Richard Tuttle - Editions & Works on Paper New York Wednesday, June 21, 2023 | Phillips
  • In classic Tuttle fashion the piece blurs boundaries between sculpture, printmaking and the book arts… Entertaining… is a work about surface, materials and texture. It sits enigmatically on the table. At first it looks like something that should be hung on the wall. But after further viewing, Entertaining… quietly commands a relaxed space while laying flat on a horizontal surface. It’s texture and color recall the earth, while the wooden element reminds us of architecture, and that the piece is clearly ‘built’. It’s clean lines and simple shape draw from Minimalism, but its texture and scale remind us how the sculpture was carefully and lovingly handmade. Entertaining… is yet another example of how Richard Tuttle continues to exact beauty and poetry out of the simplest materials, shapes and processes. – Editions Fawbush

    “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
    • Literature

      Ars Publicata, Richard Tuttle, 2001.02

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

40

Lot offered with No Reserve

Entertaining...

2002
Letterpress, on pigmented and embossed Dieu Donné cotton paper, the full sheet, within a sugar pine with satin polyurethane finish and maple plywood wooden artist's presentation frame.
overall 20 x 11 1/2 x 1 1/2 in. (50.8 x 29.2 x 3.8 cm)
Signed with initials, dated and numbered 4/15 in pencil on the wood under the lower sheet edge, published by Editions Fawbush, New York.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$1,000 - 2,000 

Sold for $953

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Editions@phillips.com
212 940 1220

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 21 June 2023