CUMMINGS, Edward Estlin, (American, 1894-1962): ''Three Heads After El Greco'' (''The Despolations''), Oil/Board. Approx 7'' x 14''. He is hailed by the critics as a critical observer and chronicler of the modem era. Ezra Pound placed Cummings' book of poetry, Is 5, as the second most important book of the 20th century, ahead of James Joyce's Ulysses. Although best remembered for his visual poetry, his academic training at Harvard was in Graphic Art. He wrote to his father late in 1923, ''One's tastes have not, I fear, materially changed, am still convinced that |I| am primarily a painter....'' [From an unpublished letter in the Cummings Collection of the Houghton Library, Harvard.] Similar comments are sprinkled throughout the many books, monographs, and articles about his art, much of which is housed in permanent university archives, museums, and private collections. Although he achieved substantial acclaim as a painter in the years between the wars, he later viewed the artistic establishment as hopelessly anti-intellectual and abandoned the New York galleries. He received a number of honors, including an Academy of American Poets Fellowship, two Guggenheim Fellowships, the Charles Eliot Norton Professorship at Harvard, the Bollingen Prize in Poetry in 1958, and a Ford Foundation grant. Nearly a thousand pieces of his original art were placed at the Gotham Book Mart (Gallery) in NYC in 1973 by the estate of Mrs. E. E. Cummings (Marion Morehouse). ''Three Heads after El Greco'' is approx. 7 x 14 oil on stiff cardboard; GBM description, ''fragments in sienna from 'The Despoliation.'' It survived the Paris years. In 1980, Marianne Morehouse, his widow, consigned a collection through the legendary Gotham Book Marte on Manhattan's West Forty-Seventh Street. The art was displayed on the second floor, and each had a Gotham number assigned and fully described in the catalog. Marion Morehouse (1906-1969); She was a model and photographer, who met E.E Cummings in 1932, once referred to as his third wife, it is not clear whether the two were ever legally married. Morehouse lived with Cummings until his death in 1962. [Note: For price comparisons, see the web site http://eecummingsart.com/ From the William Crawford Plumley Estate.
CONDITION: This item has two missing pieces at bottom of the cardboard but not near or affecting the image when matted and framed.