1968
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : USA II Abstract art Abstract art II Later Warhols Twombly Germany Richter Richter < 1983 Picasso in Mougins Zhang Daqian Alps Time pieces Rolex
See also : USA II Abstract art Abstract art II Later Warhols Twombly Germany Richter Richter < 1983 Picasso in Mougins Zhang Daqian Alps Time pieces Rolex
1968 Blackboard by TWOMBLY
1
(New York City)
2015 SOLD for $ 71M by Sotheby's
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, the street art from the antique times : 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.
From 1966 he pursues his semiotic research towards psychoanalysis. On the black canvas that resembles the chalkboard of infant schools, he draws in white his messages which are indecipherable in direct reading but must speak to the mind of the viewer.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. He paints canvases in a uniform dark gray on which he draws with a wax crayon the figures of his subconscious. These artworks are described under the generic term Blackboards chosen by art critics, not by the artist.
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 significant Blackboards will be performed in New York City.
An early example, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2005. An oblique line of high jerky loops runs throughout the width.
On November 11, 2015, Sotheby's sold at lot 18 for $ 71M a Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon by Twombly, also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six endless horizontal lines within very regular limits. The gradual width 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.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
From 1966 he pursues his semiotic research towards psychoanalysis. On the black canvas that resembles the chalkboard of infant schools, he draws in white his messages which are indecipherable in direct reading but must speak to the mind of the viewer.
An automatic writing can be done in pencil on paper, but modern art appeals for large formats. He paints canvases in a uniform dark gray on which he draws with a wax crayon the figures of his subconscious. These artworks are described under the generic term Blackboards chosen by art critics, not by the artist.
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 significant Blackboards will be performed in New York City.
An early example, 173 x 216 cm, painted in 1968, has been sold for $ 8.7M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2005. An oblique line of high jerky loops runs throughout the width.
On November 11, 2015, Sotheby's sold at lot 18 for $ 71M a Blackboard painted with a white wax crayon by Twombly, also in 1968, but later in its maturity than the example above.
The line consists in an entanglement of proto-writings in repetitive loops forming six endless horizontal lines within very regular limits. The gradual width 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.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
2
(New York City)
2016 SOLD for $ 37M by Sotheby's
Many Blackboards were prepared in New York City. 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 in 1968 was sold for $ 71M by Sotheby's in 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops.
On May 11, 2016, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 37M 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 an opposite movement from the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
The artist did not reuse this feature. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue had never been exhibited or published.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
A Blackboard painted in 1968 was sold for $ 71M by Sotheby's in 2015. Its structure is one of the most complex with six horizontal lines, each one being composed of a tight pattern of endless loops.
On May 11, 2016, Sotheby's sold as lot 21 for $ 37M 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 an opposite movement from the tilted orientation of the blue loops.
The artist did not reuse this feature. Bought to Castelli in 1969 by its current owner, the unique Blackboard in blue had never been exhibited or published.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1968 Domplatz Mailand by Richter
2013 SOLD for $ 37M by Sotheby's
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.
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 was sold for $ 37M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2013. It is illustrated in a blog post shared by the auction house.
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.
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 was sold for $ 37M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2013. It is illustrated in a blog post shared by the auction house.
PICASSO
1
October 1968 Mousquetaire à la Pipe
2019 SOLD for $ 20.8M by Sotheby's
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 retrieved 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 impressionists, his naked wife, later the matadors. 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, 2019, Sotheby's sold for $ 20.8M Mousquetaire à la pipe, oil on canvas 145 x 96 cm painted in 1968, lot 40. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This musketeer on bust length 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 somehow a self-portrait, like the previous harlequin, minotaur and sailor. 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 by Christie's in 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 impressionists, his naked wife, later the matadors. 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, 2019, Sotheby's sold for $ 20.8M Mousquetaire à la pipe, oil on canvas 145 x 96 cm painted in 1968, lot 40. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This musketeer on bust length 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 somehow a self-portrait, like the previous harlequin, minotaur and sailor. 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 by Christie's in 2018.
2
November 1968 Mousquetaire à la Pipe
2021 SOLD for $ 35M by Christie's
On November 5, 1968, Picasso completed two paintings of the Musketeer with a pipe. The opus II, oil and Ripolin on canvas 146 x 96 cm, was sold for $ 35M by Christie's on November 11, 2021, lot 34C.
The seated figure is sharply dressed in the military fashion of Velazquez time, including the 17th century thick curled wig. He looks towering with his top of the head and bent left leg that reach the frame. He is inviting to pleasure with his candid wide open eyes, the cool seating attitude, the elegant curving of the long pipe stem and the vibrant blue hues.
An Homme à la Pipe, oil and Ripolin on canvas 130 x 97 cm painted by Picasso on November 27, 1968, was sold for $ 15.4M in the same sale as above, lot 58C. The painting is made of appealing near childish curves, swirls, lines and spots in a full range of pure colors. A transparent smoke is raising over the pipe. This seated figure is obviously a Mousquetaire although this qualifier is not in the title.
The seated figure is sharply dressed in the military fashion of Velazquez time, including the 17th century thick curled wig. He looks towering with his top of the head and bent left leg that reach the frame. He is inviting to pleasure with his candid wide open eyes, the cool seating attitude, the elegant curving of the long pipe stem and the vibrant blue hues.
An Homme à la Pipe, oil and Ripolin on canvas 130 x 97 cm painted by Picasso on November 27, 1968, was sold for $ 15.4M in the same sale as above, lot 58C. The painting is made of appealing near childish curves, swirls, lines and spots in a full range of pure colors. A transparent smoke is raising over the pipe. This seated figure is obviously a Mousquetaire although this qualifier is not in the title.
1968 Mist at Dawn by Zhang Daqian
2021 SOLD for HK$ 215M by Sotheby's
Zhang Daqian developed in the mid 1960s his new style of expressing the mountains in color splashes.
In the following years, he goes back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. A panoramic interpretation 264 x 76 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
Mist at dawn, splashed ink and color on paper 100 x 140 cm painted in Brazil in 1968, is a pinnacle of abstraction in the art of Zhang Daqian.
Zhang had been much impressed by the Swiss mountains and had a perfect memory of atmospheres and colors. He interprets here the extreme condition of high wind in the mist just before sunrise.
At first glance the result looks like a wandering of ochre flames in front of splashes of dark blue mingled with malachite green powder. By prolonging the inspection, the shape of the mountains and a cluster of clouds are revealed amidst the rare colors of a stormy dawn sky, at the moment when daylight comes out of a dark chaos.
This opus was sold for HK $ 215M by Sotheby's on October 11, 2021, lot 3065. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In the following years, he goes back to more figuration in a subtle blend of splash and line. A panoramic interpretation 264 x 76 cm of Lake Achensee made in 1968 in ink and colors on silk was sold for RMB 100M by China Guardian on May 17, 2010.
Mist at dawn, splashed ink and color on paper 100 x 140 cm painted in Brazil in 1968, is a pinnacle of abstraction in the art of Zhang Daqian.
Zhang had been much impressed by the Swiss mountains and had a perfect memory of atmospheres and colors. He interprets here the extreme condition of high wind in the mist just before sunrise.
At first glance the result looks like a wandering of ochre flames in front of splashes of dark blue mingled with malachite green powder. By prolonging the inspection, the shape of the mountains and a cluster of clouds are revealed amidst the rare colors of a stormy dawn sky, at the moment when daylight comes out of a dark chaos.
This opus was sold for HK $ 215M by Sotheby's on October 11, 2021, lot 3065. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1968 Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe by Bacon
2016 SOLD for £ 20.2M by Christie's
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 by Sotheby's on November 14, 2006 and for £ 20.2M by Christie's on June 30, 2016, lot 6.
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 by Sotheby's on November 14, 2006 and for £ 20.2M by Christie's on June 30, 2016, lot 6.
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.
1967-1968 Big Electric Chair by Warhol
2014 SOLD for $ 20.4M by Sotheby's
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 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 by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014 and for $ 19M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, 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.
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 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 by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014 and for $ 19M by Christie's on November 13, 2019, 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 Rolex Daytona of Paul Newman
2017 SOLD for $ 17.8M by Phillips
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 was sold for $ 17.8M by Phillips in association with Bacs and Russo on October 26, 2017, 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 was sold for $ 17.8M by Phillips in association with Bacs and Russo on October 26, 2017, 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 Aluminum Numbers by Johns
2022 SOLD for $ 17.6M by Christie's
In his quest for the emotionally disengaged roots of art, Jasper Johns relied from the mid 1950s on non-naturalistic figures : the US flag, the target and the sequence of numbers. He tried his hand with a high variety of paints and supports, including plaster relief for a target as early as 1955. His first experiences with grids had been made in 1952.
In 1964 he was commissioned for a monumental grid of numbers for the use of the lobby of the theater of the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. This work titled Numbers is made of separate painted metal panels of one numeral each, bolted together for an overall size of 275 x 213 cm. Sequences of numerals are a path to infinity when considering that they can build unlimited numbers. A footprint of Merce Cunningham superseded a numeral toward the upper right corner of that original.
Johns's project to complement the Lincoln Numbers by a bronze failed in 1968. An aluminum variant of Numbers, 146 x 110 cm in gray, was cast in the same year. It displays a grid of 11 rows and 11 columns in the normal sequence 0-9 of the numerals so that each next row or column begins with the next numeral. The stenciled numerals had been taken from a commercially available set.
The artist kept the aluminum Numbers until he sold it to Paul G. Allen in 2001. From that collection, it was sold for $ 17.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 49.
Johns resumed in 2008 the project of number sequences in bronze, aluminum, silver, and copper.
In 1964 he was commissioned for a monumental grid of numbers for the use of the lobby of the theater of the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. This work titled Numbers is made of separate painted metal panels of one numeral each, bolted together for an overall size of 275 x 213 cm. Sequences of numerals are a path to infinity when considering that they can build unlimited numbers. A footprint of Merce Cunningham superseded a numeral toward the upper right corner of that original.
Johns's project to complement the Lincoln Numbers by a bronze failed in 1968. An aluminum variant of Numbers, 146 x 110 cm in gray, was cast in the same year. It displays a grid of 11 rows and 11 columns in the normal sequence 0-9 of the numerals so that each next row or column begins with the next numeral. The stenciled numerals had been taken from a commercially available set.
The artist kept the aluminum Numbers until he sold it to Paul G. Allen in 2001. From that collection, it was sold for $ 17.6M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 49.
Johns resumed in 2008 the project of number sequences in bronze, aluminum, silver, and copper.
