1958
1958 The Transcending Color of Mark Rothko
2015 SOLD for $ 82M including premium
In 1958, Mark Rothko is famous and unhappy. He is unhappy because he is famous and because he sees the public admiring the game of balance between the bright colors of his signature blocks. He targeted to show the variety of emotions from mystical to profane but is he more than just a designer?
He accepts at first a huge order for the future restaurant in Seagram's building but this step forward certainly increases his confusion. In an extraordinary 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 in New York, Christie's sells as 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 An infinite variety of colors predominantly brown interweaves within the rectangles whose structure is superseded by a magnificent halo effect.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 :
He accepts at first a huge order for the future restaurant in Seagram's building but this step forward certainly increases his confusion. In an extraordinary 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 in New York, Christie's sells as 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 An infinite variety of colors predominantly brown interweaves within the rectangles whose structure is superseded by a magnificent halo effect.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 :
1958 The Year of the Seagram Murals
2015 SOLD for $ 40.5M including premium
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 humanity 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 is estimated $ 30M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 13A. I invite you to 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 humanity 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 is estimated $ 30M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 13A. I invite you to watch the video shared by the auction house.
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 The Second Birth of Zao Wou-Ki
2013 SOLD 90 M RMB yuan 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.
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 Luxuriance of a Chrysanthemum
2014 SOLD 80 MHK$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In Paris, Sanyu has not forgotten his Chinese origin. In the 1950s, he devotes his art to a synthesis of Western and Eastern figurative elements, with an authenticity specially interesting because he was no longer looking for fame. The bright colors in front of which he dispositions his figures are inspired by abstract expressionism.
Now his potted chrysanthemums are included among the masterpieces of exiled Chinese painting.
He uses the oil on masonite, a Western technique. Still life on tabletop is not a Chinese theme. The chrysanthemum is the link to the Chinese imagery. It reveals its power when it is raising up with luxuriance towards the sky or ceiling, with colors inspired by the traditional art of lacquer.
On April 5 in Hong Kong, an amazing example is for sale by Sotheby's. In large size for this artist, 130 x 74 cm, this painting is estimated HK $ 40M.
Fortunately for the historian, this painting comes with a dated information, which is not often the case for the later art by Sanyu. In March 1958, it was chosen by the artist to illustrate his quest for East meets West within a modern art exhibition in Camargue.
Here is the link to the catalogue.
POST SALE COMMENT
This important specimen from an iconic series was sold for HK$ 80M including premium.
In Paris, Sanyu has not forgotten his Chinese origin. In the 1950s, he devotes his art to a synthesis of Western and Eastern figurative elements, with an authenticity specially interesting because he was no longer looking for fame. The bright colors in front of which he dispositions his figures are inspired by abstract expressionism.
Now his potted chrysanthemums are included among the masterpieces of exiled Chinese painting.
He uses the oil on masonite, a Western technique. Still life on tabletop is not a Chinese theme. The chrysanthemum is the link to the Chinese imagery. It reveals its power when it is raising up with luxuriance towards the sky or ceiling, with colors inspired by the traditional art of lacquer.
On April 5 in Hong Kong, an amazing example is for sale by Sotheby's. In large size for this artist, 130 x 74 cm, this painting is estimated HK $ 40M.
Fortunately for the historian, this painting comes with a dated information, which is not often the case for the later art by Sanyu. In March 1958, it was chosen by the artist to illustrate his quest for East meets West within a modern art exhibition in Camargue.
Here is the link to the catalogue.
POST SALE COMMENT
This important specimen from an iconic series was sold for HK$ 80M including premium.
1958 From Monochrome to Achrome
2016 SOLD for £ 5.6M including premium
Yves Klein challenges the relationship of the artwork with the artist and with the viewer. His Monochromes can not evoke any kind of figuration. As with Mondrian, the perfectly applied layer is not disturbed by an effect from the brush.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his exhibition choose the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is shocked by this interpretation. Henceforth, all his monochromes shall be in Klein's blue. Klein patents his IKB. The artist has become a color engineer.
Piero Manzoni visits in Milan in 1957 an exhibition of eleven identical IKB monochromes. Manzoni's own surrealist Genus in oil and tar were already almost multiples, like the IKBs. Manzoni is now inspired by Klein while suppressing the color. His Achromes will exist by and for themselves. They are a culmination of the intuition by Malevich of the depersonalization of art and of the supremacy of texture.
Manzoni pleats his canvas before pouring the liquid kaolin. He does not control the blisters and drippings brought to his artwork during the final drying phase. This approach anticipates Klein's other practices by which the hand of the artist does not touch the hardware support: works made with the flamethrower or by bodies of women. An artist was formerly a painter, he is now a designer, an operator and a master of ceremonies. The happening has penetrated the art.
The Achromes by Manzoni are somehow made in multiple series. The most spectacular in their apparent simplicity show a network of smoothly undulating horizontal folds between two plain areas. One of them, 80 x 100 cm, made in 1958, is estimated £ 5M for sale by Phillips in London on February 9, lot 14. I invite you towatch the video shared by the auction house.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his exhibition choose the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is shocked by this interpretation. Henceforth, all his monochromes shall be in Klein's blue. Klein patents his IKB. The artist has become a color engineer.
Piero Manzoni visits in Milan in 1957 an exhibition of eleven identical IKB monochromes. Manzoni's own surrealist Genus in oil and tar were already almost multiples, like the IKBs. Manzoni is now inspired by Klein while suppressing the color. His Achromes will exist by and for themselves. They are a culmination of the intuition by Malevich of the depersonalization of art and of the supremacy of texture.
Manzoni pleats his canvas before pouring the liquid kaolin. He does not control the blisters and drippings brought to his artwork during the final drying phase. This approach anticipates Klein's other practices by which the hand of the artist does not touch the hardware support: works made with the flamethrower or by bodies of women. An artist was formerly a painter, he is now a designer, an operator and a master of ceremonies. The happening has penetrated the art.
The Achromes by Manzoni are somehow made in multiple series. The most spectacular in their apparent simplicity show a network of smoothly undulating horizontal folds between two plain areas. One of them, 80 x 100 cm, made in 1958, is estimated £ 5M for sale by Phillips in London on February 9, lot 14. I invite you towatch the video shared by the auction house.
1958 The Midnight Blue Ferrari
2013 SOLD 8.25 M$ including premium
The Ferrari 250 GT California Spider is the most regular highlight of the greatest meetings of luxury cars. Made in about one hundred units by considering altogether its successive LWB and SWB versions, it is indeed much less rare than its counterparts designed for competition such as the 250 TR and the 250 GTO.
The best examples always maintain very high prices, making it undoubtedly the most desirable production car and one of the greatest masterpieces of Scaglietti.
To be presentable at the top level, it must have had a flawless display allowing it to entice the collectors in the months preceding the auction sale.
The 250 GT LWB California Spider for sale by Gooding in Scottsdale on January 18 has all these qualities and expects $ 5.5 M. Here is the link to the catalog.
It is one of the last units of the first full year of production, 1958, and has retained its original equipment ("matching numbers"). Restored in 2012 by one of the best specialists, Dennison International, it was then shown with the insistence of a star: it gleaned trophies at the Concours d'Elegance in Pebble Beach and the Ferrari Club of America, and was recertified by Ferrari Classiche.
The model is remarkably elegant, but this unit is particularly spectacular, viewed from the outside with its unusual midnight blue paint, and from inside with its luxurious leather.
POST SALE COMMENT
This car was confirmed as one of the most desirable examples of Ferrari spiders. Sold $ 7.5 million hammer price, 8.25 million including premium, it has far exceeded its lower estimate.
The best examples always maintain very high prices, making it undoubtedly the most desirable production car and one of the greatest masterpieces of Scaglietti.
To be presentable at the top level, it must have had a flawless display allowing it to entice the collectors in the months preceding the auction sale.
The 250 GT LWB California Spider for sale by Gooding in Scottsdale on January 18 has all these qualities and expects $ 5.5 M. Here is the link to the catalog.
It is one of the last units of the first full year of production, 1958, and has retained its original equipment ("matching numbers"). Restored in 2012 by one of the best specialists, Dennison International, it was then shown with the insistence of a star: it gleaned trophies at the Concours d'Elegance in Pebble Beach and the Ferrari Club of America, and was recertified by Ferrari Classiche.
The model is remarkably elegant, but this unit is particularly spectacular, viewed from the outside with its unusual midnight blue paint, and from inside with its luxurious leather.
POST SALE COMMENT
This car was confirmed as one of the most desirable examples of Ferrari spiders. Sold $ 7.5 million hammer price, 8.25 million including premium, it has far exceeded its lower estimate.
1958 A Spyder in a Grand Prix
2018 SOLD for $ 5.2M including premium
A Porsche 550A Spyder with a racing history in period in Le Mans, Nürburgring and more daringly in the Dutch Grand Prix passed at Gooding on August 20, 2016. It had been introduced in a video. It is now estimated $ 4.5M for sale by Bonhams in Scottsdale on January 18, lot 44. I discussed it as follows in 2016.
Since the 1950s Porsche achieved success in competition with cars which are decidedly different from their competitors, provoking from some drivers a great loyalty to the brand. From 1957 until his death in 1964, Carel De Beaufort almost only used Porsche cars.
Released in 1953, the Porsche 550 Spyder is efficient and agile with its flat four 1.5 liter engine. Porsche had made a good choice because this category of small volumes is undisturbed by the changes in the rules that follow the 1955 disaster at Le Mans.
Continuous improvement is a must for competition. In 1956 the 550A Spyder gets a lighter and more rigid frame, with a weight distribution carefully redesigned to improve the stability. It has a reputation of being very pleasant to drive.
Forty 550A are built. The last but one is sold in April 1958 to De Beaufort who uses it in competition in that year. In May De Beaufort dares to engage his little spyder in the Dutch Grand Prix of Formula One at Zandvoort. He finishes in last position six laps behind the winner. Meanwhile Porsche had developed the 718 that De Beaufort will now more logically use in Formula One.
Please watch the video prepared by Bonhams.
Since the 1950s Porsche achieved success in competition with cars which are decidedly different from their competitors, provoking from some drivers a great loyalty to the brand. From 1957 until his death in 1964, Carel De Beaufort almost only used Porsche cars.
Released in 1953, the Porsche 550 Spyder is efficient and agile with its flat four 1.5 liter engine. Porsche had made a good choice because this category of small volumes is undisturbed by the changes in the rules that follow the 1955 disaster at Le Mans.
Continuous improvement is a must for competition. In 1956 the 550A Spyder gets a lighter and more rigid frame, with a weight distribution carefully redesigned to improve the stability. It has a reputation of being very pleasant to drive.
Forty 550A are built. The last but one is sold in April 1958 to De Beaufort who uses it in competition in that year. In May De Beaufort dares to engage his little spyder in the Dutch Grand Prix of Formula One at Zandvoort. He finishes in last position six laps behind the winner. Meanwhile Porsche had developed the 718 that De Beaufort will now more logically use in Formula One.
Please watch the video prepared by Bonhams.
1958 The Gorgeous Dark of Pierre Soulages
2014 SOLD for £ 2.66M including premium
The abstract art by Pierre Soulages is entirely related to his own inspiration. As a teenager, he had admired how the black trunks and leafless branches increased the beauty of a snow scenery.
All his work shows the power relation between dark and colors. The black also manages to reflect light. It confronts the other colors but is not homogeneous and accepts flashes or spots. The shape of these dark areas is developed in a gradual brushwork without preconceived drawing, only achieved when the artist is happy with the result.
Of course, we may compare Soulages with the abstract expressionists of the United States. His search for the absolute reflects Newman but the tensions between colors rather refers to Still.
In 1958, while Yves Klein is experimenting with new colors, Soulages improves his palette. If the background color is gorgeous, the contrast offered by the black areas will be even brighter.
On October 17 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas titled 'Peinture 125 x 202 cm 30 Octobre 1958', lot 29 estimated £ 2M.
The dark structure perforated or transparent in places invades a golden yellow background with a shadow at its outline which is reminiscent of the lavish transitions by Rothko or Zao Wou-ki.
All his work shows the power relation between dark and colors. The black also manages to reflect light. It confronts the other colors but is not homogeneous and accepts flashes or spots. The shape of these dark areas is developed in a gradual brushwork without preconceived drawing, only achieved when the artist is happy with the result.
Of course, we may compare Soulages with the abstract expressionists of the United States. His search for the absolute reflects Newman but the tensions between colors rather refers to Still.
In 1958, while Yves Klein is experimenting with new colors, Soulages improves his palette. If the background color is gorgeous, the contrast offered by the black areas will be even brighter.
On October 17 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas titled 'Peinture 125 x 202 cm 30 Octobre 1958', lot 29 estimated £ 2M.
The dark structure perforated or transparent in places invades a golden yellow background with a shadow at its outline which is reminiscent of the lavish transitions by Rothko or Zao Wou-ki.
