Jun 04, 2020 - Sale 2535

Sale 2535 - Lot 25

Price Realized: $ 10,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
DOX THRASH (1892 - 1965)
Seated Nude with an Eye.

Oil on cotton canvas, circa 1944-50. 762x508 mm; 30x20 inches.

Provenance: Samuel and Sally Nowak, Philadelphia; private collection, Pennsylvania; acquired at Samuel T. Freeman, Philadelphia (1986); thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, Sweden.

This striking painting is a scarce example of a Surrealist work on canvas by Dox Thrash. The artist explored abstraction through cubism and surrealism in his painting and printmaking in the mid-1940s, seen in such prints as A Useful Imagination and Three Ladies. John Ittmann also describes Thrash's exposure to new experimental printmakers like Stanley William Hayter at the Print Club of Philadelphia as an influence on the artist's changing work in the post-war period. Ittmann pp. 34-37.