Feb 14, 2013 - Sale 2303

Sale 2303 - Lot 6

Price Realized: $ 7,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
JAMES V. HERRING (1887 - 1969)
Untitled (Beach Landscape).

Oil on illustration board, circa 1920-25. 216x305 mm; 8 1/2x12 inches. Signed in oil, lower right.

Provenance: private collection.

This early 20th century impressionist beach scene is only the second work, and the first landscape, by this influential artist and educator to come to auction. James Vernon Herring founded the Howard University Department of Art in 1922, and was a mentor to James A. Porter and David C. Driskell while chairman of the department from 1932-1952. Professor Herring also judged and contributed essays to exhibitions at the Harmon Foundation in 1930 and 1931 in New York. In 1943, with Alonzo J. Aden, Herring opened the famous Barnett-Aden Gallery in Washington, DC. Today, his paintings are very scarce. This plein air landscape is similar in atmospheric theme to the two works of his that we have located, Campus Landscape, 1922, and Newport Scene, not dated, both in the collection of Howard University.