1966
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Bacon Bacon 1963-70 Head triptych Richter <1983 Hockney Warhol Celebrities by Warhol Chagall
See also : Bacon Bacon 1963-70 Head triptych Richter <1983 Hockney Warhol Celebrities by Warhol Chagall
1966 Marlon by WARHOL
1
1966 Four Marlons
2014 SOLD for $ 70M by Christie's
Andy Warhol was an interpreter of the society of his time. He was a film buff and the pictorial images which made him famous in 1962 were a last resort. Even Elvis, the king of music hall, is reappropriated in 1963 through an image taken from a movie. Warhol multiplies the cinematographic experiences as producer and director and announces in 1965 that he will devote himself entirely to cinema, with a clear tendency for the underground.
The star actor of the Warhol generation is Marlon Brando. In 1953 in The Wild One, Brando and his gang of bikers embody the rebellion against the established order. The young man is the archetype and the archangel of the new rebels without a cause. Andy reappropriates a publicity still on which the modern gang leader rides his Triumph. With his leather jacket and his cap, he is the archetype of the new lawless thug. Andy makes in 1963 a single painting, on a silver background.
This image is reused by Warhol in 1966 in the circumstances of the new threats against the American dream. The challenge is everywhere, against the war in Vietnam, for racial equality, against the social establishment, for non-violence. He seems to have chosen to revisit this theme himself, without a commission from a dealer or a prompting by a friend.
He prepares eight opuses of this Marlon by screen printing on raw unprimed linen, bringing a strange color as well as a great shine, with or without the large empty margin designed to unbalance the reading of the image. Only three of them are repeated images.
The two by two quad 206 x 165 cm without margins has no equivalent in that theme. It was sold for $ 70M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 10.
Grok thoughts :
Quote
Nick Spence @Nickfromupnorth Sep 6, 2014
Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley & Marlon Brando go under the hammer at Christie's for first time http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=72624#.VApQFnrpg6A…
The star actor of the Warhol generation is Marlon Brando. In 1953 in The Wild One, Brando and his gang of bikers embody the rebellion against the established order. The young man is the archetype and the archangel of the new rebels without a cause. Andy reappropriates a publicity still on which the modern gang leader rides his Triumph. With his leather jacket and his cap, he is the archetype of the new lawless thug. Andy makes in 1963 a single painting, on a silver background.
This image is reused by Warhol in 1966 in the circumstances of the new threats against the American dream. The challenge is everywhere, against the war in Vietnam, for racial equality, against the social establishment, for non-violence. He seems to have chosen to revisit this theme himself, without a commission from a dealer or a prompting by a friend.
He prepares eight opuses of this Marlon by screen printing on raw unprimed linen, bringing a strange color as well as a great shine, with or without the large empty margin designed to unbalance the reading of the image. Only three of them are repeated images.
The two by two quad 206 x 165 cm without margins has no equivalent in that theme. It was sold for $ 70M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 10.
Grok thoughts :
Quote
Nick Spence @Nickfromupnorth Sep 6, 2014
Andy Warhol's Elvis Presley & Marlon Brando go under the hammer at Christie's for first time http://artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=72624#.VApQFnrpg6A…
- This 2014 X post announces Christie's auction of Andy Warhol's 1963 silkscreen prints "Triple Elvis [Ferus Type]" and "Four Marlons," iconic depictions of celebrities as cultural icons, based on film stills from "Flaming Star" and "The Wild One."
- The attached image shows "Four Marlons," a four-panel sepia-toned print of Marlon Brando on a motorcycle, exemplifying Warhol's pop art technique of repeating mass-media images to critique fame and consumerism.
- Both works sold for a combined $151.5 million in November 2014—the highest prices for Warhol at auction then—contributing to a record $852.9 million total sale, highlighting surging demand for postwar and contemporary art.
2
Double Marlon
2008 SOLD for $ 32.5M by Christie's
A double Marlon, 213 x 243 cm, was sold for $ 32.5M by Christie's on May 13, 2008, lot 12. The left margin, much larger than the image, and the monochromy position this view in the following of the disasters, as if Andy had made his choice between his attraction to the first movies played by Marlon and the threats brought by the thugs.
3
Simple Marlon
2012 SOLD for $ 23.7M by Christie's
With a green left margin, a simple Marlon, 104 x 117 cm, was sold for $ 23.7M from a lower estimate of $ 15M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 14.
Grok thought :
Quote
Joseph K. Levene Fine Art, Ltd. @JKLFA Nov 15, 2012
Andy Warhol 1966 Marlon on canvas achieves $23.7 million Christie's Part I.
Grok thought :
Quote
Joseph K. Levene Fine Art, Ltd. @JKLFA Nov 15, 2012
Andy Warhol 1966 Marlon on canvas achieves $23.7 million Christie's Part I.
- This 2012 post from art dealer
@JKLFA
highlights the $23.7 million hammer price (plus premium) for Andy Warhol's 1966 silkscreen "Marlon," a black-and-white portrait of Marlon Brando from The Wild One, sold at Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Evening Sale. - The painting exemplifies Warhol's celebrity portrait series, adapting a publicity still via silkscreen to explore fame's mechanical reproduction, with its muted tones evoking a ghostly iconography of stardom.
- Exceeding its $15-20 million estimate amid a surging art market, the sale underscored Warhol's enduring value, as similar works have since fetched over $100 million, reflecting evolving collector interest in Pop Art icons.
1966 George Dyer by BACON
Intro
The sentimental history of Francis Bacon is complex. Dominated by the sadistic Peter, he himself went to be abusive to George Dyer. Their alcohol addictions are not unrelated with this apparent contradiction.
The painting of portraits in large size does not bring the impossible key to the temperament of Francis but enables to track his attempts of communication in life and beyond. He invariably used photos by John Deakin to make recognizable some personal elements of his models within the pictorial distorsions of heads and bodies.
In 1962, just after the death of Peter in a drinking party, Francis painted Study for Portrait of PL, oil on canvas 198 x 145 cm. The man comfortably seated cross-legged on a sofa is discussing post-mortem while holding a glass of wine. This painting passed at Sotheby's on May 14, 2013.
The painting of portraits in large size does not bring the impossible key to the temperament of Francis but enables to track his attempts of communication in life and beyond. He invariably used photos by John Deakin to make recognizable some personal elements of his models within the pictorial distorsions of heads and bodies.
In 1962, just after the death of Peter in a drinking party, Francis painted Study for Portrait of PL, oil on canvas 198 x 145 cm. The man comfortably seated cross-legged on a sofa is discussing post-mortem while holding a glass of wine. This painting passed at Sotheby's on May 14, 2013.
1
Crouching
2024 SOLD for $ 28M by Sotheby's
From 1966 to 1968 Francis Bacon created ten large size unsympathetic portraits of the handsome George Dyer in the nude. The first opus in the series is titled Portrait of George Dyer Crouching in the reverse. The title suggests a bestial action.
Francis's lover is crouching on the edge a coffee table that looks like a diving board locked up in a circular sofa. He looks down at his discarded shirt on the seat. His setting provides a much vulnerable impression in contradiction with the hyper-muscular strength, anticipating his demise. This position may have been inspired from a Crouching boy sculpted by Michelangelo.
This oil on canvas 198 x 147 cm was sold for $ 28M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2024, lot 115. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Response by Grok :
Quote
CI Sotheby's Realty @CaymanRealty
Apr 1, 2024
Francis Bacon's iconic 'Portrait of George Dyer Crouching' (1966) inaugurates a series of 10 portraits between 1966-68. Experience this masterpiece in Hong Kong (2-6 April), London (11-12 April), and finally New York for a public exhibition in May. https://sothebys.com/en/articles/francis-bacons-portrait-of-george-dyer-crouching-to-star-in-sothebys-contemporary-evening-auction-this-may…
Francis's lover is crouching on the edge a coffee table that looks like a diving board locked up in a circular sofa. He looks down at his discarded shirt on the seat. His setting provides a much vulnerable impression in contradiction with the hyper-muscular strength, anticipating his demise. This position may have been inspired from a Crouching boy sculpted by Michelangelo.
This oil on canvas 198 x 147 cm was sold for $ 28M by Sotheby's on May 13, 2024, lot 115. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Response by Grok :
Quote
CI Sotheby's Realty @CaymanRealty
Apr 1, 2024
Francis Bacon's iconic 'Portrait of George Dyer Crouching' (1966) inaugurates a series of 10 portraits between 1966-68. Experience this masterpiece in Hong Kong (2-6 April), London (11-12 April), and finally New York for a public exhibition in May. https://sothebys.com/en/articles/francis-bacons-portrait-of-george-dyer-crouching-to-star-in-sothebys-contemporary-evening-auction-this-may…
- The image depicts Francis Bacon's "Portrait of George Dyer Crouching" (1966), a pivotal work from a series of 10 monumental portraits of his lover and muse George Dyer, reflecting their turbulent relationship, with the painting’s debut at Galerie Maeght in Paris coinciding with Dyer’s tragic suicide in 1971, adding a layer of raw emotional depth.
- Auctioned by Sotheby’s in May 2024 with an estimated value of $30-50 million, this artwork marks the first single-panel Bacon portrait at auction in a decade, highlighting its rarity and the artist’s influence, supported by its inclusion in major retrospectives like the 1971-72 Grand Palais exhibition.
- Bacon’s technique, blending distorted human forms with dark psychological themes, aligns with studies on emotional expression in art (e.g., Freedberg & Gallese, 2007, Trends in Cognitive Sciences), suggesting his work activates mirror neuron responses, enhancing viewer empathy and engagement.
2
Talking
2014 SOLD for £ 42M by Christie's
On February 13, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 42M from a lower estimate of £ 30M the Portrait of George Dyer Talking, so titled on the reverse and dated 1966, painted in same dimensions 198 x 147 cm, lot 10. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The huge body of the boxer, naked, is writhing on a tiny stool. He communicates with a crooked mouth and an inexpressive gaze. Papers on the rug provide a link to an interlocutor out of the field. The physical strength of the body is balanced with the apparent size of the empty room looking enlarged like through a fish eye lens.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Feb 13, 2014
Francis Bacon's celebrated 'Portrait of George Dyer Talking' has just sold for £42,194,500 @ChristiesInc London
The huge body of the boxer, naked, is writhing on a tiny stool. He communicates with a crooked mouth and an inexpressive gaze. Papers on the rug provide a link to an interlocutor out of the field. The physical strength of the body is balanced with the apparent size of the empty room looking enlarged like through a fish eye lens.
Grok thought :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Feb 13, 2014
Francis Bacon's celebrated 'Portrait of George Dyer Talking' has just sold for £42,194,500 @ChristiesInc London
- This 2014 X post by Christie's announces the £42.2 million for Francis Bacon's 1966 oil painting "Portrait of George Dyer Talking," a distorted depiction of his lover and muse George Dyer seated in a surreal purple room, sourced from a Swiss collection with provenance to Marlborough Fine Art.
- George Dyer, a former burglar who became Bacon's companion after a 1963 break-in, inspired this work from an 11-painting series exploring human fragility and spatial distortion; Dyer's 1971 suicide profoundly influenced Bacon's later "black triptychs" as memorials.
- The sale, part of Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, highlighted surging demand for Bacon's oeuvre amid a mid-2010s market boom, with the lot exceeding expectations and contributing to robust totals for British post-war art.
3
Three Studies of George Dyer
2017 SOLD for $ 39M by Sotheby's
In his relationship with Peter, Francis Bacon had the role of the victim of a sadist. After Peter, his choice to love George is an experience with a younger man, stronger and more handsome than him. This connection with a thug without culture disturbs the friends of Francis, which adds to his pleasure.
George enters the intimacy of Francis without being involved in his intellectual community. Addicted to alcohol and tobacco and probably naive, he does not see the danger. Francis, who spoke a lot throughout his career, says to others : "Death is desire" or "You kill the thing you love".
The triptychs with front face and profiles in life size are a suitable format for Francis. In painting the portraits of his friends, he studies to what extent his own passions are out of range from any conventional ideal. The reason why Francis's art is fascinating is that he goes so far in introspection up to overcoming the bounds of decency.
On November 16, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 39M a triptych on a black background painted in 1966, lot 40 estimated $ 35M. In left and middle images, the crushed nose and the semi-spherical hollows of the orbits have killed any possibility of empathy.
In the same year in large format, George tries to discuss but his disarticulated and sticky body prevents communication. This Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 198 x 147 cm, was sold for £ 42M by Christie's in 2014.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Oct 28, 2017
#HBD #FrancisBacon! 'Three Studies of George Dyer' will be offered in #SothebysContemporary Evening on 16 November, exhibition opens 3 Nov.
George enters the intimacy of Francis without being involved in his intellectual community. Addicted to alcohol and tobacco and probably naive, he does not see the danger. Francis, who spoke a lot throughout his career, says to others : "Death is desire" or "You kill the thing you love".
The triptychs with front face and profiles in life size are a suitable format for Francis. In painting the portraits of his friends, he studies to what extent his own passions are out of range from any conventional ideal. The reason why Francis's art is fascinating is that he goes so far in introspection up to overcoming the bounds of decency.
On November 16, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 39M a triptych on a black background painted in 1966, lot 40 estimated $ 35M. In left and middle images, the crushed nose and the semi-spherical hollows of the orbits have killed any possibility of empathy.
In the same year in large format, George tries to discuss but his disarticulated and sticky body prevents communication. This Portrait of George Dyer Talking, 198 x 147 cm, was sold for £ 42M by Christie's in 2014.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Oct 28, 2017
#HBD #FrancisBacon! 'Three Studies of George Dyer' will be offered in #SothebysContemporary Evening on 16 November, exhibition opens 3 Nov.
- Sotheby's 2017 tweet celebrates Francis Bacon's birthday by promoting his 1966 triptych "Three Studies of George Dyer," a rare oil-on-canvas work depicting his lover and muse in three distorted, expressive profiles, as shown in the accompanying framed image.
- The painting, unseen publicly for 50 years, highlights Bacon's raw style exploring human vulnerability, with George Dyer's suicide five years later influencing Bacon's later oeuvre focused on grief and memory.
- Auctioned November 16, 2017, it fetched $36.8 million—among Bacon's top sales—underscoring the market's enduring demand for his psychologically intense portraits, per Sotheby's records.
1966 The Splash by Hockney
2020 SOLD for £ 24M by Sotheby's
In 1964 the young David Hockney searches for a Heaven on earth. His plane flies over San Bernardino. His first vision of California is the pattern of pools hidden behind the bungalows, which allow the residents to discreetly practice all forms of hedonism under the bright sun.
Back in California in 1966, David is very excited by an instantaneous color photo on the cover of a swimming pool construction manual. The foreground is a diving board. The water is agitated by the splash that has just been caused by an invisible diver.
The artist copies the photo into a first painted version, A Little Splash, 40 x 50 cm. The painting liberates the theme from its documentary aspect. This scene where no character is left visible symbolizes with much more power the joy of living. The four edges of the canvas are not painted, in order to imitate the framing of a photo.
The effect is spectacular. David painstakingly executes two large acrylics, The Splash, 183 x 183 cm, before the end of the year, and A Bigger Splash, 242 x 244 cm, in the following year. The artist later had fun reminding that he spent two weeks expressing a splash that could not last more than two seconds.
The Splash was sold for £ 24M by Sotheby's on February 11, 2020, lot 16. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Hockney offers in his art an interpretation of his fantasy, without seeking realism. For example, the horizon remains inspired by the photographic model but is extended through the bungalow without it being possible to decide whether it is a perspective or a reflection. A similar surreal illusion appears in a work from the same period, Beverly Hills Housewife, sold for $ 7.9M by Christie's on May 13, 2009.
A minimalist architecture better represents Californian homes. The roof in The Splash, still in conformance with the photo from the swimming pool marketing, is indeed too classic. It will be removed in the Bigger Splash and the BH Housewife paintings.
Back in California in 1966, David is very excited by an instantaneous color photo on the cover of a swimming pool construction manual. The foreground is a diving board. The water is agitated by the splash that has just been caused by an invisible diver.
The artist copies the photo into a first painted version, A Little Splash, 40 x 50 cm. The painting liberates the theme from its documentary aspect. This scene where no character is left visible symbolizes with much more power the joy of living. The four edges of the canvas are not painted, in order to imitate the framing of a photo.
The effect is spectacular. David painstakingly executes two large acrylics, The Splash, 183 x 183 cm, before the end of the year, and A Bigger Splash, 242 x 244 cm, in the following year. The artist later had fun reminding that he spent two weeks expressing a splash that could not last more than two seconds.
The Splash was sold for £ 24M by Sotheby's on February 11, 2020, lot 16. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Hockney offers in his art an interpretation of his fantasy, without seeking realism. For example, the horizon remains inspired by the photographic model but is extended through the bungalow without it being possible to decide whether it is a perspective or a reflection. A similar surreal illusion appears in a work from the same period, Beverly Hills Housewife, sold for $ 7.9M by Christie's on May 13, 2009.
A minimalist architecture better represents Californian homes. The roof in The Splash, still in conformance with the photo from the swimming pool marketing, is indeed too classic. It will be removed in the Bigger Splash and the BH Housewife paintings.
1966 Le Songe du Roi David by Chagall
2025 SOLD for $ 26.5M by Christie's
Le Songe du Roi David, oil, tempera and sawdust on canvas 208 x 276 cm painted by Chagall in 1966, was sold for $ 26.5M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Christie's on November 17, 2025, lot 25A.
Chagall wanted to be an illustrator. His great project sponsored by Vollard for the Bible was interrupted by war and exile. Afterward he executed a myriad of gouaches and paintings depicting Kings, Prophets, angelic beings and other characters from Biblical stories, allegorical objects and symbolic motifs. These would resurface in his paintings from the 1950s and 1960s, on a much larger scale that evoked murals or stained glass windows.
Israel's King David dreamed of building a temple for God, but believed God did not want his blood-stained hands to do that (cf. 1 Chronicles 28:2-6). Instead, he gathered the materials and treasure needed for the task. Then he charged his son, Solomon, to be brave and build the awe-inspiring Jerusalem Temple.
Here, under David’s watchful gaze, a dynamic cast of characters gather to celebrate the union of a bride and groom holding a child. Alongside the crowd, a series of vignettes hover along the edge of the canvas, suggesting different stories, legends and memories, while in the upper right corner the artist at his easel gazes across the scene. A cluster of buildings include small domestic dwellings from Chagall’s childhood at Vitebsk alongside a form of the Eiffel Tower.
Asking Grok to define the significance of this painting in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
"Le Songe du Roi David" (The Dream of King David), painted in 1966, is a monumental work by Marc Chagall that exemplifies his late-career engagement with biblical themes on an epic scale. Measuring over 81 x 108 inches, the painting uses oil, tempera, and sawdust on canvas to depict a dreamlike vision of the biblical figure King David, infused with Chagall's signature fantastical elements such as floating figures, vibrant colors, animals, and references to his Jewish heritage and personal memories. This large-format composition represents a culmination of Chagall's lifelong exploration of religious narratives, which he began illustrating in earnest during the 1930s with his Bible etchings, but revisited in his later years through vividly colored, immersive canvases that blend mythology, folklore, and autobiography.
In Chagall's oeuvre, King David often symbolized the artist himself—as a poet, musician, and visionary—drawing parallels between the biblical king's triumphs and Chagall's own artistic journey from his Russian-Jewish roots to international acclaim. Created when Chagall was 79, "Le Songe du Roi David" demonstrates his undiminished creativity and technical innovation in his mature period, employing the grandeur of history painting traditions to convey intimate, surreal interpretations of scripture. The work's immediate exhibition in major venues like the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1967, and its inclusion in retrospectives focused on his biblical paintings from 1966-1976, underscore its recognition as a key piece in his late biblical cycle, bridging his early modernist experiments with his final decades of spiritual and dream-infused artistry.
Chagall wanted to be an illustrator. His great project sponsored by Vollard for the Bible was interrupted by war and exile. Afterward he executed a myriad of gouaches and paintings depicting Kings, Prophets, angelic beings and other characters from Biblical stories, allegorical objects and symbolic motifs. These would resurface in his paintings from the 1950s and 1960s, on a much larger scale that evoked murals or stained glass windows.
Israel's King David dreamed of building a temple for God, but believed God did not want his blood-stained hands to do that (cf. 1 Chronicles 28:2-6). Instead, he gathered the materials and treasure needed for the task. Then he charged his son, Solomon, to be brave and build the awe-inspiring Jerusalem Temple.
Here, under David’s watchful gaze, a dynamic cast of characters gather to celebrate the union of a bride and groom holding a child. Alongside the crowd, a series of vignettes hover along the edge of the canvas, suggesting different stories, legends and memories, while in the upper right corner the artist at his easel gazes across the scene. A cluster of buildings include small domestic dwellings from Chagall’s childhood at Vitebsk alongside a form of the Eiffel Tower.
Asking Grok to define the significance of this painting in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
"Le Songe du Roi David" (The Dream of King David), painted in 1966, is a monumental work by Marc Chagall that exemplifies his late-career engagement with biblical themes on an epic scale. Measuring over 81 x 108 inches, the painting uses oil, tempera, and sawdust on canvas to depict a dreamlike vision of the biblical figure King David, infused with Chagall's signature fantastical elements such as floating figures, vibrant colors, animals, and references to his Jewish heritage and personal memories. This large-format composition represents a culmination of Chagall's lifelong exploration of religious narratives, which he began illustrating in earnest during the 1930s with his Bible etchings, but revisited in his later years through vividly colored, immersive canvases that blend mythology, folklore, and autobiography.
In Chagall's oeuvre, King David often symbolized the artist himself—as a poet, musician, and visionary—drawing parallels between the biblical king's triumphs and Chagall's own artistic journey from his Russian-Jewish roots to international acclaim. Created when Chagall was 79, "Le Songe du Roi David" demonstrates his undiminished creativity and technical innovation in his mature period, employing the grandeur of history painting traditions to convey intimate, surreal interpretations of scripture. The work's immediate exhibition in major venues like the Kunsthaus Zürich in 1967, and its inclusion in retrospectives focused on his biblical paintings from 1966-1976, underscore its recognition as a key piece in his late biblical cycle, bridging his early modernist experiments with his final decades of spiritual and dream-infused artistry.
1966 Farben by Richter
2022 SOLD for £ 18.3M by Sotheby's
In 1966 Gerhard Richter is occupied with the anti-art. For the figurative he copies some blurry photos in black and white. This is not enough for his desired pictorial revolution : he now manages to enter also the abstract art.
To free the abstraction of all emotion he imitates the sample cards of the paint shops, without any fancy in the geometric composition. The carefully aligned flat cells are separated by a narrow white grid. A random disposition leaves a possibility of color confrontation which is a major difference from the color charts of house paint.
Such a process comes in total opposition with the abstract expressionism refuted by Richter as devotional art. The artist nevertheless leaves a human dimension in the earliest opuses by keeping visible the oil paint strokes of his brush, soon superseded by an unpersonalized industrial lacquer. Agnes Martin maintained lifelong a similar humanistic approach in her abstractions.
That 1966 Farben series in made of 16 opuses with 4 to 192 colors. In every opus all color cells are different. The format is a rectangular or square single block of chromatic quadrants, excepted the monumental 144 which displays ten columns of ten colors each for an overall size of 2.50 x 9.50 m.
The number 136 is the third in the catalogue raisonné but the earliest in execution. This oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm features 192 squares. It was sold for £ 18.3M from a lower estimate of £ 13M by Sotheby's on October 14, 2022, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Richter begins 1973 with gray monochromes. In 1974 he increases to a maximum of 1025 the number of colors in his Farbtafeln by blending the colors with various tones of gray. He also begins to remove the white bands for a mosaic juxtaposition and to manage a law of permutation for a balanced color disposition. A 1974 1025 Farben with the white stripes was sold for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's on March 7, 2018, lot 8.
He had a predecessor in the Spectrum I painted by Ellsworth Kelly in 1953, juxtaposing different colors in 14 narrow columns in a square canvas.
These early experiments anticipate the use by Richter of the full range of colors in the flame of his 1982 Kerzen and from 1986 in the full format of his Abstrakte Bilder with the squeegee. The ultimate Farbtafel will be the 2007 glass window of Cologne cathedral.
To free the abstraction of all emotion he imitates the sample cards of the paint shops, without any fancy in the geometric composition. The carefully aligned flat cells are separated by a narrow white grid. A random disposition leaves a possibility of color confrontation which is a major difference from the color charts of house paint.
Such a process comes in total opposition with the abstract expressionism refuted by Richter as devotional art. The artist nevertheless leaves a human dimension in the earliest opuses by keeping visible the oil paint strokes of his brush, soon superseded by an unpersonalized industrial lacquer. Agnes Martin maintained lifelong a similar humanistic approach in her abstractions.
That 1966 Farben series in made of 16 opuses with 4 to 192 colors. In every opus all color cells are different. The format is a rectangular or square single block of chromatic quadrants, excepted the monumental 144 which displays ten columns of ten colors each for an overall size of 2.50 x 9.50 m.
The number 136 is the third in the catalogue raisonné but the earliest in execution. This oil on canvas 200 x 150 cm features 192 squares. It was sold for £ 18.3M from a lower estimate of £ 13M by Sotheby's on October 14, 2022, lot 107. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Richter begins 1973 with gray monochromes. In 1974 he increases to a maximum of 1025 the number of colors in his Farbtafeln by blending the colors with various tones of gray. He also begins to remove the white bands for a mosaic juxtaposition and to manage a law of permutation for a balanced color disposition. A 1974 1025 Farben with the white stripes was sold for £ 7.4M by Sotheby's on March 7, 2018, lot 8.
He had a predecessor in the Spectrum I painted by Ellsworth Kelly in 1953, juxtaposing different colors in 14 narrow columns in a square canvas.
These early experiments anticipate the use by Richter of the full range of colors in the flame of his 1982 Kerzen and from 1986 in the full format of his Abstrakte Bilder with the squeegee. The ultimate Farbtafel will be the 2007 glass window of Cologne cathedral.
1966 Rasterbild mit Palmen by Polke
2021 SOLD for $ 21.5M by Sotheby's
An exile from East Germany from 1953 and a student from 1961 to 1967 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, Sigmar Polke mingled his young political experience of the laying of the images with the avant-garde artistic conceptions of his teacher Joseph Beuys.
Along with his elder fellow Gerhard Richter, another East German passed to the West, he considered the anti-Art of creating large size images from trivial pictures. Relying on Lichtenstein and Warhol, they developed a specifically German form of pop art based on social concerns instead of a mere illustration of the consumerism of their time. Richter wanted to escape the Socialist propaganda art while Polke's family expected to escape poverty.
Lichtenstein's images are supported by the Ben-day dots widely used for the printing of images in the magazines. Polke relied on the similar Raster-dots of wall posters which he enlarged in a painting technique very close to abstract art. A narrative picture thus emerges from Polke's dots just like it emerges at the same time from Richter's blurs.
The themes of the two fellows are varied. Polke specially targets the exotic bliss deceptively promised to the bourgeois by the tour operators.
Painted in 1966, Rasterbild mit Palmen features a row of un-located palm trees in the hazy fog of the Raster-dots. This dispersion on canvas 130 x 110 cm is a rare example of Polke's multi-colored Raster paintings. It was sold for $ 21.5M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 18.
Along with his elder fellow Gerhard Richter, another East German passed to the West, he considered the anti-Art of creating large size images from trivial pictures. Relying on Lichtenstein and Warhol, they developed a specifically German form of pop art based on social concerns instead of a mere illustration of the consumerism of their time. Richter wanted to escape the Socialist propaganda art while Polke's family expected to escape poverty.
Lichtenstein's images are supported by the Ben-day dots widely used for the printing of images in the magazines. Polke relied on the similar Raster-dots of wall posters which he enlarged in a painting technique very close to abstract art. A narrative picture thus emerges from Polke's dots just like it emerges at the same time from Richter's blurs.
The themes of the two fellows are varied. Polke specially targets the exotic bliss deceptively promised to the bourgeois by the tour operators.
Painted in 1966, Rasterbild mit Palmen features a row of un-located palm trees in the hazy fog of the Raster-dots. This dispersion on canvas 130 x 110 cm is a rare example of Polke's multi-colored Raster paintings. It was sold for $ 21.5M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 18.
