1965
1963-1965 Liz on a Wider Screen
2015 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Andy Warhol was a clever businessman of his own art. In 1963, when he executed his series of Liz Taylor pictures, he made it as multiple single paintings of the same design instead of positioning many images on one canvas. A silver Liz was sold for £ 6.7M by Christie's on June 30, 2010.
He maintained however the illusion of wall advertising by exhibiting side by side the similar elements of the group. Afterwards each artwork could be sold separately by the owner of the set.
On May 11, 2010, Sotheby's sold for $ 18.3M including premium the Silver Liz diptych. It had been discussed in this column at that time. It is now estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 19A.
This specimen has a specific history. It was included in the exhibition of ten Silver Liz 101 x 101 cm at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in September-October 1963. When he prepared another exhibition to be held in Philadelphia in 1965, Andy recuperated this specific copy and flanked it on its left with a blank canvas of same size and same silver shade.
In this new configuration which has never been disassembled, the Silver Liz diptych remained a tribute to Liz while also imitating the wide screens of the movie theaters.
He maintained however the illusion of wall advertising by exhibiting side by side the similar elements of the group. Afterwards each artwork could be sold separately by the owner of the set.
On May 11, 2010, Sotheby's sold for $ 18.3M including premium the Silver Liz diptych. It had been discussed in this column at that time. It is now estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 11, lot 19A.
This specimen has a specific history. It was included in the exhibition of ten Silver Liz 101 x 101 cm at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in September-October 1963. When he prepared another exhibition to be held in Philadelphia in 1965, Andy recuperated this specific copy and flanked it on its left with a blank canvas of same size and same silver shade.
In this new configuration which has never been disassembled, the Silver Liz diptych remained a tribute to Liz while also imitating the wide screens of the movie theaters.
1965 Quantum Painting
2017 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Roy Lichtenstein questions the fundamental principles of painting by appropriating images from the comics, coloring large surfaces on his canvases with Ben-day dots and transforming a masterpiece into a reference for derision.
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
Roy finds in the comics the most varied inspiration. A book entitled The painter was published in October 1964 : a mad artist annihilates his own work with a few brush strokes. The image shows dripping, single drops and even the fraying when the paint becomes rarer on the bristles of the brush at the end of the raging gesture.
Roy uses this theme one year later while removing the text that expressed the artist's nightmare. His first painting simply titled Brushstroke is close to the original drawing with hand and brush in the foreground. He goes further : is a painting anything else than a set of brush strokes on a surface ? In the rest of his series he removes the hand and the brush, leaving alone in the image two stacked strokes.
On May 17 in New York, Christie's sells Red and White Brushstrokes, a canvas 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965, lot 57 B estimated $ 25M. The two wide stripes reproducing beside their friction the avatars of the original gesture are horizontal in a slightly rising direction. It is probably not by chance that the whole image resembles a damaged flowing flag.
Going much deeper than the author of the comics Roy reaches the quantum element of painting. He moves in the same line as Jasper Johns or Frank Stella for whom the theme is less important than the process for building the artwork.
By transforming his Brushstrokes into sculptures three decades later Roy completes this ingenious journey in the mockery of painting. After all, if we look for a parallel in other artistic actions, is cinema anything else than a projection of light through a scrolling sequence of colored filters ?
1965 Maoshan Majesty by Fu Baoshi
2017 SOLD for RMB 187M including premium by Poly
narrated in 2021
Fu Baoshi was not only the imaginative illustrator of old legends. Throughout his career, he also seeks the quintessence of the landscape, in all seasons, in all weather. He expresses snow, rain, mist, based on many sketches taken in the field.
In 1965, in a commission from the political committee of Jiangsu Province, he visits the site of Maoshan, southwest of Nanjing. This mountain is a high place of Taoism. Reforestation was initiated in 1960, in commemoration of the cantonment of Chen Yi's army during the Sino-Japanese War.
This 106 x 276 cm ink painting, completed in June 1965, includes tiny structures that attest to the civilization brought by Maoism : villages, factories and bridges in the plain, houses on the peaks. It was sold for RMB 187M including premium by Poly on June 5, 2017, lot 2245. The image is shared by China Daily in their post sale report.
Fu Baoshi died three months later from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 61. His monumental panorama of Maoshan had been his last completed work.
In 1965, in a commission from the political committee of Jiangsu Province, he visits the site of Maoshan, southwest of Nanjing. This mountain is a high place of Taoism. Reforestation was initiated in 1960, in commemoration of the cantonment of Chen Yi's army during the Sino-Japanese War.
This 106 x 276 cm ink painting, completed in June 1965, includes tiny structures that attest to the civilization brought by Maoism : villages, factories and bridges in the plain, houses on the peaks. It was sold for RMB 187M including premium by Poly on June 5, 2017, lot 2245. The image is shared by China Daily in their post sale report.
Fu Baoshi died three months later from a brain hemorrhage at the age of 61. His monumental panorama of Maoshan had been his last completed work.
1965 The Basics of Painting
2020 SOLD for $ 25.4M including premium
The very basics of painting can become a pictorial work in their own right. Roy Lichtenstein is a great questioner of the deep meaning, let's say rather of a possible meaning, of art.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
His Brushstrokes series is made up of fifteen oil and acrylic works on canvas executed in 1965 and 1966. One or more brushstrokes have left scars of white, red, yellow or green paint disproportionately magnified over a blue background built with his signature Ben-Day dots.
Any painter would want their brush stroke to be perfect. Roy shows that it is not. Defects include furrows, fringes, transparencies, drips and spots.
Lichtenstein's Brushstrokes do not include any direct narrative. This opaque paint applied with great energy can however hide another figure. In the comic book that inspired Roy, a furious artist cancels with a red cross a portrait he had just painted.
With his usual humor close to self-mockery, Roy does not omit to state that the meticulous execution of his own painting has nothing to do with this violent trace. No one is inspecting a painting in such a magnification. The doubt then comes on the constitution of the angles, by a rotation of the wrist or by the resumption of a new stroke.
Red and White Brushstrokes forms a sort of flag with two brush strokes and their drips that look like handles, perhaps as a wink for Jasper Johns. This opus 122 x 173 cm painted in 1965 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
White Brushstroke I shows three overlapping segments that make up a sort of Z or N with rounded corners. This 122 x 142 cm painting is one of the very first in the series. It is estimated $ 20M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on June 29, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1965 Studies of Pink Legs
2019 SOLD for HK$ 198M including premium
The female nude is a favorite theme to Sanyu. His art is profoundly authentic but integrates also within the Art Déco trends of his youth. The drawings are often erotic but the oil paintings are studies of forms with a deliberately minimalist palette, same as in his potted plants and animals of the same period.
Sanyu was not tempted by total abstraction. The flesh is contained in a black outline which thickens over time. Under the influence of photography, his compositions are freed from the three dimensional space, displaying from the early 1930s an exaggerated preponderance to the legs and narrowing the head.
Throughout his life, Sanyu was exercising his creativity without succeeding in pushing his career. In 1964 the project of a solo exhibition at the National Museum of History in Taipei brought hope for an international recognition. He sent 42 artworks, including a new 47 x 50 cm Nu in oil on paper.
The project is going badly and Sanyu has no longer access to his own works. In April 1965 he compensates for this frustration by making a larger version of his Nu, an oil on masonite 123 x 135 cm. The simplicity of the forms and the monochrome body on a white background bring a fine readability to this work, like a wall poster. It is the central element of a private exhibition in Paris in December 1965.
A pathetic autograph inscription on the back of the masonite testifies that the aging artist felt with this composition the maturity which he had been seeking for several decades and regretted the time lost during the years of poverty. It was too late. He died accidentally in his workshop in August 1966.
This ultimate Nu on masonite will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1029. The press release of September 16 announces an estimate in excess of HK $ 150M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Sanyu was not tempted by total abstraction. The flesh is contained in a black outline which thickens over time. Under the influence of photography, his compositions are freed from the three dimensional space, displaying from the early 1930s an exaggerated preponderance to the legs and narrowing the head.
Throughout his life, Sanyu was exercising his creativity without succeeding in pushing his career. In 1964 the project of a solo exhibition at the National Museum of History in Taipei brought hope for an international recognition. He sent 42 artworks, including a new 47 x 50 cm Nu in oil on paper.
The project is going badly and Sanyu has no longer access to his own works. In April 1965 he compensates for this frustration by making a larger version of his Nu, an oil on masonite 123 x 135 cm. The simplicity of the forms and the monochrome body on a white background bring a fine readability to this work, like a wall poster. It is the central element of a private exhibition in Paris in December 1965.
A pathetic autograph inscription on the back of the masonite testifies that the aging artist felt with this composition the maturity which he had been seeking for several decades and regretted the time lost during the years of poverty. It was too late. He died accidentally in his workshop in August 1966.
This ultimate Nu on masonite will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, lot 1029. The press release of September 16 announces an estimate in excess of HK $ 150M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1965 Study of Colors from the Swiss Mountains
2016 SOLD for RMB 165M including premium
Zhang Daqian leaves mainland China after the Second World War for political reasons. This great connoisseur of Chinese graphic arts now travels a lot.
In Brazil where he settled in 1953 or during his frequent visits to the Swiss Alps, he discovered landscapes that do not exist in China. He developed in the mid-1960s an entirely new pictorial style based on splashes of colors to express from memory this new sensory experience with a spontaneity of execution inspired by the Action Painting.
For these views, Zhang sometimes uses very large formats. On December 4 in Beijing, Poly Auction sells as lot 2030 an ink and colors on silk 173 x 344 cm on the theme of the Swiss snowy mountain.
This artwork realized in 1965 is one of the first of this new phase in the art of Zhang. The horizon reveals the mountain atmosphere with twin peaks licked by clouds but the foreground is a study of colors close to abstraction from where the drawing is absent.
In the next years, Zhang will go back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. An interpretation 176 x 264 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M yuan including premium by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
In Brazil where he settled in 1953 or during his frequent visits to the Swiss Alps, he discovered landscapes that do not exist in China. He developed in the mid-1960s an entirely new pictorial style based on splashes of colors to express from memory this new sensory experience with a spontaneity of execution inspired by the Action Painting.
For these views, Zhang sometimes uses very large formats. On December 4 in Beijing, Poly Auction sells as lot 2030 an ink and colors on silk 173 x 344 cm on the theme of the Swiss snowy mountain.
This artwork realized in 1965 is one of the first of this new phase in the art of Zhang. The horizon reveals the mountain atmosphere with twin peaks licked by clouds but the foreground is a study of colors close to abstraction from where the drawing is absent.
In the next years, Zhang will go back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. An interpretation 176 x 264 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M yuan including premium by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
1965 Landscape of the Body
2020 SOLD for HK$ 170M including premium
To compensate for Sanyu's disillusionment after the cancellation of a solo exhibition in Taipei which could have ensured his international notoriety, Natacha and Etienne Lévy organize a private exhibition in their residence in Paris from December 17 to 21, 1965.
The invitation is illustrated with the artist's most innovative Nu. The nude woman is reclining with her legs in the foreground. The right leg is raised up to the top of the image like a rocky peak in a traditional Chinese landscape. The breasts and the head form a horizon of hills. This metaphor is perceived more clearly when we consider the swaying of the raised leg and the apparent distance of the head.
Inscribed with a nostalgic autograph comment dated April 1965, this 123 x 135 cm oil on masonite was considered as his ultimate masterpiece. It was sold for HK $ 198M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2019.
The Lévy family preserved photos of their event. Their friend Sanyu appears in a photo in front of another Nu of the same woman, painted in the same minimalist style and to the same scale, with an almost monochrome skin within thick black outlines over a blank background.
In this image, both legs are raised and the left foot is posed like a finial on the right knee. The outline of legs and buttocks now form a square, in an ultimate Chinese refinement that evokes yin and yang. The breasts and head now appear through a triangular opening between the legs. This undated work is almost certainly in the follow of the April 1965 version.
This oil on masonite 125 x 95 cm will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, 2020, lot 1016.
The invitation is illustrated with the artist's most innovative Nu. The nude woman is reclining with her legs in the foreground. The right leg is raised up to the top of the image like a rocky peak in a traditional Chinese landscape. The breasts and the head form a horizon of hills. This metaphor is perceived more clearly when we consider the swaying of the raised leg and the apparent distance of the head.
Inscribed with a nostalgic autograph comment dated April 1965, this 123 x 135 cm oil on masonite was considered as his ultimate masterpiece. It was sold for HK $ 198M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2019.
The Lévy family preserved photos of their event. Their friend Sanyu appears in a photo in front of another Nu of the same woman, painted in the same minimalist style and to the same scale, with an almost monochrome skin within thick black outlines over a blank background.
In this image, both legs are raised and the left foot is posed like a finial on the right knee. The outline of legs and buttocks now form a square, in an ultimate Chinese refinement that evokes yin and yang. The breasts and head now appear through a triangular opening between the legs. This undated work is almost certainly in the follow of the April 1965 version.
This oil on masonite 125 x 95 cm will be sold by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 5, 2020, lot 1016.
1965 A Barn in Maryland
2021 SOLD for HK$ 126M including premium
Wanting to express the raw force, Clyfford Still invented the abstract expressionism in the 1940s. He moved to New York in 1950 but the bustle of the big city hampered his creativity. His priority was to build his corpus with consistency. He broke with the galleries in 1951.
In 1961 he moves with his wife to a farm in Maryland. Facing nature in his barn-workshop like Pollock in Long Island, he can finally create an emptiness around him to regenerate his inspiration. Until his death in 1980, he paints a lot, for his own use.
The works made during his seclusion in Maryland were little known in period. They nevertheless show a great maturity. The colors are reduced in number, but each area is a complex mingling of shades. Softer confrontations replace the dazzling flashes of the earlier phases.
The only example of a selling exhibition was in 1969 at the Marlborough Gallery in New York. He was then more in search of money than of further visibility and he mostly exhibited early works and remakes.
PH-568, oil on canvas 285 x 227 cm painted in 1965, is one of very few large size Maryland style paintings that escaped to the art market through the Marlborough exhibition. Quiet but still fringed black elements are floating on a creamy background where they are joined by a white, a purple and a crimson figures plus a bright yellow fragment over the right edge.
PH-568 is estimated HK $ 105M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on April 19, lot 1124.
Another Marlborough picture that went recently at auction, PH-407 painted in 1964, belongs resolutely to the earlier styles. It was sold for $ 18.4M including premium by Phillips on December 7, 2020, lot 14.
PH-21, painted in 1962, was a transition picture with the threatening ghost shadows. It was sold for $ 21M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013, lot 25.
In 1961 he moves with his wife to a farm in Maryland. Facing nature in his barn-workshop like Pollock in Long Island, he can finally create an emptiness around him to regenerate his inspiration. Until his death in 1980, he paints a lot, for his own use.
The works made during his seclusion in Maryland were little known in period. They nevertheless show a great maturity. The colors are reduced in number, but each area is a complex mingling of shades. Softer confrontations replace the dazzling flashes of the earlier phases.
The only example of a selling exhibition was in 1969 at the Marlborough Gallery in New York. He was then more in search of money than of further visibility and he mostly exhibited early works and remakes.
PH-568, oil on canvas 285 x 227 cm painted in 1965, is one of very few large size Maryland style paintings that escaped to the art market through the Marlborough exhibition. Quiet but still fringed black elements are floating on a creamy background where they are joined by a white, a purple and a crimson figures plus a bright yellow fragment over the right edge.
PH-568 is estimated HK $ 105M for sale by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on April 19, lot 1124.
Another Marlborough picture that went recently at auction, PH-407 painted in 1964, belongs resolutely to the earlier styles. It was sold for $ 18.4M including premium by Phillips on December 7, 2020, lot 14.
PH-21, painted in 1962, was a transition picture with the threatening ghost shadows. It was sold for $ 21M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013, lot 25.
1965 Concetto Spaziale - Attese by Fontana
1
2015 SOLD for $ 16M by Sotheby's
The film Deserto Rosso realized by his compatriot Antonioni is released in 1964. The director introduced in this work a strong aesthetic intent including saturated colors that contrast dramatically within a bleak surrounding industrial city.
Fontana watches the movie in Venice in 1965. He comes back to his studio with a renewed mystical impulse. The artist creates blade blows into the canvas as sharp as a stroke by a brush. Imitating the wall viewed in the film, Fontana slashes 24 vertical razor lines in parallel in a red painted canvas 65 x 200 cm. A few autograph words inscribed on the reverse are indicating the source of his inspiration.
This seminal artwork was sold for $ 16M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2015, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
For the artist, each incision strengthens his hope of attaining the knowledge. He gives the name of Attese (expectations) to this sub-series.
Fontana watches the movie in Venice in 1965. He comes back to his studio with a renewed mystical impulse. The artist creates blade blows into the canvas as sharp as a stroke by a brush. Imitating the wall viewed in the film, Fontana slashes 24 vertical razor lines in parallel in a red painted canvas 65 x 200 cm. A few autograph words inscribed on the reverse are indicating the source of his inspiration.
This seminal artwork was sold for $ 16M by Sotheby's on November 11, 2015, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
For the artist, each incision strengthens his hope of attaining the knowledge. He gives the name of Attese (expectations) to this sub-series.
2
2015 SOLD for $ 16.4M by Christie's
Fontana lacerates with his cutter the canvases coated with a monochrome water paint. This is not a perforation because the sharpness of the gesture does not remove material. It is a gate that will open to mystic knowledge. He titles Concetto spaziale - Attese (Space concept - expectation) this important series which he will execute in hundreds of units until his death in 1968, varying the number and composition of the laceration and the monochrome pure color.
The action of the knife becomes a reflex that allows longer, more straight and tighter slashes, always vertical or slightly leaning.
The appreciation of an Attese depends on the complexity of the positioning of the lines which the perfect gesture of the artist's hand is reproducing flawless. When only one scar affects the canvas, the title becomes Attesa in the singular. A red Attesa 197 x 144 cm painted in 1965 was sold for £ 6.7M by Christie's on February 6, 2008, lot 22.
A red Attese 116 x 90 cm with a total of 14 cuts in two rows, 1965 water-paint on canvas made in 1965, was sold for $ 16.4M by Christie's from a lower estimate of $ 10M on May 11, 2015, lot 17 A (not accessible from the online catalogue).
The action of the knife becomes a reflex that allows longer, more straight and tighter slashes, always vertical or slightly leaning.
The appreciation of an Attese depends on the complexity of the positioning of the lines which the perfect gesture of the artist's hand is reproducing flawless. When only one scar affects the canvas, the title becomes Attesa in the singular. A red Attesa 197 x 144 cm painted in 1965 was sold for £ 6.7M by Christie's on February 6, 2008, lot 22.
A red Attese 116 x 90 cm with a total of 14 cuts in two rows, 1965 water-paint on canvas made in 1965, was sold for $ 16.4M by Christie's from a lower estimate of $ 10M on May 11, 2015, lot 17 A (not accessible from the online catalogue).
