Oct 04, 2018 - Sale 2487

Sale 2487 - Lot 38

Price Realized: $ 8,125
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
ROY DECARAVA (1919-2009)
Billie Holiday (Billie at Braddocks, New York).

Photogravure, 1952. 292x200 mm; 11 1/2x7 7/8 inches. Artist's proof, aside from the numbered edition of 50. Signed, dated, inscribed "A.P." and numbered "III/VI" in pencil, lower margin. Printed and published by Renaissance Press, Ashuelot, New Hampshire in 1991. From the portfolio Roy DeCarava of 12 photogravures.

Provenance: Peter Fetterman, Santa Monica; private collection, Maryland (1997).

This iconic image of Billie Holiday photographed in the bar at the Harlem Braddock Hotel comes from the portfolio Roy DeCarava. It is one of twelve hand printed dust-grain photogravures, each made from DeCarava's poignant photographs. The photogravure plates were made by Paul Taylor with Roy DeCarava, and were printed by Clary Nelson at Renaissance Press. Other impressions of this photogravure are in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence and the Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, Virginia.