?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
ALLAN FREELON (1895 - 1960) Longshoreman.
Charcoal and pencil on thin imitation Japan paper, 1937. 337x273 mm; 13 1/4x10 3/4 inches, full margins. Signed and dated in black ink, lower right, and titled in pencil, upper margin.
Provenance: estate of the artist; private collection.
Exhibited: The Rediscovery of Allan R. Freelon: African-American Master, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, PA, November 1999 - March 2000.
Raised in a middle-class family in Philadelphia, in 1912, Allan Freelon was the first African-American awarded a four-year scholarship to the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art. He then received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.F.A. from Temple University. During World War I, Freelon joined the U.S. Army, serving as Second Lieutenant. Upon his return to Philadelphia, he worked as the Art Supervisor for the Philadelphia Board of Education, while also creating his own artwork. By 1921, he had his first solo show at the 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library, and in 1929, he was one of the featured artists in the Harmon Foundation traveling exhibition.
