Art Dealer Kelekian, by Eric Isenburger
Portriat of Dikram G. Kelekian: black chalk on gray textured paper; signed in pencil ("Eric Isenburger") in pencil, lower left.
n.p: Late 1940s.
Price: $1,250.00
About the item
The famed art dealer is shown seated, facing to his right. 1 vols. 23 x 16-1/2 inches, framed. Art Dealer Kelekian, by Eric Isenburger. Fine condition. Framed and glazed.
Item #211976
A fine portrait of Armenian-born Kelekian (1868-1951), one of the most important art/antiquites dealers of the modern era. Known to his peers as the "dean of antiquities", Kelekian's connoisseurship of the ancient art of the Near East opened the eyes of many Americans to a heritage which was hitherto unknown and unappreciated. Kelekian himself was born in the Armenia town of Kayser, in modern-day Turkey. He began his career in Constantinople, opened a gallery in Paris in 1891, then moved to New York shortly after the 1893 Chicago World's Fair. Very quickly, Kelekian's clients included some of America's wealthiest families (e.g., the Havermeyers, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., the Astors, the Walters of Baltimore, et. al.) Kelekian ws primarlily responsible for building the Coptic, Early Christian, and Classical collections of Henry Walters (later founder of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore) and the Gothic collection of financier and Metropolitan Museum of Art president George Blumenthal. Kelekian was equally well known as an early champion of modern art, and began collecting and promoting such artists as Henri Matisse, André Derain, and Pablo Picasso at a very early date. Boisterous, expansive, a friends to many artists, he died in his eighties at his home in New York with world-wide reputation
Eric Isenburger, 20th century American artist, was noted for his intimate new-impressionistic portraits, of which this is a fine example.
