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Artworks and other collectibles from the seventh century B.C. to the modern era will go under the hammer April 26 at USC Department of Art.
Charles Mack, a USC professor of art history, donated the items he has collected through the years for the special auction. All proceeds from the sale will be used to help students and programs in the art department.
“When I started thinking about retiring, I wondered what I was going to do with everything I had in the office,” said Mack, who will retire after teaching at USC for 35 years next December. “We have no space for it at home; the walls are already covered. So, I thought I could auction some of the art from the office and from home. It will be nice to leave a legacy for the students.”
Mack said he always has been “object oriented” and a strong advocate of “learning through collecting.” Many of the museum exhibitions he organized and the articles he published originated with a personal acquisition that piqued his curiosity.
Many of the items Mack will offer for bid will appeal to interior decorators and designers, as well as to general collectors and people interested in the history of art, graphic design, music, and literature.
Among the items featured in the auction will be several medieval and Renaissance choral book pages, including two 13th-century parchment folio sheets with historiated initials of probably North Italian origin, and a mid-15th–century page with illuminated initials attributed to the Florentine artist Giuliano Amidi.
Other items in the auction will include several 16th-century woodblock illustrations, Vasi/Piranesi 18th-century views of Rome, a rare 1960 Rome Olympics poster by graphic designer Armando Testa, original 19th-century lithographs by Honore Duamier and Thomas Nast, and fragments of a seventh-century B.C. Etruscan jar. The auction also will feature a Japanese scroll painting from the 19th century, an assortment of 17th- through 19th-century prints, 19th-century engravings of Italian Renaissance sculpture, and a variety of other art works and quality reproductions that have been displayed on the walls of Mack’s office for many years.
The items of fine and decorative art from Mack’s collection will be auctioned in 26 separate lots. An assortment of art history books from his office also will be available during the auction.
The auction will begin at 7 p.m. April 26 in Room 214 of McMaster College. Items will be on view beginning at 6 p.m.
For more information, call Mana Hewitt in the art department at 7-7480.
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