Sotheby’s American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Sale on Thursday May 19 will present exceptional 19th Century, Impressionist, Ashcan, and Modernist works for collectors seeking the best examples by American artists.

We are delighted to offer the Property from a Distinguished East Coast Collection. This collection focuses on American Modernism and features an important figurative painting by Milton Avery, March Playing the Cello from 1943. Avery’s special regard for this loving portrait of his daughter is underscored by his inclusion of it in a later self-portrait. Another highlight from this collection is Thomas Hart Benton’s Flood Disaster (Homecoming – Kaw Valley), which was painted to raise governmental support from the United States Congress after the devastating flood of Kansas City in 1951.

Also on offer will be paintings, works on paper and sculpture from the Collection of Edward P. Evans. This collection is comprised of a range of 19th and 20th century works with a particular emphasis on American Impressionism and the Ashcan school. One of the highlights, Childe Hassam’s Quai St. Michel, painted during the artist’s Parisian sojourn during the late 1880’s, depicts an elegant woman browsing the famed bookinistes and framed by the city’s soft light and stone architecture. Another work, George Bellow’s Dock Builders, painted in 1916, was the first in a series by the artist portraying Maine’s rugged seaman and featuring the dynamic compositional style made famous by the artist in his early boxing scenes.

Other highlights include works by Raphaelle Peale, James McNeil Whistler, Theodore Earl Butler, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Winslow Homer, Norman Rockwell, William Glackens, Marsden Hartley, and Western works by Albert Bierstadt, Ernest Blumenschein and Walter Ufer.

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