?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 25,000 - $ 35,000
(ART.) Archive of letters from the sculptor Richmond Barthé to a close Jamaican friend. 75 items (0.2 linear feet) in one box: 35 Autograph Letters Signed to friend Easton Lee of Jamaica dated 1966 to 1985; 24 signed greeting cards and postcards; 4 telegrams; 3 photocopied circular letters; 7 photographs (2 of them signed and inscribed); and 2 catalogs. Many of the letters have small punch holes and/or are tipped to notebook paper with cello tape; otherwise generally minor wear. Various places, bulk 1966-1985
The great Harlem Renaissance sculptor Richmond Barthé (1901-1989) left New York in 1947. He spent the next 22 or so years in Jamaica. There he befriended Easton Lee (1931-2021), who became a renowned Jamaican playwright, minister, and media personality. He sent these letters to Lee from 1966 to 1983, 24 of them from his home "Iolaus" in St. Ann, Jamaica from 1966 to 1969, then 6 from Florence, Italy from 1971 to 1975, and then 5 from Pasadena, CA, 1977 to 1985.
In these letters, Barthé discusses the inspiration and progress of numerous sculptures, including the well-known works, "The Lovers" and "The Seeker." He was not comfortable with the increasingly outrageous art world. He recounted an exhibit a friend had seen: "One of them, painted in fine detail, was just sex organs on a plate. I forgot to ask her if they were sautéd. . . . At the end of every civilization, there is always a decadent curve downward. I think we have hit the bottom" (21 October 1968). In contrast, "I shall spend the Easter weekend working on The Resurrection to Bach music. . . . I have been advised not to do religious pieces because there was no market for them. I continue to do them, and continue to sell every one of them" (3 April 1969). He felt validated by his reception in Europe: "The Italians like my work. . . . They compare it with the best of the Renaissance" (6 July 1971). He discusses his awareness of classical proportions: "The average man is 7 1/2 heads high. The classic proportion is 8 heads high. My new figures are nine heads high" (7 March 1969).
Barthé alludes on several occasions to a career path which never quite came to fruition: "After the show, I plan to leave sculpture and Jamaica, for painting and Europe" (23 April 1968). He was still trying to make the switch 13 years later: "I plan to give up sculpture and get back to my painting. I've given 54 years to sculpture, which I didn't mean to do originally. I planned to be a painter" (28 November 1981).
Literature was a frequent topic. On 24 June 1968, he mentions Walt Whitman, and discusses Gertrude Sanborn's 1923 novel "Veiled Aristocrats": "It was far ahead of its time. Americans did not want to read about this type of 'uppity nigger,' so the book was a failure." Among the notable friends mentioned in these letters are composer Samuel Barlow, painter Edna Manley, and American television actor James Garner, an important benefactor who is discussed in 1980 and 1981.
An abstract of the correspondence is available upon request. Provenance: consigned by an Easton Lee family member.
