1958
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Rothko Rothko 1957-70 Magritte Bacon < 1963 Guston Bird Femme debout
See also : Rothko Rothko 1957-70 Magritte Bacon < 1963 Guston Bird Femme debout
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 in red, maroon and black 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 of the inner radiance of colors, now favoring dark tones instead of the antagonism of vivid colors,
on a very large surface like Monet with the Grandes Décorations.
Rembrandt knew how to throw the light out of the shadow, there is no reason that could prevent Rothko to do it. 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.
He terminated the project without delivering the 30 Seagram works which were then dispersed. Emily Fisher Landau acquired one of them in 1981. This oil on canvas 233 x 176 cm painted in 1958 was sold for $ 22M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 20. It is one of only four still in private hands. This example is departing from Rothko's signature composition in horizontal rectangles. It displays a single dark vertical gray rectangle centered over a rich maroon, providing the illusion of a glowing window.
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.
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 in red, maroon and black 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 of the inner radiance of colors, now favoring dark tones instead of the antagonism of vivid colors,
on a very large surface like Monet with the Grandes Décorations.
Rembrandt knew how to throw the light out of the shadow, there is no reason that could prevent Rothko to do it. 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.
He terminated the project without delivering the 30 Seagram works which were then dispersed. Emily Fisher Landau acquired one of them in 1981. This oil on canvas 233 x 176 cm painted in 1958 was sold for $ 22M by Sotheby's on November 8, 2023, lot 20. It is one of only four still in private hands. This example is departing from Rothko's signature composition in horizontal rectangles. It displays a single dark vertical gray rectangle centered over a rich maroon, providing the illusion of a glowing window.
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.
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. This Untitled was sold for $ 27M by Christie's on May 15, 2013, lot 55.
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 Seagram Black on Maroon was co-signed in 2012 by a modern Herostratus.
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 Seagram Black on Maroon was co-signed in 2012 by a modern Herostratus.
1958 L'Ami Intime by Magritte
2024 SOLD for £ 34M by Christie's
The man with the bowler hat, viewed from front or from behind, in mid or full length, appears from 1926 in the art of Magritte amidst other characters. Three years later La trahison des images is an artistic manifesto of a sublime simplicity, in just six words: "Ceci n'est pas une pipe."
This everybody person becomes one of the strongest symbols of the treachery of the images. The artist views him as his alter ego, the imperturbable attendent of an oneiric surrealist world. Nevertheless Magritte does not make a pre-eminence in his artistic poetry between man, cloud, tree or bilboquet.
In the 1950s Magritte's hyperrealistic touch pushes that man to an unprecedented weird poetry. The character from behind is also a reminder of the 1818 wanderer contemplating the Alps by Friedrich.
L'Ami Intime, painted in 1958, features him mid length, observing the landscape from a stone balcony. He was in the same position with other sceneries in La Boîte de Pandore (1951), Le Chant des Sirènes (1953), Le Grand Siècle (1954) Bouquet tout fait (1957).
In L'Ami Intime, a still life of a glass of water and a loaf of bread is floating ahead of the vest, very similar to a floating figure in a landscape in the same year in La Force des Choses.
L'Ami Intime, oil on canvas 73 x 65 cm, was sold for £ 34M by Christie's on March 7, 2024, lot 108.
This everybody person becomes one of the strongest symbols of the treachery of the images. The artist views him as his alter ego, the imperturbable attendent of an oneiric surrealist world. Nevertheless Magritte does not make a pre-eminence in his artistic poetry between man, cloud, tree or bilboquet.
In the 1950s Magritte's hyperrealistic touch pushes that man to an unprecedented weird poetry. The character from behind is also a reminder of the 1818 wanderer contemplating the Alps by Friedrich.
L'Ami Intime, painted in 1958, features him mid length, observing the landscape from a stone balcony. He was in the same position with other sceneries in La Boîte de Pandore (1951), Le Chant des Sirènes (1953), Le Grand Siècle (1954) Bouquet tout fait (1957).
In L'Ami Intime, a still life of a glass of water and a loaf of bread is floating ahead of the vest, very similar to a floating figure in a landscape in the same year in La Force des Choses.
L'Ami Intime, oil on canvas 73 x 65 cm, was sold for £ 34M by Christie's on March 7, 2024, lot 108.
1958 Pope with Owls by Bacon
2021 SOLD for $ 33M by Phillips
Since 1952 Francis Bacon is madly in love with Peter Lacy. Europe is not favorable to homosexuality and Peter settles in Tangier. From 1956 Francis visits him frequently. He works a lot despite the sadistic violence of his lover. Disillusioned by these increasingly insupportable conditions and by Peter's lack of interest in his art, Francis breaks up in 1959 and destroys almost all his Tangier paintings.
Throughout this period, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father,
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite, some of them missing in the jaw. The cheeks are emaciated. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
Pope with owls, oil on canvas 145 x 110 cm painted ca 1958, was acquired by its first owner directly from the artist in Tangier in 1959.
The papal figure in a dark staging of deep purple and dark red is haunting. His laughter reveals his craziness and indirectly the dead end of Francis's relation with Peter. The arms of the chair are closing onto him, canceling any hope to escape.
A pair of night birds perched as finials over the seat are watching straight forward, questioning the viewer from their cold gaze.
Pope with Owls was sold for $ 33M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 16.
Throughout this period, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father,
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite, some of them missing in the jaw. The cheeks are emaciated. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
Pope with owls, oil on canvas 145 x 110 cm painted ca 1958, was acquired by its first owner directly from the artist in Tangier in 1959.
The papal figure in a dark staging of deep purple and dark red is haunting. His laughter reveals his craziness and indirectly the dead end of Francis's relation with Peter. The arms of the chair are closing onto him, canceling any hope to escape.
A pair of night birds perched as finials over the seat are watching straight forward, questioning the viewer from their cold gaze.
Pope with Owls was sold for $ 33M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 16.
1958 Pine after Rain by Pan Tianshou
2019 SOLD for RMB 206M by China Guardian
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 will be viciously persecuted by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 until his death in 1971.
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 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.
Pine after Rain is a view caught from the Hangzhou Overseas Chinese Hotel in 1958 by Pan Tianshou in a classical Chu Qing wash painting technique. This monumental 1.4 x 3.64 m painting hung at that hotel for 20 years until being stored for a better preservation. It was sold for RMB 206M by China Guardian on November 18, 2019. It is illustrated in the post sale report by CGTN.
Since 1957 he is for the second time the head of the National Academy. Suspected of being a Kuomintang spy, he will be viciously persecuted by the Cultural Revolution from 1966 until his death in 1971.
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 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.
Pine after Rain is a view caught from the Hangzhou Overseas Chinese Hotel in 1958 by Pan Tianshou in a classical Chu Qing wash painting technique. This monumental 1.4 x 3.64 m painting hung at that hotel for 20 years until being stored for a better preservation. It was sold for RMB 206M by China Guardian on November 18, 2019. It is illustrated in the post sale report by CGTN.
1958 King Oliver by Kline
2014 SOLD for $ 26.5M by Christie's
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 was sold for $ 26.5M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 23.
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 was sold for $ 26.5M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 23.
1958 GIACOMETTI
1
Femme de Venise
2022 SOLD for $ 25M by Christie's
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 by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017.
After various stagings alone or in groups amidst walking men, the standing woman survives the existentialism.
In 1956 retrospective exhibitions of Alberto's work are planned in Venice and Bern. He reacts like a real great artist. His past is not essential but the long march of a creative process that is not finished. He decides to do something new.
He chooses the figure of the nude woman standing still, feet together. He will show that this model allows a subtle variation in the expression of feelings. He will not do it as portraits but as his interpretation of the ideal woman. The most important is the texture that brings realism to non-proportioned bodies.
On a single armature, Alberto kneads the clay. He does not want to be influenced excepted by his own emotions which may change every next day. When finally satisfied, he leaves it to Diego who casts the plaster, releasing the frame for the next job. It is an art to be touched, admired by Genet.
About fifteen female figures are created in this intense process. Ten plasters are accepted, and divided between the two exhibitions in Bern and Venice. The group of nine is first displayed together in 1958 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York.
The plaster is not the final state of the project because it does not have the expressive possibilities of bronze. Nine women are edited in small series : five of them were in the group of Venice, two in Bern and two had not been exhibited. The set is now known under the generic name of Femmes de Venise, I to IX. They are different one another. For example, I and IV are the more anatomical while II, III, VII and IX are more abstract.
The bronzes listed below were cast by Susse in Paris.
On May 6, 2014, Christie's sold at lot 33 for $ 12.7M the number 2/6 of La Femme de Venise IV, 115 cm high, cast in bronze by Susse in 1957 and painted by Alberto.
La Femme de Venise IV has the specific feature of arms well freed from the body. Elbows are turned behind and accentuate the curving of the back, providing a physical presence and an authoritative look that the other Femmes do not have.
Giacometti knows that the lack of coloring of a sculpture is a decadence of modern art in comparison to ancient, medieval or tribal art. That number 2/6 has a unique feature. It came back into the hands of the artist who painted the genital area in flesh color amidst the overall gray-green patina.
The Femme de Venise III number 5/6, 1.18 m high, cast in 1958 with a brown and green patina, was sold for $ 25M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 32.
A Femme de Venise VIII cast in 1957, 1.22 m high, was sold for $ 10.1M by Sotheby's on May 7, 2008, lot 20.
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 by Sotheby's on June 21, 2017.
After various stagings alone or in groups amidst walking men, the standing woman survives the existentialism.
In 1956 retrospective exhibitions of Alberto's work are planned in Venice and Bern. He reacts like a real great artist. His past is not essential but the long march of a creative process that is not finished. He decides to do something new.
He chooses the figure of the nude woman standing still, feet together. He will show that this model allows a subtle variation in the expression of feelings. He will not do it as portraits but as his interpretation of the ideal woman. The most important is the texture that brings realism to non-proportioned bodies.
On a single armature, Alberto kneads the clay. He does not want to be influenced excepted by his own emotions which may change every next day. When finally satisfied, he leaves it to Diego who casts the plaster, releasing the frame for the next job. It is an art to be touched, admired by Genet.
About fifteen female figures are created in this intense process. Ten plasters are accepted, and divided between the two exhibitions in Bern and Venice. The group of nine is first displayed together in 1958 at the Pierre Matisse Gallery in New York.
The plaster is not the final state of the project because it does not have the expressive possibilities of bronze. Nine women are edited in small series : five of them were in the group of Venice, two in Bern and two had not been exhibited. The set is now known under the generic name of Femmes de Venise, I to IX. They are different one another. For example, I and IV are the more anatomical while II, III, VII and IX are more abstract.
The bronzes listed below were cast by Susse in Paris.
On May 6, 2014, Christie's sold at lot 33 for $ 12.7M the number 2/6 of La Femme de Venise IV, 115 cm high, cast in bronze by Susse in 1957 and painted by Alberto.
La Femme de Venise IV has the specific feature of arms well freed from the body. Elbows are turned behind and accentuate the curving of the back, providing a physical presence and an authoritative look that the other Femmes do not have.
Giacometti knows that the lack of coloring of a sculpture is a decadence of modern art in comparison to ancient, medieval or tribal art. That number 2/6 has a unique feature. It came back into the hands of the artist who painted the genital area in flesh color amidst the overall gray-green patina.
The Femme de Venise III number 5/6, 1.18 m high, cast in 1958 with a brown and green patina, was sold for $ 25M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 32.
A Femme de Venise VIII cast in 1957, 1.22 m high, was sold for $ 10.1M by Sotheby's on May 7, 2008, lot 20.
2
Femme Leoni
2020 SOLD for $ 26M by Sotheby's
An unused plaster surfaced in 1956 in an exhibition in Bern alongside several Femmes de Venise. The woman is standing straight on an inclined plan, her legs and feet together, inspired by antique Egyptian female deities. She is near life size in height.
It is a portrait of Isabel Nicholas prepared in 1947 beside the life size Homme au doigt.
Isabel Nicholas, who became Isabel Rawsthorne by her third marriage in 1954, was an artist. Sexually liberated in the wake of the existentialism, she was the muse and lover of Alberto Giacometti just before and just after the Second World War and contributed to the development of the new artistic style emphasizing the psychological expression for superseding the figurative realism.
This model was edited in 1957 after a rework of the feet by Alberto to improve stability. The first bronze had been commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice and supplied to her in November 1957. It was titled Femme Leoni by the artist. This bronze is not numbered.
A bronze numbered 3/6 cast ca 1958 by Susse was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 112, and for $ 22.3M by Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 20 B. Its height is 165 cm including the artist's base.
It is a portrait of Isabel Nicholas prepared in 1947 beside the life size Homme au doigt.
Isabel Nicholas, who became Isabel Rawsthorne by her third marriage in 1954, was an artist. Sexually liberated in the wake of the existentialism, she was the muse and lover of Alberto Giacometti just before and just after the Second World War and contributed to the development of the new artistic style emphasizing the psychological expression for superseding the figurative realism.
This model was edited in 1957 after a rework of the feet by Alberto to improve stability. The first bronze had been commissioned by Peggy Guggenheim for her Palazzo Venier dei Leoni in Venice and supplied to her in November 1957. It was titled Femme Leoni by the artist. This bronze is not numbered.
A bronze numbered 3/6 cast ca 1958 by Susse was sold for $ 26M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 112, and for $ 22.3M by Christie's on May 16, 2024, lot 20 B. Its height is 165 cm including the artist's base.
1958 To Fellini by Guston
2013 SOLD for $ 26M by Christie's
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.
That abstract expressionism in bolder colors by Philip Guston is beginning in 1956. A precursor in style had been Beggar's Joys, painted in 1954-1955 to narrate the extreme poverty of the artist, sold for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2008, lot 30.
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 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.
Another opus is Nile, oil on canvas 165 x 190 cm also painted in 1958. It was sold for $ 18M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2022, lot 15, to benefit the O’Donnell philanthropic foundation.
Nile is a fair example of the abstract technique of the artist, who increased the emotional intensity by working in a very close proximity to the picture plane thereby removing the notion of space. Guston was an avid movie goer. It is believed that the title of that painting reminds a scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 Ten Commandments in which Moses turns the river to blood.
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.
That abstract expressionism in bolder colors by Philip Guston is beginning in 1956. A precursor in style had been Beggar's Joys, painted in 1954-1955 to narrate the extreme poverty of the artist, sold for $ 10.2M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2008, lot 30.
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 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.
Another opus is Nile, oil on canvas 165 x 190 cm also painted in 1958. It was sold for $ 18M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2022, lot 15, to benefit the O’Donnell philanthropic foundation.
Nile is a fair example of the abstract technique of the artist, who increased the emotional intensity by working in a very close proximity to the picture plane thereby removing the notion of space. Guston was an avid movie goer. It is believed that the title of that painting reminds a scene from Cecil B. DeMille’s 1956 Ten Commandments in which Moses turns the river to blood.
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.
