217

Eldzier Cortor

(1916-2015)

Souvenir No. III.

Oil on linen canvas, 2014.
Signed in oil, lower right
28 x 29 1/2 in. (71.1 x 74.9 cm.)

  • Provenance:
    Estate of the artist.

    Souvenir No. III is a significant and wonderful example of Eldzier Cortor's accomplished painting. It demonstrates the remarkable continuity in his practice — working until the last moments of a long and very distinguished career. In the summer of 2014, at the age of 98, Cortor painted this canvas and his Trilogy series, each with compositions of a trio of women — invoking the classical subject of the three graces.

    The subject fits into Eldzier Cortor's decades-long series of "classical compositions" celebrating the form and beauty of African American women. With his characteristic dense layering of brush and palette work, this composition is punctuated by his devices of the conch shell, painted chair, the arch and window shutters, also found in such canvases as Cuban Souvenir in the David C. Driskell collection and Island Souvenir, 1998.

    Cortor has incorporated elements of Caribbean culture into his art since the 1940s — in 1949, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship to travel in the West Indies. After time in Jamaica and Cuba, Cortor settled in Haiti for two years where he taught classes at the Le Centre d'Art d'Haïti in Port-au-Prince. Beyond his early academic training at the Art Institute of Chicago, and his travels to the Sea Islands and West Indies, these paintings show the influence of his study of African sculpture and 19th-century French painting. Unlike his social realist counterparts, Cortor investigated both the formalism and symbolism of the African American female figure.
  • Condition:
    Please contact the Specialist for the auction to request a condition report.

    Condition reports and additional images are provided as a courtesy and should be used by you to aid in the formation of your own opinion regarding condition. All material is sold subject to Swann's standard Terms and Conditions of Sale as published in our catalogues and posted on our website, and include the following terms: (1) all property is sold "as-is"; and (2) works cannot be returned on the basis of condition.

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October 7, 2025 12:00 PM EDT
New York, NY, US

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