Collage, watercolor and pen and ink on cream wove paper, circa 1959. 483x356 mm; 19x14 inches. Signed in ink, lower right.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist, New York; private collection, Colorado (1959). The owner recalls buying this from the artist as he was setting up his booth at the Washington Square outdoor art fair.
This early Benny Andrews drawing and collage is a wonderful document of the hipster scene he found in the East Village upon moving to New York from Chicago in 1958. Richard Gruber describes how Benny Andrews showed at the outdoor fair in 1959, selling $400 worth of pen and ink drawings. The man playing the conga drum closely resembles the father figure in "Folks", 1960, illustrated in American Icons: From Madison to Manhattan, the Art of Benny Andrews, 1948- 1977. Gruber fig. 84; p. 97 and 101.
