The following
description for has been prepared entirely by the current owner, Roberts S.
Fastov, Esq., and, at the collector’s request, has not been edited by Sloans
& Kenyon
Note 1)
Pappe was born in Hungary in 1900. By 1911, he
had immigrated to Lorain, Ohio. Per Ask
Art.com:
“While
in his early teens, he was apprenticed to a Hungarian muralist working in
Cleveland. From 1921 to 1925 he attended the Cleveland School of Art (now the
Cleveland Institute of Art). Awarded a scholarship by the Hungarian Society, he
enrolled at the school of his choice, the prestigious Pennsylvania Academy of
the Fine Arts. He studied under Hugh Breckenridge and Daniel Garber from 1925
to 1926. The Academy awarded him a full scholarship, but he was unable to
complete his third year of studies due to medical problems.
In 1929 he worked in stage design
for Paramount Studios in New York but was laid off due to the economic
recession. "If I am going to die of hunger it won't be here", he
said. Amidst the Depression, Carl Pappe worked crafting repairs to the gold
leaf of the ceilings of theaters while refinishing furniture and sail boat
decks in Philadelphia and Boston….
Pappe visited Mexico City in
1934….Acquainted with many interesting and influential people during his four
years in Mexico City, Pappe heard lectures on art given by Diego Rivera and
shared the same Swedish doctor with his friend Frida Kahlo, Rivera's wife. He
was a great admirer and friend of the sculpture Isamu Noguchi. He also worked
to become an apprentice to muralist Jose Orozco, visiting his studio often. As
a personal tour guide to Amelia Earhart upon her arrival via solo flight, he
took her to the studio of Diego Rivera as well as the Pyramids of the Sun and
Moon outside of Mexico City. Pappe's friendship with Carlos Merida, Juan
O'Gorman and Ruffino Tamayo brought them to Taxco in an effort to escape the
politics and distractions in the Capital…
He left such distractions and
settled in Taxco, Mexico's silver mining capital in the Sierra Madre Mountains.
There he was able to focus entirely on art and all that delighted him, inspired
by the love and beauty that is Mexico….
According to Abraham Davidson's
essay, CARL PAPPE: The Late Works (1995), "Pappe had not seen an ARTnews
since about 1945, had never watched television and heard radio for the last
time when listening to an Amos 'n Andy program." Davidson further explains
the abstract works as having "a controlled delicacy and sureness of
draftsmanship, which compel our close attention and admiration. His pieces do
not comprise a composition of diverse parts or contain a focus." Another
series inspired by Paul Klee's Magic Squares of 1922-1930 are like going
up or down scales of music and according to Pappe they are put together so they
"work as a whole on all sides, forget the individual squares and feel what
the whole thing says to you".
Carl Pappe was a fellow of the
Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where his work has been shown. Several of
his woodcut prints of Taxco street scenes are among the collections at the
Library of Congress. An exhibit of his abstract pastels was held in 1994 by the
Government of Guerrero as a commemorative to his fifty five years as an artist
in Taxco. In 1995 over eighty of his abstracts were shown at the Woodmere Art
Museum in Philadelphia.
His sculptures, drawings and
paintings hang on the walls of European, Middle Eastern, American, South
American as well as many Mexican collectors who had visited him in Taxco through
the years.
His creativity as an artist
continuously evolved in art that ranged from pencil and ink drawings, etchings,
woodcuts, abstract sculptures in solid silver, bronze busts, watercolors, oil
paintings to his more recent series of abstract pastels. Truly a modern scholar
of numerous genres of art and a generous instructor of his crafts, Carl Pappe's
creative spirit lives on in his century of art.
Submitted November 2005 by Peter
Bissell, Cooperstown, New York. The source is the website of a gallery in Santa
Cruz, California"
Note 2) The sensitive, but forceful
portrayal of “Rosa in Grief,” which is
an esthetically appealing,
vibrantly colorful, large painting, in good condition and attractively framed,
and following auction records regarding Pappe sales warrant the
conclusion that the presale estimate of $400-$800 is very reasonable and
justifiable. The highest auction price ever paid for a Pappe painting was $976
on 12/15/2011. Of the 27 Pappe lots reported by Askart.com, 10 were sculptures,
8 of which brought between $360 and $840, with a number bringing in the
$400-$500 range, and one other bringing $720. There were also 4
watercolor/mixed media paintings and 1 drawing reported on Askart.com. The
highest price for a Pappe watercolor was entitled "Mexican Villa,
Taxco," which was 16 in. x 20 in. and brought $460. There has been no
auction of a Pappe figural study or portrait. Of the 27 Pappe lots recorded by
Askart.com, there is no Pappe painting, which even comes close to being as
forceful, complex and as haunting and evocative, in terms of causing an
emotional reaction in the viewer. In Mr. Fastov's judgment, it is the best
Pappe painting that has been offered at auction and much larger (31 ½ in. x 24 in.), than almost all of the
auctioned oil paintings.
Title/Subject: Tasco Landscape, 1960
Signed and dated. Oil on canvas. 35.50 in. x 47.50 in. sold for $976 on 12/15/2011
at Leslie Hindman Auctioneers, Chicago, IL
Title/Subject: Rugged Landscape Of Taxco, Mexico Signed. Oil on Masonite panel. 23 in. x 29 in. sold for $750 on 05/30/2009-05/31/2009
at Thomaston Place
Auction Galleries, Thomaston, ME
Title/Subject: Mexican Villa, Taxco
Signed. Watercolor on paper. 16 in. x 20 in. sold for $460 on 03/07/2003
at Jackson's Auctioneers & Appraisers, Cedar Falls, IA