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GROOVER, Jan (1943-2012)
Untitled (Still Life with Eggplant and Spatula)
Vintage chromogenic (Type “C”) print, 1978, image 14-13/16 x 19-1/16 in. (37.7 x 48.4 cm) on sheet 16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm), framed in a cream-enameled frame 22 x 26-3/8 in. (55.8 x 67 cm) overall.
Signed, numbered, dated and annotated in ink in lower left margin, “67-1 3/3 Jan Groover 1978,” print number 3 from an edition of 3. Slight sunning lines around edges of image, small pucker on print surface in center of eggplant, indiscernible frontally, otherwise in fine condition.
The hommage to Groover at the Photo Levallois Festival, in the Salons d’Honneur de l’Hôtel de Ville, Paris, October-November 2012, signed by Paul Frèches, cannot be improved (here in the Festival’s English translation): “A turning point comes in 1978 when Groover takes her first still-life photos. This will stay the subject of special significance and a motif to which she will be coming back constantly. Worth mentioning is that Groover chooses this direction counter to the main trend then dominating the New York art scene, known as the picture generation. While Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman or Sherrie Levine take over the mainstream and collective imagery into the realm of fine arts, thus pretending to leave the history of photography far behind, Jan Groover adopts this heritage and follows her own path. She researches the topics already explored by the great masters as Edward Weston (peppers), Paul Outerbridge (color composition with kitchen utensils), Alfred Stieglitz (body and portrait) and she approaches gradually the diversity of all genres of photography.”
This print, similar in its sparse, structured monumentality to the example from the series selected by the Museum of Modern Art, New York (acc. no. 335.1994.x1-x2), is from the collection of Evelyn Danzig Haas (1917-2010), a great lover of modern and contemporary art who at her death had been the longest serving trustee of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Provenance:
with Robert Miller Gallery, New York (label on mat verso);
Evelyn Danzig Haas (1917-2010).