The Virginia Zabriskie Collection
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Deborah Rogal
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Todd Weyman
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Nigel Freeman
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THE VIRGINIA ZABRISKIE COLLECTION
We are honored to offer the collection of Virginia Zabriskie in this special single-owner auction that opens our 2021 fall season. Virginia Zabriskie built her personal collection during a pioneering career that spanned more than five decades, marked by audacity and innovation in a field that was seldom encouraging to professional women.
After acquiring her New York gallery in 1954, at the age of 26, Zabriskie inherited a promising roster of young artists, including Pat Adams, Clinton Hill and Lester Johnson, all well-represented in this auction. As a young art student, she had recognized her calling, musing later that, “My ability to interpret and criticize art grew faster than my ability to make it.
Pursuing art history, she became friends with and was mentored by the artist, critic and modern art promoter Walter Pach while she was a college student; through him, she met Marcel Duchamp, Edward Hopper and other contemporary artists in New York. Moreover, Pach had been instrumental assisting the artist Arthur B. Davies, president of the landmark 1913 “International Exhibition of Modern Art” also known as the Armory Show, as well as one of its founders, Walt Kuhn, by bringing together leading contemporary European and American artists for the show. This influence doubtlessly cemented Zabriskie’s connoisseurship and faith in artists’ visions and informed her groundbreaking exhibitions, developed around the juxtaposition of media and historical eras. The risks she took with artists outside the market mainstream and the opportunities she saw in promoting a new vision of modern art as a neophyte New York gallery owner certainly harkened back to reminiscences Walter Pach would have shared with her about the 1913 Armory Show and that watershed period in modern art. She is responsible for both launching the careers of artists and bringing forgotten, unappreciated artists to light. Zabriskie’s diverse program—a reflection of her unique curatorial vision and individual aesthetic—brought photography to the forefront at a time when the medium was still considered vanguard, and encompassed a wide range of work, from early 20th century Dada and Surrealist masters to American photography icons like William Klein and Harry Callahan.
In 1966, the Zabriskie Gallery, which had been in a small space on the second floor of 835 Madison Avenue that had originally been established by Marvin Korman (a fellow graduate student at the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University from whom she had acquired the gallery), relocated to 699 Madison Avenue, and after five years to 29 West 57th Street. By the early 1980s, Zabriskie Gallery had expanded into three spaces, two in New York, and one in Paris. The gallery at 724 Fifth Avenue specialized in painting; sculpture was highlighted at the 521 West 57th Street location. In addition to featuring contemporary and modernist American painters, Zabriskie’s trailblazing programming included the exhibition of sculpture by Mary Frank, Saul Baizerman, George Rickey, Kenneth Snelson, Theodore Roszak and Richard Stankiewicz, among others.
In 1977, Galerie Zabriskie opened in Paris at 29 rue Aubry le Boucher. It was the first gallery of its kind, joining an exhibition space for photographic works with a bookstore devoted to selling photo-related literature. Zabriskie not only presented individual American and French photographers, but also organized numerous landmark group shows which united these photographers from both sides of the Atlantic.
She was a champion of 19th-century photographers such as Felice Beato, Edouard Baldus and Eadweard Muybridge, and extraordinarily held the first commercial exhibition in France of Eugene Atget’s photographs of Paris (thanks in part to the photographer and Zabriskie Gallery artist Berenice Abbott, who had acquired Atget’s negatives, through the studio of Man Ray and the art dealer Julien Levy, both of whom were also intrinsically linked to Zabriskie). Through this trans-Atlantic exchange, Zabriskie introduced many modern and contemporary European photographers to America, and brought American photography to Europe, creating a wider audience for Harry Callahan, Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Lee Friedlander, Brassaï, Man Ray, Berenice Abbott, Robert Frank and Nicholas Nixon, all artists included among this auction.
Her full roster, most of whom appear in this auction, boasted a wide range of artists, including Abraham Walkowitz (Zabriskie held numerous exhibitions of his work and handled the artist’s estate), Elie Nadelman, Alexander Archipenko, Marcel Duchamp, Joseph Stella, Ralston Crawford, Lucas Samaras, Nell Blaine, Milton Resnick, Ben Vautier, and many others.
The Paris gallery closed in 1998 with “Au Revoir Paris,” a group show highlighting all the American photographers whose first European exposure came at Galerie Zabriskie. In 1999 Virginia Zabriskie received the Médaille de la Ville de Paris, presented at the Hotel de Ville in Paris, for her significant contribution to French culture. Zabriskie continued to helm her New York gallery, at its last public exhibition space, in the Fuller Building on Madison Avenue, until its closing in December 2010. She continued to work as a private art dealer thereafter.
Though Zabriskie had said “to survive is to succeed,” it is universally acknowledged that through her unwavering vision and determination, she left a legacy that has transformed our industry, both visually and professionally, which will persist for generations to come.
- Swann Auction Galleries would like to express our sincerest thanks to Deborah Eigen, Assistant Gallery Director, Zabriskie Gallery, New York, from 1975 to 1990, for her extraordinary efforts and assistance with this auction. During her fifteen years at the gallery, an important time of its growth to prominence, Deborah Eigen was Virginia Zabriskie’s close assistant, collaborator, friend and confidante. She was instrumental to the groundbreaking exhibition program and the acquisition of numerous key works, central to the gallery’s focus. After the New York gallery was closed in 2010, Deborah returned to work with Virginia Zabriskie as her assistant and steadfast friend until Ms. Zabriskie’s death in 2019. Over a period of more than twenty-five years working with Virginia Zabriskie, and now as an advisor to the Estate of Virginia Zabriskie, Deborah has upheld the legacy of this renowned New York gallery and its storied owner. She has been an indefatigable source of knowledge, inspiration and care for all things Zabriskie, to many of us at Swann, through the preparation of this catalogue and the organization of this “Collection of Virginia Zabriskie” auction.
- Hans Namuth, Virginia Zabriskie before a painting by Pat Adams on the occasion of Zabriskie Gallery’s 25th Anniversary, silver print, 1978.
- Virginia Zabriskie, Self Portrait, etching, 1949. Courtesy the Estate of Virginia Zabriskie.
- Paul Maurer, Zabriskie Gallery, New York, silver print.
- Paul Maurer, Pierre Boucher, Pierre Jahan, Virginia Zabriskie and others at Galerie Zabriskie, Paris, silver print, 1978.
- Paul Maurer, Virginia Zabriskie’s apartment, including works by Sidney Geist, Man Ray, Timothy Woodman, William Klein and others, New York, silver print.
- Timothy Woodman, Virginia Zabriskie, painted aluminum, 1979. Courtesy the Estate of Virginia Zabriskie.
Alfred stieglitz (1864-1964)
Reflections: Night - New York * The Glow of Night - New York.
Together 2 photogravures, the images measuring 209.6x273.1 and 120.7x235 mm; 8¼x10¾ and 4¾x9¼ inches, the sheets 241.3x285.8 and 393.7x495.3 mm; 9½x11¼ and 15½x19½ inches, each with Stieglitz’s printed copyright and date, on recto. 1897.
Both of these photogravures appeared in Stieglitz’s portfolio Picturesque Bits of New York And Other Studies, which dramatically highlighted the aesthetic clashes of the era and of Stieglitz’s own work in realistic, glistening urban scenes.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Arthur b. davies (1862-1928)
Field near Montrose, Colorado.
Oil on panel. 135x240 mm; 5¼x9½ inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto. Circa 1905.
Provenance: Charles Wharton Stork, Philadelphia, with the label verso.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Arthur b. davies (1862-1928)
Portrait of a Woman.
Oil on canvas. 185x150 mm; 7¼x6 inches. Circa 1905.
Provenance: Ferargil Gallery, New York, with the label on the frame back; gifted from the artist Walter Pach to Virginia Zabriskie; according to the latter, Pach thought the sitter resembled a young Ms. Zabriskie.
Pursuing art history at New York University, Zabriskie became friends with and was mentored by the artist, critic and modern art promoter Walter Pach (1883-1958); through him, she met Marcel Duchamp, Edward Hopper and other contemporary artists in New York, significantly influencing her future path as a trailblazing gallery owner.
Moreover, Pach had been instrumental assisting Davies, the president of the landmark 1913 "International Exhibition of Modern Art" also known as the Armory Show, as well as one of its founders, Walt Kuhn, by bringing together leading contemporary European and American artists for the show.
Estimate
$1,200 – $1,800
Eugène atget (1857-1927)
Le Soldat Laboureur par Lemaire (Tuileries, Paris).
Albumen print, the image measuring 215.9x177.8 mm; 8½x7 inches, with Atget's title and inventory number, in pencil, on verso. Circa 1910.
Atget's fin de siècle photography was exhibited alongside Berenice Abbott's New York imagery at the newly-opened Galerie Zabriskie, Paris as early as 1977, representing, extraordinarily, the first commercial exhibition for the French photographer. Abbot and Atget are inextricably linked, Abbott first encountering the elderly French photographer's work in 1925 at the Man Ray Studio. After Atget’s death, in 1927, she collaborated with Julien Levy, of New York’s Julien Levy Gallery, to buy most of Atget’s negatives and prints, bringing them back to New York in 1929. Abbott’s initiative preserved Atget's archive, which, given its influence on the avant-garde, has become an important chapter of Abbott’s legacy.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Eugène atget (1857-1927)
St. Cloud (cascade).
Albumen print, the image measuring 219.1x181 mm; 8⅝x7⅛ inches, with Atget's title and inventory number, in pencil, on verso. 1923.
Estimate
$5,000 – $8,000
ABRAHAM WALKOWITZ
Walkowitz was born in Tyumen, Sibera to Jewish parents and immigrated to the Lower East Side of New York with his mother in 1889. He was trained in the academic style at the National Academy of Design, New York, and at the Académie Julian in Paris, though his style was most influenced by his experiences outside of the studio. During his time in Paris from 1906-07, Walkowitz saw Isadora Duncan (1877-1927) dance at Auguste Rodin’s (1840-1917) Paris studio and made his first drawings of her. He later recalled, “She was a Muse. She had no laws. She didn’t dance according to rules. She created. Her body was music. It was a body electric, like Walt Whitman.” Like Duncan’s dancing, Walkowitz’s drawings and watercolors were created by quick and spontaneous lines and washes of color. In Paris, Walkowitz was also impressed by the landmark 1907 Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) retrospective exhibit at the Salon d’Automne and by his introduction to the work of Henri Matisse (1869-1954) and Henri Rousseau (1844-1910). By the time Walkowitz returned to New York, his style was heavily influenced by European Modernism, with emphasis on gestures, simplified forms and flat planes of bold color. His first solo exhibition was held at Haas Gallery, the back of a modest frame shop, in New York in 1908.
In 1912, Walkowitz met Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) through Marsden Hartley (1877-1943) and became involved with the 291 Gallery, New York, which served as a hub of American modernism. Stieglitz was so impressed by the young artist, that he sent him to study art in Greece, Italy and North Africa in 1914. His style became more abstract; its reduced linear forms lent themselves to the city’s rush skyward, prematurely anticipating the New York School and the Abstract Expressionists.
In 1913, Walkowitz was represented at the Armory Show and in the 1916 Forum exhibition. Walkowitz was concerned with politics and artists’ rights and was active in various artist’s groups, founding the People’s Art Guild and the Society of Independent Artists (he became director of the latter from 1918 to 1938). In 1920, he exhibited at the Société Anonyme alongside Man Ray (1890-1976), Hartley and Joseph Stella (1877-1946). Despite local and international recognition, Walkowitz was not nearly as well-known as his contemporaries. Virginia Zabriskie was among the many figures in the field, including Stieglitz, Henry McBride, Carl Van Vechten and Lloyd Goodrich, who thought that Walkowitz deserved more recognition than he received.
Walkowitz painted into the 1940s, when his eyesight began to fail. Zabriskie represented him during the last six years of the artist’s life. She admired him for the breadth of his art and for his passion and conviction. Zabriskie Gallery held thirteen exhibitions of Walkowitz’s work and placed him in the collections of major institutions. In promoting his legacy, Zabriskie grew close to the aging artist, accompanying him to the Academy of Arts and Letters award ceremony in May 1962, where Walkowitz was given the Marjorie Peabody Waite Award for a distinguished elderly artist, to a standing ovation. After his death, Zabriskie purchased the Abraham Walkowitz Estate, including numerous watercolors and paintings left undiscovered in his studio. Zabriskie organized Walkowitz’s memorial service and remembered him as a devoted, often feisty artist whose work was not fully understood in his lifetime.
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Self Portrait.
Etching with additions in pencil. 150x115 mm; 6x4½ inches, wide margins. Signed and dated "1900" in pencil, lower right. A very good, richly-inked, proof-like impression. Circa 1900-02.
With— Group of 4 etchings, including Fruit Market * Saturday Afternoon * In the Marketplace * Bathers. Each signed in pencil or ink, lower margin. Various sizes. Each circa 1900.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Crouching Male Nude.
Bronze. 155 mm; 6⅛ inches (height), excluding base. Edition of only 3 cast in 1968. With the artist's initials, numbered "2-3" and "© 1900 Ex NY 68" incised at the lower edge. 1900.
Another cast of this sculpture, numbered "1-3", sold at Christie's, New York, March 4, 2008, lot 130. The third and final cast of this bronze is in the collection of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Though the majority of Walkowitz's œuvre are paintings and works on paper, the artist was also a sculptor. He likely received instruction in sculpture during his formal training in New York and Paris and supplemented his knowledge of the human form with anatomy classes at the Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in New York. In Paris, Walkowitz visited Auguste Rodin's (1840-1917) studio and may have been influenced by his work, though he placed great importance on portraying naturalized, non-idealized bodies, such as New York laborers. Walkowitz exhibited his early sculptures into the 1920s but was always known best as a painter.
Walkowitz's painting and drawing style of expressing the essence of the subject by using simplified, almost naive forms carried over into his sculpture. The present work recalls Oscar Bluemner's 1913 essay on Walkowitz in Camera Work. He wrote that Walkowitz, "can increase the vibration of strong charcoal-tones— say the motif of a muscular back— to a degree that one imagines a thunderstorm."
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Wharf Scene (Gloucester).
Oil on canvas. 360x460 mm; 14x18 inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto. Circa 1905.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Exhibited: “Abraham Walkowitz Retrospective,” Utah Museum of Fine Art, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, October 27-December 1, 1974, and Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, May 7-June 29, 1975, with the labels on the frame back.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Street View with Church Steeple.
Oil on canvas. 305x460 mm; 12x18¼ inches. Circa 1910.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Two watercolor and gouache landscapes.
Volendam, Holland. 480x655 mm; 19x25⅞ inches. Signed, titled and dated in ink, lower right recto. 1906 * Anticoli Corrado, Italy. 475x655 mm; 18¾x25¾ inches. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed “Italy” in ink, lower right recto, and signed in ink, verso. 1906-07.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Anticoli Corrado.
Oil on canvas. 460x540 mm; 18x21¼ inches. Signed in oil, lower left recto. Circa 1906-07.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Exhibited: "Abraham Walkowitz Retrospective," Edwin A. Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita State University, Wichita, Kansas, May 7-June 9, 1975, with the label on the frame back; "Abraham Walkowitz: Walkowitz in Europe 1906-1907", Zabriskie Gallery, New York, March 17-April 18, 1998.
Anticoli Corrado is a hillside community located roughly 25 miles northeast of Rome. The picturesque Italian town has been popular with artists since the 19th century, and its young inhabitants often posed as models for the community of artists who lived near the Piazza di Spagna in Rome during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Two watercolors.
Landscape, France (Abstraction), watercolor on cream laid paper. 303x475 mm; 12x18¾ inches. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed "Paris" in ink, lower right recto. 1906 * Provincetown Rooftops, Abstraction, watercolor on cream wove paper. 295x390 mm; 11½x15¼ inches. Circa 1912.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Exhibited: (Provincetown Rooftops, Abstraction) "Provincetown Painters 1890s-1970s," Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York, April 1-June 26, 1977, with the label on the frame back.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Park Scene.
Oil on canvas. 405x560 mm; 16x22 inches. Circa 1908.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Published: Zabriskie Gallery, Zabriskie Fifty Years, 2004, page 91 (illustrated).
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Bathers in a Landscape.
Oil on canvas board. 505x605 mm; 20x23¾ inches. Circa 1910.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Figures Gathering (Strollers).
Oil on canvas. 355x275 mm; 14x11 inches. Circa 1908.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Exhibited: “Abraham Walkowitz: The Early Years 1895-1925,” Zabriskie Gallery, New York, January 9-February 3, 1973, number 18 (illustrated).
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Group of 4 watercolors of Isadora Duncan.
Each watercolor and pen and ink on paper. Each signed in ink, lower recto. Various sizes. Each circa 1910-20.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Group of 5 watercolors of Isadora Duncan.
Each watercolor and pen and ink on paper. Each 227x145 mm; 9x5¾ inches. Each signed in ink, lower recto. Each circa 1910-20.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Arthur b. davies (1862-1928)
Draped Female Figures.
Charcoal and color pastels on two-joined sheets of gray paper mounted on card. 325x530 mm; 12¾x20⅞ inches. Circa 1920.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
New York.
Collage, pen and ink and brush and ink on paper. 370x300 mm; 14½x12 inches. Signed repeatedly and dated “1909” and “1913” in ink, recto. Circa 1909-13.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Abstract Cityscape.
Charcoal on paper. 408x270 mm; 16⅛10⅝ inches. Circa 1908-15.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Abstract Cityscape.
Pencil on cream wove paper. 435x280 mm; 17⅛x11 inches. Circa 1910-20.
Provenance: Artist's estate.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Abstract Cityscape.
Pen and ink and pencil on cream wove paper. 355x215 mm; 14x8½ inches. Signed in ink, lower center recto. 1910.
With—Abstract Composition, pen and ink on cream wove paper. 202x125 mm; 8x5 inches. Initialed in ink, lower right recto. Circa 1910.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Two pen and ink abstract cityscapes.
Both 350x213 mm; 13⅞x8½ inches. Both signed in ink, lower center recto. Both circa 1910-20.
Provenance: Artist's estate, New York.
Estimate
$2,500 – $3,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Two abstract pencil drawings.
Both 435x283 mm; 17x11 inches. One signed in pencil, lower left recto, the other signed and dated in ink, lower center recto. Both circa 1912.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Group of 5 pencil drawings of abstract compositions.
Each signed and four dated “1915” or “1916” in pencil, lower center recto. Various sizes. Each circa 1915-16.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Group of 5 drawings of abstract compositions.
Each pencil, chalk and color pastels on cream wove paper. Various sizes. Each circa 1915-20.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Abstract Composition (Landscape).
Watercolor and pencil on cream wove paper. 415x480 mm; 16½x18¾ inches. Signed in ink and dated in pencil, lower right recto. 1931.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Three ink drawings of abstract compositions.
Each brush and ink and wash on cream wove paper. 170x135 mm; 6¾x5¼ inches. Each signed and dated in ink, lower recto; two initialed in ink, lower recto, and signed in ink, verso. Each 1932.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Three ink drawings of abstract compositions.
Each brush and ink and wash on cream wove paper. 170x135 mm; 6¾x5¼ inches. Each signed, initialed and dated in ink, lower right recto; two signed in ink, verso. Each 1932.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Abraham walkowitz (1878-1965)
Three ink drawings of abstract compositions.
Each brush and ink and wash on cream wove paper. 170x133 mm; 6¾x5¼ inches. One initialed, signed and dated “1932” in ink, lower edge. Each circa 1932.
Provenance: Artist’s estate, New York.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Carl van vechten (1880-1964)
Abraham Walkowitz.
Silver print, the image measuring 254x190.5 mm; 10x7½ inches, with Van Vechten’s signature, in ink, and his blind stamp, on recto, and his 101 Central Park West hand stamp with a notation, in ink, and his credit and the sitter’s name, in pencil, on verso. 1937.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
Arnold newman (1918-2006)
Abraham Walkowitz in front of New York Stock Exchange * Portrait of Ibram Lassaw.
Together, 2 silver prints, the images measuring 247.7x196.9 mm; 9¾x7¾ inches, the former on a mount 393.7x323.9 mm; 15½x12¾ inches, with Newman's signature, in pencil, on mount recto, and the latter flush mounted with Newman's copyright hand stamp, the sitter's credit, in pencil, and the negative date, in ink, on mount verso. Circa 1960 and 1977; the latter printed 1980s.
Published: (Abraham Walkowitz) Zabriskie Gallery, Zabriskie Fifty Years, 2004, page 110 (illustrated).
Zabriskie Gallery, New York held an exhibition titled "Photographic Portraits of Walkowitz," September 8-October 17, 1992, including work by Newman alongside those of Lotte Jacobi, Alfred Stieglitz and Carl van Vechten.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
William zorach (1887-1966)
Washington Square Park, New York.
Pencil on thin cream wove paper. 280x213 mm; 11x8½ inches. Signed, titled and dated in ink, lower recto. 1913.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
William zorach (1887-1966)
Flowering Tree.
Watercolor and pencil on cream wove paper. 280x217 mm; 11x8½ inches. Inscribed “By William Zorach per Tessim Zorach” in pencil, verso. 1913.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
William zorach (1887-1966)
Standing Nude.
Pencil on cream wove paper. 610x455 mm; 24x18 inches. Signed in pencil, lower right recto. Circa 1940.
Provenance: Artist’s estate; Marguerite Zorach, the artist’s wife; The Downtown Gallery, New York, with the label verso.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Eugenie baizerman (1899-1949)
Young Artist (Portrait of Saul Baizerman).
Oil on canvas. 505x430 mm; 20x17 inches. Signed, titled and dated in ink, verso. 1918.
As a teenager, Eugenie immigrated with her family from Poland to the United States. Having completed formal training at the Odessa Art School, Eugenie continued her studies in New York at the National Academy of Design and at the Educational Alliance. Classically trained, with Old Master artists as her model, Eugenie’s early output was more muted and figural than the vivid abstractions of her mature œuvre.
Saul Baizerman (1889-1957) was born in Vitebsk, Russia and moved to Odessa with his family as an adolescent. He wished to become a sculptor from an early age, watching his father, a harness maker by trade, hammer metal and leather hides. Saul was surrounded by revolutionary activity and political turmoil in Odessa. At age sixteen, he was imprisoned, though escaped to the United States after serving one and half years for his revolutionary ties. In 1910, Saul settled in New York, where he continued his artistic training at the Beaux-Art Institute of Design and attended much of the same schools as Eugenie, Moses Soyer (1899-1974), Raphael Soyer (1899-1987) and Chaim Gross (1902-1991).
Saul and Eugenie married in 1920, at a time when Saul was beginning to become noticed for his small hammered bronze sculptures of the working class. The two artists traveled through Europe during the early 1920s, Saul exhibiting his “Labor Series” in London and Paris before the couple’s daughter was born in New York in 1926.
Saul’s physically arduous technique of hammering sheets of copper related directly to his portraits of New York laborers. His exertion, evident in the works themselves, is reflected by his subjects. Saul was impeded by a studio fire in 1931 which destroyed all of his copper works in progress, though he was widely exhibited through the 1930s and 1940s.
Eugenie’s abstract paintings, which put color theory before form, borrowed from Expressionism. When she did include subjects, they were characterized as being “buried under a blanket of petals” so that the scenes shrunk into the background. She exhibited independently at the Artists Gallery, New York in 1938 and 1950, though she never sold a work. In 1948, the Baizermans exhibited together Saul’s monumental hammered work and Eugenie’s broadly painted colorful canvases at the Artists Gallery.
Eugenie died in 1949 and Saul’s health began to decline. His career in the 1950s was marked by high praise and honors. In 1953, the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, organized his first retrospective. By the time Saul remarried in 1955, he had already withdrawn from his artistic work. When he died in 1957, he left behind a studio of large sculpture and a group of critics, collectors, and gallerists dedicated to his work, including Virginia Zabriskie and Joseph Hirshhorn. Though Eugenie remained an obscure artist, Krasner Galleries held a favorably received retrospective exhibition of her work in 1961 and Zabriskie Gallery exhibited her paintings from 1969 through 1988 and most recently in 2000.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Eugenie baizerman (1899-1949)
Enjoyment (Two Nudes).
Oil on canvas. 760x970 mm; 30x38 inches. Dated and indistinctly inscribed in oil, lower left recto, and signed, titled and dated ink, verso. 1926.
Estimate
$1,000 – $1,500
Carl sprinchorn (1887-1971)
Three brush and ink and wash drawings.
Box Holders, Carnegie Hall, New York. 330x270 mm; 13x10½ inches. Signed in ink, lower left recto and with a lithographed culinary illustration on the verso. Circa 1925-30 * Actor. 252x205 mm; 10x8 inches. Initialed and inscribed "213" in pen and ink, lower left recto and with a pen and ink sketch of a woman in a coat and muff, verso * Woman of Ancient Rome, with pencil. 167x105 mm; 6½x4 inches. Signed and initialed in pen and ink, lower edge recto and with pen and ink sketches of faces verso.
Provenance: (Box Holders, Carnegie Hall, New York) Passedoit Gallery, New York, 1930; (Actor and Woman of Ancient Rome) Kenneth Dickerson, The Little Gallery, New York, each with the ink stamp on the frame back.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Elie nadelman (1882-1946)
Standing Nude in Profile.
Pencil on tan wove paper. 265x195 mm; 10½x7⅝ inches. Circa 1920.
Provenance: Weyhe Gallery, New York; Robert Isaacson Gallery, New York; Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Elie nadelman (1882-1946)
Standing Woman in Profile.
Pencil on thin wove paper. 280x215 mm; 11x8½ inches. Circa 1920.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Elie nadelman (1882-1946)
Head.
Bronze on marble base. 240 mm; 9½ inches (height, including base). Artist’s signature and “© 1965 AMR” incised on the lower edge of the portrait head. Circa 1925 (recast 1965).
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
Paul manship (1885-1966)
The Flight of Europa.
Bronze cast medallion. 140 mm; 5½ inches (diameter). Second state (of 3). With the artist's signature and date cast on the underside of the bull. 1919.
Provenance: Artist's estate.
Inspired by Titian's oil on canvas The Rape of Europa, 1559-1562, in the collection of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Estimate
$700 – $1,000
Léon hartl (1889-1973)
Still Life with Grapes and Glass Bowl.
Oil on canvas. 405x515 mm; 16x20¼ inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper right recto. Signed, dated and annotated "Noir brisé sur Blanc" in oil, verso (obscured by restoration). 1921.
Published: Zabriskie Gallery, Zabriskie Fifty Years, 2004, page 82 (illustrated).
Hartl, born in Paris and trained as a master dyer, was admired by fellow artists for his untrained innate talent and sense of color. The artist Fairfield Porter (1907-1975) wrote admiringly of his career and technique in Art News in 1953, noting that Hartl drew directly with paint and never added medium to his pigments, only using turpentine for erasing. He told Porter, "Art is a feeling of things, not a description of them. When you are young you are sensual, later your exaltation is more spiritual."
When Hartl came to the United States in 1912, he turned to painting to assuage his homesickness. At first, he painted French flowers and birds from memory. Even his mature work was autobiographical of either his life in France or New York. Hartl used real-life references to inform his color choices (an apple and fallen leaves for a landscape scene) and usually worked on multiple paintings at once. Though his career spanned the Abstract movement in the United States, Hartl remained steadfast with representative art. In 1920, he exhibited in group shows at the New Gallery alongside Ernest Fiene (1894-1965), Arnold Friedman (1879-1946), Joseph Stella (1877-1946) and Carl Sprinchorn (1877-1971). He was represented by Juliana Force of the Whitney Studio Galleries (formerly Whitney Studio Club) from its formation in 1928 through its metamorphosis into the Whitney Museum in 1931. Hartl had numerous solo exhibitions in New York, with one at Zabriskie Gallery in 1967.
Estimate
$3,000 – $5,000
JOSEPH STELLA AND COLLAGE
Stella completed more than sixty-five collages during his career, using items like dirty paper, cigarette wrappers, theater tickets and leaves, all tremendously avant-garde for their time. They highlight each element’s tactility in a relatively unaltered state by the artist, allowing their natural decomposition and decay to show. They were not exhibited during Stella’s lifetime, and he spoke and wrote very little of them. Not until a selection was first exhibited at the Zabriskie Gallery in 1960-61 were they brought to the attention of the broader artistic community. The following year, Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for “The Art of Assemblage” travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York.
During his lifetime, Stella was primarily known for his Futurist works as well as his interest in Precisionism in the 1920s and 1930s. He started making these intimate, experimental and personal collages around 1918 and likely continued throughout his career. Joann Moser, in writing about Stella’s collages, has noted that they “. . . anticipated some of the more important developments in the medium over the past fifty years and represent some of the more significant and innovative achievements of his entire career (“The Collages of Joseph Stella: ‘Macchie/Macchine Naturali’,” American Art, Summer 1992, vol. 6, no. 3).
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Untitled.
Paper collage. 140x125 mm; 5½x5 inches. Circa 1920-25.
Exhibited: "Joseph Stella: Paintings and Works on Paper," Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C., Fall 1990, number 73 (illustrated), with the label on the frame back.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Untitled.
Paper collage and oil on board. 293x225 mm; 11⅝x9 inches. Circa 1920.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Leader Brand.
Paper collage and oil on board. 300x225 mm; 11¾x8⅞ inches. Circa 1920.
Exhibited: "Joseph Stella: Paintings and Works on Paper," Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C., 1990, number 70 (illustrated), with the label on the frame back.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Four Leaves.
Collage of leaves on paper. 248x98 mm; 9¾x3⅞ inches. Circa 1920.
Exhibited: "Joseph Stella: Paintings and Works on Paper," Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C., Fall 1990, number 81; "Joseph Stella: Flora," Eaton Fine Art, Inc., West Palm Beach, January 9-March 6, 1998, with both labels on the frame back.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Bathers.
Mixed media and oil on paper collage. 335x422 mm; 13⅛x15⅝ inches. Circa 1925-30.
The oil on paper was made by Louis Michel Eilshemius (1964-1941) around 1920-21 and appropriated by Stella for this collage.
Exhibited: "Joseph Stella: Paintings and Works on Paper," Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C., Fall 1990, number 83, with the label on the frame back.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$1,500 – $2,500
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Chaussette.
Watercolor on paper and mixed media collage. 390x245 mm; 15¼x9¾ inches. Circa 1930s.
Exhibited: "Joseph Stella: Paintings and Works on Paper," Pensler Galleries, Washington, D.C., Fall 1990, number 72, with the label on the frame back.
Zabriskie Gallery lent two collage works by Stella for "The Art of Assemblage" travelling exhibition organized by the Museum of Modern Art, New York, October 2, 1961- April 15, 1962.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
Joseph stella (1877-1946)
Two portrait drawings.
Man in Hat, pencil on cream wove paper. 108x95 mm; 4¼x3¾ inches. Signed in pencil, lower left recto * Man in Profile, color pencil on cream wove paper mounted on cardstock. 235x185 mm; 9¼x7¼ inches. Signed in pencil, lower right. Both circa 1910.
Estimate
$800 – $1,200
JOHN GRAHAM
Graham’s significant, influential career of four decades was marked by reinvention and a commitment to his vision of the endless possibilities of American Art.
Born Ivan Dabrowsky in Kiev, Graham was a law student and a czarist soldier in the 1917 revolution. After imprisonment and the downfall of Nicholas II, Graham left Russia and arrived in the United States in 1920. Though it is unclear if he showed artistic inclination in Russia, Graham recreated himself as an art student in New York. He attended the Art Students League from 1922 to 1924, where he studied under John Sloan (1871-1951). In a meteoric rise to recognition, Graham’s first solo museum exhibition was organized by Duncan Philips in 1929.
Like many early career artists, Graham traveled to Paris (his work would later be exhibited at Galerie Zabriskie, Paris) and he came under the influence of the Surrealists and their psychoanalytical approach, however he remained dedicated to his mission of creating a new American Art. Along with Stuart Davis (1892-1964) and Arshile Gorky (1904-1948), Graham would provide a foundation for American Modernism and would be sought out by a new generation of the New York School (his watershed 1937 treatise, System and Dialectics of Art had advanced the Abstract Expressionist movement).
During the 1940s, Graham departed from his post-Cubist style, and adopted a new loosened, abstract style. At this time, he served as a mentor to younger artists such as Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Arshile Gorky, whose works would shape the Abstract Expressionist movement. Graham was also considered influential to Lee Krasner, David Smith, Dorothy Dehner, and Mark Rothko.
In his mature career, he found inspiration in Old Master works and he approached his canvases with a measure of dignity and mysticism. His portraits are powerful, standing out boldly from their flattened back drops. Simultaneously, Graham conveyed a delicate luminosity and vulnerability; his sitters’ askew eyes act to ground the figure in a plane between fantasy and reality. This merging of worlds characterizes not only Graham’s work but also his storied, monumental life.
John graham (1886-1961)
Two color crayon portrait drawings.
Poet Armand. Signed and titled in crayon and pencil, upper left recto * Erskine (sculptor). Titled in pencil, upper left recto. With a pencil drawing of a man in profile, verso. Both 268x205 mm; 10¾x8¼ inches. Both circa 1934-35.
Estimate
$2,000 – $3,000
