Paul Outerbridge, Jr.

platinum print, mounted, signed and dated in pencil on the mount, a Laguna Beach Art Association label, with title and credit in ink, and a typed information label on the reverse, 1924 (this print reproduced in A Singular Aesthetic, pl. 44, and Fraenkel Gallery, 20Twenty, pl. 4)

The Estate of Paul Outerbridge, Jr.

The Laguna Beach, California, Museum of Art

Christie's New York, 23 April 1996, Sale 8390, Lot 292

Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Paul Outerbridge: A Singular Aesthetic, Photographs and Drawings, 1921-1924, November 1981 - January 1982, and traveling to 14 other venues through 1990

San Francisco, Fraenkel Gallery, 20Twenty, September - November 1997

On the reverse of this photograph's mount is a printed label which reads 'Permanent Memorial Collection, Laguna Beach Art Association.' The photograph is credited to Outerbridge, titled, and identified as a gift of Lois Outerbridge, the photographer's wife. The smaller typed label on the reverse reads, '"Sleepy Negro" Made with Carl Zeiss Protar as was [sic] most of the other sharper compositions.' An emendation in an unidentified hand reads, 'only copy of this subject.' This beautiful platinum print, with warm tones, is in excellent condition. The incredible richness of the print, and Outerbridge's handling of the image's lush tonality, showcase his unparallelled abilities as a platinum printer. The print is on Outerbridge's characteristic thin board mount, with a debossed area into which the photograph has been carefully affixed. The mount shows minor wear at the edges and corners, and, on the reverse, has old tape remains along the top edge, and upper portion of the left and right edges.
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.

Sleepy Negro is one of two known studies that Outerbridge made of the same model, in the same setting.  A print of the other image, titled Ethiopian Form, was sold in these rooms on 17 October 2006 (Sale 8227, Lot 143).  With its sensitive depiction of an African-American male nude, beautifully rendered in the lush tones of the platinum process, Outerbridge's Sleepy Negro recalls the series of studies F. Holland Day made of African-American men in the last years of the 19^th century.  Whereas Day posed his subjects according to the romantic Pictorial conventions of his time—with a spear and crown in An Ethiopian Chief, and with a white statuette in Ebony and Ivory—Outerbridge, working only two decades later, has stripped any such pretense from his subject matter and created a thoroughly modern photograph. 

No other prints of this image were in the photographer's estate at the time it was donated to the Laguna Beach Museum of Art in 1968.  This may be the only print of the image extant.