Jackson Pollock - Evening & Day Editions London Wednesday, January 18, 2017 | Phillips

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 19 January 2017

  • Provenance

    Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, New York
    Washburn Gallery, New York
    Jason McCoy Gallery, New York
    Galerie Aurel Scheibler, Cologne/Berlin, Germany
    Private Collection, Germany

  • Exhibited

    Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, East Hampton, Jackson Pollock: The 'New Found' Screenprints, 1 June - 30 July 1995, catalogue no. 10
    ARNDT Gallery, Berlin, The Ephemeral, 5 November 2011 - 29 February 2012

  • Literature

    see Francis Valentine O'Connor and Eugene Victor Thaw (P6) variant M11 (the present example printed during this time)

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the early 1940s, Jackson Pollock worked for a few months for Creative Printmakers (a silkscreen shop opposite his studio) on the night shift as a 'squeegee' man. Inspired by the technique, Pollock acquired a 9 x 6 inch screen and began to experiment, printing on different coloured cardstocks and wallpapers, rotating the screen and trialling different methods of applying ink to the screens to explore the visual potential of each image. Pollock eschewed making sketches or studies for his paintings and so silkscreen printing became a useful medium for working through major formal innovations. The resulting unique monoprints from this period can be viewed as works of art themselves as well as important stages of Pollock’s artistic process that led to his major poured paintings.

    None of these monoprint silkscreens were signed or distributed by any official means and many were given away to friends - however, sixty-nine individual works were discovered in a portfolio by the Pollock-Krasner Foundation after Lee Krasner’s death. Most of the prints in this group were preliminary states for later published images on greeting cards for gallery exhibitions between 1943 and 1950, some were variations on these designs, whilst others were completely newly discovered designs.

    The present lot represents an image that Pollock developed for the dust-jacket of his dealer Peggy Guggenheim’s autobiography of 1946, Out of this Century. The same design in negative form, printed on yellow was eventually used for the published book, implying that the present lot may have been an initial experiment. The evocative composition demonstrates Pollock’s love of serial verticals whilst simultaneously hinting at female portraiture - a subtle nod to the subject the image was intended for.

8

Jackson Pollock

Untitled (M20)

circa 1946
Unique screenprint in black, on tan card stock, with margins.
I. 21.5 x 14 cm (8 1/2 x 5 1/2 in.)
S. 28 x 21.7 cm (11 x 8 1/2 in.)
From a small group of experimental variants printed between 1941-1946, framed. A negative of this image, printed on yellow card stock was used on the back dust jacket of Peggy Guggenheim's 1946 memoir, Out of this Century.

Estimate
£50,000 - 70,000 

Sold for £56,250

Contact Specialist
Robert Kennan
Head of Sale
London
+44 207 318 4075

General Enquiries
+44 20 7318 4069

Evening & Day Editions

London Auction 19 January 2017