LONE JACK, MO.- An oil painting titled “Tailor's Dummies” by master of magic realism Henry Koerner (1915 - 1991) has been dated to 1948 by the artist's son, art historian Dr. Joseph Koerner, and will be offered at auction for the first time ever on Friday, December 5th at 12 noon Central Time.

The painting, “Tailor's Dummies”, was first exhibited in January of 1949 at Midtown Galleries in New York. It was later included in an exhibition of paintings from the collection of Joseph Verner Reed, Jr., an American banker and diplomat.

When asked about the symbolism of “Tailor's Dummies”, Dr. Koerner said, “Playing children was a favorite theme already in his earliest pictures…children at play represented for him the energy of survival (he observed children playing in ruins in Vienna and Berlin). The motif of the mannequins features in his work as an “uncanny representation of the body.” He went on to write, “For me the most interesting feature of the painting is the portrait represented as if it were painted on the brick wall. The representation of representations in the urban landscape (posters, store signs, newspapers) was a specialty of my father, as it demonstrated his skill.”

Koerner's works are held in many museum collections including the Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, National Academy Museum, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., Westmoreland Museum of Art and Whitney Museum of American Art.

This painting will be offered at auction by Dirk Soulis Auctions on Friday, December 5th, 2014 at 12 noon Central time. The pre-sale estimate is $80,000 to $120,000. The auction will take place inside DSA gallery near the town of Lone Jack, Missouri, 30 miles east of Kansas City, and online.