Robert Colescott's George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook
Courtesy of Sotheby'sRobert Colescott’s George Washington Carver Crossing the Delaware: Page from an American History Textbook will be offered at Sotheby’s contemporary art sales in New York this May. With an estimate of between US$9 million and US$12 million, the painting is poised to set a price record for the African-American artist, Sotheby’s said.
The late artist’s current auction record of US$912,500 was set in November 2018 at a Christie’s auction in New York by his 1987 painting Cultural Exchange.
Both in title and composition, the work offered for sale directly references Emanuel Leutze’s iconic scene Washington Crossing the Delaware from 1851, which has been held in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York since 1897.
Colescott’s adaptation, also known as George Washington Carver, uses racial caricatures to underscore the omission of the African-American narrative within the prevailing representations of American history, Sotheby’s said.
“With its social and political resonance and sheer pictorial force, today Colescott's painting greatly rivals the iconic quality of its source image, offering a critical reckoning with the history of American art,” David Galperin, head of Sotheby’s evening auctions of contemporary art in New York, said in a statement.
The work has been for 45 years held by a private, anonymous Midwestern collector, who acquired it directly from John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco in 1976, according to Sotheby’s.
After serving in World War II in a segregated army, Colescott (1925-2009) enrolled in the University of California at Berkeley to study European Modernism. During this time, he traveled to Paris to study with Fernand Léger. In the 1960s, Colescott spent several years studying and teaching in Cairo, Egypt, in the early 1960s. After returning to the U.S., Colescott embraced a new figurative style and subject matter in his work, and George Washington Carver reflects this new mode.
George Washington Carver will highlight Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction on May 12. It will be on view in Hong Kong from April 16-21 and in Los Angeles from April 24-26, before returning to New York for a public exhibition from May 1-12.
"break" - Google News
April 20, 2021 at 05:10AM
https://ift.tt/3eaCkFi
Robert Colescott’s ‘George Washington Carver’ Poised to Break Artist’s Price Record - Barron's
"break" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3dlJq82
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Robert Colescott’s ‘George Washington Carver’ Poised to Break Artist’s Price Record - Barron's"
Post a Comment