?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
EDUARDO GARCÍA BENITO New York.
Oil on canvas, circa 1925. 1173x895 mm; 45 3/4x35 1/4 inches. Signed and titled in oil, lower recto and verso. With the label for The New York Cultural Center, New York.
Ex-collection Burgos Galleries, New York, with the receipt; private collection, New York.
Benito (1891-1981) was born in Valladolid, Spain and would go on to become well-known for his work as an illustrator for Condé Nast publications. He began his artistic studies at La Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid before moving to Paris in 1912 after he won a scholarship to study at L'Ecole des Beaux-Arts. While in France he also studied with Daniel Vierge, a fellow Spanish-born illustrator living in Paris who during the last quarter of the 19th century developed advanced techniques for reproducing illustrations. His time in Paris was successful, and he supported himself by drawing society portraits of wealthy Parisians and illustrating fashions for the journal Gazette du Bon Ton. By 1915, he had exhibited in his first group show at the Galerie du Fauborg Saint-Honoré.
In 1920, he met Condé Montrose Nast, the famed American publisher, and thereafter for the next two decades was commissioned to illustrate Vogue and Vanity Fair covers, which bore his signature Art Deco style. Drawing inspiration from Cubism and Constructivism, his covers were lauded for their portrayal of female profiles in a flat, linear manner and significantly helped to establish Vogue as a leading fashion publication.
Benito traveled frequently between Paris and New York during the 1920s and 1930s. This glowing, vibrant oil painting of the city is evocative of the booming metropolis that Benito encountered as a European visiting New York during the roaring Jazz Era. In addition to his illustration art, he continued working as a society portrait painter and muralist. A retrospective of the artist's work was held at the New York Cultural Center in 1974.
