?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 50,000 - $ 75,000
HALE WOODRUFF (1900 - 1980) Celestial Gate.
Oil on linen canvas, circa 1965-68. 912x610 mm; 36x24 inches. Signed in oil, lower right, recto. Signed and titled in ink on the stretcher bars verso.
Provenance: gift from the aritst to Danetta Sanders, New York (1968); thence by descent to the current owner, private collection, New York.
Exhibited: Hale Woodruff: 50 Years of His Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, April 29 - June 24, 1979, with the label on the verso.
Illustrated: Hale Woodruff: 50 Years of His Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 1979, p. 38.
This series of paintings by Hale Woodruff incorporates the forms derived from Ashanti gold weights and the doors of dwellings of Dogon chiefs in Mali. There is some debate about the date of this series as the artist did not date his work and the characteristics appear in paintings dating as early as 1946, continuing into the 1960s. The 2007 Spelman College exhibition Hale Woodruff, Nancy Elizabeth Prophet and the Academy included Celestial Gate paintings dated as early as 1953 - including the large painting in their collection. However, in this case, an artist's letter to the owner gave evidence that he continued this series well into the 1960s.
