Modern America: The Wolf Family Collection

Charles Demuth

Iris

Auction Closed

April 20, 07:56 PM GMT

Estimate

80,000 - 120,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Charles Demuth

1883 - 1935

Iris

signed C Demuth and dated '33 (lower right)

watercolor and pencil on paper

14 x 10 in. (35.6 x 25.4 cm.)

Executed in 1933.

Mrs. Augusta W.B. Demuth, Lancaster, Pennsylvania (mother of the artist)
Mrs. Charles Foltz (Josephine Keiffer), Lancaster, Pennsylvania (acquired by descent in 1943)
Charles Foltz, Jr., Lancaster, Pennsylvania (acquired by descent)
Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York
Davis & Langdale, New York, 1981
Wolf Family Collection No. 508 (acquired from the above)

Lancaster, Pennsylvania, Franklin & Marshall College, Fackenthal Library, Twenty-Nine Watercolors by Demuth, 1948, no. 25
New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Charles Demuth: Watercolors and Drawings, 1981, no. 5, illustrated
Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Modern: Charles Demuth and Lancaster, 1983, no. 36, p. 68, illustrated

Emily Farnham, Charles Demuth: His Life, Psychology and Works, vol. II, Ph.D. dissertation, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, 1959, p. 636, no. 561
Alvord L. Eiseman, A Study of the Development of an Artist: Charles Demuth, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1976, no. 7.1933

Charles Demuth is widely regarded as one of the most talented watercolorists in the history of American art. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his still life compositions. With a discerning eye and sharp attention to detail, Demuth faithfully depicts familiar objects with liveliness and modernity that are quintessential to him. The intentional "unfinished" quality of Iris—with its select flowers and stems left uncolored—further undermines the realism traditionally associated with still life compositions, bringing the genre into the 1930s.