Sep 21, 2023 - Sale 2645

Sale 2645 - Lot 279

Price Realized: $ 1,188
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
HENRY MILLER
Neptune Enters Libra.

Watercolor on cream wove paper, 1944. 340x265 mm; 13 1/4x10 3/8 inches. Signed, titled, dated and dedicated to Wallace Fowlie in ink, lower recto, and titled in ink, verso.

Provenance: Wallace Fowlie, Durham, North Carolina; private collection; New York; Swann Auction Galleries, New York, sale 2355, June 19, 2014, lot 187; private collection, California.

While known as one of the most significant American writers of the 20th century, Miller (1891-1980) also painted frequently. He drew from the subconscious, blending his dreams with reality in often surrealistic and abstract compositions. These works were usually gifted to his friends and associates. This work is dedicated to Wallace Fowlie (1908-1998) who was Miller's friend, frequent correspondent, and scholar whose translations of Rimbaud into English were important to the development of experimental postwar American writing.