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Sculpture by Richmond Barthé.
New York: Harmon Foundation, 140 Nassau Street, [ca. 1942]. 13 b&w plates (image sizes approx. 5” x 3.5” to 10.25” x 7.25”, on sheets 12” x 10”), including a photo-portrait of Richmond Barthé, housed in its original printed envelope, 12.25” x 10.65”. CONDITION: Very good, 1.5”, .5”, and .45” tears along margins; toning; creasing to envelope flap and multiple .5” tears along flap hinge; a few tiny dampstains to the envelope; light edgewear to a few plates. A portfolio of plates picturing a selection of Richmond Barthé’s sculptures, including figures in African-American history, religious subjects, theater and dance celebrities, and more. This is one of a series of catalogs published by the Harmon Foundation in the 1940s showcasing the work of African American artists. The titles of the sculptures representing Black subjects include “The Negro Looks Ahead,” “Boy with Flute,” “The Mother,” “African Boy Dancing,” “Blackberry Woman,” “Stevedore,” and “Benga.” Other subjects depicted include Abraham Lincoln, Lot’s Wife, John the Baptist, burlesque dancer Gypsy Lee Rose, and actors such as John Gielgud as Hamlet and Katherine Cornell as Juliet. A few images show Barthé’s 1939 solo show at Arden Galleries in New York, and one shows him modeling a bust of a young Black boy who sits for him during a demonstration at Lincoln School in New Rochelle, New York. Born in Mississippi, Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance. While studying at the Art Institute of Chicago from 1924 to 1928, he tried sculpting after a teacher recommended it and discovered that he had a natural gift for the art. Barthé studied in New York after winning a Julius Rosenwald Fund fellowship and enjoyed success during the 1930s and ’40s. While he received many commissions for portrait busts, the pressure of his success led him to move to Jamaica in 1947, where he continued working. In 1970, he moved to Italy, Switzerland, and Spain, but eventually returned to America in 1977 and settled in Pasadena, California, where he died in 1989. Established in 1922 by white real-estate developer William E. Harmon, the Harmon Foundation was one of the first U.S. arts organizations to recognize African-American achievement in the fields of education, industry, art, literature, music, race relations and science. Many of these achievements emerged out of the Harlem Renaissance. REFERENCES: “Richmond Barthé” at Britannica online.
Item #9060
Price: $2,750.00
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