ELAINE DE KOONING (American, 1918-1989) Lost Wax - Found Bronze

ELAINE DE KOONING (American, 1918-1989) Lost Wax - Found Bronze unsigned bronze with a black patina 39.5 x 26.3 cm (15 9/16 x 10 3/8 in). Footnotes: Provenance Gift of the artist to Herbert and Doris Aach, July 19, 1967. N.B. Artist Herbert Aach (1923-1985) and his wife Doris Aach (b. 1929) were entrenched in the mid-twentieth-century New York art world and counted among their friends Elaine de Kooning. In 1967, de Kooning presented Doris Aach with this work, her first attempt at sculpture, made in the foundry at the University of California, Davis, where she held a guest teaching position in 1964. De Kooning described her experiments in bronze as 'painterly' and indicated that a vague idea of a bird in flight became a flying crucifix (likely a reference this lot; see Ben Wolf, 'Portrait of a President,' Jewish Exponent, November 20, 1964). Included with the lot are a handwritten note from de Kooning to Doris Aach that accompanied the gift of the sculpture, as well as a copy of the exhibition catalogue, President John F. Kennedy: An Exhibition of Portraits and Sketches by Elaine de Kooning (Charlotte Crosby Kemper Gallery, Kansas City Art Institute and School of Design, 1965). The catalogue includes an account of de Kooning's first forays into sculpture-making and is inscribed and signed by the artist as well as by Harry Truman. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing