May 07, 2020 - Sale 2534

Sale 2534 - Lot 96

Price Realized: $ 2,600
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,500
(ART.) Locke, Alain; editor. The Negro in Art, signed by many of the featured artists. Color frontispiece plate, color double-page spread after page 124. 224 pages. 4to, publisher's gilt cloth, moderate wear, lettering faded; cello tape stains to Roosevelt letter and front free endpaper, paper clip stain to pages 4-8, rear hinge split; Letter Signed by Eleanor Roosevelt laid in. Washington, DC: Associates in Negro Folk Education, 1940

Additional Details

Dutton Ferguson (1904-1980), a federal Works Projects Administration employee who later served a term as editor of "Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life," collected autographs in this book during the two years after its publication. On 3 April 1980, when Ferguson and the artists were all well advanced in age, President Jimmy Carter held a reception at the White House to honor 10 pioneering black artists. Richmond Barthé and Samuel J. Brown both signed that day, and possibly others who were present at the event. Ferguson died the next month.
14 different artists and the editor have signed this volume, a total of 26 times. The signatures include Alain Locke, "For Dutton Ferguson, friend of many years," 1941 (front free endpaper) Laura Wheeler Waring, 1941 (page 37) Hale Woodruff 7 times (54, 55, 57, 59, 123, 124A, 124B) Richmond Barthé, 1980 (71) Charles Alston 3 times (76, 86, 125) Loïs Mailou Jones (84) Romare Bearden (86) Samuel J. Brown, 3 times in 1980 (91-93) James Lesesne Wells 3 times (94-96) Charles Sebree (98) Elizabeth Catlett to Dutton Ferguson (115) Elmer Simms Campbell (117) Ernest Critchlow (120) Charles White "to Dutton" in 1942 (121) and Marvin Pentz Smith (122). Laid in is a Letter Signed from First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on White House stationery to Dutton Ferguson: "Thank you so much for the copy of 'The Negro in Art.' I was very interested in seeing it." It is accompanied by the original stamped mailing envelope.