Richard Pousette-Dart Sold at Auction Prices

Richard Pousette-Dart, American 1916-1992, Untitled Abstract

Richard Pousette-Dart American, 1916-1992 Untitled Abstract watercolor and ink on paper gift from the artist circa 1980

Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart 1916 - 1992 Untitled gouache over etching printed in colors on wove paper plate: 8 by 10 in. 205 by 252 mm. sheet: 14 by 15½ in. 355 by 393 mm. Executed circa 1979; this work is unique.

Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart 1916 - 1992 Untitled signed Evelyn Pousette-Dart, dated 6/18/03 and inscribed Richard Pousette-Dart 1943-42 by the artist's wife (on the reverse) oil on canvas 40 ¼ by 18 ¼ in. 102.2 by 46.4 cm. Executed in 1942.

Untitled

Property from a Private Collection Richard Pousette-Dart 1916 - 1992 Untitled gouache over etching printed in colors on wove paper plate: 8 by 10 in. (20.5 by 25.2 cm.) sheet: 14 by 15½ in. (35.5 by 39.3 cm.) Executed circa 1979. Please note that this lot will not be on view during the sale exhibition. It is located at our Long Island City, New York storage facility. If you would like to examine it in person before the sale please contact Montserrat Palacios at Montserrat.Palacios@sothebys.com

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) White Presence to My Father oil on canvas

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) White Presence to My Father oil on canvas 25 x 36 in. (63.5 x 91.4 cm.)

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Untitled gouache, ink and paper collage m

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Untitled gouache, ink and paper collage mounted on board 11 7/8 x 9 in. (30.2 x 22.9 cm.)

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) By the River oil on canvas 72 x 107 in. (

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) By the River oil on canvas 72 x 107 in. (182.9 x 271.8 cm.)

Pulsating Center

Richard Pousette-Dart 1916 - 1992 Pulsating Center signed, titled and dated May 78 (on the verso)  gesso and graphite on paper 22 ½ by 30 ⅜ in. 57.2 by 77.2 cm. Executed in 1978.

Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart  1916 - 1992      Untitled   signed (on the verso)  gouache, watercolor and ink on paper  6¼ by 9½ in.  15.9 by 24.1 cm.  Executed circa 1970s.

Richard Pousette-Dart, New York, Minnesota (1916 - 1992), Obelisk, ca. 1980, ink on paper, 5"H x 3"W (sight) 11"H x 9"W (frame)

Richard Pousette-Dart New York, Minnesota, (1916 - 1992) Obelisk, ca. 1980 ink on paper Signed and dated verso. Biography from the Archives of askART: Richard Pousette-Dart was born in 1916 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He began drawing and painting when he was eight. His father was Nathaniel Pousette, painter and writer on art and artists, and his mother was Flora Louise Dart, poet and musician. They hyphenated their surnames when they married to show they respected each other as equals. Richard grew up in Valhalla, in Westchester County, New York. His father did not believe in formal art lessons, and Richard spent hours sitting in his father's attic studio and watching his father paint. Art was only one of the many interests he had as a child, and he acquired them all through active involvement. In 1936 Pousette-Dart entered Bard College, but in rebellion against formal education, he only stayed a matter of months when he left to pursue his art activity in New York City. He started out as a sculptor. Then he supported himself by doing lettering for the sculptor Paul Manship, and then for two years as secretary and bookkeeper to a man who retouched colored photographs. At night he worked on his own sculpture, painting and drawing; he also learned from his own direct experience with many works of art in museums, etc. In 1939, having realized that he was "consumed by art," Pousette-Dart quit his job, thereby embarking upon years of financial struggle that did not end until the mid-1960s, when his work began to sell. At the beginning of the 1940s he was forced to give up sculpture, because of the expense. He became part of what became known as the New York School, but he never felt the camaraderie of a Paris cafe scene; instead he was belligerent about his aloneness. In 1946 he and Evelyn Gracey were married; in 1947 their daughter Joanna, who grew up to be a painter, was born, and in 1952 their son Jonathan was born. Pousette-Dart had spent fourteen years painting in New York City. At the age of thirty-four he moved with his family to a part of Rockland County, which is rural and mountainous. He died in 1992. Written and submitted by Jean Ershler Schatz, artist and researcher from Laguna Woods, California. Sources include: "Pousette-Dart's Windows into the Unknowing" by Judith Higgins in ARTnews,January 1987

Work on paper, Richard Pousette-Dart

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992), Untitled (The Chalice), circa 1940s, watercolor, ink, and gouache on paper, unsigned, sheet: 6"h x 9"w, overall (with frame): 8.5"h x 12.75"w. Note: Clars is grateful to the The Richard Pousette-Dart Estate for their positive opinion on this work.

Work on paper, Richard Pousette-Dart

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992), Untitled (The Chalice), circa 1940s, watercolor, ink, and gouache on paper, unsigned, sheet (unframed): 6"h x 9"w. Note: Clars is grateful to the The Richard Pousette-Dart Estate for their opinion on this work.

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Indigo Crescent acrylic on linen 24 1/8 x

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Indigo Crescent acrylic on linen 24 1/8 x 45 1/2 in. (61.3 x 115.6 cm.)

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992) Small Cathedral

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992) Small Cathedral Signed, dated 79 and inscribed #18 verso, titled on stretcher in another hand, acrylic on linen. (42 x 33 in. (106.7 x 83.8cm)) Provenance Obelisk Gallery, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts. Private Collection, Pennsylvania. Footnote: Note One of the founders of Abstract Expressionism, Richard Pousette-Dart was born in Minnesota to two creative parents, his mother a poet and musician and his father a painter, writer, and art director. The family moved east to Valhalla, New York in 1918, and Pousette-Dart attended Bard College in 1936 for just one year. He then decided to pursue his artistic career independently, moving to New York City and working as an artist’s assistant, while experimenting with his own photography, sculpture, drawing, and painting. While living in the city, the artist made frequent trips to the Natural History Museum, as he was particularly fascinated by Native American art in the collection, drawing on the universal quality of the forms and shapes he observed in the works on view for his own experimentation. Pousette-Dart gained early recognition and had his first solo exhibition at the Artists’ Gallery in New York, in 1941, shortly thereafter beginning to work on a monumental scale, creating some of the first mural-sized Abstract Expressionist canvases. He went on to show at Howard Putzel’s gallery, as well as Peggy Guggenheim’s Art of This Century, before joining the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1948, which represented his fellow New York School artists Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, and Clyfford Still, and where Pousette-Dart began a long-standing association. Preferring the solitude of life outside of the city, Pousette-Dart relocated upstate in 1951, where he maintained a residence and studio for the rest of his life. The artist continued to work and exhibit with the Abstract Expressionst painters even after his move, and in 1950 joined the protest of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s juried exhibition “American Painting Today,” claiming the museum held contempt for modern painting and had no intention of showing “advanced art” in the exhibition. Pousette-Dart posed for a now-famous photograph titled “The Irascibles,” with Pollock, Still, Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, and others, that was published in Life Magazine in 1951, along with a story of the artists’ protest. This publicity helped popularize the term Abstract Expressionist and solidify the group as an important force in modern American art. Later in life, Pousette-Dart held teaching positions at the Art Students League, Columbia University, and Sarah Lawrence College. His work is in museum collections around the world and he has been the subject of several ambitious retrospective exhibitions, at the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Pousette-Dart painted in vibrant, pulsating color as often as in a reduced black and white palette, as seen here in Small Cathedral from 1979. The painting incorporates geometric and biomorphic shapes, playing on the universal forms and iconography the artist referred to again and again in his work, brought to life by a thickly applied impasto of acrylic paint. The dance of dots and lines, measured out along the canvas, create a playful surface that carries the eye around and up and down, providing a new experience every time it is engaged. Pousette-Dart once said “I strive to express the spiritual nature of the Universe. Painting for me is a dynamic balance and wholeness of life; it is mysterious and transcending, yet solid and real.” [1] Standing like a black and white stained-glass window, the painting calls to mind other “cathedral” works by the artist, including a ten-by-ten foot bronze panel in the collection of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, from 1990. Created more than ten years after Small Cathedral, the panel engages with similar themes, executed in light and dark bronze surfaces on a grandiose scale. A playful late work by a well-known artist, Small Cathedral encapsulates the painter’s life-long project, bringing an energy and universality to the fundamental experience of abstraction. [1] Richard Pousette-Dart: Drawings, exh. cat., Chicago: Arts Club of Chicago, 1978.

Richard Pousette-Dart, American (1916-1992), two 'Essential Forms', 1930s-1989, bronze, 3"diam (one)

Richard Pousette-Dart American, (1916-1992) two 'Essential Forms', 1930s-1989 bronze documentation: Hunter, Sam; Joan Kuebler (Editors) RICHARD POUSETTE-DART:The New York School and Beyond; pp.30-31. "One of the earliest Abstract Expressionists, Richard Pousette-Dart explored a variety of painterly styles, including figurative work, all-over abstraction, pattern making, and Surrealist Automatism." From AskArt: Richard Pousette-Dart was born in 1916 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He began drawing and painting when he was eight. His father was Nathaniel Pousette, painter and writer on art and artists, and his mother was Flora Louise Dart, poet and musician. They hyphenated their surnames when they married to show they respected each other as equals. Richard grew up in Valhalla, in Westchester County, New York. His father did not believe in formal art lessons, and Richard spent hours sitting in his father's attic studio and watching his father paint. Art was only one of the many interests he had as a child, and he acquired them all through active involvement. In 1936 Pousette-Dart entered Bard College, but in rebellion against formal education, he only stayed a matter of months when he left to pursue his art activity in New York City. He started out as a sculptor. Then he supported himself by doing lettering for the sculptor Paul Manship, and then for two years as secretary and bookkeeper to a man who retouched colored photographs. At night he worked on his own sculpture, painting and drawing; he also learned from his own direct experience with many works of art in museums, etc. In 1939, having realized that he was "consumed by art," Pousette-Dart quit his job, thereby embarking upon years of financial struggle that did not end until the mid-1960s, when his work began to sell. At the beginning of the 1940s he was forced to give up sculpture, because of the expense. He became part of what became known as the New York School, but he never felt the camaraderie of a Paris cafe scene; instead he was belligerent about his aloneness. In 1946 he and Evelyn Gracey were married; in 1947 their daughter Joanna, who grew up to be a painter, was born, and in 1952 their son Jonathan was born. Pousette-Dart had spent fourteen years painting in New York City. At the age of thirty-four he moved with his family to a part of Rockland County, which is rural and mountainous. He died in 1992.

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Serpentine Saffron acrylic on paper 9 x 1

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Serpentine Saffron acrylic on paper 9 x 11 ¼ in. (23 x 28.6 cm.)

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992) Garden 1973-1975

Richard Pousette-Dart (American, 1916-1992) Garden 1973-1975 signed, titled and dated 73-75 on the reverse oil and watercolor on card 11 1/4 by 11 in. 28.5 by 28 cm. For further information on this lot please visit the Bonhams website

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART, American (1916-1992), "Cerulean Garden," 1945, mixed media (oil, watercolor and gouache), titled, dated and s...

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART American (1916-1992) "Cerulean Garden," 1945 mixed media (oil, watercolor and gouache), titled, dated and stamped on the reverse "Richard Pousette-Dart / Evelyn Pousette-Dart / March 29, 1996" 9 1/2 x 13 1/2 inches (sight) Provenance: Estate of the artist; ACA Galleries, New York, New York; American Contemporary Artists, Munich, Germany; Manny Silverman Gallery, Los Angeles, California, March 13, 2003; The Jeanne and Carroll Berry Collection, Atlanta, Georgia. Exhibitions: Georgia Museum of Art, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, "Advanced and Irascible: Abstract Expressionism from the Collection of Jeanne and Carroll Berry," Jan. 14 - Apr. 30, 2017. Other Notes: Click to read the accompanying essay for this lot. Tags: The Berry Collection, Irascibles, Abstract Expressionism, Abstract Expressionist, works on paper, 20th century, post war, American, New York school

Richard Pousette-Dart American, 1916-1992 Untitled, circa 1945

Richard Pousette-Dart American, 1916-1992 Untitled, circa 1945 Ink, gouache and watercolor on paper 6 1/2 x 7 3/4 inches (16.51 x 19.68 cm) Provenance: Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York Purchased from the above by the current owner C 

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Untitled

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Into the Mirror

oil on canvas

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) - Untitled Presence Black Circle

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled Presence Black Circle oil on canvas 41 x 75 in. (104.1 x 190.5 cm.)

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Untitled

watercolor and ink on paper

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Within the Room

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Within the Room

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Mission

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Mission

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Center of the World

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Center of the World

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Blue Enstrata

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Blue Enstrata

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) - Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled oil on canvas 39 ¼ x 51 ¾ in. (99.6 x 131.4 cm.)

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Oriental Lights

oil on canvas, in artist's frame

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) - Awakening Earth

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Awakening Earth oil on canvas 44 ¾ x 57 ½ in. (113.6 x 146 cm.)

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Cotuit V

acrylic on paper mounted on canvas

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Untitled

acrylic and graphite on paper

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Composition Number 1

oil on canvas

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Hieroglyph #4

oil on canvas 

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Window de la Grange

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART - Window de la Grange

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART, (AMERICAN, 1916-1992), UNTITLED

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (american, 1916-1992) UNTITLED Signed, dated 61 and numbered 127 verso, oil on panel. 9 1/2 x 10 1/2 in. (24.2 x 26.7cm) provenance: The Artist. Mr. Israel Katz, Rockland County, New York. Mr. Arthur Joel Katz, New York, New York (gifted from the above).

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Quarry at Valhalla

acrylic on canvas

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | From the Mind of the Sea

oil on linen

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Untitled

gouache and ink on paper

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Untitled

gouache and ink on paper

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Untitled, 1977

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART (1916-1992) Untitled, 1977 signed and dated 'March 1 77 R Pousette-Dart' (on the reverse) titanium white and graphite on paper 22 5/8 x 30 1/4in. 57.5 x 77cm FOOTNOTES Provenance Andrew Crispo Gallery, New York. Acquired from the above by the present owner. Exhibited New York, Andrew Crispo Gallery, Richard Pousette-Dart: Drawings, 30 March-22 April 1978, no. 37 (illustrated, unpaged).

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Within the Room

oil and sand on linen

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Amethyst Window

oil on canvas

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | In the Garden #4

acrylic on paper mounted to board

RICHARD POUSETTE-DART | Arabesque

acrylic and watercolor over monoprint

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Summer Illumination

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Summer Illumination

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled

Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) Untitled