LOT DETAILS

Materials:

tempera on panel

Measurements:

30.00 in. (76.20 cm.) (height) by 15.00 in. (38.10 cm.) (width)

Markings:

signed 'Tooker' (l.l.)

Exhibited:

New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 1947 Annual Exhibition of Contemporary Paintings, 1947, no. 156, illustrated (as The Chess Game). New York, Edwin Hewitt Gallery, Paintings by George Tooker, February 20-March 10, 1951, no. 5 (as The Chess Game). New York, Edwin Hewitt Gallery, Paintings by George Tooker, January 10-29, 1955, no. 1 (as The Chess Game). New York, Whitney Museum of American Art; San Francisco, California, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles, California, University of California Art Galleries; Colorado Springs, Colorado, Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center; St. Louis, Missouri, City Art Museum, The New Decade: 35 American Painters and Sculptors, May 11, 1955-May 15, 1956, p. 88, illustrated (as The Chess Game). St. Louis, Missouri, St. Louis Art Museum; Honolulu, Hawaii, Honolulu Academy of Arts; Boston, Massachusetts, Museum of Fine Arts, The Ebsworth Collection: American Modernism 1911-1947, November 20, 1987-June 5, 1988, pp. 186-87, 222, no. 71, illustrated (as The Chess Game (The Chessman)). Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art; Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Twentieth-Century American Art: The Ebsworth Collection, March 5-November 12, 2000, pp. 263-65, 300, no. 71, illustrated (as The Chess Game (The Chessman)). New York, National Academy Museum; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Columbus, Ohio, Columbus Museum of Art, George Tooker, October 2, 2008-September 2, 2009, pp. 46, 58, 110-11, 177, pl. 5, illustrated.

Literature:

P. Bird, "George Tooker Exhibition, Hewitt Gallery," Art Digest, vol. 25, March 1, 1951, p. 24. S. Preston, "The Artist in Europe--And in America," New York Times Magazine, May 8, 1955, p. 29, illustrated. H. Devree, "About Art and Artists: Whitney Telescopes Schedule, Displays Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings," The New York Times, January 12, 1955, p. 23. "George Tooker," Wizue, no. 829, 1974, p. 77, illustrated. H. McBride, New York Sun, December 19, 1954. Playbill for The Saint of Bleeker Street, New York, December 27, 1954. T.H. Garver, George Tooker, San Francisco, California, 1992, pp. 15-16, 67, 113, 138, 142, illustrated (as The Chess Game). K. Johnson, "Baleful Visions of Modernity, Mystically Rendered," The New York Times, October 10, 2008, p. C33.

Provenance:

Frank K.M. Rehn Gallery, New York. Edwin Hewitt Gallery, New York. Robert Isaacson Gallery, New York. Irma Rudin, New York. Marshall Henis, Steppingstone Gallery, Great Neck, New York. Sotheby Parke-Bernet, New York, 21 April 1978, lot 208. Acquired by the late owner from the above.