Sep 21, 2021 - Sale 2579

Sale 2579 - Lot 60

Price Realized: $ 1,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000

KATHERINE SHUBERT-KUNIYOSHI SCHMIDT (1899-1978)


Two drawings of women.
Woman with a Shopping Bag, pencil on cream wove paper. 427x352 mm; 16 7/8x13 3/4 inches. Signed and dated in pencil, lower right recto. 1955 * Young Woman in Profile, charcoal and white heightening on tan laid paper. 326x252 mm; 13x10 inches. Signed in pencil, upper left recto.

Schmidt began her training at the Art Students League in New York, where she met her husband Yasuo Kuniyoshi (1889-1953, see lot 54). Throughout the 1920s, she received critical praise for her still lifes, landscapes and portrayals of New York urban life, exhibiting frequently at prominent, modern New York galleries such as the Downtown Gallery, the Daniel Gallery and the Whitney Studio Club (of which she was a founding member and where she had her first solo exhibition in 1923). She became dissatisfied with her work from around 1939 until 1960, producing less though still participating in group exhibitions, when a crumpled paper towel on a table inspired her to explore the motif of dead leaves and discarded paper, the style of which approached "magical realism." She is known for her impeccable technique and her elevation of everyday, overlooked subjects.