Gouache and ink on smooth Bristol paper. 485x635 mm; 19x25 inches. Signed in ink, upper right recto.
Provenance: Collection of William N. Eisendrath, Jr., St. Louis, Missouri; thence by descent to current owner, private collection, Michigan.
The collector William N. Eisendrath, Jr. (1903-1983) was born to a prominent Chicago family, his father the president of the Monarch Leather Company and a real estate and business owner. Eisendrath had credited his love of art to his education, having attended Yale University and studied abroad in Europe for one year. He married Erna Rice, an educator, in January 1934 and the couple were active in social clubs and art and literary initiatives in the city. With continuous involvement in the arts, Eisendrath eventually became a founder of the Society of American Art at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1940 and chairman of the Arts Club of Chicago the following year. He used his position at the Arts Club as an opportunity to expose the city to leading modern and contemporary artists, including Max Beckmann, Alexander Calder, and Jackson Pollock, and is believed to have organized the first exhibitions of Fernand Léger and Paul Klee in the United States. Eisendrath was recruited to serve as assistant director at Washington University in St. Louis in 1952, and later became the museum's director. During his tenure at Washington University, Eisendrath also served as a professor of art history and was instrumental in the building of Mark C. Steinberg Hall from 1959 to 1960, becoming its founding director. Eisendrath came to amass a prestigious art collection, which he and his wife generously gifted and loaned to various public institutions. He received an honorary doctorate from the University of Missouri in St. Louis in May of 1974.
