1968
See also : USA II Abstract art Abstract art II Later Warhols Twombly Germany Richter Richter < 1986 Picasso from 1961 Cities Alps Time instruments Rolex 20th century furniture
1968 Rhythm and Loop
2015 SOLD for $ 71M including premium
Life is not expressed in figuration. Cy Twombly tries the rhythm in a musicalist approach. His long stays in Italy provide the model of the antique graffiti, interesting for several reasons: their juxtaposition let imagine some shapes and movements, details can be pornographic, and their fast and furtive execution is an example of a graphical application of the subconscious.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. From 1966, Twombly painted canvases in a uniform gray on which he was drawing with a wax crayon the figures of his mind. This series will be identified under the generic name of Blackboards.
The first tests combine the jerky action of the hand, expressing the reflex, with geometric figures that make a link with the former graffiti of the artist. This mixed meaning blurs his intention to express life. His Blackboards do not need to rely on the persistence of ancient impulses. The most interesting Blackboards will be performed in New York.
One of them, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M including premium by Sotheby's on 9 November 2005. An oblique line of high jerky and irregular eight shaped loops runs throughout the width.
About that time, Twombly improves his approach like a proto-writing. The shape of the loop has a graphological value and will vary depending on the mood of the artist at the time of its creation.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 18 a 173 x 269 cm blackboard painted by Twombly also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example discussed above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six thick horizontal lines within very regular limits. These lines that become wider from top to bottom of the canvas generate an illusion of perspective.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. From 1966, Twombly painted canvases in a uniform gray on which he was drawing with a wax crayon the figures of his mind. This series will be identified under the generic name of Blackboards.
The first tests combine the jerky action of the hand, expressing the reflex, with geometric figures that make a link with the former graffiti of the artist. This mixed meaning blurs his intention to express life. His Blackboards do not need to rely on the persistence of ancient impulses. The most interesting Blackboards will be performed in New York.
One of them, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M including premium by Sotheby's on 9 November 2005. An oblique line of high jerky and irregular eight shaped loops runs throughout the width.
About that time, Twombly improves his approach like a proto-writing. The shape of the loop has a graphological value and will vary depending on the mood of the artist at the time of its creation.
On November 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells at lot 18 a 173 x 269 cm blackboard painted by Twombly also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example discussed above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six thick horizontal lines within very regular limits. These lines that become wider from top to bottom of the canvas generate an illusion of perspective.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1968 The Repetition of the Loops
2016 SOLD for $ 37M including premium
Cy Twombly divided his time between New York and Italy. Near Rome he was entering in communication with the last traces of the intense antique passions. In New York he adapted his own semiotics in search of an absolute that transcends space and time.
Most of his Blackboards were made in New York. This series is prolific, demonstrating that the artist feels being close to achieve his goal. Comparing his works facilitates the interpretation of his thought.
A Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon in 1968 was sold for $ 71M including premium by Sotheby's on 11 November 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops. The gradual thickness of the six lines adds an illusion that the image is tilted with respect to its canvas. This opus is also one of the largest, 173 x 229 cm.
On May 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells as lot 21 a painting of nearly identical composition, made in the same year in a smaller format, 152 x 173 cm. The flexibility of the loops is the same, certainly not by imitation but by the effect of the same musical influence, proving that the artist completely controls the reflex movement of his hand in the more or less spirited performance of his proto-writing .
This artwork is experimental. The line is blue on a gray background darker than usual. The intent of this change is not only aesthetic. An additional white wax is used by contrast in the lower left of the image to simulate vertical signs of wear of the board in a counter-sense of the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
I do not know if the artist was satisfied with the result of this additional approach to time but it is taken for sure that he did not reuse this idea. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue has never been exhibited or published.
The press release of March 18 announced that this lot is expected in excess of $ 40M. I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Most of his Blackboards were made in New York. This series is prolific, demonstrating that the artist feels being close to achieve his goal. Comparing his works facilitates the interpretation of his thought.
A Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon in 1968 was sold for $ 71M including premium by Sotheby's on 11 November 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops. The gradual thickness of the six lines adds an illusion that the image is tilted with respect to its canvas. This opus is also one of the largest, 173 x 229 cm.
On May 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells as lot 21 a painting of nearly identical composition, made in the same year in a smaller format, 152 x 173 cm. The flexibility of the loops is the same, certainly not by imitation but by the effect of the same musical influence, proving that the artist completely controls the reflex movement of his hand in the more or less spirited performance of his proto-writing .
This artwork is experimental. The line is blue on a gray background darker than usual. The intent of this change is not only aesthetic. An additional white wax is used by contrast in the lower left of the image to simulate vertical signs of wear of the board in a counter-sense of the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
I do not know if the artist was satisfied with the result of this additional approach to time but it is taken for sure that he did not reuse this idea. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue has never been exhibited or published.
The press release of March 18 announced that this lot is expected in excess of $ 40M. I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1968 Richter invents the Hyperrealistic Blur
2013 SOLD 37 M$ including premium
Gerhard Richter is the true rebel of art. Some artists before him including Rauschenberg had introduced disgust as a variant of artistic impression. Richter goes much further. He debases the art to reveal its profound nature.
In 1962, he considers that a bad photo does not lie because it is too ugly to deserve retouching. It expresses real life, the reality of a fleeting moment which had probably been important for its author.
The anti-art by Richter consists to disproportionately enlarge black and white photos, blurry and often without any interest but in a great variety, by using a hyperrealistic technique already perfectly controlled.
One of his earliest works is the image of an airplane in flight, magnified as an oil on canvas up to 130 x 200 cm. Made in 1963, it was sold for $ 11.2 million including premium by Christie's on November 13, 2007.
The strength of the anti-artistic message of Richter is so great and so new that he finds customers. Domplatz Mailand, an oil on canvas 275 x 290 cm painted in 1968, was commissioned by the Milanese offices of Siemens.
The image is a masterpiece of ugliness with a particularly unpleasant blur. The original photo was lost, thankfully! This photo by an unidentified tourist may be repeated by anyone, without blurring motion, with a more relevant composition than truncating both the cathedral on the right and the buildings on the left.
With this quality and its very large size, Mailand Domplatz is the culmination of the first period of Richter. On the following year, he managed to radically shake the established tradition of landscape painting.
Domplatz Mailand is estimated $ 30M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on May 14. It is illustrated in a very interesting blog post shared by the auction house.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
This large painting is a technical feat of the first style of Richter, playing altogether on the easy identification of the subject and on the difficulty of reading it. It was sold $ 37M including premium.
In 1962, he considers that a bad photo does not lie because it is too ugly to deserve retouching. It expresses real life, the reality of a fleeting moment which had probably been important for its author.
The anti-art by Richter consists to disproportionately enlarge black and white photos, blurry and often without any interest but in a great variety, by using a hyperrealistic technique already perfectly controlled.
One of his earliest works is the image of an airplane in flight, magnified as an oil on canvas up to 130 x 200 cm. Made in 1963, it was sold for $ 11.2 million including premium by Christie's on November 13, 2007.
The strength of the anti-artistic message of Richter is so great and so new that he finds customers. Domplatz Mailand, an oil on canvas 275 x 290 cm painted in 1968, was commissioned by the Milanese offices of Siemens.
The image is a masterpiece of ugliness with a particularly unpleasant blur. The original photo was lost, thankfully! This photo by an unidentified tourist may be repeated by anyone, without blurring motion, with a more relevant composition than truncating both the cathedral on the right and the buildings on the left.
With this quality and its very large size, Mailand Domplatz is the culmination of the first period of Richter. On the following year, he managed to radically shake the established tradition of landscape painting.
Domplatz Mailand is estimated $ 30M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on May 14. It is illustrated in a very interesting blog post shared by the auction house.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
This large painting is a technical feat of the first style of Richter, playing altogether on the easy identification of the subject and on the difficulty of reading it. It was sold $ 37M including premium.
1968 Henrietta going Worse
2016 SOLD for £ 20.2M including premium
Francis Bacon, a notorious homosexual, also explored the flesh of women. Henrietta Moraes belongs to his hedonistic group of friends in Soho. John Deakin shoots the photos.
In 1963, Henrietta certainly can not anticipate that she will support the questioning of the artist about the deterioration of the body. She is drug addicted and Francis already foresees an accelerated aging when he paints her figure in the nude with a syringe stuck in her arm.
Henrietta is lying on a bed, her head and breasts in close up. Francis used this image several times until 1969. The photo, like the Dorian Gray of Oscar Wilde, has not aged. It is not the same story with the paintings. At the same time, Francis is looking on the body of George Dyer as an illusory maintenance of an eternal male youth.
The 1968 image of Henrietta is titled Version No. 2 of lying figure with hypodermic syringe. This oil on canvas 198 x 148 cm was sold for $ 15M including premium by Sotheby's on November 14, 2006. It now comes at Christie's in London on June 30, lot 6. The press release of May 6 announced an estimate in the region of £ 20M.
A meeting with De Kooning in early 1968 had convinced Francis against his own figurative style that a tangle of colors could evoke the female flesh. Henrietta became an accumulation that we imagine teeming. We have to compare her image with the other versions of the same theme for perceiving that she is a naked woman and confirming her attitude. The full sharpness of the syringe unchanged from the 1963 original version makes it by contrast a poignant reflection on the ravages of time.
In 1963, Henrietta certainly can not anticipate that she will support the questioning of the artist about the deterioration of the body. She is drug addicted and Francis already foresees an accelerated aging when he paints her figure in the nude with a syringe stuck in her arm.
Henrietta is lying on a bed, her head and breasts in close up. Francis used this image several times until 1969. The photo, like the Dorian Gray of Oscar Wilde, has not aged. It is not the same story with the paintings. At the same time, Francis is looking on the body of George Dyer as an illusory maintenance of an eternal male youth.
The 1968 image of Henrietta is titled Version No. 2 of lying figure with hypodermic syringe. This oil on canvas 198 x 148 cm was sold for $ 15M including premium by Sotheby's on November 14, 2006. It now comes at Christie's in London on June 30, lot 6. The press release of May 6 announced an estimate in the region of £ 20M.
A meeting with De Kooning in early 1968 had convinced Francis against his own figurative style that a tangle of colors could evoke the female flesh. Henrietta became an accumulation that we imagine teeming. We have to compare her image with the other versions of the same theme for perceiving that she is a naked woman and confirming her attitude. The full sharpness of the syringe unchanged from the 1963 original version makes it by contrast a poignant reflection on the ravages of time.
1968 The Grand Siècle of Picasso
2019 SOLD for $ 20.8M including premium
In his ambition to become and remain the greatest artist, Pablo Picasso was much dependent of his most famous predecessors, adapting their imagination to his own styles. In 1966 after a disabling illness, he retrieves Velazquez and Rembrandt, and behind them an idealized image of the seventeenth century. Through Velazquez he also sees his native Spain.
He hardly moves anymore. Jacqueline and Mougins constitute the surrounding of his life. His doctor forbids him to smoke. In the wide world, life continues with a new and ephemeral truculence brought by the sexual freedom.
He then enters a period of intense creativity, with glaring colors. His art is populated with picturesque characters : the musketeers, the matadors, the impressionists, his naked wife. This cartoon-like style pleases the public. Art critics see it as a fantasy but no matter : now Picasso works a lot for himself, against his own aging.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Mousquetaire à la pipe, oil on canvas 145 x 96 cm painted in 1968, lot 40 estimated $ 20M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This musketeer is engaging and funny. The drawing is very effective : a few loops for a wig like that of Louis XIV, the mustache that goes up like a smile, five small strokes for the goatee. The difference between the two eyes can be interpreted as a start for a wink.
He is also a self-portrait, like most of the male characters painted by Picasso. He is a twin brother to a substitute for a Rembrandt's self-portrait that Picasso painted alongside Jacqueline in the nude in 1967, and which was sold for £ 13.7M including premium by Christie's on February 27, 2018.
He hardly moves anymore. Jacqueline and Mougins constitute the surrounding of his life. His doctor forbids him to smoke. In the wide world, life continues with a new and ephemeral truculence brought by the sexual freedom.
He then enters a period of intense creativity, with glaring colors. His art is populated with picturesque characters : the musketeers, the matadors, the impressionists, his naked wife. This cartoon-like style pleases the public. Art critics see it as a fantasy but no matter : now Picasso works a lot for himself, against his own aging.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Mousquetaire à la pipe, oil on canvas 145 x 96 cm painted in 1968, lot 40 estimated $ 20M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This musketeer is engaging and funny. The drawing is very effective : a few loops for a wig like that of Louis XIV, the mustache that goes up like a smile, five small strokes for the goatee. The difference between the two eyes can be interpreted as a start for a wink.
He is also a self-portrait, like most of the male characters painted by Picasso. He is a twin brother to a substitute for a Rembrandt's self-portrait that Picasso painted alongside Jacqueline in the nude in 1967, and which was sold for £ 13.7M including premium by Christie's on February 27, 2018.
1967-1968 The Ghostly Chair
2014 SOLD for $ 20.4M including premium by Sotheby's
2019 SOLD for $ 19M including premium
PRE 2019 SALE DISCUSSION
Andy Warhol becomes famous in 1962 with his multiple paintings of Marilyn Monroe, started just after the death of the actress from a single image transferred to silkscreen. Geldzahler suggests that the artist treats the theme of death more explicitly. His macabre series is identified as Death and Disaster.
Paradoxically the most shocking image does not display death but only its instrument. In 1964 Warhol prepares a screen from a photo of the Sing Sing electric chair, in the middle of its big empty room, without any human presence. He makes 32 monochrome paintings 56 x 71 cm, each one in another color, conceived to be exhibited together. The chilling blue version was sold for $ 11.6M including premium by Christie's on November 10, 2015.
In 1967 Warhol prepares for the next year a new exhibition that will focus on the two extreme themes, life and death, symbolized by the flowers and by the electric chair. He executes in 1967 and 1968 14 large paintings 137 x 188 cm of the electric chair based on an enlargement of the central part of the original image.
Most of these paintings are monochrome. One of them is an exception. The background consists of three oblique stripes that symbolize life : blue of the sky, green of the grass, pink of the flesh. The chair is printed twice, in army green and dark purple, more threatening by their very low contrast with the background.
This Big Electric Chair was sold for $ 20.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014. It is estimated $ 18M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 13, lot 20 B.
All the Warhol chairs were painted after the decommissioning of the Sing Sing instrument, decided in 1963. Indeed other similar chairs continued to function in the world, but it will never be clear whether Warhol had an activivist intent behind this morbid theme. In June 1968 the assassination attempt on Warhol by Valerie Solanas is a real encounter between the artist and death.
Andy Warhol becomes famous in 1962 with his multiple paintings of Marilyn Monroe, started just after the death of the actress from a single image transferred to silkscreen. Geldzahler suggests that the artist treats the theme of death more explicitly. His macabre series is identified as Death and Disaster.
Paradoxically the most shocking image does not display death but only its instrument. In 1964 Warhol prepares a screen from a photo of the Sing Sing electric chair, in the middle of its big empty room, without any human presence. He makes 32 monochrome paintings 56 x 71 cm, each one in another color, conceived to be exhibited together. The chilling blue version was sold for $ 11.6M including premium by Christie's on November 10, 2015.
In 1967 Warhol prepares for the next year a new exhibition that will focus on the two extreme themes, life and death, symbolized by the flowers and by the electric chair. He executes in 1967 and 1968 14 large paintings 137 x 188 cm of the electric chair based on an enlargement of the central part of the original image.
Most of these paintings are monochrome. One of them is an exception. The background consists of three oblique stripes that symbolize life : blue of the sky, green of the grass, pink of the flesh. The chair is printed twice, in army green and dark purple, more threatening by their very low contrast with the background.
This Big Electric Chair was sold for $ 20.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014. It is estimated $ 18M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 13, lot 20 B.
All the Warhol chairs were painted after the decommissioning of the Sing Sing instrument, decided in 1963. Indeed other similar chairs continued to function in the world, but it will never be clear whether Warhol had an activivist intent behind this morbid theme. In June 1968 the assassination attempt on Warhol by Valerie Solanas is a real encounter between the artist and death.
1968 The Exotic Daytona
2017 SOLD for $ 17.8M including premium
Rolex launches in 1963 the Cosmograph Daytona reference 6239 for the use of drivers of endurance racing cars. The brand believes that other customers will be proud to own such a watch with high-end performance. Sales are disappointing. To revive the model in late 1966 Rolex offers more stylish dials with a choice in a range of pleasing colors and with better designed numerals. This model is referred as 'exotic'.
Paul Newman discovers the joys of car racing in 1968 when he plays with Joanne Woodward for the movie Winning which will be released in the following year. Joanne is his wife in this film and since 1958 in life. She is unfaithful in the film and madly in love in their privacy.
Joanne is worried about Paul's new passion for this dangerous sport. She offers him in 1968 a Daytona 6239 exotic on the back of which she has made inscribed the good advice "Drive Carefully Me".
Hyperactive and philanthropist, Paul is one of Hollywood's most popular personalities. Maniac in the accuracy of time, he is crazy about his 6239. Readers of magazines have fun to see Paul exhibiting regularly on his wrist this Rolex, recognizable from a distance by the simplicity of its design with the three sub-dials. Since the mid-1980s, exotic Daytonas have been nicknamed Paul Newman by the collectors without the intervention of the brand and without distinction of models (6239, 6241 and 6262 to 6265).
Paul is nice. One day when his daughter Nell's boyfriend forgot his watch, he gave him the 6239. Nell and James later separated without ceasing to cooperate closely. This eponymous watch to all the Daytona Paul Newman lineage is for sale by Phillips in association with Bacs and Russo on October 26 in New York, lot 8. Its consignor is James and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Nell Newman Foundation created by Nell in 2010 to continue the charitable work of her father.
This watch intensely used by Paul has never been modified or reworked. It joins the glamor of Hollywood with the beautiful story of the two generations of Newmans. Observers consider that its estimate at $ 1M will be exceeded.
It is the first of three watches of that next sale discussed by the auctioneer Aurel Bacs in the video shared by Hong Kong Tatler.
Paul Newman discovers the joys of car racing in 1968 when he plays with Joanne Woodward for the movie Winning which will be released in the following year. Joanne is his wife in this film and since 1958 in life. She is unfaithful in the film and madly in love in their privacy.
Joanne is worried about Paul's new passion for this dangerous sport. She offers him in 1968 a Daytona 6239 exotic on the back of which she has made inscribed the good advice "Drive Carefully Me".
Hyperactive and philanthropist, Paul is one of Hollywood's most popular personalities. Maniac in the accuracy of time, he is crazy about his 6239. Readers of magazines have fun to see Paul exhibiting regularly on his wrist this Rolex, recognizable from a distance by the simplicity of its design with the three sub-dials. Since the mid-1980s, exotic Daytonas have been nicknamed Paul Newman by the collectors without the intervention of the brand and without distinction of models (6239, 6241 and 6262 to 6265).
Paul is nice. One day when his daughter Nell's boyfriend forgot his watch, he gave him the 6239. Nell and James later separated without ceasing to cooperate closely. This eponymous watch to all the Daytona Paul Newman lineage is for sale by Phillips in association with Bacs and Russo on October 26 in New York, lot 8. Its consignor is James and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Nell Newman Foundation created by Nell in 2010 to continue the charitable work of her father.
This watch intensely used by Paul has never been modified or reworked. It joins the glamor of Hollywood with the beautiful story of the two generations of Newmans. Observers consider that its estimate at $ 1M will be exceeded.
It is the first of three watches of that next sale discussed by the auctioneer Aurel Bacs in the video shared by Hong Kong Tatler.
1968 Intimacy at Mougins
2019 SOLD for £ 12.5M including premium
Settled in Mougins with Jacqueline since June 1961, Pablo Picasso begins a new life. His wife adores him. They live together apart from society as an ordinary couple despite their 45 years of age difference.
Up to his death in 1973, Picasso exacerbates his passion for artistic creation. He paints very quickly, as if he is in a hurry. Sometimes he feels that he is creating a masterpiece. Le Peintre et son modèle dans un paysage was painted in ten iterations from June to September 1963. This oil on canvas 130 x 195 cm passed at Christie's on November 5, 2013 with a lower estimate of $ 25M.
At the end of 1966 after a long illness, Picasso restarts his most carnal theme, the expression of the sensuality of the woman in love. The woman exhibits her whole anatomy, like in the famous image by Courbet. In the feverish imagination of Picasso, she is Jacqueline, although Jacqueline never posed for him. The man is naked at her side, often without the attributes of an artist. In the same period, Picasso also confronts the nude woman with other emanations of himself such as the musician or the musketeer.
On June 18 in London, Christie's sells Homme et femme nus, oil and industrial paint on canvas 162 x 130 cm painted in a single day in Mougins on November 13, 1968, lot 6 estimated £ 10M.
The two characters are lying on their backs as on the beach, side by side, the bodies slightly intertwined. The woman looks at the man with an ecstatic expression. Complacent and even satisfied with this assault, the man quietly smokes his pipe.
Up to his death in 1973, Picasso exacerbates his passion for artistic creation. He paints very quickly, as if he is in a hurry. Sometimes he feels that he is creating a masterpiece. Le Peintre et son modèle dans un paysage was painted in ten iterations from June to September 1963. This oil on canvas 130 x 195 cm passed at Christie's on November 5, 2013 with a lower estimate of $ 25M.
At the end of 1966 after a long illness, Picasso restarts his most carnal theme, the expression of the sensuality of the woman in love. The woman exhibits her whole anatomy, like in the famous image by Courbet. In the feverish imagination of Picasso, she is Jacqueline, although Jacqueline never posed for him. The man is naked at her side, often without the attributes of an artist. In the same period, Picasso also confronts the nude woman with other emanations of himself such as the musician or the musketeer.
On June 18 in London, Christie's sells Homme et femme nus, oil and industrial paint on canvas 162 x 130 cm painted in a single day in Mougins on November 13, 1968, lot 6 estimated £ 10M.
The two characters are lying on their backs as on the beach, side by side, the bodies slightly intertwined. The woman looks at the man with an ecstatic expression. Complacent and even satisfied with this assault, the man quietly smokes his pipe.
1968 Lake Achensee by Zhang Daqian
2010 SOLD for RMB 100M including premium by China Guardian
1968 Sky Blue over Saturated Orange
2018 SOLD for HK$ 69M including premium
After the great volcanic panoramas of the early 1960s, Zao Wou-Ki tries new confrontations of colors. Abstraction becomes total. The illegible black signs continue to sprinkle these compositions, inviting an empathy with the artist by the appreciation of the movement of the wrist, as for calligraphy.
Here are three examples taken from the auction history in which the harmony of hues is positioned in front of a background of a very saturated color.
On a red background, 16.5.66, 195 x 130 cm, was sold for HK $ 80M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2013. On a yellow background, 17.7.67, 130 x 96 cm, was sold for HK $ 40M including premium by Sotheby's on April 2, 2017.
The oil on canvas 82 x 117 cm titled and dated 10.1.68 has already been discussed in this column. It was sold for HK $ 69M including premium by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 3, 2011. It is listed in the same auction room on November 24, lot 133.
A cohort of sky blue clouds pass over the bright orange background, leaving a few gaps and giving rise to small green areas in places. This work without horizon is totally abstract, with an illusion of movement that reminds that the artist, a great friend of the late Edgar Varese, had in that period a strong musical inspiration.
Here are three examples taken from the auction history in which the harmony of hues is positioned in front of a background of a very saturated color.
On a red background, 16.5.66, 195 x 130 cm, was sold for HK $ 80M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2013. On a yellow background, 17.7.67, 130 x 96 cm, was sold for HK $ 40M including premium by Sotheby's on April 2, 2017.
The oil on canvas 82 x 117 cm titled and dated 10.1.68 has already been discussed in this column. It was sold for HK $ 69M including premium by Sotheby's in Hong Kong on October 3, 2011. It is listed in the same auction room on November 24, lot 133.
A cohort of sky blue clouds pass over the bright orange background, leaving a few gaps and giving rise to small green areas in places. This work without horizon is totally abstract, with an illusion of movement that reminds that the artist, a great friend of the late Edgar Varese, had in that period a strong musical inspiration.
1966-1969 Bibliothèque by Diego Giacometti
2017 SOLD for $ 6.3M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to catalogue.
1968 Idyllic Capitalism
2011 SOLD for £ 4.6M including premium by Sotheby's
2018 UNSOLD
PRE 2018 SALE DISCUSSION
Both exiled from East Germany, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter meet during their art studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Richter wanted to escape the official Socialist art and Polke's family expected to escape poverty.
They find unprecedented artistic solutions to express that consumerism is an illusion cleverly maintained by the abundance of images. When Richter enlarges the most distressing photos from the newspapers and when Polke imitates the wall posters, both take care to build their artworks without obscuring the origin of their inspiration.
The Dürckheim collection included two works by Sigmar Polke, significant from the end of that phase : Dschungel 160 x 247 cm made in 1967, and Stadtbild II 150 x 125 cm made in 1968. These seemingly opposed themes match indeed together : Polke did not have holidays in the jungle and has not seen New York yet. He warns against the false promises made by the consumer society. Only the rich benefit from capitalism.
Dschungel is entirely realized with the technique of the dispersion projecting the colors onto the canvas through a pierced screen. Stadtbild is a night view of New York using this process partially to introduce some fireworks in the black background. The silhouettes of the skyscrapers are bright yellow sinuous lines directly squeezed on the canvas from the paint tube.
In the sale of the Dürckheim collection by Sotheby's on June 29, 2011, Dschungel was sold for £ 5.75M including premium and Stadtbild II for £ 4.6M including premium. On May 12, 2015 Dschungel was sold for $ 27M including premium by Sotheby's.
Stadtbild II is estimated $ 12M for sale by Phillips in New York on May 17, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Both exiled from East Germany, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter meet during their art studies at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Richter wanted to escape the official Socialist art and Polke's family expected to escape poverty.
They find unprecedented artistic solutions to express that consumerism is an illusion cleverly maintained by the abundance of images. When Richter enlarges the most distressing photos from the newspapers and when Polke imitates the wall posters, both take care to build their artworks without obscuring the origin of their inspiration.
The Dürckheim collection included two works by Sigmar Polke, significant from the end of that phase : Dschungel 160 x 247 cm made in 1967, and Stadtbild II 150 x 125 cm made in 1968. These seemingly opposed themes match indeed together : Polke did not have holidays in the jungle and has not seen New York yet. He warns against the false promises made by the consumer society. Only the rich benefit from capitalism.
Dschungel is entirely realized with the technique of the dispersion projecting the colors onto the canvas through a pierced screen. Stadtbild is a night view of New York using this process partially to introduce some fireworks in the black background. The silhouettes of the skyscrapers are bright yellow sinuous lines directly squeezed on the canvas from the paint tube.
In the sale of the Dürckheim collection by Sotheby's on June 29, 2011, Dschungel was sold for £ 5.75M including premium and Stadtbild II for £ 4.6M including premium. On May 12, 2015 Dschungel was sold for $ 27M including premium by Sotheby's.
Stadtbild II is estimated $ 12M for sale by Phillips in New York on May 17, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
