PBA Galleries will hold an auction of Fine Art & Photography on Thursday, January 27th, 2022. The sale comprises over 325 lots featuring paintings, prints, original photographs, photobooks, artists’ books, posters, deco arts, and more. Major collections include early works by Ed Ruscha from his friend Marilyn McCorkle’s collection, a large collection of Chez Panisse posters signed by David Lance Goines, and a collection of signed prints by Salvador Dali. Outstanding individual lots include a Thanksgiving Day mail art broadside sent from Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams to model Marilyn McCorkle, a signed Käthe Kollwitz lithograph, Sebastião Salgado’s Genesis in the sumo edition from Taschen Press, Le Corbusier’s Série Panurge, lovely original photographs from Nick Brandt and Peter Stackpole, an original oil painting from Bauhaus participant Iwao Yamawaki, and much more.
Thanksgiving Day 1965 by Ed Ruscha and Mason Williams is an original multicolor holograph mail art broadside lettered and designed on both sides of a blank orchestra score. It is written in the hands of Ruscha and Williams and signed by them as Masie Bunny and Eddie P (short for Eddie Poo, sometimes Eddie Pooo). This 1960s unique art piece was sent to Marilyn McCorkle, erstwhile model for Ruscha at The Chouinard Institute of Art and friend to both artists. (Estimate: $6,000-$9,000)
Les Amours de Cassandre, a suite of 10 colored etchings with drypoint leads the Salvador Dali lots in the sale. Each etching is singed in pencil by the artist along with his embossment. This is Dali’s tribute to the forlorn lover Pierre de Ronsard, author of the 1552 cycle of poems Les Amours. (Estimate: $10,000-$15,000)
An early oil on canvas by Iwao Fujita (later Yamawaki) from 1928 will also be on the block. Fujita was a Japanese artist, photographer and architect, who, in exchange for taking his wife’s family name, was sponsored by his father-in-law to train at the Bauhaus under Josef Albers and Walter Peterhans. After his return to Japan, Yamawaki became a successful architect and is best remembered for designing the interiors of the Japanese pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000)
Among the highlights of the photography section is Ruth Bernhard’s iconic photograph In the Box. Best known for her photographs of still life and female nude studies, this work is one of her most recognizable. The model photographed in a discarded shipping box results in a sensual, provocative image. The signed photograph is accompanied by Bernhard’s book The Eternal Body: A Collection of Fifty Nudes. (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000)
Other featured lots include a signed lithograph, Zuhörende by Käthe Kollwitz (Estimate: $5,000-$8,000); 30 lots of signed David Lance Goines lithograph posters celebrating 40 years of birthdays of Alice Waters’ acclaimed restaurant (Estimates: $300-$500 and $200-$300); and two Sumo sized lots from Taschen celebrating the work of Annie Liebovitz (Estimate: $4,000-$6,000) and Sebastião Salgado (Estimate: $5,000-$8,000).