Feb 06, 2007 - Sale 2102

Sale 2102 - Lot 72

Price Realized: $ 67,200
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
NORMAN LEWIS (1909 - 1979)
Street Music.

Oil on canvas, 1950. 660x610 mm; 26x24 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right verso. Titled and dated in ink, upper stretcher bar verso.

Provenance: private New York collection.

An early example of Norman Lewis's use of small figures within his abstractions, in what have been called the "rituals" paintings. In the late 1940s, he introduced these stylized groupings of anonymous peoples within the atmosphere of his paintings. The titles are the clearest indicators of the roles of these figures: from the civil rights struggle in Alabama, 1960, and the klansmen in Evening Rendezvous, 1962, to the ceremonial and celebratory activities, in Street Music and Congregation, also from 1950.