?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
LEON KELLY (1901 1982, AMERICAN) Little Girl with a Hunting Dog.
Pencil on Arches paper, 1954. 775x578 mm; 30 1/2x22 3/4 inches. Signed, Leon Kelly, dated, 1954, and inscribed Una Muchachuela y Uno Perro Decaza, lower right. Signed, Leon Kelly, dated, 1954, and inscribed Little Girl with a Dog / No 464, on verso.
Provenance: The artist; Alexandre Iolas Gallery, NY; Newt Stiteler, Surf City, NJ; Gary Snyder Fine Art, NY.
Exhibited: Whitney Museum of American Art, NY, Annual Exhibition: Paintings, Sculpture, Watercolors & Drawings, January 12 - February 20, 1955.
Julien Levy opened his New York gallery with an exhibition of photographs with little enthusiasm from his audience. Though his passion for photography never diminished, he realized his strength lay in his connection to European Surrealist artists. Showing the works of Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Man Ray, and Rene Magritte he soon found his niche. Surrealism's impact on young artists in America through Julien Levy's gallery is immeasurable. Artists such as Leon Kelly and Phillip Perkins show direct influence, while Abstract Expressionists like Conrad Marca-Relli, Herman Cherry, and Harold Shapinsky owe much to the development of their expressive style to automatic painting concepts of the Surrealist pioneers.
