Trenton Doyle Hancock - 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

      James Cohan Gallery, New York
      Rosa and Aaron Esman (acquired from the above in 2004)
      Thence by descent to the present owners

    • Exhibited

      New York, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Trenton Doyle Hancock: Skin and Bones, 20 Years of Drawing, March 26–June 28, 2015
      Boca Raton Museum of Art, Gladys Nilsson & Trenton Doyle Hancock: Beyond the Cape! Comics and Contemporary Art, April 16–October 6, 2019

    • Literature

      "Trenton Doyle Hancock On 20 Years of His Fantastical Cartoon Drawings," Artsy, March 24, 2015, online (illustrated)
      Ben Davis, “Rage, Obsession, and Sexual Misadventure Dominate at Trenton Doyle Hancock’s Studio Museum Survey,” Artnet News, March 31, 2015, online (illustrated)

    • Artist Biography

      Trenton Doyle Hancock

      American • 1974

      For almost two decades, Trenton Doyle Hancock has been constructing fantastical narratives of the battle between good and evil. Hancock pursues his singular vision and distinctive means of storytelling across a variety of media, including painting, collage, sculpture, print and the performing arts. Featured in the 2000 and 2002 Whitney Biennial, Hancock was one of the youngest artists in history to participate in the museum’s prestigious survey at the time and has garnered acclaim for his exuberant worlds suffused with autobiography and fantasy.

      Hancock's complex mythological battles at once recall biblical stories that the artist learned as a child from his family and local church community, comic-strip superhero battles, and medieval morality plays – all conveyed through a visual language that merges disparate influences such as pulp fiction, comic books, abstract painting with references to forebears as varied as Hieronymus Bosch, Max Ernst, and Philip Guston.

      View More Works

Property from the Collection of Rosa and Aaron Esman

105

Cult of Color

signed, titled and dated "TRENTON DOYLE HANCOCK 2004 "CULT OF COLOR"" on the reverse
mixed media, paper and canvas collage on paper
28 1/4 x 24 3/4 in. (71.8 x 62.9 cm)
Executed in 2004.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$3,000 - 5,000 

Sold for $6,985

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