Mar 30, 2023 - Sale 2631

Sale 2631 - Lot 94

Price Realized: $ 6,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
(ART.) Loïs Mailou Jones. Original portrait of executive Sara Spencer Washington, done for the 1942 "Twelve American Women" calendar. Ink and wash drawing, 14 1/2 x 11 inches (13 x 9 3/4 inches to sight), unsigned, taped into original 22 x 16 1/2-inch paper mat featuring a hand-lettered caption and ink illustration (also by Jones?), with fragment of a small printed calendar for July 1942 laid down; moderate wear and staining to mat, including 3 closed tears. No place, [1941]

Additional Details

The sitter Sarah Spencer Washington (1889-1953) of Atlantic City, NJ was the founder of the Apex Beauty Products Company, and a network of related salons and beauty academies. She emulated the success of Madam C.J. Walker (who is name-checked here in the caption) during and after the Great Depression, and is here credited with forging "a new appreciation and respect for brown beauty and the place it has in the western world."