Price: $17,500.00
Unbound. A collection of 129 piece of original art and prints, and biographical material by or related to the Swiss-born artist Paul Degen (1941-2007), who created more than 30 original covers for *The New Yorker*, and countless illustrations for *Harper's*, *Esquire*, *Atlantic Monthly* and *The New York Times*. The illustrations vary in size from 5” x 7” to 15” x 19” in a range of medium – pen and ink, charcoal, watercolors, and gauche – largely on artist paper, but with a few torn from sketch books and a few matted. The collection is housed in three large portfolios and all the works are Signed by the artist.
The largest of the portfolio contains 56 original works. There are a few sketches, but most of the works contained are fully realized and full-color drawings or paintings. It is clear that many of these were prepared for submissions to magazines, particularly as covers. Several are marked as intended to be *New Yorker* covers, with a few examples clearly used as studies for or early draft of covers that were used by the magazine. Also contains two etchings by Degen.
The second portfolio contains 22 original works, all of a sexual or erotic nature. They range from relatively demure nudes to elaborately contrived and, indeed in some cases, impossibly ambitious sexual images. The second folder also has three etchings and four silk screens, some of which have been altered by hand, again, all on erotic or sexual subjects. Also in the portfolio is some biographical material on Degen, including an article on the artist by Steven Heller.
The third and final portfolio contains 49 original works, also all of a sexual or erotic nature, mostly standard nude studies and a few more fanciful erotic images. The illustration exist in a range of states, from simple sketches to finished images.
A wonderful collection of images from an accomplished international magazine cover artist.
Item #284574
