Jan 27, 2022 - Sale 2593

Sale 2593 - Lot 245

Price Realized: $ 1,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

BENTON SPRUANCE (1904-1967)


Old Owl.
Charcoal on paper. 830x540 mm; 32 3/4x21 1/2 inches. Intialed in charcoal, lower right recto.

Study for the same-titled color lithograph, 1957.

Provenance: Private collection, Chicago.

Spruance was born in Philadelphia, where he studied and remained to work and teach for most of his life. The heart of Spruance's practice was lithography, and he created over 550 prints over the course of his career. He favored religious themes and modernist abstraction, but during the WPA era he created many prints in the social realist style reminiscent of the Aschan school.