Feb 06, 2007 - Sale 2102

Sale 2102 - Lot 101

Price Realized: $ 26,400
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 25,000
ROMARE BEARDEN (1911 - 1988)
Conjur Woman as Angel.

Photostat print mounted on masonite, 1964. 910x633 mm; 36x24 7/8 inches. Signed and numbered 2/6 in the image, lower left. Signed in ink, upper left. A fine impression of a very scarce, early work.

The only other known impression is found in the Romare Bearden Foundation, New York.

Provenance: Ex-collection the artist; Cordier & Ekstrom, New York; gift from the artist, New York private collection.

This large "projection" is a photostat blow up of the 1964 collage, one of the artist's first photomontages, and one of four photomontages based on the folklore of the conjur woman, entitled The Prevalence of Ritual. Reginald Gammon, a fellow member of the Spiral Group, suggested Bearden enlarge his small photomontages from their intimate size to a much larger format with photostat. They were first shown together in an exhibit called Projections at Cordier & Ekstrom in New York in October, 1964, in editions of six, each signed and numbered, and mounted on board. The Art of Romare Bearden, National Gallery of Art, p. 40, ill. 41., Conjuring Bearden, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University,, p. 18, Myron Schwartzman, Romare Bearden, His Life and Art, pp. 210-211.