A trove of Stuart M. Egnal artwork

“Have you heard of this artist,” one auction-buyer asked as he walked up to another who was checking out books on an auction table. His friend had never heard the name Stuart M. Egnal before, and neither had I.

But the Egnal surname was printed on oil paintings hung on and propped against walls, and on loads of etchings lying between gray-paper covers under a table in the back of the auction house. Under yet another table near where the two men stood were used artist brushes and squeezed tubes of paint.

Lining the walls were tables of art history books, artist biographies, exhibition catalogs and an eclectic mix of vintage and antique non-artsy books, many of which bore the handwritten name of Sylvia Egnal (and in some instances, her and her husband)  inside the front cover. There were also notebooks penned in ink from classes that Sylvia took at the Barnes Foundation back in 1963. All of these items had apparently come from her collection.

The auctioneer wound his way through tables of other items from what he called “the same estate,” meaning, I assumed, the Egnal estate. He took a break before embarking on what felt like a vast collection of books (I was trying to imagine how large the collection was and how many books the family kept) and artwork. While I waited, I flipped through a 1952 first-edition copy of “The Revolt of American Women: A Pictorial History of the Century of Change from Bloomers to Bikinis – From Feminism to Freud” by Oliver Jensen.

It was a book about the changing role of women in this country. I turned page after page admiring the photos but also checking to see if any women who looked like me were represented in this history book. No. But I bought the book because of its great old photos.

Who were these people, the Egnals, I wondered. They were obviously an art-loving and artistic family. I especially wanted to know more about Stuart, because I’m always curious about artists. And there was so much of his work, and some of it was impressive. I asked one of the auctioneers, but she didn’t know much about him.  I Googled and could find only bare-bones information about either of them.

Here’s what I found out about Stuart:

He was Sylvia’s son, a University of Pennsylvania graduate who died at age 26 in 1966.  According to theartblog.org, he was just starting out as an artist.

In 1967, the University of Pennsylvania held a retrospective exhibition of his works. I found a  catalog accompanying the exhibit for sale on amazon.com.

Several local awards are given out in his name: The Print Club of Philadelphia’s Stuart M. Egnal Award. The University of the Arts’ Stuart M. Egnal Prize for Excellence in Painting. The University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Egnal Scholarship presented to a fine arts student.

In 2006, the University City Arts League held an exhibition of Egnal’s works that included paintings, sculptures, cardboard cutouts and prints – held 40 years after his death.

Uniques & Antiques in Aston, PA, the auction house that was selling his works, advertised that he was in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

He sketched the writer Wendell Berry for the back inside flap of his book “Openings” (published in 1968), which includes a poem “In Memory: Stuart Egnal.” Berry also included the poem in his 1987 book “The Collected Poems of Wendell Berry, 1957-1982.”

This is what I found out about Sylvia:

She was one of the founders of the University City Arts League in Philadelphia in 1965. The founders were a group of artists, collectors and students from West Philadelphia who met in a twin house on Spruce Street. The arts league now offers classes in everything from photography to dance at that restored building, and mounts exhibitions in its gallery.

In 2009, the league held an exhibit of 45 works from Sylvia’s collection called “Hidden Gems of West Philadelphia.” It included lithographs and silkscreens by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, and works by Stuart and other Philadelphia artists.  

At the auction house, Stuart’s etchings were tucked inside about 20 to 25 folders with about four per folder, each separated by tissue paper. The stack also contained some unsigned sketches.

Most of the etchings were signed on the back with dates from the 1960s. Someone took very good care of them, because 50 years later, they were as crisp as they were when they left the printmaker.

I wasn’t around when the artwork sold. But more importantly to me, I’d love to know more about the Egnals.