Page 20 - Swann Galleries - African-American Fine Art - Sale 2303 - February 14, 2013
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ALBERT ALEXANDER SMITH (1896 - 1940)
Spinning aYarn
.
Pencil and graphite on paper, 1930. 171x254 mm; 6
3
/
4
x10 inches. Signed in pencil, upper right *
Etching on cream wove paper, 1930. 165x241 mm; 6
1
/
2
x9
1
/
2
inches, wide (full ?) margins. Signed
and numbered 10/50 in pencil, lower margin.
Provenance: the estate of the artist, France; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, lot 195 (as
Scène de Vendanges
),
November 7, 1991; Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, NewYork (2000); John Axelrod, Boston (2001); the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2011).
Exhibited:
African-American Art, 20th Century Masterworks,VII
, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, NewYork,
January 13 - March 4, 2000.
Illustrated:
African-American Art, 20th Century Masterworks,VII
, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, p. 51.
After graduating from the National Academy of Design in NewYork, Albert Alexander Smith was
one of the few known African-American printmakers working in the early 1920s. Through the
1930s, Smith made many etchings, including a series of portraits of great black leaders at the request
of his patron Arthur Schomburg, as well as lithographs of other Southern scenes, such as
Spinning a
Yarn
. His artwork was also featured on the covers of the periodicals
Crisis
and
Opportunity
at the
time. Leininger-Miller pp. 210-11.
[2,000/3,000]
