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Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
DOROTHY DEHNER Untitled.
Color lithograph on white Arches Cover paper, 1971. 546x679 mm; 21 1/2x26 3/4 inches, full margins. Signed and numbered 12/20 in pencil, verso. Printed and published by the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, with the ink stamps and Tamarind number "71-103" in pencil, verso. A superb impression of this extremely scarce lithograph with strong colors.
Dehner (1901-1994) initially came to New York by way of California, to pursue acting and dance, which she studied at the University of California, Los Angeles. She enrolled at the American Academy of Art in New York, but her travels in 1925 throughout Europe, where she saw works by Picasso and Matisse, convinced her to change course and pursue a career as an artist. She studied for several years at the Art Students League and there met the American modernist sculptor David Smith, whom she married in 1940. Similar to his interests, she explored more progressive art forms, adhering to abstract and cubist tendencies rather than simply representational imagery.
The couple moved to Bolton Landing, a farm outside New York City, where, unfortunately, Dehner's art was secondary to her duties as a wife (Her painting Life on the Farm serves as a psychological reflection of the mundanity then). The couple separated in 1950 and divorced two years later. Dehner resumed her career as an artist, studying printmaking at Atelier 17 and returning to her much beloved medium of sculpture.
