Consuelo Kanaga - Passion & Humanity: The Susie Tompkins Buell Collection New York Thursday, April 4, 2019 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Photocollect, New York, 1993
    Page Imageworks, San Francisco, as agent

  • Exhibited

    Object Lessons: Masterworks of Modernist Photography from Three Bay Area Collections, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 7 December 1995 - 10 March 1996
    Collected, Pier 24 Photography, San Francisco, 2 May 2016 - 31 January 2017

  • Literature

    Pier 24 Photography, Collected, p. 102 (this print)
    Millstein and Lowe, Consuelo Kanaga: An American Photographer, p. 110

  • Catalogue Essay

    Consuelo Kanaga photographed the singer and actor Kenneth Spencer in 1933 at the beginning of his career. Classically trained at the Eastman School of Music, Spencer struggled to get concert bookings because of his race. In addition to his concert performances, he appeared in the historic film Cabin in the Sky, the first Hollywood film to feature an all-African-American cast, alongside Lena Horne, Ethel Waters, and Louis Armstrong. In 1950, Spencer relocated to Germany where he found steady employment as a performer and recording artist.

45

Portrait of Kenneth Spencer

1933
Toned gelatin silver print.
9 1/2 x 5 3/4 in. (24.1 x 14.6 cm)
Signed in pencil on the mount; signed in pencil on the reverse of the mount.

Estimate
$6,000 - 8,000 

Sold for $16,250

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Passion & Humanity: The Susie Tompkins Buell Collection

New York Auction 4 April 2019