Bootleg Coal
Lithograph printed in colors, 1937-38, edition possibly 25. 13 3/4 x 17 7/8 in. Signed and titled in pencil. This is a superb, luminous impression with full margins. The condition is fine and the paper bears a RIVES watermark. Gottlieb joined the Federal Art Project in New York in 1935 and he was one of the first members of the Silk Screen Unit. His work in this medium as well as in color lithography is outstanding. Coal mining was a subject he was very interested in and there's at least one variation of this image with the same title. This image was printed in a black and white version and Gottlieb also produced a screenprint version, including touched proofs, a couple of which are located in the Crystal Bridges Museum collection. This subject shows coal miners from Pennsylvania who had lost there jobs over trying to organize labor unions. They are shown here digging illegally from surface seams to try to earn a living.
SOLD

Coal Pickers
Lithograph, 1937, edition probably about 25. 12 x 15 7/8 in. Signed, titled and dated in pencil. This is a superb impression rich in contrasts. The margins are full. The condition is very good apart from a skilfully repaired tear in the lower margin, outside of the image. Gottlieb produced a number of mining related images during the late 1930s. He was an early pioneer of the artistic screenprint and was employed with the WPA program during this period. His prints exist in small editions.
$1,800

Food Market, Old Style
Lithograph, 1935-43, edition probably about 25. 10 5/8 x 13 1/2 in. Signed and titled in pencil. This is a fine impression with full margins. The condition is very good other than for subtle spots of foxing here and there in the margins. This is a NYC WPA print but it does not have the stamp. An impression of this print is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
$1,250

Pittsburgh at Night
Lithograph printed in colors, 1937, very small edition. 13 x 19 in. Signed and titled in pencil. This is a superb impression of this rare print. The condition is fine apart from slight darkening here and there at the extreme outer edges of the sheet. The margins are full. This exceptional print relates to Gottlieb's similarly fine work in the silkscreen medium. Like Harry Sternberg and Blanche Grambs, he spent time in Pennsylvania viewing the factories and meeting the workers and the results were some compelling and memorable prints from the era. As quoted in David Acton's book, A Spectrum of Innovation (1990), page 142, "Although today's viewers may consider an industrial plant ugly, dehumanizing, and environmentally threatening, to Gottlieb and the depression-era Social Realists, a working factory was a thing of potential and awesome beauty."
SOLD

Zinc Plant
Lithograph, 1937, edition probably about 25. 13 1/4 x 17 3/4 in. Signed and titled in pencil. This is a fine, dark impression printed on cream-colored wove paper. The margins are full. The condition is very good apart from slight darkening along the extreme edges of the sheet and a repaired tear in the upper margin outside of the image. An impression of this print is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and they list it as a WPA print with the date of 1937. Our impression does not have the WPA stamp. Gottlieb produced an almost identical version of this industrial subject as a screenprint. This version is illustrated and discussed in David Acton's book, A Spectrum of Innovation (1990), pages 142-143.
SOLD