?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Tabu.
Oil on masonite board, 1951. 762x635 mm; 30x25 inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper left recto. Signed and titled in oil, verso.
Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection, Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston.
This striking modernist portrait is an early work by this Chicago painter. Walter Sanford 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. Like many other African American artists, he found his way to Paris where, 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.
