388: GERSHON BENJAMIN, New York Rooftops #3 < , 23 September 2020 < Auctions

Spanierman 23 September 2020

SPANIERMAN

The Preeminent Gallery for American Art

For more than fifty years, Spanierman Gallery cultivated a reputation as one of the country’s preeminent galleries dedicated to American Art. Founded by Ira Spanierman in 1961, the gallery initially offered a wide selection of material, including silver, arms and armor, Old Master, European and American art. Over time, Spanierman chose to focus exclusively on American art, a move that would establish the gallery as a tour-de-force in the field. Well-known for his outstanding ‘eye’ and dedication to connoisseurship, Spanierman was trusted by institutions and private collectors alike. The gallery was known to have sold to hundreds of museums across the United States and abroad while fostering the development of some of the country’s most prestigious private collections.

In addition to its reputation as a dealer, Spanierman Gallery was esteemed in the industry for its dedication and support of art scholarship. As a young man starting off in the business, Ira Spanierman recalled researching and identifying paintings through tedious research at the Frick Art Reference Library. These hours of study left an indelible mark on Spanierman who would go on to publish catalogue raisonnés for artists such as Theodore Robinson, John Henry Twachtman, Willard Metcalf, and co-sponsor the catalogue on the work of Winslow Homer.

When Spanierman Gallery closed in 2014 an impressive inventory remained. We are pleased to be offering a selection of these works in our upcoming auctions. Paintings and sculpture by artists such as John Haberle, Childe Hassam, Walter Schofield, Ibram Lassaw, Theodoros Stamos, George Segal and Patrick Procter among others, will be offered over two days. The sales also features work from a few of the estates acquired by the gallery, such as: Burgoyne Diller, Gershon Benjamin, Hayley Lever, Charles Warren Eaton, Sears Gallagher and Abraham Bogdanove.

Gershon Benjamin 1899–1985

A painter of portraits, landscapes, still lives, and the urban scene, Gershon Benjamin sustained an active career for over seven decades. Consistently dedicated to an artistic expression that was personal and honest, Benjamin was not commercially motivated and never wanted to compete with other artists for notoriety. He viewed his art as a means of expressing personal emotion; as he put it, "To feel is to know and to know is to feel; all my paintings represent that through color, line, and subject." As the introduction to the catalogue from his first solo show, held in 1934, aptly stated: his "theory embraces a precise expressionism" and commented that in his "nuanced studies you will encounter the evasive, evocative personality of the true searcher after the emotional 'mot juste.'"

Born in Romania in 1899, Benjamin began studying art when he was ten, while living in Canada. Leaving school when was fourteen, Benjamin became engaged as an apprentice at an advertising firm, where he learned engraving techniques. In 1923 Benjamin moved to New York, where he began a job working during the night shift in the New York Sun's art department and enrolled at the Art Students League. Among his teachers were Joseph Pennell and John Sloan. Soon after he arrived in New York, Benjamin began to associate with a circle of progressive-minded artists that included Milton Avery, Mark Rothko, Adolph Gottlieb, and Arshile Gorky among others. Benjamin was especially close to Avery, and the two artists would retain a close and supportive friendship and artistic connection throughout their lives. In the early 1930s Benjamin along with Avery, Rothko, Gottlieb, and a number of other artists were promoted by the impresario and art critic, Robert Godsoe. In the 1940s, Benjamin settled in Free Acres, New Jersey where he worked freely until his death in 1985.

Benjamin is represented in many private collections, as well as in public collections including Berkeley Heights Public Library, New Jersey; Drew University, Madison, New Jersey; Griffiths Art Center, St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York; the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; and Ulrich Museum of Art, Wichita, Kansas.

Upcoming Lots Gershon Benjamin