?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(BLACK POWER.) George 8X Stewart. Group of 9 posters featuring his artwork. Each 25 x 20 or slightly smaller; minor wear including a few short tears in margins. Washington, 1971 and undated
George 8X Stewart was born circa 1937 as George E. Stewart. He was raised in Washington and became entangled in drugs, spending much of his early life in reformatories and prisons. While serving a 20-month sentence in the District of Columbia Jail on a narcotics charge, he discovered a talent for drawing. After his August 1967 release, he began drawing portraits of people in his neighborhood, and then in May 1968 joined the caravan of the Poor People's Campaign as its official portrait artist. See the Pittsburgh Courier, 1 June 1968.
Very little of Stewart's work has appeared at auction. All but one of the posters in this group are credited "Copyright 1971 George Stewart. . . . E.B. Wash Art Gallery, 3220 Georgia Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20010. Phone RA 6-5106." Some offer a Mrs. Minor as an alternate contact, and two name Mrs. Isabelle Stewart. The artwork is all signed in the print by George E. Stewart or George 8X Stewart, in 1968 or 1971. Included are:
A variant printing of Stewart's best-known image, showing Angela Davis in the center, surrounded by various other figures in the black power struggle: Huey Newton, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and more, together with a quote from the Declaration of Independence and a quote from Che Guevara. Swann has sold two later variants: one issued without a title or publication credit (10 March 2011, lot 201); and one titled "Endurance," printed in Huntsville, AL and New York by Blackness Incorporated, circa 1975 (24 March 2022, lot 158). The present version is untitled, printed in sepia tones, and measures 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches, with the 1971 copyright statement.
Untitled portrait of a woman wearing a Poor People's Campaign pin with a portrait of Elijah Muhammad in the background, 25 x 19 inches, 1971.
Untitled white-on-black portrait of Malcolm X, 23 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches, 1971.
"Kwame Nkrumah," 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches, 1971.
Portrait of unidentified bearded man in African garb, 25 x 20 inches, 1971.
"Harry Belafonte," 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches, 1971.
"They Need Our Help Now! We Stand Tall When We Stoop to Help a Child," 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches, 1971.
Untitled portrait of a woman in African garb, 25 x 20 inches, undated with no credit line.
Untitled portrait of a nursing mother, 22 1/2 x 17 1/4 inches, 1971.
