?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 40,000 - $ 60,000
CHARLES WHITE (1918 - 1979) Collection of 31 early sketchbook drawings.
4 - Portrait of a Young Woman, pen and ink and wash * 6 - Crowd Scene, with watercolor wash * 7 - Bare-chested Man * 9 - Reclining Woman in Trousers * 10 - Profile of a Man, dry brush and ink * 18 - Reclining Nude * 19 - Standing Nude from Rear * 20 - Head of a Man * 21 - Profile of a Man, blue pen and ink * 22 - Cats. Titled in pencil, upper left * 23 - Dancers * 25 - Standing Nude, pen and ink over pencil * 28 - Seated Man with Long Hair at Table pen and ink over pencil with watercolor wash * 33 - Women's High Heeled Shoes * 35 - Hand * 36 - Woman Reading with Glasses * 39 - Drawing for Block Print (Two Women with Mask) * 40 - Design for Block Print (Man with Accordion and Woman). [Gedeon also illustrates and describes a block print for which this drawing is apparently a design for Untitled (Musicians), circa 1937-38. See Gedeon Eb1] * 50 - Two Profile Studies * 55- Woman in Long Dress56 - Young Woman with Hand at Mouth * 58 - Dental Exam * 65 - Seated Nude * 70 - Standing Nude with Hand on Hip. Each approximately 251x192 mm; 9 7/8x7 1/2 inches (sheets). Each numbered in pencil, lower right.
Help! Chicago on newsprint taped to wove paper at corners, with a pencil portrait of a man on the verso * Head Study * Woman in Blue Dress, watercolor * Woman in Dress, watercolor * Standing Nude with Arms Raised to the Left. Inscribed "Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so - Samuel Butler" in pencil, verso * Woman Seated with Glass. Each with the artist's estate ink stamp, lower right * Portrait of a Young Woman. Signed and dated 35 in pencil, lower right. Each circa 1935-38. Each in pencil (unless specified otherwise). Each disbound from sketchbooks. Various sizes and conditions.
Provenance: Ex-collection the artist; Benjamin Horowitz, Los Angeles.
As an avid draughtsman, White presumably filled numerous sketchbooks during and after his intensive period of study at the Chicago Art Institute. However, there are few surviving examples. Lucinda Gedeon cites the numbered drawings in this collection as coming from his first known notebook.
Charles White was determined to become an artist despite his family's tight finances, and early rejections from discriminatory art schools. White won a $240 scholarship to attend the Chicago Art Institute, entering in 1937. White completed the two year course in one year, despite often walking the 60 blocks home to save money and working as a cook and valet. Upon his graduation in 1938, he soon qualified to join the easel and mural division of the Federal Art Project in Illinois. White learned quickly from the Chicago muralists Mitchell Siporin and Edward Millman until he received permission for his own WPA mural project in 1939, "Five Great American Negroes". Gedeon Sketchbook A, p. 402-403.
