Sep 21, 2021 - Sale 2579

Sale 2579 - Lot 58

Price Realized: $ 531
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

KATHERINE SHUBERT-KUNIYOSHI SCHMIDT (1899-1978)


Two drawings.
Portrait of a Woman, color pastels and pencil on tan laid paper. 330x248 mm; 13x9 3/4 inches * Leaf Study, carbon pencil and white chalk on blue laid paper. 482x315 mm; 19x12 1/2 inches. Signed in pencil, upper left recto. Circa 1960.

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.