American & European Works of Art | Skinner auctions 3655B 3635T

Page 1

American & European Works of Art 3655B May 21, 2021 10AM Marlborough, MA

|

3635T May 11–20 skinnerinc.com


American & European Works of Art Prints, Photographs & Multiples will be offered in a timed online auction which begins on May 11th and runs until lots begin closing at 7PM on May 20th. Bid at your leisure at any time within this window on iconic works by Berenice Abbott, Andy Warhol, Marc Chagall, and Roy Lichtenstein. The sale also features a collection of photographs and related works by George Platt Lynes that belonged to one of his muses, Charles “Chuck” Howard. Then join us on Friday, May 21st, at 10AM for a virtual live auction of Paintings, Sculpture & Works on Paper. This auction features select works by a diverse group of artists from the 16th century to the present. We will miss seeing you in the auction room, but our auctioneers will be busy taking real-time bids via telephone, by proxy, and through our website.

3635T: Prints, Photographs & Multiples online : May 11–20 | www.skinnerinc.com 3655B: Paintings, Sculpture & Works on Paper: Friday, May 21 | 10AM | Marlborough please contact the department for condition reports & preview information; visit our website to register & bid

Robin S.R. Starr Elizabeth Haff Kathleen M. Leland James Leighton paintings@skinnerinc.com 508.970.3206

MA LIC. 2304

this page, sale 3635T: 1092 James Abbott McNeill Whistler (American, 1834-1903), The Riva No. 2, 1879-80, etching 1015 Marc Chagall (Russian/French, 1887-1985), Le cirque ambulant, 1969, color lithograph 1064A Pablo Picasso (Spanish, 18811973), Avant la pique, I, 1959, linocut

front cover, sale 3655B: 66 Ogden Minton Pleissner (American, 1905-1983), Cran Serré, watercolor back cover, sale 3635T: 1014 Vija Celmins (Latvian/American, b. 1938), Comet, from the Skowhegan Suite, 1992, linocut


1046 Robert Peter Mangold (American, b. 1937), Untitled, from the Skowhegan Suite, 1992, woodcut

1001 Jean-Michel Basquiat (American, 1960-1988), Untitled (Ramus of Mandible), from the series Anatomy, 1982, screenprint

1019 Salvador Dalí (Spanish, 1904-1989) The Complete Portfolio Imaginations & Objects of the Future, 1975-76, color lithographs with dry point and some with collage (partial)

Prints & Multiples


1040 Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), Crying Girl, 1963, color offset lithograph 1041 Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997), Foot and Hand, 1964, color offset lithograph

Pop Art

1033 Keith Haring (American, 19581990), Crack Down!, 1986, color lithograph

Pop Art takes its name from the integration of commercialized popular culture into art, and was, in part, a response to the dominant movement preceding it: Abstract Expressionism. The AbEx artists such as Pollock, de Kooning, Frankenthaler, and Rothko rejected traditional representational art as elitist. In their view, most traditional art required viewers to have a sophisticated knowledge of history, religious iconography, literature, and classical mythology. Pop Art reintroduced representation, but with a twist. Subject matter was culled from popular culture, so it could be readily understood by the average viewer. Works based on familiar subjects were instantly recognized thanks to the increasingly widespread mediums of advertising, movies, and television—and often incorporate a sense of joy, whimsy, and humor. Print-making was especially important to Pop Artists, as it reflected our culture’s shift towards mass production, and the lower prices garnered by prints and multiples meant Pop Art could be more readily collected.

Andy Warhol was the proverbial king of Pop. His style grew out of his work as an advertising illustrator, and his subjects range from the most mundane objects to the most glamorous figures in Hollywood. He often incorporated photographic images, and in the context of his portraits, these are often reminiscent of actors’ and authors’ headshots, as is seen in his Franz Kafka. Roy Lichtenstein was also a Pop star. Uninterested in advertising or Hollywood glamour, his art borrows its visual vocabulary from a very different aspect of popular culture: the comic book—employing the black outlines, primary colors, and Ben-Day dots typical of the medium. Each work expresses a vignette of a larger narrative that is easily comprehended, and which fires the viewer’s imagination as to the rest of the story. The legacy of Pop shows up in myriad places, including the work of contemporary artists such as Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, Yayoi Kusama, and Banksy. Pop Art expresses a joy and youthfulness that is just as irresistible today as it was in the 1960s.


1083 The Complete Portfolio X + X (Ten Works by Ten Painters), 1964, color screenprints (partial)

1074 Kenny Scharf (American, b. 1958), Two Multiples: Cateyeguy and Dogeyeguy, 2004, cast resin

1088 Andy Warhol (American, 1928-1987), Franz Kafka, from the suite Ten Portraits of Jews of the Twentieth Century, 1980, color screenprint


Fine Photographs | 3635T


1116 Eugène Atget (French, 1857-1927), Carrousel, 1923, printed later, gelatin silver print (opposite)

1122 Lois Conner (American, b. 1951), Yuanming Yuan (Waterdrop Lotus), 2014, printed 2017, inkjet print

1098 Berenice Abbott (American, 1898-1991), Gunsmith and Police Department Headquarters, 1937, gelatin silver print

1173 Josef Sudek (Czech, 1896-1976), From the cycle Memories, 1956, printed 1977, from the portfolio Josef Sudek, gelatin silver print

1178 Henry Wessel (American, 1942-2018), Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1968, gelatin silver print

1127 Imogen Cunningham (American, 1883-1976), Martha Graham, Dancer, 1931, printed 1987, gelatin silver print


George Platt Lynes George Platt Lynes was a highly influential photographer who laid the groundwork for a later generation of artists that explored male sexuality, such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Herb Ritts. Considered radical at the time, his erotic photographs of the male nude are celebrated and widely exhibited today. A prominent figure within fashion photography in the 1930s, Lynes created stylized photographs for high-profile publications including Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Concurrently, he had multiple gallery exhibitions and quickly became a central figure in the New York photography world. Rapid exposure led to commissions for the School of American Ballet; here he formed a lifelong personal and professional relationship with the Ballet’s cofounder, Lincoln Kirstein, and became the primary photographer for the Ballet, working with the company for twenty years. For most of his career, Lynes privately made nude photographs of the artists and writers within his social circle that accepted his sexuality. In 1948, he first met Chuck Howard, an aspiring fashion designer whose sculptural features made him a favorite model for artists including Paul Cadmus, Jared French, and Bernard Perlin. Howard often posed for Lynes and became his muse—creating fashion images, personal portraits of their relationship, and the erotic nudes that Lynes is best known for today. Due to the conservative laws and cultural ideologies of the time, Lynes was unable to openly share his personal work with the world. In creating the photographs, both the photographer and his subjects were at great personal risk; an unfortunate reality. At the time, Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey, author of Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, was in the process of opening a research institute at Indiana University and sought out Lynes for discussions on erotic art. Even though it was illegal to buy or sell nude male photographs, he was ultimately able to purchase hundreds of photographs and negatives for the Kinsey Institute, which has preserved Lynes’s legacy.

1147 George Platt Lynes (American, 19071955), Self-Portrait, 1945, gelatin silver print

1151 George Platt Lynes (American, 19071955), Chuck Howard on Boardwalk, Probably Fire Island, c. 1950, gelatin silver print

1149 George Platt Lynes (American, 19071955), Chuck Howard Holding an Arrow, c. 1950, gelatin silver print

1150 George Platt Lynes (American, 19071955), Chuck Howard in Swimming Pool, c. 1950, gelatin silver print


Fine Paintings & Sculpture: May 21, 12 PM

18th & 19th Century Works of Art

5 Thomas Hudson (British, 1701-1779), Portrait of Mrs. Richard Ray (née Elizabeth Lock, 1750-1815), oil on canvas

43 Martin Johnson Heade (American, 1819-1904), Pink Roses in a Fragile Vase, oil on canvas


this page:

opposite:

47 Arthur John Elsley (British, 1860-1952), Punch and Carlo, oil on canvas

128 Dean Cornwell (American, 18921960), Royal Colony - Colonial Scene, oil on canvas

24 Attributed to Albert Pasini (Italian, 18261899), The Encampment, oil on panel 40 Hiram Powers (American, 1805-1873), Loulie’s Hand, marble

145 John Koch (American, 1909-1978), Tea Time: Marian Burt Morgan and Evelyn Morgan as a Girl, oil on canvas 126 James Carroll Beckwith (American, 1852-1917), The Fishbowl, oil on canvas


View the sale & register to bid online or by phone: skinnerinc.com


The 20th Century 70 Aldro Thompson Hibbard (American, 1886-1972), Winding Stream with Snowy Banks, oil on canvas

121 Norman Rockwell (American, 1894-1978), Study for The Marriage License, pencil on tracing paper mounted to paperboard

67 Anthony Thieme (American, 1888-1954), Covered Bridge, Jeffersonville, Vermont, oil on canvas


64 Ogden Minton Pleissner (American, 19051983), MacDonald’s Pool - St. John River, watercolor

75 Charles Henry Hayden (American, 18561901), Pasture Land, alternatively titled Sheep Grazing in Landscape, oil on canvas

62 Ogden Minton Pleissner (American, 19051983), Big Salmon Pool, watercolor

Browse the full 3655B sale listing online at www.skinnerinc.com

61 Ogden Minton Pleissner (American, 19051983), Reeling In, watercolor


this page:

opposite:

104 James Edward Fitzgerald (American, 18991971), Moonlit Gulls, mixed media including gouache and ink on paper

195 Thaddeus Strode (American, b. 1964), On Cupcake Planets the Girls Are Digging Graves (In Response To Sonic Youth and Neil Young), mixed media including acrylic on canvas

102 Raoul Dufy (French, 1877-1953), Les Régates, pencil on laid paper 179 Paul Jenkins (American, 1923-2012), Phenomena Threading Yellow, acrylic on canvas


Modern & Contemporary


Graffiti Art The graffiti style that sprung up in Black and Latinx neighborhoods in New York City in the 1970s, alongside the rise of hip-hop music, focused on stylized signatures called “tags.” Artists like SEEN had personalized fonts and styles that were easily identifiable, and subway cars soon became the main targets of their spray cans. By the 1980s, simple tags had blossomed into elaborate, multicolored compositions, and New York City began a campaign to eliminate graffiti from public spaces. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring were key figures in the shift from a primarily text-based practice to a more imagedriven one. Just as these two artists expanded the scope of graffiti art, they also catapulted it into the space of the traditional art market. Basquiat found major gallery representation with Annina Nosei in New York and Larry Gagosian in Los Angeles, and Haring not only showed his work at New York galleries like Tony Shafrazi, but also opened his own retail distribution arm called Pop Shop. As uncommissioned art in public places became less textual, the term “street art” replaced “graffiti.” Artists today like Banksy and Shepard Fairey create street art pieces, while at the same time producing works for the traditional marketplace. Other artists, like Thaddeus Strode, incorporate the medium (spray paint) and the textual elements of graffiti into canvas paintings.

Also see sale 3635T, Fine Prints, Photographs & Multiples: Basquiat, Lot 1001, Keith Haring, Lots 1033 & 1034, Shepard Fairey, Lot 1025

194 Thaddeus Strode (American, b. 1964), Political Song Without Words, mixed media including acrylic on canvas

198 Thaddeus Strode (American, b. 1964), On Having No Head (and Paper Dolls), mixed media including acrylic on canvas


193 SEEN (Richard Mirando) (American, b. 1961), Untitled, acrylic spray paint on canvas

182 Stephen Bush (Australian, b. 1958), Cow, oil on canvas

184 Stephen Bush (Australian, b. 1958), Pomme de Terre, oil on paper

Find the full sale listing online: skinnerinc.com


191 Tom Lieber (American, b. 1949), Union, oil on canvas 172 Michael Loew (American, 19071985), Still Life No. 2, watercolor and ink on paper 192A Mats Gufstafson (Swedish, b. 1951), Untitled (Viktor & Rolf), watercolor and ink on paper

189 Dimitri Hadzi (American, 19212006), Talos, bronze


173 Ralph Coburn (American, 19232018), Folly Cove (Study), oil on canvas 176 Miguel Berrocal (Spanish, 19332006), Romeo e Giulietta (Opus 101), polished brass 178 Basilios Poulos (Greek/American, b. 1941), Abstract, acrylic on Masonite 170 Alexis Rockman (American, b. 1962), Surrealist Seascape, watercolor, ink, and gouache on paper


63 Park Plaza | Boston, MA 02116

PRESORTED FIRST CLASS MAIL U.S. POSTAGE

PAID PERMIT 8 NORTH READING, MA


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.