?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
JOHN BIGGERS (1924 - 2001) Untitled (Seated Nude Study).
Brush and sepia ink on laid paper, 1957. 295x360 mm; 11 3/4x14 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower margin.
Following in the footsteps of his WPA predecessors, John Biggers is known for his murals, draughtmanship and interest in the African sources of African-American art. Born in Gastonia, North Carolina, he studied at Hampton University with Victor Lowenfeld and Charles White. In 1943, Biggers's mural Dying Soldier was exhibited in the important exhibition of Young Negro Art at the Museum of Modern Art, organized by Lowenfeld. After serving in the Navy for two years, he earned a B.S. and M.S. in 1948, and Ph.D. in 1954 at Pennsylvania State University, where Lowenfeld had relocated. In 1949, Biggers moved to Houston, where he founded and then chaired the art department at Texas Southern University. In 1957, he traveled to Africa on a UNESCO grant to study Western African cultural traditions. His influential book Ananse: The Web of Life in Africa was published in 1961, with drawings from these travels in Ghana, Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
