Nov 15, 2012 - Sale 2294

Sale 2294 - Lot 125

Price Realized: $ 6,240
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 5,000 - $ 8,000
WILLEM DE KOONING
Revenge.

Sugar-lift aquatint, 1960. 300x345 mm; 11 3/4x13 5/8 inches, full margins. Artist's proof, aside from the edition of 50. Signed and inscribed "Artist Proof" in pencil, lower margin. From 21 Etchings and Poems. Published by the Morris Gallery, New York. A superb impression of this extremely scarce, early print.

Willem de Kooning's (1904-1997) earliest print and the only intaglio print that he created. Artists who contributed prints to the portfolio include Franz Kline, Jacques Lipchitz, Stanley W. Hayter and others.

"Probably the first American collaboration of such magnitude between artist and author," according to The Artist and the Book, "this publication was conceived in 1951 by Peter Grippe when he took over the directorship of Atelier 17 from Hayter. After Atelier 17 was disbanded in 1955, Grippe continued to work with the artists in his own studio, and Morris Weisenthal took over publication under the imprint of his Morris Gallery." The Artist and the Book, 1860-1960, no. 145. Graham 1.