1978
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Sport in art French sculpture Sculpture by painters Matisse Modern tables
See also : Sport in art French sculpture Sculpture by painters Matisse Modern tables
(1930) - 1978 Back IV by Matisse (posthumous)
2010 SOLD for $ 49M by Christie's
In 1906, Matisse designs an original theme of sculpture: a nude woman standing, life size, seen from behind, leaning against a wall. The subject fascinated him to such a degree that he created three further versions, in 1913, 1916 and 1930. Psychoanalysts could probably tell us the reason of that backside position.
These four naked Backs are changing from realism to stylization, from flexibility to a balance of the masses. The last state is broad and symmetrical, the body barred from head to buttocks by a vertical braid that resembles the tail of a heavy horse.
Twelve bronzes were published from each of the four plasters between 1948 and 1981. On November 3, 2010, Christie's sold for $ 49M from a lower estimate of $ 25M a bronze of the Back IV, 189 cm high with a brown patina, cast in 1978.
These four naked Backs are changing from realism to stylization, from flexibility to a balance of the masses. The last state is broad and symmetrical, the body barred from head to buttocks by a vertical braid that resembles the tail of a heavy horse.
Twelve bronzes were published from each of the four plasters between 1948 and 1981. On November 3, 2010, Christie's sold for $ 49M from a lower estimate of $ 25M a bronze of the Back IV, 189 cm high with a brown patina, cast in 1978.
Muhammad Ali by WARHOL
1
1978
2021 SOLD for $ 18M by Christie's
In Marilyn's time, film actors and actresses crystallized the admiration and jealousy of the general public. In 1977 the art collector Richard Weisman manages to convince Andy Warhol that times have changed. Viewers now enjoy the live broadcasts of sporting events, and the era of sports marketing has already begun.
Richard selects ten champions who dominate their sport. He will visit them with Andy and their team. Andy takes the photos with his Polaroid. Back in his 'Factory', he has the canvases painted in acrylic by his collaborators, himself adding expressive scratches in the still wet paint, and at the end of the process they do the silkscreen printing.
The Athletes series, completed in 1979, is made up of ten portraits of champions in a standardized 40 x 40 inches (102 x 102 cm) format. 8 series are realized. The images are multicolored, with variations from one series to another. This grouping of ten elements to constitute a series was also standardized by Andy for his editions of prints since 1967.
These encounters between two worlds that were ignoring each other bring some surprises. O.J. Simpson has a five-day beard, Jack Nicklaus is upset against Andy's incompetence in sports. The meeting with Muhammad Ali begins with an interminable preamble during which it seems impossible to stop the champion from speaking.
A set of ten paintings was sold by Christie's for $ 5.7M on May 11, 2011. Two other sets have later been sold from the deceased estate of Weisman, also by Christie's. One of them was separated in New York on November 13 and 14, 2019 and the other one in London on February 12, 2020.
Comparing these groups provides additional information : the first Weisman set included Vitas Gerulaitis, while the other two sets display the ice hockey player Rod Gilbert. Weisman certainly wanted such a substitution to avoid tennis, already illustrated by Chris Evert, to be represented twice.
Muhammad Ali was the only one to control that his portrait matched well the image of himself that he wanted to leave, just as fearless in his activism as in his sport. He is the only one of the eleven whose sport is not symbolized by an artifact : his bare fists are brandished towards the artist.
On November 13, 2019 a portrait of Muhammad Ali executed in 1977 was sold by Christie's for $ 10M, lot 5 B.
A complete set was sold for $ 5.7M by Christie's on May 11, 2011, lot 54. The ten elements of this specific set were painted in 1978 in synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas 102 x 102 cm each. The Muhammad Ali is now separated from the rest of the set. It was sold for $ 18M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Christie's on November 11, 2021, lot 36C. The champion is featured in red with blue and yellow fists over a purple ground.
Behind the boxing champion, the greatest is Pelé, fetching $ 860K in 2019 and £ 580K in 2020.
Richard selects ten champions who dominate their sport. He will visit them with Andy and their team. Andy takes the photos with his Polaroid. Back in his 'Factory', he has the canvases painted in acrylic by his collaborators, himself adding expressive scratches in the still wet paint, and at the end of the process they do the silkscreen printing.
The Athletes series, completed in 1979, is made up of ten portraits of champions in a standardized 40 x 40 inches (102 x 102 cm) format. 8 series are realized. The images are multicolored, with variations from one series to another. This grouping of ten elements to constitute a series was also standardized by Andy for his editions of prints since 1967.
These encounters between two worlds that were ignoring each other bring some surprises. O.J. Simpson has a five-day beard, Jack Nicklaus is upset against Andy's incompetence in sports. The meeting with Muhammad Ali begins with an interminable preamble during which it seems impossible to stop the champion from speaking.
A set of ten paintings was sold by Christie's for $ 5.7M on May 11, 2011. Two other sets have later been sold from the deceased estate of Weisman, also by Christie's. One of them was separated in New York on November 13 and 14, 2019 and the other one in London on February 12, 2020.
Comparing these groups provides additional information : the first Weisman set included Vitas Gerulaitis, while the other two sets display the ice hockey player Rod Gilbert. Weisman certainly wanted such a substitution to avoid tennis, already illustrated by Chris Evert, to be represented twice.
Muhammad Ali was the only one to control that his portrait matched well the image of himself that he wanted to leave, just as fearless in his activism as in his sport. He is the only one of the eleven whose sport is not symbolized by an artifact : his bare fists are brandished towards the artist.
On November 13, 2019 a portrait of Muhammad Ali executed in 1977 was sold by Christie's for $ 10M, lot 5 B.
A complete set was sold for $ 5.7M by Christie's on May 11, 2011, lot 54. The ten elements of this specific set were painted in 1978 in synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas 102 x 102 cm each. The Muhammad Ali is now separated from the rest of the set. It was sold for $ 18M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Christie's on November 11, 2021, lot 36C. The champion is featured in red with blue and yellow fists over a purple ground.
Behind the boxing champion, the greatest is Pelé, fetching $ 860K in 2019 and £ 580K in 2020.
2
1977-1978
2020 SOLD for £ 5M by Christie's
Another example completed by Warhol in 1978, acrylic and silkscreen ink on linen 102 x 102 cm,
was sold for £ 5M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on February 12, 2020, lot 8.
was sold for £ 5M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on February 12, 2020, lot 8.
1978 Untitled III (1978 nomenclature) by de Kooning
2014 SOLD for $ 14.7M by Christie's
In 1977 Willem de Kooning was busy to interpret in abstraction the scintillating colors of landscape, sea and sky around his home at East Hampton.
That highly creative activity was followed with a reduced activity in the two following years : Untitled I to VI in 1978 and I to VII in 1979, plus several unnumbered works.
Executed ca 1978 in his larger format, an Untitled III was painted with ample gestures in ranges of blues, yellows, whites and grays that mingle in wet on wet transitions to generate the green in a confrontation of liquescence and impasto. The gray is a color of the light hitting the ocean.
In his process of the period, an atmospheric blur is generated by a preparatory sanding of the canvas. The reference to the actual landscape is voluntarily lost by frequent rotations of the canvas during the execution, for a multidirectional effect. Fields of colors are bounded with chromatic bands. In that overall composition, there is no predominating element, no "hot spot" in the wording of the artist.
That oil on canvas 195 x 222 cm was sold for $ 14.7M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 44. According to the reference to an exhibition in Basel cross checked with an index of de Kooning art, this opus is confirmed as the 1978 Untitled III. Its history begins in February 1979 with an exhibition in Chicago.
Explaining his creativity, de Kooning once stated being "happy to see that the grass is green".
Another Untitled III by de Kooning, oil on canvas 178 x 203 cm painted with a similar technique, passed at Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 15. A photo by Alexander Liberman features the artist with that painting in April 1978.
That highly creative activity was followed with a reduced activity in the two following years : Untitled I to VI in 1978 and I to VII in 1979, plus several unnumbered works.
Executed ca 1978 in his larger format, an Untitled III was painted with ample gestures in ranges of blues, yellows, whites and grays that mingle in wet on wet transitions to generate the green in a confrontation of liquescence and impasto. The gray is a color of the light hitting the ocean.
In his process of the period, an atmospheric blur is generated by a preparatory sanding of the canvas. The reference to the actual landscape is voluntarily lost by frequent rotations of the canvas during the execution, for a multidirectional effect. Fields of colors are bounded with chromatic bands. In that overall composition, there is no predominating element, no "hot spot" in the wording of the artist.
That oil on canvas 195 x 222 cm was sold for $ 14.7M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 44. According to the reference to an exhibition in Basel cross checked with an index of de Kooning art, this opus is confirmed as the 1978 Untitled III. Its history begins in February 1979 with an exhibition in Chicago.
Explaining his creativity, de Kooning once stated being "happy to see that the grass is green".
Another Untitled III by de Kooning, oil on canvas 178 x 203 cm painted with a similar technique, passed at Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 15. A photo by Alexander Liberman features the artist with that painting in April 1978.
1978 Paper Pool by HOCKNEY
1
Piscine de Medianoche
2018 SOLD for $ 11.7M by Sotheby's
In 1978 David Hockney returned to California to settle there on a lasting basis. Passing through New York, he worked for six weeks with Ken Tyler to experiment artistic creation with colored pulp of paper that this papermaker-printer had invented for Ellsworth Kelly.
The artist uses a ladle to pour the wet pulp in metal molds partitioned to create simple figures. The work is adjusted by hand after removing the molds, before being pressed flat. Each image is unique, like the monotypes of the old days.
Hockney executed two series of paper pulps with Tyler. The earlier, to try the technique, is on the theme of sunflowers. Then the Paper Pools, for which he juxtaposes several shades of blue, are displaying swimming pools, most often with a springboard. Steps with shadow (Paper Pool 2), 130 x 85 cm, appears to be still experimental. It was sold for $ 2.4M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2019, lot 140.
He designs his Paper Pools as assemblies of independently prepared elements. The junctions are visible. With this technique, he produced two large format artworks with twelve elements, the Paper Pools 18 and 27, 183 x 434 cm each.
Piscine de Medianoche, Paper Pool 30, in 6 elements in format 183 x 217 cm overall, was sold for $ 11.7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 11.
The Paper Pool series was edited in high quantities in lithography in 1980.
After his 1978 session with Tyler, Hockney will not reuse paper pulp but the fragmentation will certainly inspire his gigantic landscapes in oil on canvas of the 2000s, composed of elements adjusted by computer.
The artist uses a ladle to pour the wet pulp in metal molds partitioned to create simple figures. The work is adjusted by hand after removing the molds, before being pressed flat. Each image is unique, like the monotypes of the old days.
Hockney executed two series of paper pulps with Tyler. The earlier, to try the technique, is on the theme of sunflowers. Then the Paper Pools, for which he juxtaposes several shades of blue, are displaying swimming pools, most often with a springboard. Steps with shadow (Paper Pool 2), 130 x 85 cm, appears to be still experimental. It was sold for $ 2.4M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2019, lot 140.
He designs his Paper Pools as assemblies of independently prepared elements. The junctions are visible. With this technique, he produced two large format artworks with twelve elements, the Paper Pools 18 and 27, 183 x 434 cm each.
Piscine de Medianoche, Paper Pool 30, in 6 elements in format 183 x 217 cm overall, was sold for $ 11.7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 11.
The Paper Pool series was edited in high quantities in lithography in 1980.
After his 1978 session with Tyler, Hockney will not reuse paper pulp but the fragmentation will certainly inspire his gigantic landscapes in oil on canvas of the 2000s, composed of elements adjusted by computer.
2
Day Pool with Three Blues
2019 SOLD for $ 10.5M by Christie's
Day Pool with Three Blues, Paper Pool 7, in 6 small and 3 larger elements in format 183 x 217 cm overall, was sold for $ 10.5M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 24 B
3
Sprungbrett mit Schatten
2018 SOLD for $ 7.3M by Christie's
Sprungbrett mit Schatten, Paper Pool 14, in 6 elements in format 183 x 217 cm overall, was sold for $ 7.3M by Christie's on November 15, 2018, lot 14 C.
Green Pool with Diving Board and shadow, Paper Pool 3-L from a series of fifteen unique variants, 127 x 82 cm, was sold for $ 2.9M by Christie's on November 16, 2018, lot 697.
Green Pool with Diving Board and shadow, Paper Pool 3-L from a series of fifteen unique variants, 127 x 82 cm, was sold for $ 2.9M by Christie's on November 16, 2018, lot 697.
1978 Studio Celebration by Guston
2022 SOLD for $ 5.2M by Sotheby's
The angst of Philip Guston apparently increased in his later years.
Studio celebration, a somber scene painted in 1978 when he was 65 with only two years to live, introduces in the upper right a pair of strongly closed fists threatening a few miserable objects on a brick wall. One of the hands holds a cigarette that throws its smoke in the darkness, below a very narrow stripe of blue sky.
These objects are three bottles, three brush pots and a pair of upturned shoe soles that symbolized for the artist throughout the 1970s the miserable existence of mankind in his time.
The title expresses the autobiographical meaning of that ominous work. The fists are indeed those of the socially furious old artist. The hectic brush work in impasto is reflecting his anxiety.
This oil on canvas 132 x 152 cm was sold for $ 5.2M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 120.
Studio celebration, a somber scene painted in 1978 when he was 65 with only two years to live, introduces in the upper right a pair of strongly closed fists threatening a few miserable objects on a brick wall. One of the hands holds a cigarette that throws its smoke in the darkness, below a very narrow stripe of blue sky.
These objects are three bottles, three brush pots and a pair of upturned shoe soles that symbolized for the artist throughout the 1970s the miserable existence of mankind in his time.
The title expresses the autobiographical meaning of that ominous work. The fists are indeed those of the socially furious old artist. The hectic brush work in impasto is reflecting his anxiety.
This oil on canvas 132 x 152 cm was sold for $ 5.2M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 120.
1978 Self Portrait by Warhol
2022 SOLD for $ 4.3M by Christie's
Anxious to confront his own face with death, Andy Warhol made in 1978 a small series of self portraits, inspired by the mortuary effect of a negative photograph.
A glowing example made of silkscreening gold ink on a black painted canvas 102 x 102 cm adds the kinetic effect of a triple view of his face in three angles superimposed from nearly full front to profile, applied in three separate screens from recent Polaroid self portraits.
It was sold for $ 4.3M from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 69.
This series aesthetically anticipates the Reversal Marilyns, started in 1979, and the Reversal Electric Chairs of 1980.
A glowing example made of silkscreening gold ink on a black painted canvas 102 x 102 cm adds the kinetic effect of a triple view of his face in three angles superimposed from nearly full front to profile, applied in three separate screens from recent Polaroid self portraits.
It was sold for $ 4.3M from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 69.
This series aesthetically anticipates the Reversal Marilyns, started in 1979, and the Reversal Electric Chairs of 1980.
1978 Bronze Table by Diego Giacometti
2016 SOLD for $ 3.8M by Sotheby's
Diego Giacometti was thirteen months younger than Alberto. Decorators and sculptors, they establish their studio together in Montparnasse. The pieces of furnishing that they realize in the 1930s in particular for Jean-Michel Frank appeal by their modernism.
The war separates them temporarily. At that moment their art takes very different directions. While Alberto expresses existentialism by relying on surrealism, Diego does not leave decoration and realism. He meets the desires of his customers with his nice and humorous themes where animal figures come to perch on the struts or to huddle in the table legs.
Circa 1978, twelve years after the death of Alberto, Diego designs and executes for a customer a bronze table in the shape of a regular octagon 170 cm wide. The top is carried by eight legs in front of which the artist dispositions in the extension of each horizontal bar a standing figure in the threadlike style of Alberto.
This late synthesis of the art of the Giacometti brothers is scarce and unexpected. The table was sold for $ 3.8M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2016 from a lower estimate of $ 300K.
The war separates them temporarily. At that moment their art takes very different directions. While Alberto expresses existentialism by relying on surrealism, Diego does not leave decoration and realism. He meets the desires of his customers with his nice and humorous themes where animal figures come to perch on the struts or to huddle in the table legs.
Circa 1978, twelve years after the death of Alberto, Diego designs and executes for a customer a bronze table in the shape of a regular octagon 170 cm wide. The top is carried by eight legs in front of which the artist dispositions in the extension of each horizontal bar a standing figure in the threadlike style of Alberto.
This late synthesis of the art of the Giacometti brothers is scarce and unexpected. The table was sold for $ 3.8M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2016 from a lower estimate of $ 300K.
