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American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists
|
- Sale 2780
Live
| Philadelphia
Dec 3 | 2:00 PM EST
Live
| Philadelphia
Sale 2780
| Philadelphia
| Philadelphia
Estimate$25,000 – $40,000
Doomsday Rhapsody is an important and engaging late-period painting by William Gropper. Colorful, dramatic, and large in scale, it depicts myriad social and political themes, which, on the one hand were specifically contemporaneous to American life in the first half of the 1970s, and on the other, encapsulate broader, universal themes that shed light on social, economic, and political injustices. Early on, Gropper was a political cartoonist with the New York Tribune, but he was also a contributor to leftist publications Freiheit, Liberator, and Daily Worker. Though he trained with Robert Henri and George Bellows, given the themes in his work, Gropper has fairly been compared to such artists as Honoré Daumier and Otto Dix. In the present painting, the figures nearly burst from the confines of the canvas, as Gropper takes on events such as the Vietnam War and Watergate.
The Artist.
The Estate of the Artist.
Private Collection, New York, New York.
Very good original condition, with no evidence of inpainting under UV light. Remnants of what appears to be splashy/dripping residual varnish (visible only under UV light) within and below legs of intertwined figures at center right, to left of grimacing figure in bottom right quadrant, and above/within intertwined figures near bottom center. See Specialists pictures for details.
For more information on this Lot, please contact Raphael Chatroux at [email protected]
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To request further details about this lot, please email [email protected]
Please email [email protected] for any additional information or questions you may have
