Details
SUZIE ZUZEK (AMERICAN, 1920-2011)
San Marco Mosaic
watercolor and ink on paper
15 x 11 in. (38.1 x 27.9 cm.) (unframed)
Executed in 1970.
Provenance
Created for Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., Key West, Florida, 1967.
Acquired by Lilly Pulitzer, Inc., Palm Beach, Florida, sold Key West Hand Print Fabrics, Inc., 1985 to private owners.
Acquired from the above by the present owner, 2016
Literature
Susan Brown and Caroline Rennolds Milbank, Suzie Zuzek for Lilly Pulitzer: The Artist Behind an Iconic American Fashion Brand, 1962–1985, New York, 2020, p. 166 (illustrated).
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Lot Essay

San Marco Mosaic is Zuzek's playful take on the famed Noah's Ark mosaic from San Marco Basilica in Venice. The layered use of blue dots, open and closed inkwork squares, and cell-filled fowl harken back to the painstaking and awe-inspiring use of minute tiles in the Byzantine mosaic. The lower right image of two birds blanking an urn and scrolling vines is particularly similar to a mosaic of two peacocks flanking an urn from the historic Basilica. Pratt educated, Zuzek had a strong art historical knowledge and her pieces are filled with references to the canon of art history. She also visited Venice on one of her trips to Europe, where she made a pilgrimage to many of her sources of inspiration.

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