?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
JOHN BIGGERS (1924 - 2001) Ethiopian Women.
Conte crayon on heavy wove paper, mounted to illustration board, 1969. 1476x1412 mm; 37 1/2x29 inches. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed "Best Wishes Maya" in crayon, lower right.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; the estate of Dr. Maya Angelou.
Ethiopian Women is an excellent example from the series of large drawings from the Gondor Market which Biggers drew after a six-month trip to Ethiopia and Eastern Africa in 1969. John Biggers continued to depict many different representations of women gathered in the marketplace--in crayon, charcoal and lithograph--which, according to Olive Jensen Theisen, explored the spirit of maame, the strong maternal love found in the African family. Ethiopian Women incorporates this theme in this composition--the young girl in the center is flanked by two older women-within a formal study of the light and contrasts found in the textures of the African market. Gondor Market: Ethiopian Market, 1970, in the collection of Dr. and Mrs. Joseph A. Pierce, Jr., is a, similar drawing from this period. Theisen pp. 72-73; Wardlaw p. 51.
