Jan 30, 2020 - Sale 2528

Sale 2528 - Lot 5

Price Realized: $ 7,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987)
We Will Count Nothing But Money.

Oil on masonite board, 1951. 610x762 mm; 24x30 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left recto. Signed, dated and titled in oil across the verso.

Provenance: the Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., Chicago.

This oil painting is an early 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. Like many other African-Americans after World War II, he found his way to Paris with funds from the G.I. Bill, and in 1952, 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, Sanford exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.