Lot 2
  • 2

Henrietta Shore

Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 USD
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Description

  • Henrietta Shore
  • Irises
  • signed H. Shore (lower left)
  • oil on canvas
  • 14 1/8 by 17 1/8 inches
  • (35.9 by 43.5 cm)
  • Painted circa 1930.

Provenance

George Stern Fine Arts, West Hollywood, California
Albert Harry "Al" Schmitt, Los Angeles, California
Acquired by the present owner from the above

Condition

The canvas is unlined. Under UV: there are a few spots and dots of inpainting in the lower center petal of the white iris and one spot in the white bud at left. There is a thin line of inpainting at the upper right edge and a few other very minor scattered pindots.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

Henrietta Shore, often compared to her contemporary Georgia O’Keeffe for their preferred subject matter, was one of the most progressive modernist painters of the early twentieth century. Shore trained at the New York School of Art under William Merritt Chase and Robert Henri before moving to southern California where she found the natural landscape most inspiring.  Although primarily located on the west coast, Shore maintained close relationships with the New York art scene including photographer Edward Weston who recorded his first visit to Shore's studio in his diary, as quoted by Roger Aikin in the artist’s retrospective exhibition catalogue of 1986,"...a friend took me to the home of Henrietta Shore. He had said: 'You should see Shore's work: it is unique.' Granting his penetrating judgment, I went, expecting no more than another good painter. Ushered directly into a room hung with Shore's canvases, I stopped short in my tracks silently amazed; here was something outstanding, a notable achievement..." Weston went on to describe the "continuous growth" that Shore's work had undergone in the intervening 6 years since 1927: Shore had become more closely identified with nature, but a nature "freed from non-essentials," and the incorporating of "free sweeping rhythms, grandly contrasted volumes achieved in her abstract painting” He then elaborated, " Shore now realizes a fusion of her own ego with a deep universality... When she paints a flower she IS that flower, when she draws a rock she IS that rock ....Shore's work stimulates directly through the senses without intellectual interference....She possesses a technical perfection rarely seen in contemporary art. A small drawing may represent the labor of weeks or even months" (Roger Aikin, Henrietta Shore, A Retrospective Exhibition: 1900-1963, 1986).