From a Private New York Collection

*Attributed to Franz Kline (American, 1910–1962)
“Five drawings in a series”
reddish-brown crayon on paper
10 3/4 x 8 1/2 in. (sight, each sheet)

$2,000 – 4,000

Kline began to explore abstraction in the late 1940s. In this study the viewer can “read” his process, from figurative, to abstract, then back to figurative. The central, most-abstract drawing in the series, individually retains the feeling of movement derived from the car headlight and train nose.

In 1950, Kline painted an abstraction of a train that ran through his hometown in Philadelphia. This painting, Chief, is now on display at MoMA. Kline made several preparatory sketches before painting his abstractions, and this drawing falls into that genre of study drawings. Trains and cars inspired Kline whose paintings, though non-representational, still evoke movement, machinery and industry.

In 2012 the Franz Kline exhibition, Coal and Steel at the Allentown Museum of Art, included works from this early period in Kline’s career. Kline used the urban industrial landscape of Philadelphia create abstract motifs such as the car/train sequence above.

Provenance:
Purchased from Franz Kline by Robert and Andrea Bollt, c. 1958;
Property from the Estate of Andrea Bollt, Stair Auctioneers and Appraisers, 7 December 2013, lot 157:
Private New York Collection

Literature:
For additional information about Franz Kline’s process, sketches and early work in Pennsylvania please see exhibition catalog; Mattison, Robert Saltonstall, Franz Kline: Coal and Steel, Allentown, PA: Allentown Art Museum of the Lehigh Valley, 2012.

Andrea Bollt
February 19, 1933 – October 24, 2010

Andrea was ravishing and irrepressible. She was practical too, preferring walking to taking a taxi, and with her husband, Robert, would buy a work by Franz Kline or Philip Guston rather than an expensive dress. She and her husband cultivated friendships with contemporary artists in the 1950s and 60s in New York. With great foresight and a sense of adventure, the couple bought iconic works from Alexander Calder, Yves Klein, Franz Kline, Larry Rivers, Joan Miro, Philip Guston, Josef Albers and Jacques Lipchitz. Robert and Andrea became close friends with many of the artists. She owned over 10 works that Robert and she purchased from Franz Kline. They purchased the drawings Kline (lot 11) as Andrea recalled during my many visits, from the artist in the late 1950’s.

Andrea gave lively dinner parties at their chic apartment on the upper east side. I recall many evenings when we enjoyed Franz Kline’s favorite dish “Kline meatloaf.” She would enthrall guests with dramatic and intoxicating stories about the paintings, drawings and the major Calder mobiles which filled the apartment.

I recall several evenings when Andrea, with great flair, unrolled the three tapestries designed after Leger (lots 12-13) and Miró (Lot 14) from a cabinet filled with sculptures by Miró, standing mobiles by Calder and African art. She had purchased them in 1960 on an art-buying trip with Robert to Europe.

In 1961, she and Robert attended a party thrown by Yves Klein and watched him create one of the famous Ant paintings. She acquired the painting at that time. It sold at auction at Sotheby’s in November, 2012 for $4,338,500. She and Robert had an unerring eye for quality and could evaluate the importance of a work of art with great foresight.

Art was her passion, the daily currency of her life, her social milieu, and now, the legacy she leaves behind. In 2012 the Estate of Mrs. Andrea Bollt donated eight important works of modern art from her collection to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, including paintings by Willem de Kooning, a seminal 1939 mobile, “Black Cloud” by Alexander Calder and also an 80 7/8 by 150 inch canvas painted in 1961. Robert and she acquired the painting, as Andrea recalled, one evening after an impromptu call from Kline to drop by for a drink at his place on the upper west side of Manhattan. The timing was such that Kline was looking to raise some cash. According to Andrea, they drove home with the painting strapped to the roof of their car. This monumental work is the undoubtedly one of the most important examples of abstract expressionism in the museum’s collection and perhaps in the artist’s oeuvre”

-Leigh Keno, November 2012

Generally, in good condition. Matted to a backboard.