Artist: Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923-1997).
Title: "Brushstroke [mailer]".
Medium: Original color offset lithograph.
Date: Composed 1965.
Dimensions: Overall size: 22 7/16 x 28 3/4 in. (570 x 730 mm). Image size: 22 7/16 x 28 3/4 in. (570 x 730 mm).
Lot Note(s): Signed in pencil, lower right. Edition unknown, presumed very small. White, medium-weight, smooth wove paper. The full sheet. Fine impression with fresh colors. Good to very good condition; folds as issued. Literature/catalogue raisonne: Corlett II.5; Doering/Von der Osten 10; Bianchini (1971), cat. no. 14. Comment(s): Rare and very rare signed. The most recent pencil signed impression of this mailer that we could find at auction sold for $2,783 (£1,428) at Bloomsbury, London, 11/29/2006. Lichtenstein created a total of seven prints for his three solo Castelli exhibitions from 1963 to 1965. Only two of the seven motifs ('Crak!' and 'Brushstroke') were printed in the usual manner as posters with the text announcing the exhibition on the front. According to Castelli's assistant Ivan Karp, all the Lichtenstein prints were also sent out as mailers up to 1965. However, as Jurgen Doering in his standard catalogue raisonne states, "[In the case of at least two of the seven prints], no mailers, folded with the address of the Castelli Gallery on the back, have survived. Compared to the unfolded prints, fewer mailers have survived, most likely due to the fact they were not regarded as collector's items. If they liked them, people hung them up in the same way they might have displayed posters or invitations, and they were only occasionally regarded as keepsakes." For the Castelli exhibition November 20th to December 16, 1965. Lithographed by Total Color, New York. Published by the Leo Castelli Gallery, New York. Image copyright © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein. [29228-5-2400] |
