August 2021 Catalogue

Signed By Maurice Sendak: An Original Large Drawing Of Max And AWild Thing 53. SENDAK, Maurice. Original drawing signed [Max and a Wild Thing]. No place, no date. Single sheet, measuring 11-1/2 by 9 inches; handsomely matted and framed, entire piece measures 21-1/2 by 19 inches. $18,500. Original large pencil drawing of Max, dressed in his monster suit, playing with the wild thing “Moishe” from Where the Wild Things Are, signed by Sendak. Hailed as “the Picasso of children’s books,” Maurice Sendak produced more than 80 books, of which Where the Wild Things Are (1963) is unquestionably the most famous, being one of the ten best-selling children’s books of all time. Sendak named the individual wild things after his relatives; the wild thing depicted here is “Moishe.” Fine condition. Very Scarce Silkscreen Portrait Of Frederick Douglass, Based On An 1894 Photograph, One Of Only 250 Signed By Artist Ben Shahn 54. SHAHN, Ben. FrederickDouglass IV. Washington, 1965. Original silkscreen print, measuring 16-3/4 by 21-3/4 inches; matted and framed, entire piece measures 21 by 25 inches. $2600. Original large 1965 silkscreen print of Frederick Douglass, one in a series of only 250 signed and numbered by artist Ben Shahn, based on a cabinet card photograph taken the year before Douglass’ death by studio photographer Dennis Bourdin in Boston, when Douglass was on a lecture trip with his grandson It was Shahn’s skill as both artist and photographer that also links him to Frederick Douglass— ”the most photographed man in 19th-century America” (Henry Louis Gates, Jr.). Douglass used photography to send “a message to the world that he had as much claim to citizenship… as his white peers.” That spirit was shared by Shahn, who focused “on the civil rights struggle in a characteristically personal way. He completed four drawings of Douglass… [and] gave permission to the Museumof African Art inWashington to reproduce and sell a portfolio of these drawings to benefit themuseum’s Frederick Douglass Institute of Negro Arts and History,” signing and numbering each print. Issued same year as unnumbered, unsigned prints. A fine signed print. F r a m e d ! 2 0 2 1 B a u m a n R a r e B o o k s 45 44