Fe Trail were made to benefit the Roswell Museum, New Mexico. Hurd LVI.
Hurd was born in Roswell, New Mexico, then moved to the Philadelphia area, where he went to school and trained as an artist (he was a student of N. C. Wyeth). In the mid-1930s during the Great Depression, he and his family moved to San Patricio, New Mexico, settling on 40 acres, gradually acquiring more land, developing the 2,200-acre Sentinel Ranch, where he lived and worked most of the remainder of his career. Hurd became a war correspondent with the U.S. Air Force for Life magazine. He made lithographs and several murals (Dallas, Texas) under the auspices of the WPA.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Georges schreiber (1904-1977)
Two lithographs.
Southern Siesta. 225x304 mm; 8⅞x12 inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. 1939 * Cotton Pickers. 235x334 mm; 9¼x13⅛ inches, full margins. Artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 250. Signed, titled and inscribed “A.P” in pencil, lower margin. 1943. Both printed by George Miller, New York. Both published by Associated American Artists, New York.
Both very good impressions.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Robert gwathmey (1903-1988)
Share Croppers.
Color screenprint. 368x305 mm; 14½x12 inches, wide margins. Signed in ink, upper right. 1944.
A very good impression. Williams 3.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
Approaching Storm.
Lithograph. 297x225 mm; 11¾x8¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1940. A very good impression. Cole 19.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$5,000 – $8,000
Joe jones (1909-1963)
Missouri Wheat Farmers.
Lithograph. 253x203 mm; 10x8 inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1938.
A very good impression.
Jones was born in St. Louis, Missouri. Self-taught, he quit school at age fifteen to work as a house painter, his father’s profession. In 1933, ten patrons led by Elizabeth Green in St. Louis formed a “Joe Jones Club” and financed his travel to the artists’ colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where he furthered his artistic training. In August 1935, Jones painted a mural series at the Commonwealth College at Mena, Arkansas. He painted a New Deal mural for the post office in Charleston, Missouri, titled Harvest in 1938. This mural was done at the height of Jones’ fame and is a classic subject for the artist. It depicts the harvest of wheat in a very labor-intensive manner showing the cutting, gathering, and stacking of it onto a wagon. Under a cloudy dark sky, wheat dominates the perspective with the farmers providing a great deal of motion. Another New Deal mural entitled Men and Wheat was painted by Jones in 1940, followed by Husking Corn in 1941 for the Dexter, Missouri, post office, Turning a Corner in 1939 in Anthony, Kansas and Threshing in Magnolia, Arkansas, in 1938. All the murals depicted some process during a wheat harvest.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Threshing.
Lithograph. 237x353 mm; 9⅜x14 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1941.
A superb, strong impression. Fath 48.
This lithograph relates to a series of drawings and a painting (now in the Swope Art Gallery, Terre Haute, Indiana) that Benton made in 1938 on a farm in Johnson County, Kansas, around 25 miles outside Kansas City.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Ilya bolotowsky (1907-1981)
The Farm.
Oil on board, c. 1930. Inscribed, Ily Bolotowsky’s / early (1920’s), on verso by Esphyr Slobodkina. 407x610 mm; 16x24 inches.
Provenance: The artist; Esphyr Slobodkina, (first wife of the artist); The Slobodkina Foundation, NY, accession number SF01319.
Estimate
$4,000 – $6,000
Grant wood (1891-1942)
February.
Lithograph. 227x303 mm; 9x11¾ inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1941.
A superb impression.
This eerily enigmatic lithograph, made by Wood during the winter he became seriously ill with pancreatic cancer, presages his death a year later. Cole 17.
Estimate
$5,000 – $8,000
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
Night Firing.
Lithograph. 222x335 mm; 8¾x13¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1943.
A very good, dark impression. Fath 57.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Robert riggs (1896-1970)
Dust Storm.
Lithograph. 360x356 mm; 14⅛x14⅛ inches, wide margins. Signed in pencil, lower right. Circa 1941.
A superb impression of this extremely scarce print.
We have only found 4 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years. Bassham 80.
This image was used as an advertisement illustration for Purolator oil filters in The Saturday Evening Post, May 3, 1941.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Robert gwathmey (1903-1988)
End of the Day.
Color screenprint. 312x355 mm; 12¼x13⅞ inches, full margins. Signed in ink, lower left. 1944.
A very good impression with strong colors. Williams 4.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Thomas hart benton (1889-1975)
A Drink of Water.
Lithograph. 255x366 mm; 10x14⅜ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1937.
A very good impression. Fath 15.
Benton was already seen as a leader in the Regionalist movement and a celebrated muralist by the time the WPA started the Federal Arts Program. He had been commissioned to paint murals of life in Indiana for the 1933 Century of Progress Exhibition in Chicago, which caused controversy. In 1934, his work was featured on the cover on Time magazine, which legitimized Regionalism as an art movement. His murals were influential for many of the artists hired as muralists under the WPA.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Louis ribak (1902-1979)
Plowing the Field.
Gouache on board, circa 1935. 507x763 mm; 20x30 inches. Signed in gouache, lower left recto.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Employed under the easel section of the Work Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Art Project (FAP), Louis Rebak was included in the Municipal Art Committee’s temporary gallery exhibitions. In 1939 through 1940 the de Young Museum hosted a show titled Frontiers of American Art as part of The Golden Gate International Exposition. Ribak was represented amongst the 124 works of art included in this landmark show.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Yasuo kuniyoshi (1889-1953)
Western Landscape.
Lithograph. 283x362 mm; 11⅛x14¼ inches, full margins. Edition of approximately 30. Signed, dated and inscribed “30p” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by George Miller, New York. 1935.
A very good impression of this scarce lithograph. We have found only 4 other impressions at auction in the past 30 years. Davis 68.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
Tree Planting Group.
Lithograph. 215x278 mm; 8½x11 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1937.
A very good impression. Cole 1.
The artist’s first lithograph. Wood was urged to make lithographs by the New York art dealer Reeves Lowenthal (founder of Associated American Artists) in 1934. Three years later, Wood created Tree Planting Group and subsequently, in several years following, the remaining 18 lithographs which comprise his entire printed oeuvre.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was also involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$5,000 – $8,000
Various artists
WPA Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Fourteen silkscreen posters printed on card. Each approximately 355x280 mm, 11x14 inches. Images available upon request.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Various artists
Pennsylvania Game Commission / [Protect Birds].
Five color silkscreen posters printed on card, three by Joe Wolf. Each approximately 355x280 mm, 14x11 inches.
Includes: Protect Our . . Birds; Protect Birds / They Destroy Harmful Insects; Shelter Our Game / Don’t Cut the Brush; Protect Game - Forest / Tramp That Match; and Birds Destroy Harmful Insects / Protect Them. Images available upon request.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Various artists
Pennsylvania Game Commission.
Three color silkscreen posters printed on card. Each approximately 355x280 mm, 14x11 inches.
Includes: Don’t Run us Down, by Joe Wolf; Game News / Subscribe Now; and Prevent Forest Fires / Protect Game. Images available upon request.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Designer unknown
Don’t Squawk! If You Can’t Get Everything You Want / Victory Demands Sacrifice.
Silkscreen poster, printed on card. 559x356 mm, 22x14 inches. [Nassau County Defense Council, New York].
Estimate
$400 – $600
Anatol schulkin (1899-1961)
U-Boat.
Ink on paper. Iscribed indistinctly, lower right. 559x 680 mm; 22x26¾ inches.
Shulkin studied at the Art Students League and the National Academy of Design in the 1920s. He had early solo exhibitions at the Art Centre Gallery and at the Midtown Galleries in New York. Later, Shulkin produced murals for the Works Progress Administration as well as several important private commissions. His work is found today in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Estimate
$400 – $600
Paul cadmus (1904-1999)
Coney Island.
Etching. 233x260 mm; 9¼x10¼ inches, full margins. Artist’s proof, aside from the edition of 50. Signed, titled and inscribed “(artist’s proof)” in pencil, lower margin. 1935.
A superb impression with strong contrasts. Davenport 38.
Cadmus’ works for the Works Progress Administration have frequently been envoked in the debate of censorship. Cadmus’ tempera on canvas Fleets In!, 1934 for the Public Works of Art Project depicted carousing U.S. sailors on shore leave. Aspects of Suburban Life, 1936 was a series of studies for a Port Washington, Long Island post office mural commissioned by the Treasury Relief Art Project. The project was never realized as it showed affluent Long Islanders in a negative light and insinuated an obvious and growing class divide. Both Cadmus and Jared French (1905-1988) each received mural commissions for the lobby of the Parcel Post Building in Richmond, Virginia, completed in 1939. Cadmus’ mural Pocahontas Saving the Life of John Smith was retouched by the artist when it was noticed that one of the Powhatan men’s breechcloth fox heads resembled a phallus. The debate over public censorship continues when discussing Cadmus’ legacy. In a 1992 New York Times article, the artist’s works were still criticized, “For its money, the W.P.A. got several subversive works from Cadmus . . .”
Estimate
$5,000 – $8,000
Various artists
The Hope of a Nation Poster Series.
Condition varies, generally A- / A. Paper.
Incomplete portfolio of 36 posters. Each 18½x12½ inches, 47x32 cm. 1937. C.R. Jackson, Kansas City, M.O.
With - “Outline Lessons” book detailing the series & original portfolio envelope for the posters. This is the larger format, the smaller being 9x6 inches. Missing numbers 4, 13, 30 & 34.
A classroom educational/inspirational series entitled “Hope of a Nation Poster Series,” these images, each with a sub-heading such as “judgment,” “health,” “industry” and “neatness” are filled with little moral messages for America’s children. Each in three or four colors, they are a junior version of the work incentive posters produced by Charles Mather out of Chicago. Each color image is accompanied by a black and white sheet with images meant to spark classroom discussion on the topic. This series was reprinted several times before the 1940s and subsequent editions do not include the artist’s name on any of the images.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
John sloan (1871-1951)
Three etchings.
Fun, One Cent. 127x177 mm; 5x7 inches, full margins. Second state (of 2). Printer’s proof, aside from the edition of 100. Inscribed “Peters Bros. imp- Printer’s Proof” and titled in pencil by the printer, Peters Brothers, Philadelphia, lower margin. From New York Life. 1905 * Mother. 224x185 mm; 8¾x7⅜ inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Edition of 100. Signed, titled, initaled and inscribed “imp.” in pencil, lower margin. Printed by the artist. 1906 * Calf Love. 108x70 mm; 4¼x2¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 100. Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin, and signed and inscribed “imp (old paper)” by the printer, Ernest D. Roth, New York, lower margin. 1916.
Very good impressions. Morse 131, 139 and 182.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Leo j. meissner (1895-1977)
Coney Island.
Linoleum cut on cream paper, 1927. 178x314 mm; 7x12⅜ inches, full margins. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 8/30 in pencil, lower margin.
Estimate
$600 – $800
Mabel dwight (1875-1955)
Aquarium (Alligators).
Lithograph. 284x310 mm; 11¼x12¼ inches, full margins. Edition of 50. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right recto. Printed by George C. Miller, New York. 1928.
A very good impression. Robinson/Pirog 29.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Nicolai cikovsky (1894-1984)
Boats for rent.
Oil on canvas, 1945. Signed, Nicolai Cikovsky, and dated, 45, lower right. Signed, N. Cikovsky, and inscribed as titled on the stretcher. 457x711 mm; 18x28 inches.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
John mccrady (1911-1968)
Steamboat Round the Bend.
Lithograph. 247x376 mm; 9¾x14¾ inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1946.
A very good impression.
McCrady, born in Canton, Mississippi attended the University of Mississippi and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. After receiving a scholarship to the Art Students League in New York, he established the John McCrady Art School in New Orleans in 1942.
McCrady was employed as a muralist for the Federal Art Project. He created a mural for the Armory, Mississippi post office entitled Armory in 1889. He also received commissions Works Progress Administration to design and illustrate posters.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
John sloan (1871-1951)
Boys Sledding.
Etching. 131x177 mm; 5⅛x7 inches, full margins. Third state (of 3). Edition of 50 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. 1920.
A superb, richly-inked impression of this scarce print. Morse 197.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Attributed to fletcher martin
Untitled, (Seated Boxer).
Oil on canvas laid to board. 31¼x25½ inches.
Provenance: Butterfield and Butterfield, Sale 3690 American and European Paintings, Lot 4188, July 25, 1986.
Exhibited: The Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown, OH, The Artist at Ringside, March 29 - May 10, 1992, exhibited as item 47.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Fletcher martin (1904-1979)
Lullaby.
Lithograph on paper, 1942. 201x304 mm; 7⅞x11⅞ inches, full margins. Signed in pencil, lower margin.
Martin’s most celebrated imagery are his depictions of athletes. This print, with simplified forms, conveys the dynamic energy of our competitive spirit as individuals, and as a nation. The New Deal programs encouraged individual drive and ingenuity.
In the early 1940s Fletcher Martin created three friezes for the facade of the Boundary County Corthouse, Bonners Ferry, ID under the Federal Arts Project, Works Progress Administration, (FAP, WPA). He also completed mural projects for post offices is Lamesa, TX, Kellogg, ID, and San Pedro, CA, all funded by the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, (TSFA).
Estimate
$300 – $500
Robert riggs (1896-1970)
The Pool.
Lithograph. 370x495 mm; 14½x19½ inches, full margins. Edition of 40. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. Circa 1933.
A very good impression of this large, scarce lithograph. Bassham 33.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Louis lozowick (1892-1973)
Skaters’ Island.
Lithograph. 222x330 mm; 8¾x13 inches, full margins. Edition of 250. Signed and dated “‘44” in pencil, lower right. Printed by George Miller, New York. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1937.
A very good impression. Flint 150.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Benton spruance (1904-1967)
Pass Coming Up.
Lithograph with hand coloring in colored pencil. 257x362 mm; 10⅛x14¼ inches, full margins. A unique impression with hand coloring, aside from the edition of 30. Printed by Theodore Cuno, Philadelphia. 1938.
A very good impression. Fine/Looney 147.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
John sloan (1871-1951)
The Little Bride.
Etching. 134x179 mm; 5¼x7 inches, full margins. Edition of 85 (from an intended edition of 100). Signed, titled and inscribed “100 proofs” in pencil, lower margin. From New York City Life. 1906.
A very good impression with strong contrasts.
In his diary, Sloan commented, “Back in 1906 there was a considerable French population north of 23rd Street, and the church near Proctor’s Theatre [141 West 23rd Street] was known as the French Church. The stone steps down which these newlyweds are escaping have since been removed. I hope the couple lived happy ever after.” Morse 138.
The WPA gave opportunities and financial help to many artists who were struggling during the Depression. Sloan, already an established artist and teacher at the Art Students League (who taught many artists who particapted in the WPA programs), did not fit that profile, but he did participate in the Treasury Section of Fine Arts, which hired well-known artists for its projects. He painted the mural The Arrival of the First Mail in Bronxville in 1846 for the post office in Bronxville, New York. He also created two paintings for the WPA, one The Wigwam, Old Tammany Hall, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the other Fourteenth Street at Sixth Avenue, originally hung the office of U.S. Senator Royal Copeland and now is exhibited at the Detroit Insitute of Arts.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Grant wood (1891-1942)
Honorary Degree.
Lithograph. 300x177 mm; 11¾x6⅞ inches, wide margins. Edition of 250. Signed in pencil, lower right. Published by Associated American Artists, New York. 1938.
A very good impression. Cole 4.
Wood was one of the most well-known muralists of the WPA, having rose to celebrity status after his painting American Gothic won a bronze medal at the Art Institute of Chicago. Wood had always wished to re-create the midwest as an arts center and helped to found an artist colony in his native Cedar Rapids in 1932. In the Iowa University Parks Library in Ames, Iowa, Wood produced a series of murals in his archetypal American regionalist style (a first set for the Public Works of Art Project in 1934, a second in 1936 under the WPA). Wood also was involved in the production of another Iowan mural project at the Callanan Middle School in Des Moines for the Federal Arts Project.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Albert staehle (1899-1974)
New York World’s Fair.
Color lithograph poster, unbacked. 508x340 mm, 20x13½ inches. Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York. 1939.
This is the smaller format.
World of Tomorrow cover and p. 218.
Estimate
$500 – $750
John atherton (1900-1952)
New York World’s Fair.
Color lithograph poster, unbacked. 762x508 mm, 30x20 inches. Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York. 1939.
This is the larger format.
Atherton was a graphic designer and a surrealist painter. While he designed numerous covers for The Saturday Evening Post, Fortune and Holiday magazines, his output of posters was rather small; he is best remembered for this poster he designed for the New York World’s Fair. He also designed at least two World War II posters.
World of Tomorrow p. 218, Streamline p. 75.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Albert staehle (1899-1974)
New York World’s Fair.
Color lithograph poster, unbacked. 762x508 mm, 30x20 inches. Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York. 1939.
This is the larger format.
Staehle was a popular American illustrator and billboard artist during the mid-20th century, studying art in both Detroit and New York. Here an official “girl guide” to the New York World’s Fair, identifiable by the red patch on her arm, is waving “potential fairgoers into the fair” (World of Tomorrow p. 218).
World of Tomorrow cover and p. 218.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Joseph binder (1898-1972)
New York World’s Fair.
Color lithograph poster, unbacked, 508x340 mm, 20x13½ inches. Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York. 1939.
This is the smaller format.
World of Tomorrow pp. 218 & 219, Weill 427, Resnick 31, The Poster 304, Affiches Art Deco p. 116, Crouse p. 108, Streamline p. 75.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
John atherton (1900-1952)
New York World’s Fair.
Color lithograph poster, unbacked, 508x340 mm, 20x13⅜ inches. Grinnell Litho. Co., Inc., New York. 1939.
This is the smaller format.
World of Tomorrow p. 218, Streamline p. 75.
Estimate
$600 – $900
Arthur c. radebaugh (1906-1974)
New York World’s Fair / United Air Lines.
Poster calendar, with 12 calendar sheets attached at bottom. 692x394 mm, 27¼x15½ inches.
A United Airlines Douglas DC-3 “Mainliner” makes its way across a truncated map of the United States. The plane is flying from the Golden Gate Bridge and the towers of Treasure Island at the San Francisco World’s Fair to the New York World’s Fair Trylon and Perisphere on the opposite side of the country. Radebaugh’s love of the airbrush began with his studies at the Art Institute of Chicago. Although virtually unknown in the poster community, he became a prolific illustrator for magazines including Esquire, Fortune, and Motor and produced advertisements for Coca-Cola and United Airlines as well as the auto industry. His trademark style was the ultimate in “luminous Art Deco . . . a sense of industrial design that was both pragmatic and prescient; he took what was cutting edge . . . and made them more elegant, functional and fantastical to behold” (http://arthur-radebaugh.blogspot.com/). This image also appeared as a regular poster (See Swann Sale 2589 Lot 232).
Airline p. 26 (var), Airways p. 45 (var).
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Louis b. siegriest (1899-1989)
Indian Court Federal Building / Chippewa Picture Writing.
Silkscreen poster, linen-backed. 914x648 mm, 36x25½ inches. 1939.
WPA 82, Posters for the People p. 92.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Signature unknown
New York World’s Fair / The Greyhound Lines.
Condition A-: sharp crease in upper image; minor creases at edges and in image; metal strips affixed to top and bottom for hanging; calendar sheets from December-June. Paper.
Three attached calendar backs, each with calendar sheets at bottom. 813x508 mm, 32x20 inches. 1938. The Greyhound Corporation.
Top image is The New York World’s Fair, with calendar sheets from Dec 1938- June 1939; image two is Golden Gate Exposition, with calendar sheets from July 1939-Sept 1939; and image three is Roll South to Sunshine by Super-Coach, with calendar sheets from Oct 1939-Dec 1939. Images available upon request.