Feb 16, 2023 - Sale 2626

Sale 2626 - Lot 39

Price Realized: $ 1,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500

HARRY STERNBERG (1901-2001)


Two prints from Circus. Circus #3 The Wheel * Circus #4 The Rings. Both etchings with aquatint. Both 230x301 mm; 9x11 7/8 inches, full margins. Both an edition of 30. Both signed, titled and inscribed " /30" in pencil, lower margin. Both printed by the artist, New York. Both 1929.

Both very good, richly-inked impressions with strong contrasts and the artist's tackholes for drying at the extreme edges.

While growing up in Brooklyn, Sternberg became friends with fellow artists Peter Blume and Philip Reisman through their school's art club. He took art classes at the Brooklyn Museum and attended the Art Students League. In 1926 Sternberg and Reisman learned etching under Harry Wickey. After some success as an artist, Sternberg was hired to teach etching, lithography, and composition at the Art Students League in 1933. It is around this time that Sternberg became active in artists' rights organizations, creating the American Artists Congress, and later as a member of the Artists Equity Association. In 1935 Sternberg began working as the technical advisor for the Graphic Arts Division of the Federal Art Project. During his time there he completed three murals. In 1937, Carrying the Mail for the Sellersville, Pennsylvania post office, also in 1937 Chicago: Epoch of a Great City for the Lakeview Post Office, and the last in 1939 in Ambler, Pennsylvania's post office titled The Family Industry and Agriculture.