?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,500 - $ 4,500
DAVID HERBERT (1908-1995)
Portrait of Tallulah Bankhead. Watercolour on paper. 228x177 mm; 9x7 inches. Signed by David Herbert and Tallulah Bankhead, dated and inscribed "New York, 1933 " in ink, lower right.
Provenance: private collection, United Kingdom.
Actress of the stage and film, Tallulah Bankheard is immortalized in a portrait from her friend, David Herbert, in one of the few society portraits he executed in New York during Prohibition. This portrait is also included in David Herbert's 1972 autobiography, "Second Son."
Tallulah Bankhead never publicly used the term "bisexual" to describe herself, preferring to use the term "ambisextrous" to define her relationships with men and woman. She was also linked romantically with female personalities of the silver screen, including Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Hattie McDaniel, Beatrice Lillie, Alla Nazimova, Blyth Daly, writers Mercedes de Acosta and Eva Le Gallienne, and singer Billie Holiday. Actress Patsy Kelly confirmed she had a sexual relationship with Bankhead when she worked for her as a personal assistant.
This is the only authentic documented portrait to come to market of Bankhead.
