Live Auction 13494Post-War and Contemporary Art
Robert Colescott (1925-2009)
Lot 79

Robert Colescott (1925-2009)

At the Bathers' Pool: Inter-racial Blues

Closed3 March 2017

Price Realised

USD 55,000

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Robert Colescott (1925-2009)
At the Bathers' Pool: Inter-racial Blues
signed and dated 'R Colescott 84' (lower left); signed again, titled, inscribed and dated again '"AT THE BATHERS' POOL: INTER-RACIAL BLUES" Oct. 1984 Robert Colescott San Francisco' (on the stretcher)
acrylic on canvas
84 x 71 ¾ in. (213.4 x 182.2 cm.)
Painted in 1984.

Semaphore Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 1986

Specialist note

"I thought about Cezanne's bathers and Matisse's bathers, and thought I would do some bathers. They're about competing standards of beauty, and also about the intrusion of the white world on a black world. It also poses the idea of a beauty parade. […] And it refers to 'The Demoiselles d'Avignon.'" –Robert Colescott