Jean Dubuffet - New Now New York Wednesday, September 27, 2023 | Phillips
  • “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, and Ten from 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 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.’”i 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.

     

     

    i Rosa Esman, interviewed by James McElhinney, "Oral History Interview with Rosa Esman," Archives of American Art, June 9–16, 2009, online.

    • Provenance

      The Pace Gallery, New York
      Rosa and Aaron Esman (acquired from the above in May 1968)
      Thence by descent to the present owners

    • Exhibited

      New York, The Pace Gallery, Jean Dubuffet: New Sculpture and Drawings, April 13–May 18, 1968, no. 15, p. 47

    • Literature

      Max Loreau, ed., Catalogue des Travaux de Jean Dubuffet, fascicule XXII: Cartes, Ustensiles, Lausanne, 1972, no. 42, pp. 22, 182 (illustrated, p. 22)

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

99

La Flamme

signed with the artist's initials and dated "J.D. 66" lower right; titled, inscribed and dated "15 M122 La Flamme 9/4/66" on the reverse
ink and pencil on paper
9 1/2 x 6 1/2 in. (24.1 x 16.5 cm)
Executed in 1966.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$12,000 - 18,000 

Sold for $20,320

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now Sale 
T +1 212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 27 September 2023