Lot Essay
Françoise Gromaire and Florence Chibret-Plaussu have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF ARNOLD AND DOROTHY NEUSTADTEROur father, Arnold Neustadter, made his reputation in business, as the organizational genius who invented and manufactured Rolodex, the iconic rotary card file for “contacts” that became de rigueur for homes and offices everywhere. But while he contemplated the creation of the next ingenious desktop device, his cultural and intellectual bent led to a keen interest in Impressionist and Cubist painting and sculpture, classical music, Judaic studies and English literature. Born in the Bronx, he attended New York University, where he edited the college newspaper, played clarinet in an amateur orchestra, and read both the Talmud and Shakespeare. A trip to Europe in 1950 inspired a lifelong love of France, a passion he shared with his elegant, like-minded wife Dorothy. They learned to speak French, sent us to the Lycée Français in New York, and we were possibly the only Americans to spend summers in the beach town of Cabourg in Normandy, where Marcel Proust’s family had vacationed, and which, renamed Balbec, is featured in Proust’s writing. As our parents prowled art galleries in Paris and New York together, Dorothy’s discerning eye, impeccable taste and flair helped inform the selection of paintings and sculpture by Chagall, Picabia, Degas, Valtat, Utrillo, and Modigliani as well as by fledgling artists, which graced their apartments in Manhattan, London, and Palm Beach. Ardent philanthropists, Arnold and Dorothy supported UJA Federation, the Anti-Defamation League and other Jewish causes here and in Israel, where they donated a Chagall painting, “The Sukkah,” to the Israel Museum. They were among the original founders of the Metropolitan Opera House when it moved to Lincoln Center in 1966. And as collectors who had raised their paddles at countless auctions, they hoped that, upon their death, other art lovers would acquire and appreciate the works that enriched their lives for so many years. Please see lots: 744, 749, 753, 755-756, 760, 762-764, 768, 780-781 and 784.Martha Mendelsohn Jane Revasch Richard Neustadter
Marcel Gromaire (1892-1971)
Trois baigneuses
Details
Marcel Gromaire (1892-1971)
Trois baigneuses
signed and dated ‘Gromaire 1932’ (lower right); signed and dated again, titled and inscribed ‘GROMAIRE 1932 TROIS BAIGNEUSES djc’ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
39 ½ x 31 ¾ in. (100 x 81 cm.)
Painted in 1932
Trois baigneuses
signed and dated ‘Gromaire 1932’ (lower right); signed and dated again, titled and inscribed ‘GROMAIRE 1932 TROIS BAIGNEUSES djc’ (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
39 ½ x 31 ¾ in. (100 x 81 cm.)
Painted in 1932
Provenance
G. David Thompson, Pittsburgh (probably 1936).
Acquired by the late owners, by 1971.
Acquired by the late owners, by 1971.
Literature
F. Gromaire and F. Chibret-Plaussu, Marcel Gromaire: La vie et l'oeuvre, Catalogue raisonné des peintures, Paris, 1993, p. 153, no. 373 (illustrated).
Exhibited
Kunsthalle Basel, Marcel Gromaire, June-July 1933, no. 90.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, The 1936 International Exhibition of Paintings, October-December 1936, no. 174.
Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute, The 1936 International Exhibition of Paintings, October-December 1936, no. 174.
Brought to you by
Allegra Bettini