The Gotta Have Rock and Roll Pop Culture Auction April 2021

Lot #27:

Albert Einstein Signed Original Portrait Signed by Einstein and Artist Samuel Cahan JSA

One of the most significant and historical artifacts signed by Nobel Prize winner, physicist and mathematics genius Albert Einstein is this signed original artwork made by noted Russian artist Samuel George Cahan. In 1933 Einstein renounced his German citizenship and moved to the United States where he became the most notable of the many intellectual refugees leaving Europe to settle at Princeton University. It is there that he posed and signed for Cahan, who notes his artwork, “Fine Hall, Princeton NJ.” Fine Hall had only just recently opened as the Institute for Advanced Study and home of Princeton’s School of Mathematics. Einstein’s work at Princeton inspired generations of physicists and mathematicians at the University and throughout the world. His warnings of Germany's atomic endeavors expressed in a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt led to the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb that ended World War II. Cahan began his career as an artist at the age of fifteen when he became an artist for the New York World newspaper. His career including works and paintings of many Jewish subjects, but none more notable than his drawing of Einstein, whom Cahan recounted in later years when providing his own oral history for a program maintained by the Smithsonian; their Archives of American Art Oral History Program to preserve and document the history of visual art in the United States. This most important artwork is beautifully signed by Albert Einstein from this historic sitting and additionally by Cahan in a presentational inscription along the bottom, “To Gwen and Bill compliments from the artist Samuel Cahan.” One of the most exceptional Einstein signed artifacts extant. Measures 14.5” x 17” with matting an 9.5 X 12 without. Comes with a James Spence Authentication (JSA) Letter of Authenticity and a Gotta Have Rock & Roll Certificate of Authenticity.