?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,000 - $ 1,500
PAUL COLIN (1892-1986)
KATHERINE DUNHAM. 1949.
58 3/4x38 1/2 inches, 149x97 3/4 cm. Bedos & Cie, Paris. Condition B / B+: creases and abrasions in image; tears and repaired tears at edges; foxing at upper right edge; paper separating from linen at bottom left corner and top edge; minor losses and pin holes in corners.
Katherine Dunham toured the world as a dancer continuously from 1945 to 1961. During those years, she performed in Paris on four separate occasions: in 1947, 1949, 1951 and 1953. Colin designed three posters for Dunham, of which this is considered to be the rarest. Although previously undated, we know the poster is from 1949 based on a February 11, 1949 New York Times notice written by Art Buchwald: "The Theatre National Palais de Chaillot . . . will be the setting of Katherine Dunham's return visit to Paris. The dancer and her troupe have made a successful tour of Europe and will open at the Palais, February 17, for a three week engagement." On January 9, 1953, the same theatre was home to the Parisian premiere of her seminal work "Southland." Colin's other two posters for Dunham are accomplished with more of a free-handed drawing style, but this image presents Dunham with the full respect of Colin's talents affording her the same graphic privileges of other Parisian performers who Colin favored. He utilizes one of his favorite devices, the flat tones of the background split into two different shades along a diagonal line. His play with light and shadow, and the whiteness of the inside of the dancer's dress, focus the viewer's attention on her legs.
