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●
ROBERT BLACKBURN (1920 - 2003)
Mike’s Place
.
Lithograph on cream wove paper, 1938. 337x413 mm; 13
1
/
4
x16
1
/
4
inches, full margins. Signed, titled,
dated and numbered 3/5 in pencil, lower margin.
This lithograph is a rare view of a Harlem Renaissance gathering, and one of the earliest lithographs
by the artist to come to auction.
Robert Blackburn printed
Mike’s Place
, alternately titled
Clubroom
, at the Harlem Community Art
Center, where he studied lithography with artist Riva Helfond. Blackburn was still in high school
at DeWitt Clinton in 1938 - his drawings and lithographs illustrated in
The Magpie
, his high school’s
literary magazine - graduating in 1939.
We have found only one other record of this extremely scarce print,
Clubroom
. Once owned by
Riva Helfond and then in the collection of Reba and Dave Williams before it was donated to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NewYork. Mustalish, p. 72; Fine, p. 248.
[10,000/15,000]