“I think a good dealer is also a collector.”
—Rosa Esman
Lots 283 through 303 in the present auction come from the collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman. The Esmans assembled an outstanding collection of Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary art and photography over the course of their seventy-year marriage. The collection’s highlights mirror that of Rosa’s career as a gallerist and art book 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’ books of prints 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 her and Aaron’s collection, regardless of genre. The importance of her and Aaron’s relationship to Rosa’s development as a consummate supporter of the arts, too, was paramount. The pair bonded over gallery visits when dating in the late 1940s, and bought their first artwork, a drawing by Miró, together; these early experiences with Aaron, more than anything else, established Rosa’s love for art. In her gallery days, Aaron’s passion for art helped decide which works stayed with the couple, too. 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.
Provenance
Collection of Arturo Schwarz, Milan Private Collection, Switzerland Sotheby's, London, A Collection of DADA Art, 4 December 1985, lot 215
Exhibited
Dada Photomontagen, Dada Photographie und Photocollage, Kestner-Gesellschaft, Hanover, 1979 Man Ray, Carte Varie e Variabili, Padiglione d'Arte Contemporaney, 1983-4
Literature
Francis M. Naumann Fine Art, Man Ray: Continued and Noticed, p. 87, pl. 66
Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman
1956 Gelatin silver print. 5 1/2 x 3 1/2 in. (14 x 8.9 cm) Signed and inscribed 'all dada and love' by Duchamp and with extensive annotations in unidentified hands in pencil, ink, and crayon on the verso.