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LUCILLE CORCOS.
Household Hazards. Story illustration for
Women’s Day
magazine, published January, 1955,
with their stamp in left margin. Tempera on paper. 432x622 mm; 17x24
1
/
2
inches, on
21
3
/
4
x31
3
/
4
-inch sheet. Signed “Corcos” in lower right image.Two small soil spots in upper
right image. Hinged to matte.
[5,000/7,000]
Corcos (1908-1973) was known as a “modern primitivist” of American art.After studying with Jan
Matulka, she illustrated many books for both adults and children, and her paintings graced the covers
of American magazines and journals includingVanity Fair,AmericanWeekly, Fortune, andThisWeek
Magazine. Her work was exhibited widely by the 1930s and appeared in numerousWhitney Biennials
as well as exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the British
Museum among other prestigious institutions. Her best-known illustrations show highly detailed
composite urban and suburban scenes as viewed from the outside, often from a high angle, such as in
this lot.The observer generally views these scenes “only from the outside and in passing; Corcos turns
them inside-out before the eye of the viewer.The work is literally ‘revealing.’ As such, it is touching,
witty, and thoroughly delightful to contemplate.Though Corcos paid little heed to conventions of scale
and perspective, her work is far from abstract, and her renderings are painterly and nuanced”—Marc
Michael Epstein, Lucille Corcos 1908-1973, JewishWomen’s Archive.