Jackson Pollock - Editions & Works on Paper New York Tuesday, April 18, 2023 | Phillips

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  •  “I think a good dealer is also a collector.”
    —Rosa Esman

    Rosa and Aaron Esman assembled an outstanding collection of Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary art over the course of their seventy-year marriage. The collection’s highlights mirror that of Rosa’s career as a gallerist and print publisher (which Aaron, a psychoanalyst, strongly supported), with interests in Modernism, Dada, Russian Constructivism, and American Pop Art taking center stage. Rosa got her start publishing artists’ print portfolios in the 1960s, including the New York Ten Portfolio, 1965, and Ten for Leo Castelli, 1967, which featured works by rising contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg, and helped pioneer the field of artist’s editions and multiples. Her eponymous gallery exhibited in Manhattan for over twenty years, and she was a founding partner of Ubu Gallery, which is still in operation today.

     

    When asked about her wide artistic tastes in 2009, Rosa emphasized her love of drawing, “the quintessential bit of the art,” which can be seen across the collection, regardless of genre.

     

    The pair bonded over gallery visits when dating in the early 1950s. While Aaron already had begun collecting by then, the first work they purchased together was a drawing by Miró, early in their marriage. Rosa recalled: ‘sometimes we look at something, and I say, “Oh, isn’t that marvelous?”’ and Aaron would respond, ‘It’s for us.’

     

    Founded on lifelong love, the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman gives a unique vision of the art movements of the 20th century that shaped New York’s art scene.

     

    Rosa and Aaron Esman, Madrid, 1963
    • Provenance

      Sidney Janis Limited, New York
      Rosa and Aaron Esman, New York (acquired from the above, 1963)
      Thence by descent to the present owners

    • Literature

      Francis O'Conner and Eugene Thaw 1095
      Reba and Dave Williams, The Prints of Jackson Pollock, Print Quarterly, December 1988
      Helen A. Harrison, Jackson Pollock: Prints, exhibition catalogue, The Gallery, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, 1997
      Gavin Delahunty, Jackson Pollock: Blind Spots, Tate Publishing, London, 2015

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

5

Untitled (after Number 22, 1951) (O'C. & T. 1095)

1951
Screenprint, on two sheets of Strathmore paper glued together, with full margins, as issued (with the Strathmore blindstamp).
I. 21 1/2 x 16 5/8 in. (54.6 x 42.2 cm)
S. 28 7/8 x 22 7/8 in. (73.3 x 58.1 cm)

Signed, dated and numbered 'Ed 25/12' in black ink, from the edition of about 25 printed in 1951 (there was also an unsigned, numbered edition of 50 printed posthumously in 1964 by Lee Krasner and the Pollock Estate), printed by the artist and his brother, Sanford McCoy, Deep River, Connecticut, framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $50,800

Contact Specialist

Editions@phillips.com
212 940 1220

 

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 18 - 20 April 2023