Rago Auctions in Lambertville, N.J., hosts its semi-annual auctions of American + European and Post-War + Contemporary Art on May 4.
Included in the sale will be two single-owner segments: “The Archive of Artist /Designer,” as well as “Living Large: Big Paintings from the Allan Stone Collection” with an exclusive New York preview at Allan Stone Projects.
Beginning at 9 a.m., the sale of American + European Art will include paintings by John Frederick Kensett, Henry Martin Gasser and Fern Isabel Coppedge; sculptures by Harriet Whitney Frishmuth, Emilio Greco and Francisco Zuniga; and works on paper by George Grosz, George Copeland Ault and Françoise Gilot.
Of particular note is the auction’s cover lot, lot 31, Milton Avery’s 1944 oil on canvas, “Girl by Lake,” estimated at $300,000 to $500,000.
The following sale of Post-War + Contemporary Art, set to begin at noon, will feature paintings by Mavis Pusey, Patrick Heron, Michael Goldberg and Ilya Bolotowsky; prints and multiples by Tom Wesselmann, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein; photographs by Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Candida Höfer and Stanley Kubrick; and sculptures by Mary Bauermeister, Gerald Laing and Igor Mitoraj.
Highlights include David Salle’s Pauper, Ossip Zadkine’s bronze sculpture “Arlequin Urlant,” and an untitled work by Fernando Botero.
“Living Large: Big Paintings from the Allan Stone Collection” (lots 616 through 644 in Post-War + Contemporary Art sale) is a single-owner segment of oversized paintings from the collection of Allan Stone, who is celebrated for his eclectic approach and early advocacy of pivotal artists of the 20th century. This session will be led by 29 large scale works by artists including Bo Barlett, James Havard, Kazuko Inoue, Robert S. Neuman, William Beckman, and more, many of which are part of an exclusive New York preview at Allan Stone Projects in New York city until May 11.
“The Archive of Artist / Designer,” a single-owner segment of 82 lots, rounds out the Post-War + Contemporary Art sale. From the 1970s through the 1990s, Elisabeth Cunnick, director and curator of A/D Gallery, invited some of the best painters and sculptors of the day to confront the distinctions between fine art and function by designing utilitarian objects.
Examples on offer in the May 4 Fine Art sale include textiles by Chuck Close, Ellsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol; furniture and decorative objects by Arman, Sol LeWitt and Richard Tuttle; and an array of other unexpected maker/product pairings including wallpaper by William Wegman, playing cards by Donald Sultan and a set of plates by Roy Lichtenstein.
Many of these objects appear rarely on the market, and with this dispersal of the retained archives of A/D, it is unlikely that such a range of important A/D editions will ever be offered again.
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