Swann Galleries - Contemporary Art - Sale 2415

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DAVID SMITH

Don Quixote

Lithograph with hand-coloring in water-

color on off-white wove paper, 1952.

455x605 mm; 18x23

inches, full margins.

First state (of 2). Edition of approximately

only 27. Signed, titled, dated, dedicated and

inscribed “E 27” (?) in ink, lower margin

(the ink faded). Printed by Michael Ponce

de Léon and Margaret Lowengrund, New

York. Published by the artist, New York.

A superb, richly-inked impression of this

extremely scarce,earlyAbstract Expressionist

lithograph.

Sarah Suzuki, Curator, Department of

Prints and Illustrated Books,The Museum

of Modern Art, and the curator of the

Rock Paper Scissors

exhibition of Abstract

Expressionism at The MoMA, October

3, 2010-April 25, 2011, writes, “Smith

began making prints after taking classes

at the Art Students League in NewYork.

He made a series of linoleum cuts of his

Brooklyn neighborhood in the 1920s,

Surrealist-influenced etchings in the

1930s and 1940s, and a group of

lithographs withWoodstock, NewYork-

based printer Margaret Lowengrund in

the 1950s, including this one.

Don Quixote

was actually Smith’s first print, and has a

great story behind it that underscores the

sometimes-complicated chemistry of

printmaking, and the fact that successful

endeavors are often aided by quite a bit of

luck. Lowengrund had just taken on an

assistant, a young artist named Michael

Ponce de Léon, who actually had no

experience making lithographs. Ponce de

Léon’s first assignment was to assist Smith.

The two men met, worked, chatted over

beers, and when asked by Smith to proceed

with the printing, Ponce de Léon couldn’t

bring himself to admit that he’d never

printed a lithograph before. So he forged

ahead, and without running water in the

studio, improvised by printing with the

copious amount of beer they had on hand.”

According to Ponce de Léon,“When Margaret arrived ready to start the printing and was

told that we had already printed the first stone she almost collapsed, and in great

desperation she rushed out to the drying pile of our first prints only to discover to her