Jun 20, 2024 - Sale 2673

Sale 2673 - Lot 296

Price Realized: $ 1,250
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 600 - $ 800
JANE BRESKIN ZALBEN (1950-)
Janson riffing on Mark Rothko and Robert Motherwell. Illustration for her book Mousterpiece: A Mouse-Sized Guide to Modern Art, (New York: Neal Porter/Roaring Brook Press, 2012). Mixed media, including watercolor, tempera, and pen on paper. 12 x 9 inches, in 14 x 11-inch mat. Signed "Jane Breskin Zalben" in lower right image. Archivally tipped to matte.

This image of Janson's riffs on Rothko and Motherwell appears on page 27. Zalben's book Mousterpiece was a runaway hit, especially at museums where art programs for children regularly use the story of a small mouse named Janson (after art historian H. W. Janson) to introduce them to the modern masters. Janson lives in a museum and learns to paint in the style of Albers, Rousseau, Warhol, Picasso and others until she creates her own original work, her "mousterpiece," and thus "arriving" as an artist. The book was listed on The Horn Book's "Calling Caldecott" list among other accolades.