Friday, September 23, 2011

Charles Demuth: Apples and Crocuses

Charles Demuth was a master watercolorist.  Two of his works in this medium are going up on the auction block this coming Tuesday. Crocuses is one of those floral watercolors that just seems absolutely luminous. Apples is mostly unpainted and its estimate seems on the high side to me. Still, it's clearly similar to other Demuth watercolors of the same subject.

Charles Demuth (1883-1935) 
Crocuses 
signed 'C. Demuth.' (lower left) 
watercolor and pencil on paper
10½ x 8 in. (26.7 x 20.3 cm.) 

Estimate

    $30,000 - $50,000
October 9, 2011:  Unsold
Sale Information
Sale 2467  Lot 14
Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture 
27 September 2011
New York, Rockefeller Plaza 
Provenance
The artist.
[With]Alfred Stieglitz, New York.
Mrs. A. Stewart Walker, Southampton, New York.
Pre-Lot Text
Property of the Rumsey-Harriman Collection; Estate of Mrs. Charles C. Rumsey
Literature
E. Farnham, Charles Demuth: His Life, Psychology and Works, vol. II, Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, 1959, pp. 644-45, no. 581.


Charles Demuth (1883-1935) 


Apples 

watercolor and pencil on paper
8 x 8 in. (20.3 x 20.3 cm.), image; 10 x 12¼ in. (25.4 x 31.1 cm.), sheet 

Estimate


    $25,000 - $35,000
    October 9, 2011:  Unsold
Sale 2467  Lot 15
Fine American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture 
27 September 2011
New York, Rockefeller Plaza 

Provenance

Private collection, New York.
By descent to the present owner.
Pre-Lot Text
PROPERTY FROM A PARK AVENUE ESTATE


Related works:

Apples (Peaches, A Double-Sided Work), c.1925, Menconi & Schoelkopf Fine Art, LLC

Still Life: Apples and Green Glass, 1925
Watercolor and graphite on ivory wove paper
300 x 350 mm
The Art Institute of Chicago
Olivia Shaler Swan Memorial Collection, 1933.473
http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork/14700

Three Red Apples (double sided), c.1929, 10 x 14 in., Jill Newhouse Gallery, previously with Sotheby's USA 2009

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