Provenance
Collection of Melvin B. Nessel, Boston, Massachusetts Lots: 76, 81, 168, 256, 265, 572, 574, 595, 603, 609, 612, 614-616, 618-620, 624, 626-631, 633, 636, 638, 645, 669, 673 Melvin B. Nessel was a longtime Boston resident and founder of the Fenton Shoe Corporation of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nessel traveled to Europe extensively in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly Italy, to develop the company’s import trade. It was during this decade that he acquired many works by notable Italian modernists such as Arnaldo Pomodoro and Ettore Colla, frequenting galleries in Rome and Florence. In his lifetime, Nessel was a major supporter of several Boston institutions such as Brandeis University, Massachusetts General Hospital, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Nessel also made a substantial gift of eighty-one works from his American modern and contemporary collection, including a Protractor series work by Frank Stella, to the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Florida.
Estate of Eleanor Kanegis Levin, East Gloucester, Massachusetts Lots: 1-3, 46, 123-126, 130, 165, 177-180, 203, 248, 249 Eleanor Kanegis Levin was the co-owner of the Kanegis Gallery in Boston with her first husband Sidney Kanegis from 1955 to the mid-1970s, which was influential in representing Boston modernists.1 She also managed Retina Gallery in Cambridge from 1968 to 1971, which specialized in optical and kinetic works by such artists as Anni and Josef Albers and Victor Vasarely.2 A practicing modernist artist herself, she studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and in her later years, maintained a studio and art gallery in East Gloucester called “The Guild/Sacred Cod”. 1. Lafo, Rachel Rosenfield, Painting in Boston, 1950-2000, Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002, p. 204. 2. Lawrence, J.M., “Eleanor K. Levin, 82, artist, gallery owner” [obituary], Boston Globe, June 10, 2008.
Estate of Anna Eleanor Braman Grasso, Essex, Connecticut Lots: 210, 269, 569, 571, 605, 611 Anna Eleanor Braman was raised on Long Island and Old Chatham in the Hudson River Valley, attended Vassar College in the late 1940s, and in 1951, married Dr. Thomas Arthur McGraw, a graduate of Yale and Cornell Universities. The newlyweds spent their first married year in North Carolina, but subsequently lived in New York City for over a decade, until Dr. McGraw’s passing in 1966. During this time, the McGraws were ardent gallery-goers, and Ms. Braman was active in the art scene as a reviewer for a Manhattan publication called “Park East.” Ms. Braman continued to collect with her second husband Mr. Graham H.R. Jenkins of Connecticut, and her last husband of eighteen years, Dr. Thomas A. Grasso of Connecticut, the widower of Connecticut’s first woman governor Ella Tambussi Grasso. In her middle to late age, she promoted the artistic and literary life of her community in Essex, Connecticut as the owner of the Clipper Ship Bookshop and member of the Connecticut River Museum.
Estate of N. David Scotti, Providence, Rhode Island Lots: 101-112, 320, 337, 338, 339, 341, 358, 374, 387, 391, 392, 394, 395, 397, 445, 492, 514, 526, 534-536, 550, 558, 562, 566, 581 N. David (Nino) Scotti was a lifelong antiques collector and enthusiast, as well as a Southern New England history aficionado. Scotti, born and raised in Providence, first began attending auctions with his mother in his teens. In his twenties, he co-founded a company in downtown Providence that became Associated Appraisers Inc., an estate auctioneer.1 In the company’s last thirty years, Scotti was the primary owner and manager as well as principal auctioneer. He was active in Providence’s cultural scene, and was an avid supporter of societies such as the Hope Club, the Turk’s Head Club, the Providence Art Club, and the Providence Athenaeum. 1. Providence Journal, “N. David Scotti” [obituary], August 26, 2008.