RARE PHOTOGRAPHS & ART WORK

NOTE: We are always interested in buying individual items and collections. Please also send us your Wants List.

2012 Catalogue

Henry WINZENRIED. Catskill Mountain Scene, 1938; see RPA16 below.

RPA01. Rutger ten BROEKE.
Blanka, Chancelade, 1985.
Original gelatin silver print; 26 x 33 cm, mounted by photographer; signed, titled and dated on mount beneath photograph; 2 small scruff marks on print barely noticeable and otherwise vg+.
€ 450.00

RPA02. Rutger ten BROEKE.
Chancelade, Blinding Early Morning Sun.
Original gelatin silver print; 26 x 33 cm, mounted by photographer; signed, titled, dated and numbered 3/5, also annotated with negative number, on mount beneath photograph; a few small scuffs and one miniscule dot of emulsion wear; but otherwise vg+.
SOLD
NOTE: Contemporary Dutch photographer Rutger ten Broeke was instrumental in bringing Ansel Adams’s zone method of teaching to the Netherlands. His female nude work has earned him high critical praise.

RPA03. Ralph CHUBB.
Books by Ralph Chubb.
Original 4 page book flyer printed on handmade paper, an 18 x 25 cm sheet folded in half and printed by Chubb, advertising some of his hand-made books for sale; one line of text underlined in red, apparently by Chubb; fine.
€ 175.00
[BOTH CHUBB ITEMS: € 300.00]

RPA04. Ralph CHUBB.
Flames of Sunrise.
Original broadside book flyer on handmade paper, 28 x 19.5 cm printed both sides by Chubb, advertising Flames of Sunrise or The Redemption of Albion; one small foxing stain upper left corner of front page but altogether vg+.
€ 175.00
[BOTH CHUBB ITEMS: € 300.00]

RPA05. Godfried de GROOT.
Boy Actor.
Vintage carbon print, c. 1932; 21 x 16 cm, blind stamped verso “de Groot, A’dam”; a beautiful, atmospheric print; & ONLY KNOWN COPY.
NOTE: The theater world and fashion photographer Godfried de Groot (1894-1963) was active in the 1930s, when he also did exceptional male nude work. His work is known for its moody, pictorialist atmosphere, and he was considered one of the finest portraitists of his day. Collections with his work include the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, and the Leiden Prentenkabinet.
SOLD

RPA06. LEHNERT & LANDROCK.
Tunisian Boy, c. 1922.
Color heliogravure; 28.5 x 23 cm; studio monogram lower left in plate; printed by a German workshop in the early 1920s in a small edition; with superb, subtle coloring; fine.
€ 475.00
For a description of the Lehnert & Landrock studio, and for further references, please consult our page here:
Lehnert & Landrock References.

RPA07. John McCLELLAN.
The Hunters.
Original lithograph, 23 x 18.5 cm (image size) on 48 x 31 cm sheet; signed, titled and annotated beneath image “Geo. Miller lith.”; i.e. printed by the great US printer George Miller; paper sheet with 2 small age spots, but otherwise fine.
NOTE: John McClellan (b. London, England 1908; d. Woodstock, New York 1986) was a Woodstock painter and printmaker and was considered one of America's finest 20th century lithographic artists. He studied at the Art Students League of New York and published his first lithographs in 1927. Most of these early works are portraits of NY city types, depictions of nudes, and social commentary scenes. Most of his lithographs, including this one, were issued by the Associated American Artists. His work is in the New York Public Library and Smithsonian collections. See (accessed 18 August 2011): http://tinyurl.com/3gmp8v4
€ 375.00

Rare Original Silver Prints by Hajo Ortil

RPA08. Hajo ORTIL.
Boy Playing Flute.
Original gelatin silver print, 14.5 x 10.5 cm, with Ortil’s annotations & negative number in pencil verso; edges a trifle worn but altogether a vg+ copy.
SOLD

RPA09. Hajo ORTIL.
Boy Spear Fishing.
Original gelatin silver print, 14.5 x 10.5 cm, with Ortil’s annotations & negative number in pencil verso; edges a trifle worn but altogether a vg+ copy.
SOLD

RPA10. Hajo ORTIL.
Boy with Eggplant and Melon.
Original gelatin silver print, 14.5 x 10.5 cm, with Ortil’s annotations & negative number in pencil verso; edges a trifle worn but altogether a vg+ copy.
SOLD

A NOTE ON ORTIL’S PRINTS: We attest that the works listed here are the typical format for Ortil, having catalogued his estate and inspected over 4000 prints. He made very few press or exhibition sized silver prints (less than 2% of this format were in his archive), and favored this postcard format. Printing silver prints on postcard size stock was not an unusual practice in the period before and just after WWII. It was a holdover from the age of the carte de visite and early travel photography. Original silver or albumen photograph postcards are today a collectible genre. Ortil never had a gallery or marketed his work per se, and so the incidence of an Ortil print in the market is rare. Ortil was a gifted photographer, and his work deserves to be better known.
PROVENANCE: All 3 prints here for sale were given to the present owner by Ortil in spring of 1982. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Hajo ORTIL (German: 1905-1983) was for decades the photographer for the German FKK movement (freikörperkultur) and known as “a colorful character.” He was nicknamed Big Old Joe, a reference not only to his size but also to the impressions left by his personality. He held a PhD in English, and after the war he taught philosophy and physical education. In 1946 he founded the Hanseatic Pirates, or to be exact, the Hansische Piraten Seefahrende Kanujugend Bremen, or the “Hanseatic Seafaring Youth Canoe Club of Bremen, ” a youth group consisting of boys and girls aged c. 12-18. Most often they were referred to, and called themselves, simply The Pirates. Ortil was from his teen years an ardent nudist, a very popular health movement in northern Germany to this day. On his many tours and in summer camps with his Pirates he encouraged nudity, and his books have become famous for their open depiction of teenagers. In his own introduction to his most famous publication Hundred Naked Rebels, he claims that the boys asked him to photograph them nude and were displeased with him when he did not. To say that boys were his preferred subject is an understatement. Few original prints are likely to come on the market.

RPA11. Gillian PEDERSEN-KRAG.
Female Nude.
Original pencil drawing, 35 x 30 cm; signed in pencil lower left of page; sheet with small dent and one small wear spot but altogether in vg+ condition.
PROVENANCE: Purchased by current owner directly from the artist.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Gillian Pedersen-Krag is artist in residence at Hollins University, Roanoke Virginia. A quiet sense of brooding permeates her drawings and paintings. Her work often depicts solitary people engaged in familiar undertakings, a child at play on the floor, a woman looking toward the window, or this female nude with indistinct features. SEE: GOODYEAR, Frank. Contemporary American Realism since 1960. Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1981. pp. 60, 64.
€ 550.00

Rare New York City WPA Photograph

RPA12. David ROBBINS.
Poor White Boy, 1938.
Vintage gelatin, toned silver print; 18.5 x 23.5 cm; stamped with studio stamp verso; paper a trifle aged, edges a little worn, but vg+. THE ONLY KNOWN VINTAGE COPY OF THIS IMAGE.
PROVENANCE: Purchased by former owner from Robbins’s estate.
€ 950.00

NOTE: Robbins (1912-1981) did this photo as part of a WPA project in the lower east side of Manhattan in 1938. Working with fellow WPA photographer Arnold Eagle on a series titled “One-Third of a Nation,” they documented living conditions in the then slum area of New York during the Great Depression. Robbins’s work is in various important museum collections such as the Smithsonian in Washington and the New York Public Library.
REFERENCE: Tucker, Anne Wilkes; Cass, Claire and Daiter, Stephen. This Was the Photo League Compassion and the Camera from the Depression to the Cold War. Stephen Daiter Gallery, Chicago, 2001.
€ 950.00

RPA13. Jean-Paul VROOM.
Les urinoirs.
Five original erotic etchings, in black cloth box c. 1958; page size 33 x 25 cm, image size 5 x 7 cm; unsigned, from an edition of c. 8, with only 4 sets for sale; intended to illustrate an erotic text for Stichting de Roos, one of the best of all the Dutch fine press publishers in the postwar period. The work was never published, nor were the etchings ever exhibited or sold. They remained unknown in a storage box at the artist’s home until their recent discovery. EXCEEDINGLY RARE; possibly the rarest of all modern Dutch erotica.
PROVENANCE: From the Jean-Paul Vroom estate.
€ 950.00
[SEE BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE BELOW.]

RPA14. Jean-Paul VROOM.
Silence.
Five original hand-colored etchings, in black cloth box, blue paper label c. 1958; page size 33 x 25 cm, image size 5 x 7 cm; each print signed in pencil beneath image and numbered X/XXV; all prints fine, box with light discoloring.
PROVENANCE: From the Jean-Paul Vroom estate.
€ 1250.00

NOTE ON THE VROOM EDITION: A very rare hand-colored set intended to be printed in an edition of 25 boxed sets although only a handful were actually made. Some 6 sets were found in the archive after the artist’s death, but only 3 boxes (including this) had their original labels. Other sets were also not signed, as is this. Thus, this set is one of the few completely intact as the artist intended and very rare.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Dutch realist artist Jean Paul VROOM (1922-2006) studied painting at the Royal Academy in the Hague under the tutelage of Paul Citroen. As a young student in 1944 he moved to Paris and studied graphic art at the École Estienne. Vroom’s mother was French, and perhaps under family influence he remained in Paris until 1955 when he moved back to the Netherlands. He was a teacher of painting, a filmmaker, and a set designer for Hans van Manen and the Netherlands Dance Theater and for the Royal Ballet.

RPA15. Jan Carel WARFFEMIUS.
Palermo, Sicily, 1980.
Original gelatin silver print, 18 x 24 cm; studio stamped and titled in pencil verso; a very sharp print in fine condition printed on resin coated paper; with Galerie Frederic announcement for a show of Warffemius’s work.
NOTE: Warffemius did important Dutch male nude in the 1980s and ’90s. His photojournalism work has consistently chronicled Amsterdam gay life for more than two decades.
SOLD

RPA16. Henry WINZENRIED.
Catskill Mountain Scene, 1938.
Original watercolor; 15 x 21.5 cm; initialed by artist in pencil lower right recto; a pencil line along right side, perhaps marking for framing (by artist) but very light and indistinct; verso with tape remnants, but vg+.
PROVENANCE: From the artist’s estate.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Henry Winzenried (1892-1982) was well known in the Woodstock (New York) artist colony as a painter, watercolorist, and prolific printmaker. His New York lithographs have been widely collected and are in numerous public collections.
€ 250.00

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