Tom Wesselmann - Editions & Works on Paper New York Wednesday, June 21, 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 edition publisher with the strong support of Aaron, a psychoanalyst and passionate collector, with interests in Modernism, Dada, Russian Constructivism, and American Pop Art taking center stage. Rosa began publishing portfolios of prints by contemporary artists in the 1960s. Editions such as the New York Ten Portfolio, 1965, Seven Objects In A Box, 1966, and Ten from Leo Castelli, 1968, which featured works by rising contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg, pioneered the field of artist’s editions. 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 Esman collection, regardless of genre.

     

    Art was one of several passions that Rosa and Aaron shared, even when they began dating in the early 1950s. In 1952, they bought their first artwork together, a drawing by Miró, initiating their shared pursuit of inspired collecting that would continue for the rest of their lives. Rosa recalled: “sometimes we look at something, and I say, ‘Oh, isn’t that marvelous?’ and Aaron would respond, ‘It’s for us.’” Founded in 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

      Gift of the artist
      Thence by descent to the present owners

    • Literature

      Wildenstein Plattner Institute P654

    • Artist Biography

      Tom Wesselmann

      American • 1931 - 2004

      As a former cartoonist and leading figure of the Pop Art movement, Tom Wesselmann spent many years of his life repurposing popular imagery to produce small to large-scale works that burst with color. Active at a time when artists were moving away from the realism of figurative painting and growing increasingly interested in abstraction, Wesselmann opted for an antithetical approach: He took elements of city life that were both sensual and practical and represented them in a way that mirrored Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's own methodologies.

      Wesselmann considered pop culture objects as exclusively visual elements and incorporated them in his works as pure containers of bold color. This color palette became the foundation for his now-iconic suggestive figurative canvases, often depicting reclining nudes or women's lips balancing a cigarette.

      View More Works

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

83

Lot offered with No Reserve

Still Life, from New York Ten (W.P.I. P654)

1965
Embossing with pencil additions, on wove paper, with full margins.
I. 15 1/4 x 20 5/8 in. (38.7 x 52.4 cm)
S. 17 x 22 in. (43.2 x 55.9 cm)

Signed, dated and dedicated 'For Rosa and Aaron' in pencil (presumably a proof, the edition was 200 and 25 artist's proofs lettered A-Y), published by Tanglewood Press, Inc., New York, unframed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$1,000 - 2,000 

Sold for $1,905

Contact Specialist

Editions@phillips.com
212 940 1220

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 21 June 2023