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January 28, 2013
Luscious Lucite
We have a fabulous collection of vintage Lucite handbags coming up in our February 14 Valentine SWAG Auction. Get the skinny here on the history and collectability of these perennial favorites. MOREThom Pegg presents African American Artists
April 21, 2012
Lot: 122Lot: 124 
 Embed this image:  | LOT 123Benny Andrews, (African American; 1930-2006), Funeral, Etching on paper, 12" x 9 3/4" (plate), 22 3/4" x 17" (sheet)Estimate: $1,000.00 - $1,500.00 Realized: $800 Benny Andrews (African American; 1930-2006) Funeral Etching on paper c.1972. Signed, titled, dated and numbered 22/35 in pencil. Born in Madison, Georgia, the son of sharecroppers, Benny Andrews studied at Fort Valley State College (1948-50). After serving in the Korean War with the United States Air Force, he was able, with funds from the G.I. Bill, to enter the School of the Art Institute in Chicago (1954-58), studying with Jack Levine and Boris Margo. He was generally viewed as an outsider, unyielding to the trends of abstraction at the time he was developing at the Art Institute. His work focused on figurative social commentary depicting the struggles, atrocities, and everyday occurrences in the world, especially in the African American community. In his drawings, paintings, and collages, Andrews continued to pursue representational art, which has been his focus throughout his long career. "Benny Andrews is a remarkable draftsman whose work is characterized by great economy of means," Patricia P. Bladon wrote in Folk: The Art of Benny and George Andrews. "He infuses his drawings with the same integrity and passion which characterize his large-scale paintings." Adversity did not deter him from honing his personal style, nor did increasing popularity quiet his social concerns. As his career flourished he continued to speak out on the inequalities facing African American artists and helped found the Black Emergency Cultural Coalition. He spent 29 years teaching art at Queens College and served as the Director of the Visual Arts program, a division of the National Endowment for the Arts (1982-84). His work received both critical praise and commercial acceptance. Elected to the National Academy of Design in 1977, he was awarded premier fellowships and exhibited widely in this country and abroad. Today, his work is found in the collection of many major museums, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY; Detroit Institute of Art; Morris Museum of Art, GA; Hirshorn Museum, Washington D.C.; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. 12" x 9 3/4" (plate), 22 3/4" x 17" (sheet) |
