20th Century Art 
1 October 2020
20th Century Art 
124

Mauricio Lasansky 1914–2012

Lady in Blue

1967
engraving, etching, drypoint, soft ground, aquatint and electric strippler in colors 75½ h × 25¾ w in (192 × 65 cm)
estimate: $2,000–3,000
result: $20,000
follow artist
own a similar item?
free evaluation

Signed, titled and numbered to lower edge ‘Lady in Blue AP Lasansky’. This work is an artist's proof apart from the edition of 50.
provenance: Acquired directly from the artist | Collection of David and Vivian Campbell, Toronto | Thence by descent, Barry Campbell
literature: Lasansky, Printmaker - Prints of Lasansky 1933-1973, Thein and Lasansky, no. 125

print

Lasansky's prints can be seen as development of a full-scale image and painterly color, utilizing a synthesis of traditional intaglio techniques: soft-ground etching, aquatint, drypoint, engraving. He explored the full possibilities of a subject over a period of time, similar to traditional oil painting, where overpainting and alteration made possible a full richness in tonality and a complex formal relationship....He has mastered his medium thoroughly.

Alan Fern, The Prints of Mauricio Lasansky

Mauricio Lasansky in his studio in Iowa City, 1966

David & Vivian Campbell

20th Century Collectors and Philanthropists

David and Vivian Campbell were prominent philanthropists of the arts in Canada and collectors of early modern masters. Over the course of half a century, David and Vivian built a collection around intimate and dazzling works by giants of early 20th century art—Picasso, Matisse, Gris, Gauguin, Munch and Rodin among them—as well as later 20th century artists such as Will Barnet, Saul Steinberg and David Hockney, who grew out of the traditions of earlier masters, with a reverence for landscape and portraiture.

The scope of the century, along with the Campbells' distinct tastes within its vastness, are presented in the selection offered here; a landscape study of Le Pont Neuf by Paul Signac from 1895, the earliest work in the sale, shares the same musicality of color as Andy Warhol's screenprint of Beethoven from nearly one hundred years later. Portraits by Matisse and Hockney, done forty years apart, both present subjects that are quirky and grounded, executed with an economy and confidence of line. Irving Penn photographs Igor Stravinsky with the same adulatory nod seen in a portrait by André Kertész of his predecessor, Brassaï. An exuberant collage by Picasso celebrates the birth of his son, while Old Man's Afternoon by Will Barnet meditates on loss and aging. A thread evident throughout the selection is the ability for the art that we love to reflect the life that we live.

David and Vivian Campbell in their home in Toronto, 1997,
with Picasso's Jacqueline tricottant. Image: Jeff Goode.
124