20|21 Art 
27 September 2023
20|21 Art 
124

Kara Walker b.1969

Freedom, A Fable Bound (pop-up book)

1997
leather-bound volume of offset lithographs on 130 lb. Classic Crest Cover and five laser-cut pop-up silhouettes on 65 lb. Curtis Tuscan Antique Cover book: 9⅜ h × 8¼ w × ¾ d in (24 × 21 × 2 cm)
estimate: $3,000–5,000
result: $7,560
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This work is from the edition of 4000 published by the Peter Norton Christmas Project, Santa Monica. Book retains vellum wrappers and original mailer.
literature: The Book as Art: Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Drucker and Wasserman, pg. 44

This work will ship from Los Angeles, California.

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I do what I am feeling and what I’m feeling is monstrous. And I do it in the nicest possible way.

Kara Walker

Season's Greetings from the Peter Norton Family

For thirty years the holiday season was marked in the art community by the release of the latest Peter Norton Christmas Project. Each year, collector, philanthropist and computer entrepreneur Peter Norton and his family commissioned original limited edition artworks by both emerging and established artists. These were given as holiday greetings to a curated list of friends, colleagues, and institutions. The list of recipients, like the works themselves, was always a surprise and to be on the list was exciting and a coveted honor. At the start of the project, the commissions were modest, often prints created in small editions, but over the years, the works became more complex and the edition sizes bigger. In 1997, Kara Walker contributed a pop-up book of a slave seeking emancipation; Takashi Murakami designed a vinyl figurine with a flower-covered mini CD inside in 2000; and Yinka Shonibare created an entire dollhouse of his home complete with furnishings draped in his colorful textiles in 2008. Throughout the projects, artists addressed challenging socio-political themes while simultaneously incorporating a sense of whimsy and playfulness, key characteristics of the commissions. The Peter Norton Christmas Project began in 1988, delighting recipients and fostering engagement with contemporary art. At its conclusion in 2017/2018, Norton released an archive, This is the End, detailing each of the works released over the project’s tenure. 

Kara Walker b. 1969

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Born in Stockton, California and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Kara Walker studied at the Atlanta College of Art (BFA, 1991) and the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA, 1994). A childhood spent watching her father, an artist, draw and paint inspired her to pursue art as a career. Walker is best known for the raw, visceral, and controversial nature of her creations that focus on race, gender and sexuality. She often works in panoramic friezes of cut-paper silhouettes, a traditionally proper Victorian medium, creating theatrical spaces and physically immersive narratives addressing the history of American slavery and racism. Her work does not shy away from the truths of America’s dark past; instead, unruly figures fornicate, fight, and violate each other, forcing the viewer to grapple with the brutality of racism and inequality.

Walker is also a painter, printmaker, installation artist, and filmmaker. She is the recipient of many awards, notably the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Achievement Award in 1997 and the United States Artists, Eileen Harris Norton Fellowship in 2008. In 2012, Walker became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and can be found in museums and public collections throughout the United States and Europe including The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Tate Gallery, London, the Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI), Rome, and Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt.

Auction Results Kara Walker

Kara Walker

Untitled

estimate: $15,000–20,000

result: $41,600

Kara Walker

African/American

estimate: $25,000–35,000

result: $22,680

Kara Walker

Keys to the Coop

estimate: $20,000–30,000

result: $21,420

Kara Walker

Canisters

estimate: $3,000–5,000

result: $18,750

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