Mixed media on paper on masonite (likely oil and tempera), signed at upper left corner "Sebree," housed in a period painted black frame with gilt liner. Born in eastern Kentucky, Sebree and his mother joined the "Great Migration" and moved to Chicago in the mid-1920s. After graduating from high school in 1932, he attended the Chicago School of Design, and the Art Institute of Chicago in order to receive formal artistic training. Sebree surrounded himself with many of the greatest artistic and intellectual minds of the day - Gertrude Stein, Jacob Lawrence, Katherine Dunham, Miles Davis, Billie Holiday, Toni Morrison, and many others. In 2002, Melvin Marshall and Blake Kimbrough published "Above and beyond Category: The Life and Art of Charles Sebree," International Review of African American Art, 18 [(no. 3, 2002), 3Ð17.], offering many insights into Sebree's remarkable career. In the essay, they included an excerpt from a letter written by Sebree to his friend, Alain Locke, that "When Gertrude Stein and Ferdinand Leger told me that I would be a big American painter some day I felt a little honored, but when I heard that Picasso had said that I was on the right track I really felt honored."

SS 19.25 x 15.25 in.; DOA 21 x 17 in.

$1,000 - 3,000