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Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
BENTON SPRUANCE Riders of the Apocalypse.
Lithograph, 1943. 322x416 mm; 12 5/8x16 3/8 inches, full margins. Edition of 35. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed "Ed. 35" in pencil, lower margin. Printed by Theodore Cuno, Philadelphia. A superb impression of this very scarce lithograph.
Spruance (1904-1967) 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. As in the current lot, he favored religious themes and modernist abstraction.
Riders of the Apocalypse is an oblique reference to the Albrecht Dürer master woodcut The Four Horsemen, at once an art historical nod and a dark warning. Created during the height of the Second World War, the lithograph depicts modern fighter jets in place of horsemen to caution against the evils and destructiveness of man. According to Fine/Looney, "The forties was a period of extraordinary transition in Spruance's work. The war and its aftermath, as well as Spruance's growing maturity as an artist, were among the reasons for the substantial changes that occurred." It was during this time that Spruance reached the height of abstraction in his work, his experimentation culminating in superlative compositions like the current work. Fine/Looney 222.
