Jelena James
Senior Specialist, Head of Sale
Lot 104¤
Ed Stitt(American, 20th/21st Century)Bobby O's
Ending from 24 November 2025, 13:00 EST
Online, Skinner Marlborough, MassachusettsLot to be sold without reserve
US$1,200 - US$1,800
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American & European Works of Art (Bonhams Skinner)
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Jewel Bernier
Cataloguer
Claire Dettelbach
Cataloguer
Ed Stitt (American, 20th/21st Century)
Bobby O's
signed and dated 'E. Stitt / 84' (lower right); identified on a collection label and label from Gordon College, Wenham, MA (affixed to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
76.2 x 127.0 cm (30 x 50 in).
framed 80.0 x 129.5 x 4.5 cm (31 1/2 x 51 x 1 3/4 in).
signed and dated 'E. Stitt / 84' (lower right); identified on a collection label and label from Gordon College, Wenham, MA (affixed to the stretcher)
oil on canvas
76.2 x 127.0 cm (30 x 50 in).
framed 80.0 x 129.5 x 4.5 cm (31 1/2 x 51 x 1 3/4 in).
Footnotes
Provenance
The collection of Susan W. Paine, Boston.
Gallery Naga, Boston, MA.
A private Boston, MA, collection (acquired from the previous, 1985).
Exhibited
Boston, MA, Gallery Naga, Group Exhibition, March 28-April 20, 1985.
Boston, MA, Cyclorama, Boston Center for the Arts, Above, Beyond & Within: The Spirit of the South End in painting, photography, sculpture, drawing and installations, September 15-October 11, 1989.
N.B.
On his website, Ed Stitt writes the following about this work:
'The architecture and the street of Bobby O's sandwich shop grabbed my attention during the summer mornings of 1984. Little did I know what I was painting.
This was a large canvas to walk down the street and to set up and paint. It took most of the summer to complete. I did it standing on the sidewalk, beside a laundromat, across from a Lebanese men's club, where I assumed the men gathered to play cards. Shawmut Avenue, where a number of Middle Eastern people lived years before, was now becoming gentrified, so there weren't as many around. Now and then one of the men from the club would come over to see what I was painting, talk, ask about me and what I was planning on doing with the painting... typical questions. Apparently I checked out fine because they would offer to buy me a coffee or tell me to bring it by when I was done. I noticed the large Cadillac was parked nearby most mornings, so I included it. A very large man, seated inside the door, seemed to be the owner of the Caddy. A couple months later I read that there had been a large drug bust right on that corner and that a few people had been arrested. I read that there were federal agents with binoculars and telescopes in the Greek church tower observing the men not a block away from where I was standing. So apparently some of the regulars from the area, perhaps whom I'd dealt with, were engaged in illegal activity and had been coming over to see if I might be a federal agent. Little did I know.'