I am familiar with this work since it was brought to my attention by Andrew Huber of Christie's New York, prior to the auction in 2017. I had not seen it before — but noted immediately its similarity to 2 other drawings known to me, catalogued in appendix to my PhD thesis as WoP3 and WoP5, and a further one; so 4 drawings closely related.

The first, my WoP3, was at that time, with the Mayor Gallery in London, via the Nijhoff Collection Netherlands, and I had included it in the exhibition at Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich. Mayor took it to TEFAF 2016. The design is very similar, although there are missing elements, and the colour is yellow rather than green. It is dated a year earlier than this drawing. I have speculated in my catalogue that WoP3 might be catalogue number 2 in the Carus Gallery catalogue — despite the fact the date doesn't fit (I've thought this could be a typo as it is out of order with the rest of the list, 1943 would be in place).

WoP5, also 1943, is known to me only from a black and white photograph belonging to Moss's great niece, and now held in the Tate Archive Collection, London. The design is a closer match — but the tonal values of the triangle shapes in this drawing seem to preclude it being the exact same item (they are black in the photograph).

Thirdly, this drawing is also very similar in design to one recorded, in the early 1990s, as being part of a collection of Moss works (paintings, sculptures and drawings) held for some time in storage in Zürich, under the care of Willy Rotzler — although that drawing is dated 1941 and the colours included are blue and yellow, rather than ecru and green. See the notes at the end of Ankie de Jongh-Vermulen's essay in our Hatje Cantz publication for the Museum Haus Konstruktiv show, Marlow Moss: A Forgotten Maverick, 2017, pp.50-51, for further information.

This work is apparently no. 11 in the Carus Gallery catalogue, marlow moss 1890-1958: First US retrospective of important constructivist paintings and drawings by a founder member of the Abstraction-Création group — although the measurements vary. Stanford Z. Rothschild, Jr. who purchased this work from Carus Gallery after the show in 1979, was an investor, philanthropist and collector who helped champion civic leadership in Maryland. His collection, much of which has now been sold through Christie's NY, included El Greco, Claude Monet, Robert Delaunay, Georgia O'Keeffe and Russian Russian avant-garde art, and also works by Moss's contemporaries such as Cesar Domela, Vilmos Huszar and Jean Gorin.

-Lucy Howarth