Rolph Scarlett Mixed-media Artwork, ca. 1946
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GUEST:
In 1970, my parents had been dealing with a gallery in Great Neck, New York, called the Eva Lee Gallery. And they purchased a large oil on canvas by the painter Rolph Scarlett. The story was told to them that Rolph Scarlett had met Peggy Guggenheim...
APPRAISER:
Mm-hmm.
GUEST:
Who was interested in having a retrospective of his work. He painted, did prints, sent them to her. She put them in the Guggenheim, in the basement, waiting to get a retrospective done. It took too long for him. He was running out of money. And the story goes that he went out west to paint sets. Peggy Guggenheim was angry, and somehow, Eva Lee Gallery got ahold of some of the work.
APPRAISER:
So no retrospective.
GUEST:
Never.
APPRAISER:
And even though it was dangled in front of him, so the story goes, it didn't eventually happen.
GUEST:
That's what I was told, yes.
APPRAISER:
These works ended up at this gallery where you then purchased them, correct?
GUEST:
Yes. In 1970, my husband and I purchased them for $250 each. It says on the back that they were circa 1946, oil on paper.
APPRAISER:
Rolph Scarlett was born in 1889 in Canada, and he passed away in 1984. So Scarlett, in 1939, was contracted to teach at the Guggenheim, which was then known as the Museum of Nonobjective Painting. And he taught there from 1939 to 1947. So he had an eight-year tenure there, and he certainly had a relationship with that institution, which is why I think your background story about his work having been there, and his subsequent disappointment in not getting a retrospective show might be a possibility. And I found it interesting that on the back, the labels say, "Circa 1946." And that was just prior to his leaving. In 1947, he did move out west for a very brief stint to work in other means. He was a set designer, he was a jewelry designer. He ended up working in Woodstock, New York, and he spent about 25 years toward the end of his life...
GUEST:
Oh, wow.
APPRAISER:
Teaching and working there. And much of his body of production that surfaces today is from that period. These two examples, they're identified on the reverse, probably by the gallery, and they may have been a bit more contrived. I don't know that these are necessarily landscape subjects. They're more studies in abstraction. The larger work actually has a title: "Two Red Stars." Again, that might have been determined by the gallery. They may have assumed that that was sort of a working title.
GUEST:
Right, yeah.
APPRAISER:
And it also says, dated "circa 1946," which is accurate, and it's a bit larger, 18 by 24 inches. And they're cited as oil on paper, but, really, these should be identified as mixed-media works on paper. There is some watercolor, there is some gouache, and they're laid down into these frames, probably where they were presented for the gallery that you bought them at.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Rolph Scarlett was one of the first American artists to actually exhibit his work and have works acquired by the Guggenheim. Today, in looking into their permanent collection, his work is some of their earliest acquisitions. So they're both top-notch examples in this medium. Today, at auction, the smaller of the two, the vertical example, would be expected to fetch somewhere in the region of $2,000 to $4,000. And the larger example, which is what he's well-known for, would be expected to fetch somewhere in the region of $3,000 to $5,000.
GUEST:
Well, that's lovely. I appreciate it, thank you so much.
APPRAISER:
Yeah. There's been a lot of scholarship on his work, and a lot of appreciation for his work, especially more recently.
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