“And it was a realization that prints are original artworks, particularly when they were done by those printmakers. That was their own expression. Instead of using oil paints, they used copper plates and etching techniques and lithographic stones and sometimes silkscreen prints. But they did those originally. So that when I finally went into publishing prints, I wanted to make sure that the artist’s actually work on the prints, that I wasn’t doing reproductions of paintings.” —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 print publisher (which Aaron, a psychoanalyst, strongly supported), with interests in Modernism, Dada, Russian Constructivism, and American Pop Art taking center stage. Rosa got her start publishing artists’ print portfolios in the 1960s, including the New York Ten Portfolio, 1965, and Ten for 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 collection, regardless of genre.
The pair bonded over gallery visits when dating in the early 1950s. While Aaron already had begun collecting by then, the first work they purchased together was a drawing by Miró, early in their marriage. Rosa recalled: ‘sometimes we look at something, and I say, “Oh, isn’t that marvelous?”’ and Aaron would respond, ‘It’s for us.’
Founded on 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 文學
Richard Lloyd 28 (Jones); Siri Engberg and Joan Banach 50 (Motherwell); Constance Glenn 16 (Rosenquist)
Catalogue Essay
Including: Arman, Boom-Boom; Mary Bauermeister, Sketch for Tanglewood Press; Öyvind Fahlström, Eddie (Sylvie's Brother) in the Desert; John Goodyear, Two-Sided Movement; Charles Hinman, Print Collage; Allen Jones, Self; Robert Motherwell, Untitled; Ad Reinhardt, Abstract Print; James Rosenquist, Somewhere to Light; and Saul Steinberg, Sam's Art
Rosa及Aaron Esman伉儷收藏
30
《紐約國際》
1966年作
全套10件作品，包括絲網印刷、石版畫、膠版印刷、物品，各種媒材，彩色和黑白，各種編織紙本和乙烯基紙本（（全包邊，全紙本，散裝如出版所示）附Öyvind Fahlström紙本拼貼、標題頁、版權頁， 全部存於原裝藍色布面文件夾
文件夾：23 1/8 x 18 x 2 英吋 (58.7 x 45.7 x 5.1 公分)
款識：簽名、日期、1/225（綜合媒材）1（版權頁）
尚有25版A-Y藝術家試作版，由紐約Tanglewood Press為出版。
估價
$7,000 - 9,000
成交價$6,350
Editions@phillips.com
212 940 1220
限量版畫及紙本作品
紐約拍賣 2023年4月18至20日
