WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Sea Movement #2. Oil on masonite board, 1951. 584x883 mm; 23x34¾ inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left verso. Signed, titled and dated "8-51" in oil, upper right verso. Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston. This beautiful organic abstraction by Walter Sanford is an excellent example of the modernist repertoire of this Chicago painter. Born in Detroit, Walter Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Beginning with exhibitions at the Southside Community Art Center in the 1940s, Sanford had a wide-ranging, international career. Like many other African-Americans after World War II, with the G.I. Bill, he found his way to Paris and in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows, and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.
Walter Sanford (American, 1912-1987) oil painting on masonite depicting Giraffes. Signed and dated September 1965 lower right. Signed, titled and dated to verso. Board measures 30" x 23 7/8".
Walter Sanford (American, 1912-1987) oil painting on masonite depicting Giraffes. Signed and dated September 1965 lower right. Signed, titled and dated to verso. Board measures 30" x 23 7/8".
Walter Sanford (American, 1912-1987) The Zodiac, 1972 colored pencil on paperboard signed Sanford and dated (lower center) 30 x 30 inches. Provenance: The Philip and Suzanne Schiller Collection of American Social Commentary Art, 1930 - 1970, Highland Park, Illinois
Walter Sanford (American 1912-1987) Collage 35 oil on cardboard, 1965, signed Sanford 65 upper right, signed, titled and dated verso, framed. 21 x 18 1/2"
Walter Sanford (American 1912-1987) Sunset on Broadway oil on Masonite, 1964, signed Sanford lower right, signed, titled and dated verso, framed. 38 x 24"
Artist: Walter Sanford, American (1912 - 1987) Title: The Cool Hand (Abraham Lincoln) Portfolio: Year: circa 1960 Medium: Woodcut, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 12/30 Size: 9 x 5 in. (22.86 x 12.7 cm) Description: A portrait of the 16th president by the artist. Abraham Lincoln with a suit and tie, shadows highlight his mouth and eyes well in this artwork.
Signed, titled and dated verso, there is another artist's signature in the lower left recto. Walter Sanford was one of the first and only black social realism and abstract expressionist artists of the 20th century. He was heralded “Black Picasso” and “Detroit’s Picasso” for his cubist figure paintings and in 1958 he won the Prix de Paris La Grande Saison de Paris at the Raymond Duncan Galleries. He opened the first black-owned art gallery and exhibited at the first Negro Art Exhibition and Negro History Week in Detroit. Sanford was hailed as one of Michigan’s foremost modern art painters in 1952. Sanford was part of the Second Wave (1941-1960) of the Black Chicago Renaissance of African-American artists and embraced a range of styles and influences. Framed H 18.5" W 14.5"
Walter Sanford (American, 1912-1987) oil painting on masonite depicting Giraffes. Signed and dated September 1965 lower right. Signed, titled and dated to verso. Measures 29 1/4" x 23 1/4" + 2 1/2" frame.
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Untitled (Modernist Figure). Mixed media with canvas and fabric collage on board, circa 1960. 914x610 mm; 36x24 inches. Signed in oil, lower left. Provenance: private collection, New York; private collection, Alabama (2015).
Walter Sanford 1912-1987 Nature Woman 1974 mixed media on paper 35 x 10 inches signed and dated in pencil UL titled verso, inscribed with artist’s name and "Chgo"
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) First Things. Oil on canvas mounted on wood panel, 1959, 241x270 mm; 9 1/2x10 3/8 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower right recto. Signed and titled in pencil, upper right verso. Provenance: private collection, Callfornia.
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Sea Movement #2. Oil on masonite board, 1951. 584x883 mm; 23x34 3/4 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left verso. Signed, titled and dated "8 - 51" in oil, upper right verso. Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston. This beautiful organic abstraction by Walter Sanford is an excellent example of the modernist painting of this Chicago painter. Born in Detroit, Walter Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. First associated in the 1940s with exhibitions at the Southside Community Art Center, Sanford had a wide-ranging, international career. Like many other African-Americans after World War II, with the G.I. Bill, he found his way to Paris and in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.
ARTIST: Walter Sanford (New York, Illinois, 1912 - 1987) NAME: Icon (titled on verso) YEAR: 1962 MEDIUM: oil on board CONDITION: Very good. Minor normal wear. No visible inpaint under UV light. SIGHT SIZE: 26 x 9 inches / 66 x 22 cm FRAME SIZE: unframed SIGNATURE: upper right nad on verso SIMILAR ARTISTS: Houston E "Keg" Chandler, William Sylvester Carter, Richard Dempsey, Margaret Burroughs, Claude F Clark Sr, Medard Klein, Frederick D Fred Jones Jr, William Edouard Scott, Charles Sebree, John Hardrick, Walter Henry Williams, Joseph Delaney, Charles Henry Alston, Lois Mailou Jones, John Anansa Thomas Biggers, Charles Wilbert White CATEGORY: antique vintage painting AD: ART CONSIGNMENTS WANTED. CONTACT US SKU#: 117102 US Shipping $75 + insurance. BIOGRAPHY: Walter Sanford, also known as Sanford, was an American artist who spent almost every day of his adult life painting in Chicago and Detroit. He was one of the first and only black social realism and abstract expressionist artists of the 20th century. He was heralded "Black Picasso" and "Detroit's Picasso" for his cubist figure paintings and in 1958 he won the Prix de Paris La Grande Saison de Paris at the Raymond Duncan Galleries. He opened the first black-owned art gallery and exhibited at the first Negro Art Exhibition and Negro History Week in Detroit. Sanford was hailed as one of Michigan's foremost modern art painters in 1952. Sanford was part of the Second Wave (1941-1960) of the Black Chicago Renaissance of African-American artists and embraced a range of styles and influences. An expressionist until 1945, Sanford was clearly influenced by and followed Pablo Picasso"s cubism in his paintings, then switched to abstract expressionism for 18 years. During this period, he traveled and worked in Mexico, France, and Las Vegas, but always returned to his home in Chicago. In 1962, he moved Sanford Studio (171 W. Oak Street, Chicago) to the South Side and set up a new studio across the street from the Prairie Shores and Lake Meadows apartments. He returned to social realism and entertained guests in his new studio while he painted for them. Sanford grew up and went to school in Chicago and was introduced to art by his teacher there when he was 9 years old. At 13, he took an art correspondence class and dreamt of being a cartoonist. He realized this dream and became official cartoonist for his high school newspaper and sold his first painting when he was 15. Sanford's first exhibition was at the age of 18 at the Renaissance Society of the University of Chicago. In 1937, he took evening classes at the Art Institute of Chicago where he studied oil painting, tempera, ink, pencil, and pastel drawing. He moved to Detroit in 1938 where he studied for a year under artist and head of the art department John Carroll at the Detroit Society of Arts and Crafts. Sanford drew much of his subject matter from Chicago's South Side where he lived for many years. Well known throughout black Chicago, he was often featured in various newspaper and magazines including "The Chicago Defender" and "Negro Digest". Sanford worked by day in his personal studio and in the evenings he regularly painted portraits of entertainers and guests at Chicago's South Side nightclub and music venue Club DeLisa. He was well known for his detailed ink and colored-pencil portraits. Dubbed The Man Who Paints with the Pencil and Master of Pencil Acrobatics Sanford is known to have painted for many famous people including Roberta Flack and Billie Holiday. "For him, color is a means for distinguishing images that overlap and combine," the late artist and former Chicago Sun-Times art critic Harold Haydon said in 1974. "Figures and faces smiling, grimacing, static and moving, in complex compositions great and small." Sanford became particularly popular in the 1960s for his ink drawings like those of Frederick Douglass, Duke Ellington, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Albert Einstein, Buddy Rich, and Miles Davis. Sanford won many awards and exhibited in more than 40 major shows, including over two dozen one-man shows that he started in 1941. His works hang in hundreds of private collections in Europe and North America and have been exhibited at a variety of locations including the Stuttgart Museum (Germany), Afro Arts Cultural Center (New York), Little Gallery (with Charles Culver, Michigan), Las Vegas Art League (Nevada), Union Gallery (Purdue University, Indiana), Detroit Institute of Art (Michigan), South Shore Cultural Center (Chicago) and South Side Community Art Center (Chicago). Sanford's art was on exhibit in 2005 at the Corbett vs. Dempsey Gallery in Chicago. The exhibition, Chicago: Northside/Southside, featured 1950s paintings by Walter Sanford and [Jerry Pinsler]. This was the first and last major showing of his work since his death in 1987. Subsequently, several of his paintings were used as featured props and set dressings in connection with the 2006 Warner Bros. feature motion picture "The Lake House'' and, in 2007, the Chicago History Museum borrowed and exhibited one of his largest biomorphic abstracts, self-titled Living Desert, for their exhibition: Big Picture: A New View of Painting in Chicago which surveyed mid 20th century forays into expressionism and abstraction. This large, 49" x 60" oil on masonite painting, was executed in Las Vegas during Sanford's desert period together with a series of 22 other works painted during the 19 months he lived in the Nevada desert and were at the core of his 1958 one-man show at the Ligoa Duncan Gallerie des Arts, First Salon of the 48 States, in New York. Sanford died in 1987. He was cremated at Oakridge Abbey Crematory, Hillside, Illinois.
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Proscenium. Oil on masonite board, 1963. 762x1016 mm; 30x40 inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper left recto. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed with the crossed-out title "Mountains of Mexico and "Near Cuidad de Mexico" in oil, verso. Provenance: private collection, San Diego; private collection, California. This fiery, abstracted landscape was apparently influenced by the artist's frequent trips to Mexico in the early 1960s.
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Tabu. Oil on masonite board, 1951. 762x635 mm; 30x25 inches. Signed and dated in oil, upper left recto. Signed and titled in oil, verso. Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection, Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston. This striking modernist portrait is an early work by this Chicago painter. Walter Sanford was associated in the 1940s with the Southside Community Art Center, and had a wide-ranging career. Born in Detroit, Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Like many other African American artists, he found his way to Paris where, in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.
Walter Sanford (American, 1912-1987) Susan and Friend, 1948 oil on board signed Sanford and dated (upper right) 30 x 24 inches. Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist Property from the Collection of Kenneth and Shirley Butler, Chicago, Illinois
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) We Will Count Nothing But Money. Oil on masonite board, 1951. 610x762 mm; 24x30 inches. Signed and dated in oil, lower left recto. Signed, dated and titled in oil across the verso. Provenance: the Johnson Publishing Company, Inc., Chicago. This oil painting is an early modernist painting by Walter Sanford. He was a Chicago painter who was associated in the 1940s with the Southside Community Art Center and had a wide-ranging career. Born in Detroit, Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. Like many other African-Americans after World War II, he found his way to Paris with funds from the G.I. Bill, and in 1952, won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, Sanford exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.
"Icon (Ikon)". Signed to the upper right and to the back Sanford (Walter Sanford, 1912-1987, New York, Illinois). Original artist framed. Sight image measures approximately 26-1/2" in height and 9" in width. Outside measures approximately30-3/4" in height and 13-1/2" in width. All sales are subject to Bremo Auctions Terms & Conditions. Please review before bidding.
Artist: Walter Sanford, American (1912 - 1987) Title: The Cool Hand (Abraham Lincoln) Year: circa 1960 Medium: Woodcut, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 12/30 Size: 9 x 5 in. (22.86 x 12.7 cm)
Artist: Walter Sanford, American (1912 - 1987) Title: Frederick Douglass Year: circa 1960 Medium: Woodcut, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 1/16 Size: 27 x 22.5 in. (68.58 x 57.15 cm)
Artist: Walter Sanford, American (1912 - 1987) Title: The Cool Hand (Abraham Lincoln) Year: circa 1960 Medium: Woodcut, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 12/30 Size: 9 x 5 in. (22.86 x 12.7 cm)
WALTER SANFORD (American, 1912-1987), mother and child, mixed media on board, signed upper right. Board lightly warped, toning. Sight 35-1/4''h, 23-3/4''w. (Fine Art)
WALTER SANFORD (1912 - 1987) Study in Black & White. Oil on masonite board, 1949-50. 914x1219 mm; 36x48 inches. Signed and dated "50" in oil, upper right recto. Signed, titled and dated "49" in oil, verso. Provenance: the estate of the artist; private collection Bloomfield, MI; private collection, Boston. This large oil painting is a significant, modernist painting by Walter Sanford. He was a Chicago painter who was associated in the 1940s with the Southside Community Art Center and had a wide-ranging career. Born in Detroit, Sanford moved to Chicago and studied at the Art Institute of Chicago under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. MLike many other African-Americans after World War II, with the G.I. Bill, he found his way to Paris and in 1952, he won the Prix de Paris. Upon his return to Chicago, he was frequently called "The Black Picasso." He traveled often and worked for periods in Mexico, Detroit, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. According to his obituary in the Chicago Tribune, he was a self-described "Abstract Expressionist," exhibited in more than 20 major shows and had more than two dozen solo exhibitions.
WALTER SANFORD (American, 1912-1987), mother and child, mixed media on board, signed upper right. Board lightly warped, toning. Sight 35-1/4''h, 23-3/4''w. (Fine Art)
