Watercolor and charcoal design that was the basis Henry Moore’s ‘Highwire Walkers.’ Price realized: £14,880 ($24,671). Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions image.
LiveAuctioneers.com provided Internet live bidding.
From the collection of Moore’s master printer Michael Rand, the original work from the late 1970s and early 1980s included the watercolor and charcoal design that was the basis of the etching Highwire Walkers (1975).
Moore’s love of the circus is well documented in his notebooks, and resulted in a series of drawings of tightrope walkers and acrobats that are unlike the drawings relating to his sculpture. Likened to the work of Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec, the work records his interest in the physical form required for these two lively activities, and are markedly different from his life drawings, where the human figure is more commonly represented in a reclining pose. This animated design, sold together with an impression from the third state, to a private collector of important 20th century works on paper for £14,880 [Lot 172].
“We are very pleased with the result achieved for Highwire Walkers,” said Alexander Hayter, international head of contemporary art at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions. “It was an absolute pleasure to handle this collection where every variant plate gave us a wonderful insight in to the level of preparatory work that made Moore such an expert printmaker.”
A second work by Moore, Head of a Girl Sectional, was sold together with the original acetate transfer, the “Bon a Tirer” impression, signed and inscribed by the artist before the plate was trimmed, and four progressive proofs of the plate, one inscribed “State 2” in pencil, and an impression from an abandoned plate previously unrecorded by Patrick Cramer in his catalog of Henry Moore’s graphic work. The lot sold for an impressive £8,060 [Lot 147].
Elsewhere in the sale, a selection of work by British abstract artist and printmaker Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin CH, CBE (b.1932) sold well. The first, a signed and dated colored lithograph titled For Bernard Jacobson, was printed and hand-colored by Alan Cox and Don Bessant at Sky Editions, London, published by Bernard Jacobson Ltd., London. Dedicated to the art dealer and publisher, Bernard Jacobson, the print was one of the first to be produced on the same scale as the artist’s paintings. Portraying the view of India at night from a balcony, the print is said to be one of Hodgkin’s most complex prints as each sheet of paper was hand-dyed and then interleaved with layers of printing. It sold for £5,580 [Lot 417]. The second of the two works, In an Empty Room, sold for £7,440 [Lot 418].
Click here to view the fully illustrated catalog for this sale, complete with prices realized.
ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE
Watercolor and charcoal design that was the basis Henry Moore’s ‘Highwire Walkers.’ Price realized: £14,880 ($24,671). Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions image. Sir Gordon Howard Eliot Hodgkin (b.1932) signed and dated colored lithograph titled ‘For Bernard Jacobson,’ printed and hand-colored by Alan Cox and Don Bessant at Sky Editions, London, published by Bernard Jacobson Ltd., London. Price realized: £5,580 ($9,251).
