“It was op and pop. And it was just anybody who was around whom I liked and whom I knew.”
—Rosa EsmanRosa 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
Galerie Mikro 26 (Dine); Pegram Harrison 6 (Frankenthaler); Mary Lee Corlett 36 (Lichtenstein); Richard Axsom and David Platzker 33 (Oldenburg)
Catalogue Essay
Including: Richard Anuszkiewicz, Diamond Chroma; Jim Dine, Self-Portrait (Zinc & Acid); Helen Frankenthaler, Air Frame; Nicholas Krushenick, James Bond Meets Pussy Galore; Robert Kulick, Dum-Dum Roses; Mon Levinson, Untitled #1; Roy Lichtenstein, Seascape I; Claes Oldenburg, Flying Pizza; George Segal, Woman Brushing Her Hair; and Tom Wesselmann, Still Life
Rosa及Aaron Esman伉儷收藏
32
《十組紐約版畫》
1965年作
全套10幅版畫，包括七幅絲網印刷，一幅附亮光漆、一幅蝕刻版畫、一幅石版畫和一幅附鉛筆壓花，彩色和黑白，各種編織紙本，一幅層壓塑料 散裝（全包邊，全紙本，如出版所示）連標題頁、版權頁和Robert Rosenblum文本，全部存於原裝芥末色布面文件夾
圖像：不同尺寸
紙本：17 x 22 英吋 (43.2 x 55.9 公分)
文件夾：22 x 17 1/2 x 1 1/2 英吋 (55.9 x 44.5 x 3.8 公分)
款識：藝術家簽名（全部、版權頁）作者簽名（文本頁）A（全部）日期（其八）Poleski/imp（其二）
尚有200版及25版A-Y藝術家試作版，由紐約Tanglewood Press出版，此為藝術家試作版。
估價
$15,000 - 25,000
成交價$15,240
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
