Feb 17, 2009 - Sale 2169

Sale 2169 - Lot 13

Price Realized: $ 5,280
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000
JAMES LESESNE WELLS (1902 - 1995)
The Good Samaritan.

Linoleum cut on tissue-thin Japan paper, circa 1932-33. 240x290 mm; 9 1/2x11 1/2 inches, wide margins. Signed and titled in pencil, lower margin. 2 repaired edge tears, lower right. A superb, dark impression of this very scarce print.

Provenance: Löis Mailou Jones (both Jones and Wells were on the visual art faculty of Howard University from 1931 until his retirement in 1968); private Maryland collection.

Illustrated: Reynolds and Wright, Against All Odds: African-American Artists and the Harmon Foundation, The Newark Museum, NJ, plate 94, pg. 270.

Exhibited: Against All Odds: African-American Artists and the Harmon Foundation, The Newark Museum, January 15 - April 15, 1990, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, May 7 - July 9, 1990, Chicago Cultural Center, July 28 - September 29, 1990, with the label on the frame back, lent by Löis Mailou Jones.