Beschreibung:

NORMAN LEWIS (1909-1979)Untitled (Gathering) 1955 signed oil on canvas 38 3/4 by 49 in. 98.4 by 124.5 cm. This work was executed in 1955.FootnotesProvenance Acquired by the present owner prior to 1996 The Estate of Sherman K. Edmiston Jr. In New York and the art world alike, so much of what we see today is owed in part to a small number of unseen heroic figures who pursued their passions and projects with an energy that carried many with them along the way. Sherman K. Edmiston Jr. and Essie Green Edmiston were two such people. As individuals they displayed an immense curiosity and sensitivity to the culture and social questions of their community and time; as a couple, their shared devotion to the arts, from their nascent collecting in the 1970s to Sherman's commitment to Essie's namesake gallery after her passing in 2000, was inspirational. If the Harlem Renaissance can be considered the explosion of cultural production that emerged from the search for a black American identity in the aftermath of the First World War and as African Americans moved north away from the racial violence endemic in the south, the generations that followed in the 1960s and 70s, alongside the Civil Rights Movement, marked nascent shifts in the social and economic spheres as black Americans reached the heights of business, politics and the arts. Ambitious and educated, the Edmiston's patronage and collecting was matched by their business nous that propelled them to becoming one of the city's most respected duos, and Essie Green Galleries one of the most important cultural sites in Harlem's Sugar Hill that has influenced the academic and institutional narrative of twentieth century painting. Both Sherman and Essie arrived at art through the purest appreciation of their roots and sense of legacy. Moving to the Riverton area of Harlem at the age of twelve, to Sherman the New York City borough represented a special place where the arts, music and black culture thrived – the heart of the community since the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Sherman was guided by those people and places in his early life, identifying with their ambition and tenacity, including Dolly King, a former professional basketball player and community leader at the Riverton playground. Sherman graduated high school with an interest in accounting and business, ultimately majoring in engineering at The City College and securing his first job working for the Housing Authority. His early start in real estate enabled Sherman to pursue his collecting from a relatively early age, cultivating his tastes and building a network in the city. In perhaps one of his most telling anecdotes, recalling meeting Essie for the first time through a mutual friend, walking into Sherman's apartment Essie fixated upon a painting in his living room. Unknowingly, it was a work that she had intended to acquire for herself before Sherman had purchased it from the gallery. The Edmistons were drawn together by their love of art and their belief that one must have courage to invest in the futurity of one's own culture and community, what Essie regarded as the 'black masters.' Sherman nevertheless playfully quipped "she only married me for the painting"; testament to the serendipitous, gregarious, and wonderful union of these two individuals. After opening their first gallery, Park Plaza Gallery, on the ground floor of their Park Slope home in Brooklyn in 1979 – and meeting Romare Bearden at a fundraising event, whom Essie and Sherman regarded as a mentor and close friend until his death in 1988 – the gallery went from strength to strength. Essie credited Bearden as pushing her to pursue the 'black masters,' laying the foundation for the gallery program that the Edmistons would build over the course of the 1980s, and ultimately leading them to Harlem, opening Essie Green Galleries in 1989 on the corner of 148th Street and Convent Avenue, a brownstone where it remains today. Through Norman Lewis Jacob Lawrence Sam