Apr 04, 2019 - Sale 2504

Sale 2504 - Lot 32

Price Realized: $ 28,750
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 7,000
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987)
Study in Black & White.

Oil on masonite board, 1949-50. 914x1219 mm; 36x48 inches. Signed and dated "50" in oil, upper right recto. Signed, titled and dated "49" in oil, verso.

Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston.

This large oil painting is a significant, modernist painting by Walter Sanford. He was a Chicago painter who was associated in the 1940s with the Southside Community Art Center and had a wide-ranging career. Born in Detroit, Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. MLike many other African-Americans after World War II, with the G.I. Bill, he found his way to Paris and in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.