Cat in Doorway
Michael Augustin Power O’Malley (1870-1946), Cat in Doorway, c. 1930, etching and drypoint, on pinkish/tan wove paper with the watermark with the Van Gelder Zonen Holland watermark, with condition issues: slight creasing in the image, creasing, handling folds and soiling in the margins, rippling in the matrix associated with printing, staining verso, browning toward margin edges, the full sheet with full margins, deckle edges. 9 7/8 x 8, the sheet 18 3/4 x 12 1/4 inches, not matted.
A very good impression of this modernist, stark image.
Provenance:
Ex Collection: Albert M. Bender Collection
San Francisco Museum of Art (with its label verso)
Christie’s New York, 2008
Power O’Malley was born in Waterford, Ireland in 1870, studied at the National Academy of Design with Robert Henri and Walter Shirlaw, and between 1913 and 1919 painted covers for Life (magazine). He was active in Los Angeles in 1926-29 and, after a decade in Ireland, again in 1938. He died in New York on 3 July 1946.