1958
ROTHKO
1
No. 10
2015 SOLD for $ 82M by Christie's
In 1957 Mark Rothko was outraged by his own fame. His interpretation of basic emotions is not perceived. On the contrary, the public and the art critics admire the dramatic confrontation of his blocks of bright colors, those reds, blues and yellows to which white brings the window of transcendental light.
His style and technique change. Luminosity can also emanate from a dark area when he introduces layers of transparent glaze between layers of colors. He maintains his block structure, but the monochrome is replaced by an inextricable mingle of colors created by the diffusion of almost similar pigments into each other. The edges of the blocks add a frayed confrontation with the background color.
At the end of the year, he tests the deepest blues and reds against large black blocks. At the beginning of 1958, his preference goes for a red turning to brown. Four Darks in Red was painted just before he was commissioned for the decoration of the restaurant in the Seagram building under construction.
Rothko is very enthusiastic about this project which will allow him to test his new conceptions on a very large surface, like Monet with the Grandes Décorations. Unfortunately his deliberate rejection of the general public feeds his megalomania and he believes that his own mysticism matches the sublime frescoes of Fra Angelico.
In an exceptional burst of creativity, he rejects the vivid colors. Rembrandt knew how to throw the light out of the shadow, there is no reason that could prevent Rothko to do it.
On May 15, 2013 in New York, Christie's sold for $ 27M including premium a Black on Maroon 183 x 114 cm that participates in that momentum and is not yet a symptom of the tragic depression of the artist in the following decade.
On May 13, 2015, Christie's sold for $ 82M at lot 35B the No 10 (1958), oil on canvas 239 x 176 cm. An infinite variety of colors predominantly brown interweaves within the rectangles whose structure is superseded by a magnificent halo effect.
When he broke with Seagram's, Rothko said not without wickedness that he wanted to cut hunger to the restaurant's guests. With this No. 10 contemporary of that failed project, the frustrated artist wanted to replace the sensational by the sublime but his art was to become increasingly elitist.
The video shared by Christie's shows the key importance of that year in the creative process of this highly temperamental artist.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
His style and technique change. Luminosity can also emanate from a dark area when he introduces layers of transparent glaze between layers of colors. He maintains his block structure, but the monochrome is replaced by an inextricable mingle of colors created by the diffusion of almost similar pigments into each other. The edges of the blocks add a frayed confrontation with the background color.
At the end of the year, he tests the deepest blues and reds against large black blocks. At the beginning of 1958, his preference goes for a red turning to brown. Four Darks in Red was painted just before he was commissioned for the decoration of the restaurant in the Seagram building under construction.
Rothko is very enthusiastic about this project which will allow him to test his new conceptions on a very large surface, like Monet with the Grandes Décorations. Unfortunately his deliberate rejection of the general public feeds his megalomania and he believes that his own mysticism matches the sublime frescoes of Fra Angelico.
In an exceptional burst of creativity, he rejects the vivid colors. Rembrandt knew how to throw the light out of the shadow, there is no reason that could prevent Rothko to do it.
On May 15, 2013 in New York, Christie's sold for $ 27M including premium a Black on Maroon 183 x 114 cm that participates in that momentum and is not yet a symptom of the tragic depression of the artist in the following decade.
On May 13, 2015, Christie's sold for $ 82M at lot 35B the No 10 (1958), oil on canvas 239 x 176 cm. An infinite variety of colors predominantly brown interweaves within the rectangles whose structure is superseded by a magnificent halo effect.
When he broke with Seagram's, Rothko said not without wickedness that he wanted to cut hunger to the restaurant's guests. With this No. 10 contemporary of that failed project, the frustrated artist wanted to replace the sensational by the sublime but his art was to become increasingly elitist.
The video shared by Christie's shows the key importance of that year in the creative process of this highly temperamental artist.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
2
No. 36
2015 SOLD for $ 40.5M by Christie's
1958 marked a turning point in the work of Mark Rothko, with two major concerns : increasing the luminescence to avoid assimilation to kitsch and releasing his art from the vertical format less suitable for his new project of the Seagram Murals. It may even seem surprising that the artist had much neglected the horizontal format so conducive to offer an immersion when facing the alignment of the eyes of the viewer.
Looking for strong colors, he achieves an incandescent heat by confronting red and orange. No. 36 (black stripe) is an astonishing abstract landscape, oil on canvas 157 x 170 cm.
The red background is reduced to the edges and inter-blocks of the picture but sets the tone by its aggressive light. The rectangles that widely spread in this new balance of composition are a dazzling orange and a narrower dark red separated by a dominating deep black stripe.
Mark Rothko, by his temperamental personality, did not try to communicate with relatives but with the basic mankind by providing emotions altogether basic and intense. Moved by the strength of the red, he almost reaches his admitted but impossible purpose that the creator of the art and the observer must feel the same mesmerizing effect.
No. 36 was sold for $ 40.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 13A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Looking for strong colors, he achieves an incandescent heat by confronting red and orange. No. 36 (black stripe) is an astonishing abstract landscape, oil on canvas 157 x 170 cm.
The red background is reduced to the edges and inter-blocks of the picture but sets the tone by its aggressive light. The rectangles that widely spread in this new balance of composition are a dazzling orange and a narrower dark red separated by a dominating deep black stripe.
Mark Rothko, by his temperamental personality, did not try to communicate with relatives but with the basic mankind by providing emotions altogether basic and intense. Moved by the strength of the red, he almost reaches his admitted but impossible purpose that the creator of the art and the observer must feel the same mesmerizing effect.
No. 36 was sold for $ 40.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2015, lot 13A. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
3
Black on Maroon
2013 SOLD for $ 27M by Christie's
Along with his horizontal compositions for Seagram, Rothko is trying his new techniques and their effects on smaller canvases. Thus the Black on Maroon 267 x 381 cm for Seagram is accompanied by a vertical Untitled 183 x 114 cm with the same hues.
Rothko abandons the Seagram project in 1959 in a fit of anger that he will not credibly explain. Donated by the artist to the Tate Gallery, the Black and Maroon was co-signed in 2012 by a modern Herostratus.
This Untitled was sold for $ 27M by Christie's on May 15, 2013, lot 55, and passed at Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 13.
Rothko abandons the Seagram project in 1959 in a fit of anger that he will not credibly explain. Donated by the artist to the Tate Gallery, the Black and Maroon was co-signed in 2012 by a modern Herostratus.
This Untitled was sold for $ 27M by Christie's on May 15, 2013, lot 55, and passed at Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 13.
1958 Pine after Rain by Pan Tianshou
2019 SOLD for RMB 206M by China Guardian
1958 Action and Jazz for Franz Kline
2014 SOLD for $ 26.5M including premium
Franz Kline was a sensory man, not a theorist. Along with Pollock he is the main artist of the Action painting that gives priority to the gesture, but his process is quite different. Through Kline's hands, the action creates an endlessly reworked sketch. When the rhythm and balance of the line please him, he copies it in oil on large surfaces.
Kline was close to De Kooning but most of his major works are in black and white. Legend has it that he kept pure colors on his palette but preferred to abandon them when they did not bring him some extra sensation.
As Pollock, Kline let jazz soaking him. In 1958, he expressed his admiration for King Oliver who had died twenty years earlier. For this oil on canvas 251 x 196 cm, the pure colors are worthy of De Kooning but the altogether abstract and hot atmosphere is his own. This is one of his masterpieces.
King Oliver by Franz Kline is estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 12, lot 23. I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
Kline was close to De Kooning but most of his major works are in black and white. Legend has it that he kept pure colors on his palette but preferred to abandon them when they did not bring him some extra sensation.
As Pollock, Kline let jazz soaking him. In 1958, he expressed his admiration for King Oliver who had died twenty years earlier. For this oil on canvas 251 x 196 cm, the pure colors are worthy of De Kooning but the altogether abstract and hot atmosphere is his own. This is one of his masterpieces.
King Oliver by Franz Kline is estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 12, lot 23. I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
1958 Leoni and Venise
2020 SOLD for $ 26M including premium
In 1947 Alberto Giacometti sets up the characters of his new universe, responding to the existentialist tendency. The Homme au Doigt or the body fragments call for metaphysical interpretations. The walking man is embarrassed by the contradictory double interpretation of energy and wandering. The standing woman, directly inspired by an Egyptian figure, is timeless.
Alberto creates in 1947 a plaster of the Grande Figure of the standing woman, 1.30 m high. A unique bronze cast in 1948 by Alexis Rudier was sold for £ 18M including premium by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017.
After various stagings alone or in groups amidst walking men, the standing woman survives the existentialism. The bronzes listed below were cast by Susse.
Prepared in 1956 for the Biennale, the Femme de Venise is a series of nine plasters, four of which were edited in bronze. A Femme de Venise IV edited in 1957, 1.15m high, was sold for $ 12.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2014. Another copy from the same edition is estimated $ 14M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on October 28, lot 111.
An unused plaster 1.67 m high surfaced in 1956 in an exhibition in Bern alongside several Femmes de Venise. It is believed to be an interpretation of Isabel Rawsthorne prepared in 1947. This model was edited in 1957 after a rework by Alberto to improve stability. The first bronze was supplied to Peggy Guggenheim for her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice. A copy cast in 1958 of this Femme Leoni is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on October 28, lot 112.
The Grande Femme Debout series, designed in 1960 in four figures, is taller than life. A bronze of the version II, 2.74 m high, cast in 1961, was sold for $ 27.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2008. A bronze from a posthumous reissue was sold for € 25M including premium by Christie's on October 19, 2017. A Grande Femme I cast in 1960 is currently sold by Sotheby's in a sealed bid auction.
RESULTS
Leoni : SOLD for $ 26M including premium
Venise : withdrawn
Alberto creates in 1947 a plaster of the Grande Figure of the standing woman, 1.30 m high. A unique bronze cast in 1948 by Alexis Rudier was sold for £ 18M including premium by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017.
After various stagings alone or in groups amidst walking men, the standing woman survives the existentialism. The bronzes listed below were cast by Susse.
Prepared in 1956 for the Biennale, the Femme de Venise is a series of nine plasters, four of which were edited in bronze. A Femme de Venise IV edited in 1957, 1.15m high, was sold for $ 12.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2014. Another copy from the same edition is estimated $ 14M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on October 28, lot 111.
An unused plaster 1.67 m high surfaced in 1956 in an exhibition in Bern alongside several Femmes de Venise. It is believed to be an interpretation of Isabel Rawsthorne prepared in 1947. This model was edited in 1957 after a rework by Alberto to improve stability. The first bronze was supplied to Peggy Guggenheim for her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice. A copy cast in 1958 of this Femme Leoni is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on October 28, lot 112.
The Grande Femme Debout series, designed in 1960 in four figures, is taller than life. A bronze of the version II, 2.74 m high, cast in 1961, was sold for $ 27.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2008. A bronze from a posthumous reissue was sold for € 25M including premium by Christie's on October 19, 2017. A Grande Femme I cast in 1960 is currently sold by Sotheby's in a sealed bid auction.
RESULTS
Leoni : SOLD for $ 26M including premium
Venise : withdrawn
1958 To Fellini by Guston
2013 SOLD for $ 26M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020
Early and late in his career, the paintings by Philip Guston express his horror of racism and anti-Semitism. He is influenced by the social muralism of Siqueiros.
The 1950s constitute his intermediate period, which he will disown. Abstract expressionism and action painting attempt to resurface the basic sensations of human beings. Painting is an illusion that Guston then wants to use for releasing his perception of the atmosphere. The title of the work guides the visitor.
The color is applied in blocks which become lighter as we move away from the center. This centrifugal composition anticipates and perhaps even inspires the Parisian angers of Joan Mitchell.
Other forms of art are also mere illusions, such as the projection of light filtered by a film onto a cinema screen. To Fellini was sold by Christie's on May 15, 2013 for $ 26M including premium from a lower estimate of $ 8M, lot 23. This 175 x 188 cm oil on canvas painted in 1958 invites a comparison between both techniques.
Shortly after, Guston returns to a caricatural figuration, often with self-derision. The Ku Klux Klan is his target, but the public does not perceive the subversive message hidden behind his mockery hoods that are not threatening. A major exhibition was canceled in 2020 : the organizers were unable to disentangle the ambiguities of this artist who might have been a major precursor to street art.
The 1950s constitute his intermediate period, which he will disown. Abstract expressionism and action painting attempt to resurface the basic sensations of human beings. Painting is an illusion that Guston then wants to use for releasing his perception of the atmosphere. The title of the work guides the visitor.
The color is applied in blocks which become lighter as we move away from the center. This centrifugal composition anticipates and perhaps even inspires the Parisian angers of Joan Mitchell.
Other forms of art are also mere illusions, such as the projection of light filtered by a film onto a cinema screen. To Fellini was sold by Christie's on May 15, 2013 for $ 26M including premium from a lower estimate of $ 8M, lot 23. This 175 x 188 cm oil on canvas painted in 1958 invites a comparison between both techniques.
Shortly after, Guston returns to a caricatural figuration, often with self-derision. The Ku Klux Klan is his target, but the public does not perceive the subversive message hidden behind his mockery hoods that are not threatening. A major exhibition was canceled in 2020 : the organizers were unable to disentangle the ambiguities of this artist who might have been a major precursor to street art.
1958 After Plowing by Pan Tianshou
2017 SOLD for RMB 160M including premium by China Guardian
narrated in 2018 before Poly sale of a later variant (see below)
Pan Tianshou mixes traditional techniques with modern themes. His ink and color paintings on paper leave large empty spaces that further enhance the beauty of the drawing.
Since 1957 he is for the second time the head of the National Academy. Suspected of being a Kuomintang spy, he is viciously persecuted by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 until his death in 1971. A 358 x 150 cm landscape painted in 1963 was sold for RMB 290M including premium by China Guardian on November 20, 2018.
Animals are allegories. Perched at the top of the rock, the eagle or raven is an aggressive vigil. The buffalo exhausted by its plowing work receives as its only reward from the humans the right to have a rest in the pond.
With a Chinese title meaning After Plowing, a buffalo painted in 1958, 227 x 121 cm, was sold for RMB 160M including premium by China Guardian on June 19, 2017. The animal with the rope of slavery in the nostrils keeps its head down and has a sad gaze.
With a less politically risky title meaning Buffalo in Spring, the 248 x 101 cm painting made in 1961 is almost identical, with variations in the foliage and another position of the poem. It passed on December 7, 2018 at Poly in Beijing, lot 2524. It had been illustrated in the China Daily article announcing the sale.
Since 1957 he is for the second time the head of the National Academy. Suspected of being a Kuomintang spy, he is viciously persecuted by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 until his death in 1971. A 358 x 150 cm landscape painted in 1963 was sold for RMB 290M including premium by China Guardian on November 20, 2018.
Animals are allegories. Perched at the top of the rock, the eagle or raven is an aggressive vigil. The buffalo exhausted by its plowing work receives as its only reward from the humans the right to have a rest in the pond.
With a Chinese title meaning After Plowing, a buffalo painted in 1958, 227 x 121 cm, was sold for RMB 160M including premium by China Guardian on June 19, 2017. The animal with the rope of slavery in the nostrils keeps its head down and has a sad gaze.
With a less politically risky title meaning Buffalo in Spring, the 248 x 101 cm painting made in 1961 is almost identical, with variations in the foliage and another position of the poem. It passed on December 7, 2018 at Poly in Beijing, lot 2524. It had been illustrated in the China Daily article announcing the sale.
1958-1959 The Pleated Kaolin of Piero Manzoni
2014 SOLD for £ 12.6M including premium
In the late 1950s, artists achieve the ancient anti-bourgeois dream of removing figures and emotion from art. Everything is allowed in materials and methods, from the use of objects by Rauschenberg or Cornell to the flamethrowers and the women brushes of Klein.
In 1958 and 1959, the series of Achromes by Piero Manzoni releases the art from the color. His wish for an absolute purity makes his approach different from the mysticism of Klein and Fontana and from Burri's disgust.
Manzoni managed to run on his canvas a magma of kaolin, this material which already a millennium earlier had brought the absolute white to the Chinese potters. Same as with Fontana's lacerations, the creative act of the artist is not fully absent: the fabric is pleated before being coated. When the paste dries, it solidifies the interstices of the furrows.
Manzoni does not act during the drying, except for monitoring the climatic conditions. The details of the texture such as thickness, bubbles and drippings escape the artist's gesture.
The largest Achrome paintings are technical feats as a homogeneous layer is needed to provide the effect of purity desired by the artist. Their pattern is a wide central horizontal band of tight grooves while the top and bottom of the artwork remain smooth, like a river flowing between its banks or like a long hair.
An Achrome painted in 1958, 116 x 148 cm, with interesting undulations of the furrows, was sold for $ 14M including premium by Christie's on 15 May 2013. Another one from the same year, 114 x 145 cm, was sold for $ 10M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
A similar Achrome, 110 x 150 cm with a bright contrast in some furrows is estimated £ 5M for sale on October 17 in London by Sotheby's, lot 12.
In 1958 and 1959, the series of Achromes by Piero Manzoni releases the art from the color. His wish for an absolute purity makes his approach different from the mysticism of Klein and Fontana and from Burri's disgust.
Manzoni managed to run on his canvas a magma of kaolin, this material which already a millennium earlier had brought the absolute white to the Chinese potters. Same as with Fontana's lacerations, the creative act of the artist is not fully absent: the fabric is pleated before being coated. When the paste dries, it solidifies the interstices of the furrows.
Manzoni does not act during the drying, except for monitoring the climatic conditions. The details of the texture such as thickness, bubbles and drippings escape the artist's gesture.
The largest Achrome paintings are technical feats as a homogeneous layer is needed to provide the effect of purity desired by the artist. Their pattern is a wide central horizontal band of tight grooves while the top and bottom of the artwork remain smooth, like a river flowing between its banks or like a long hair.
An Achrome painted in 1958, 116 x 148 cm, with interesting undulations of the furrows, was sold for $ 14M including premium by Christie's on 15 May 2013. Another one from the same year, 114 x 145 cm, was sold for $ 10M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
A similar Achrome, 110 x 150 cm with a bright contrast in some furrows is estimated £ 5M for sale on October 17 in London by Sotheby's, lot 12.
1958 The Time of the Oracles
2019 SOLD for HK$ 116M including premium
Born in a very ancient Chinese family, Zao Wou-Ki's father was a great connoisseur of art and calligraphy. Owning a painting by Mi Fu, he had also been one of the earliest collectors of Oracle bones just after their characterization as a primordial form of writing.
In France in the 1950s, Zao soon renounces figurative art and expresses feelings, nature and seasons by harmonies of colors. The originality of his art in comparison with the expressionists is to apply to oil on canvas the techniques and wrist movements of Chinese calligraphy.
From 1955 Zao regularly overpaints his colors with a pseudo-writing, most often without any similarity with the antique or modern pictographs, thus adding a dimension of mystery to his expressions of the forces of nature and the creation of the universe. These paintings are identified as the series of the Oracle Bones.
His visit to the United States in 1957 after his break with his wife does not interrupt this trend but considerably increases his international notoriety. After meeting with American abstract painters, he appreciates that a work of art does not need a title to convey a feeling.
The untitled Oracle Bones painted in 1958 offer a great diversity of expression. A 130 x 162 cm painting shows a violent explosion of intense colors as well as a transformation of the proto-writing into a throwing of ashes. It was sold for RMB 90M including premium by Sotheby's on December 1, 2013.
The oil on canvas 114 x 163 cm painted in the same year, for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on March 31, appears as an antithesis to the example above. The sweetness of the background painted in cream white enhanced with light brown and jade green brings a peaceful atmosphere accentuated by the calligraphic sharpness of the large central pseudo-writing.
This artwork is estimated HK $ 60M, lot 1026. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In France in the 1950s, Zao soon renounces figurative art and expresses feelings, nature and seasons by harmonies of colors. The originality of his art in comparison with the expressionists is to apply to oil on canvas the techniques and wrist movements of Chinese calligraphy.
From 1955 Zao regularly overpaints his colors with a pseudo-writing, most often without any similarity with the antique or modern pictographs, thus adding a dimension of mystery to his expressions of the forces of nature and the creation of the universe. These paintings are identified as the series of the Oracle Bones.
His visit to the United States in 1957 after his break with his wife does not interrupt this trend but considerably increases his international notoriety. After meeting with American abstract painters, he appreciates that a work of art does not need a title to convey a feeling.
The untitled Oracle Bones painted in 1958 offer a great diversity of expression. A 130 x 162 cm painting shows a violent explosion of intense colors as well as a transformation of the proto-writing into a throwing of ashes. It was sold for RMB 90M including premium by Sotheby's on December 1, 2013.
The oil on canvas 114 x 163 cm painted in the same year, for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on March 31, appears as an antithesis to the example above. The sweetness of the background painted in cream white enhanced with light brown and jade green brings a peaceful atmosphere accentuated by the calligraphic sharpness of the large central pseudo-writing.
This artwork is estimated HK $ 60M, lot 1026. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1958 Femme Debout by Giacometti
2020 SOLD for £ 10.7M including premium by Sotheby's
1958 The Second Birth of Zao Wou-Ki
2013 SOLD 90 M RMB including premium
Zao Wou-ki was deeply shocked by his divorce in early 1957. The oil on canvas titled Nous Deux, 161 x 200 cm, called for the dawn of his second career in a world inhabited by strange and indecipherable calligraphic signs. Nous Deux was sold for HK $ 35M including premium at Christie's on May 24, 2009 .
Nous Deux is one of his last works that had an explicit title. From this turning point, Zao expresses his inner fire and leaves the viewer with the task of interpreting it, or just admiring.
Abstraction is an oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, painted in 1958. This explosion of glowing fire is like the origin of the world in a dark environment, such as Matta also could have dreamed it. The fake calligrams from Nous Deux become smoky debris floating in front of the bright colors.
For Zao, this artwork was also the starting point of his life as a famous artist. Exhibited alongside Hartung at the Galerie Charpentier, it ensured an immediate success for this 37 year old artist. This masterpiece spent afterward half a century in the Art Institute of Chicago which is deaccessioning it now.
Abstraction is the star lot of the first great sale made by Sotheby's in Beijing, on December 1. It is estimated RMB yuan 35M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sotheby's had rightly highlighted the importance of this specific Abstraction in the art of Zao Wou-ki. It is a great success: RMB 90M including premium.
Nous Deux is one of his last works that had an explicit title. From this turning point, Zao expresses his inner fire and leaves the viewer with the task of interpreting it, or just admiring.
Abstraction is an oil on canvas, 130 x 162 cm, painted in 1958. This explosion of glowing fire is like the origin of the world in a dark environment, such as Matta also could have dreamed it. The fake calligrams from Nous Deux become smoky debris floating in front of the bright colors.
For Zao, this artwork was also the starting point of his life as a famous artist. Exhibited alongside Hartung at the Galerie Charpentier, it ensured an immediate success for this 37 year old artist. This masterpiece spent afterward half a century in the Art Institute of Chicago which is deaccessioning it now.
Abstraction is the star lot of the first great sale made by Sotheby's in Beijing, on December 1. It is estimated RMB yuan 35M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sotheby's had rightly highlighted the importance of this specific Abstraction in the art of Zao Wou-ki. It is a great success: RMB 90M including premium.
