Lot 89
Charles Sheeler(1883-1965)Brancusi's "La Negresse Blonde, 1926"
4 October 2021, 14:00 EDT
New YorkUS$18,000 - US$22,000
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Charles Sheeler (1883-1965)
Brancusi's "La Negresse Blonde, 1926", c. 1950
Vintage gelatin silver print, titled, annotated 'Property of Mrs Eugene Meyer, 1624 Washington, D.C.' in pencil and Sheeler's Dow's Lane, Irvington, New York credit stamp on the mount verso.
9 1/2 x 6 7/8in (24.1 x 17.5cm)
mount 13 5/8 x 11 (34.5 x 28cm)
Vintage gelatin silver print, titled, annotated 'Property of Mrs Eugene Meyer, 1624 Washington, D.C.' in pencil and Sheeler's Dow's Lane, Irvington, New York credit stamp on the mount verso.
9 1/2 x 6 7/8in (24.1 x 17.5cm)
mount 13 5/8 x 11 (34.5 x 28cm)
Footnotes
Provenance
With Galerie Karsten Greve, St. Moritz
Agnes Elizabeth Ernst Meyer (1887-1970) was an American journalist, philanthropist, civil rights activist, and passionate art lover. Meyer's marriage to the financier Eugene Meyer provided her with the kind of wealth and status that enabled her to influence government policy on social welfare programs and she advocated for equal employment and educational opportunities, regardless of race.
The purchase of The Washington Post in 1933 gave Meyer and her family the capacity to affect American opinion for several generations. During Senator Joseph McCarthy's anti-Communist campaign in the 1950s, Meyer wrote articles and delivered speeches that characterized the campaign as a threat to academic freedom. Two decades later her daughter Katharine Graham spearheaded the Post's Pullitzer prize-winning coverage of the Watergate scandal that resulted in the impeachment of President Richard Nixon.
The Meyers were enthusiastic patrons of the arts and this important sculpture by Brancusi La Negresse Blonde, 1926, here photographed for the family by another protégé, Charles Sheeler, was originally part of their collection. The sculpture was gifted to SFMoMA in 1958.
