Zoltan Sepeshy

Commissioned from the artist by Gordon Mendelssohn for his residence “Quartermore,” Bloomfield Hills, MI, 1930
Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Moses, with the acquisition of “Quartermore”
Acquired from the Moses Estate by the present owner, 1975

Ernest Watson, "Zoltan Sepeshy," American Artist, September 1944, p. 8 (for related works)
E. H. Payne, "Marine Still Life," Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts, no. 4, 1948, pp. 99-100 (for related works)
Lawrence Schmeckebier, Zoltan Sepeshy:  Forty Years of His Work, exh. cat., Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, 1966, p. 54 (for a related work)
Dennis Barrie, Artist in Michigan:  1900-1976, Detroit, 1989, pp. 205-206 (for related works)
Vincent Carucci, "The Inlander Art Collection Reveals Mainstream Modernism as Filtered Through Local Loyalty," The New Art Examiner, No. 22, Summer 1995, pp. 36-39 (for related works)

Please contact the department for a thorough condition report and restoration proposal on this lot completed by Simon Parkes, a leading painting restorer.
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.
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This specially commissioned mural by Zoltan Sepeshy highlights the stylistic innovations of American Modern art emanating from the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan during the 1930s.  Sepeshy was at first the head of the painting department at the academy in 1930-1931, around the time this mural was completed.  He later became the president of the academy in 1941 as the successor to Eliel Saarinen, where he remained until his own retirement in 1966.  Sepeshy is largely known for his illustration commissions in various print magazines including Fortune, large-scale murals such as the present lot, and for being a pivotal force in the Cranbrook ethos of art and design.  Sepeshy is one of the foremost representatives of American Modern painting and illustration in the social realist aesthetic popular during the 1940s.

The present lot was created for Gordon Mendelssohn’s residence “Quartermore,” located near the Cranbrook Academy in Bloomfield Hills.  Mendelssohn, son of the founder of General Motors, was a well-known figure in Michigan society as a patron of the arts and a prominent supporter of new architecture and theater programs at the University of Michigan.  The mural depicts a dynamic hunting scene with stylized riders and hounds racing across the downs.  This traditional subject matter, popularized in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, is adapted by Sepeshy into an American Modern aesthetic through the glistening surface treatment of the silver-leaf background and the depiction of conventionalized figures exhibiting great speed and agility.  Gordon Mendelssohn is portrayed as the rider of the black horse on the far right, and Charles Whiningham, the Master of the Hunt, is located at the center. Zoltan Sepeshy included his own self portrait as the figure in the left foreground, demonstrating Mendelssohn’s affinity for the local landscape as well as his close relationship to the Cranbrook school.