246
Elsie Driggs
(American, 1898-1992)
Children Jumping Rope, 1939
Estimate: $1,000-$1,500
Sold
$650
Live Auction
What Do You See? The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Part IV
Location
Philadelphia
Size
14 x 23 1/2 in. (35.6 x 59.7cm)
Description
Elsie Driggs
(American, 1898-1992)
Children Jumping Rope, 1939
watercolor on paper laid to board
signed Driggs and dated (lower right); inscribed with artist's name and title (verso)
14 x 23 1/2 in. (35.6 x 59.7cm)
The Collection of Sidney Rothberg, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
This lot is located in Philadelphia.
Condition
Framed: 21 x 30 x 2 in.The drawing is in overall fair condition. The paper is toned and there is scattered surface soiling throughout, for instance in the bottom left and bottom center. The board is taped to the mat with paper tape in several places along the edges verso. Additional images available upon request.
Signature
signed Driggs and dated (lower right); inscribed with artist's name and title (verso)
Provenance
Provenance:Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, sale of March 11, 1982, lot 198.Acquired directly from the above sale. Lot Essay:This delicate, dreamlike work by Elsie Driggs stands in marked contrast to the sleek, industrial imagery that defined her later Precisionist career. Here, she embraces a softer, more intimate mode of expression—one that suggests symbolic or personal themes rather than machine-age modernism. Unlike the formal structures of her mature work, this early piece reveals an affinity for color, texture, and emotional resonance, qualities that likely echoed those of her future husband, Lee Gatch (Lots 245 and 262 in this sale), whom she married in 1935. Though Driggs stepped back from her own career to raise their daughter, she and Gatch bridged their contrasting modernist sensibilities—hers Precisionist, his more romantic—to build a quiet but enduring artistic life in Lambertville, NJ, against the evolving backdrop of the American art world.