1980
1980 Pleasure of the Road
2020 SOLD for $ 41M including premium
David Hockney could not do any more without Los Angeles. In 1978 he moves there permanently. The workshop is downside, in the plain of Santa Monica. The residence is up, in the Hollywood Hills. Everyday, morning and evening, his journey passes through Nichols Canyon. The environment is idyllic : swimming pools, palm trees, blue sky, bright colors.
The road is both winding and wide. It was built in 1925 to give the megalopolis a comfortable road escape to the north. David knows all its twists and turns. He drives with musical gestures. The melody he sings compensates for his increasing deafness.
David is not a professional musician. He is a pictorial artist. To express the pleasure of his journey, he paints in 1980 Nichols Canyon, acrylic on canvas 213 x 152 cm, with colors inspired by the vibrant exaggerations of the Fauvistes.
The musical meanders of the road cross all the space. It is a real road : its shortened name, Nichols Cyn Rd, is inscribed like on a road map. The STOP at the place where the road leaves the hills, in the foreground, marks the exit from that paradise. The red dot in the middle of the route symbolizes the artist's Mercedes-Benz.
Nichols Canyon will be sold by Phillips in New York on December 7, lot 10. The October 26 press release announces an estimate in the region of $ 35M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
David had pleasure in communicating in this work his musical style of driving in the hills. Painted ten years later with the same inspiration in a more spectacular perspective, Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm, was sold for $ 28.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018.
The road is both winding and wide. It was built in 1925 to give the megalopolis a comfortable road escape to the north. David knows all its twists and turns. He drives with musical gestures. The melody he sings compensates for his increasing deafness.
David is not a professional musician. He is a pictorial artist. To express the pleasure of his journey, he paints in 1980 Nichols Canyon, acrylic on canvas 213 x 152 cm, with colors inspired by the vibrant exaggerations of the Fauvistes.
The musical meanders of the road cross all the space. It is a real road : its shortened name, Nichols Cyn Rd, is inscribed like on a road map. The STOP at the place where the road leaves the hills, in the foreground, marks the exit from that paradise. The red dot in the middle of the route symbolizes the artist's Mercedes-Benz.
Nichols Canyon will be sold by Phillips in New York on December 7, lot 10. The October 26 press release announces an estimate in the region of $ 35M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
David had pleasure in communicating in this work his musical style of driving in the hills. Painted ten years later with the same inspiration in a more spectacular perspective, Pacific Coast Highway and Santa Monica, oil on canvas 198 x 305 cm, was sold for $ 28.5M including premium by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018.
1980-1981 A Ultimate Challenge to Giacometti
2017 SOLD for € 25M including premium
Alberto Giacometti was enthusiastic about the project of decoration of the plaza in front of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York which was entrusted to him in 1958 and which could be the culmination of the artistic approach of his whole life. He will install his monumental sculptures according to the design of his Places I and II of 1948 simulating by scattered characters the buzzing activity of the city.
His figures will not be new : the walking man, the standing woman and the big head. Refusing obstinately the solution of a mechanical enlargement, he works to establish new proportions that will allow his statues not to be miniaturized by the 60 floors of the bank nor to seem huge to the passers-by.
Alberto does not yet know New York. After many trials in plaster and bronze, he is discouraged by his own belief of the gigantism of the city and renounces the project in 1960. He does not however scrap everything. Four Grande Femme Debout, two Homme qui marche and one Tête de Diego are preserved.
The Homme qui marche I in life size is hardly higher than the Homme au doigt from 1947 but it is one of the best symbols of the vision of the humanity by Giacometti. The bronze 2/6 edited by Susse in 1961 was sold for £ 65M including premium by Sotheby's on February 3, 2010.
The four women are of various heights. With her 2.75 m tall, the Grande Femme II is the giant who dominates the whole group. The number 1/6 cast by Susse in 1961 was sold for $ 27.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2008.
This bronze, the highest ever made by the artist, is the subject of a posthumous re-edition in 1980-1981 also by Susse in seven copies plus two artist's proofs for Annette Giacometti and plus one for the Fondation Maeght. One of the épreuves d'artiste will be sold by Christie's in Paris on October 19, lot 8.
Alberto first visited New York City in October 1965. Suffering from cancer since 1963 he at last appreciated when it was too late how he could have integrated his ultimate work within Manhattan. He conceived an even taller sculpture and put Diego in charge of preparing the big frame but this project was stopped by his own death.
His figures will not be new : the walking man, the standing woman and the big head. Refusing obstinately the solution of a mechanical enlargement, he works to establish new proportions that will allow his statues not to be miniaturized by the 60 floors of the bank nor to seem huge to the passers-by.
Alberto does not yet know New York. After many trials in plaster and bronze, he is discouraged by his own belief of the gigantism of the city and renounces the project in 1960. He does not however scrap everything. Four Grande Femme Debout, two Homme qui marche and one Tête de Diego are preserved.
The Homme qui marche I in life size is hardly higher than the Homme au doigt from 1947 but it is one of the best symbols of the vision of the humanity by Giacometti. The bronze 2/6 edited by Susse in 1961 was sold for £ 65M including premium by Sotheby's on February 3, 2010.
The four women are of various heights. With her 2.75 m tall, the Grande Femme II is the giant who dominates the whole group. The number 1/6 cast by Susse in 1961 was sold for $ 27.5M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2008.
This bronze, the highest ever made by the artist, is the subject of a posthumous re-edition in 1980-1981 also by Susse in seven copies plus two artist's proofs for Annette Giacometti and plus one for the Fondation Maeght. One of the épreuves d'artiste will be sold by Christie's in Paris on October 19, lot 8.
Alberto first visited New York City in October 1965. Suffering from cancer since 1963 he at last appreciated when it was too late how he could have integrated his ultimate work within Manhattan. He conceived an even taller sculpture and put Diego in charge of preparing the big frame but this project was stopped by his own death.
1980 Day Dream by Wyeth
2022 SOLD for $ 23.3M by Christie's
Trained by his father the illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth had an early interest in the landscape and people of his very immediate vicinity in a village of Pennsylvania. This regionalist artist added another focal point in and around a family home in a village of Maine. His realistic pictures are characterized by the use of egg tempera.
His paintings look like a reality show. Over a span of 77 years he maintained the theme of the life of one neighboring family in Pennsylvania. He said : "I didn't think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally."
His breakthrough picture, Christina's World, painted in 1948, features a day dreaming neighbor from Maine. She is semi-reclining in a white dress in an open field. The pathetic thing is that the 55 year old woman was in real life crippled from a genetic neuropathy and unable to walk.
Andrew's art is unconventional. Asked in 1977 to identify the most overrated and underrated artists, an art critic provided the same name for both categories : Andrew Wyeth.
In 1971 in Pennsylvania, the old timer of the neighboring family needed a nurse for his care. Helga, the 38 year old helper, became a new model for the artist who broke her intimacy up to 1985 in an estimated 45 paintings and more than 200 drawings.
Day Dream features the Pennsylvania caretaker in a bedroom of Wyeth's Maine home. The beautiful Helga in full nudity is deeply asleep on a bed which is wrapped in a transparent canopy that protects her vulnerability. This tempera on panel 48 x 69 cm painted in 1980 was sold for $ 23.3M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 33.
His paintings look like a reality show. Over a span of 77 years he maintained the theme of the life of one neighboring family in Pennsylvania. He said : "I didn't think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally."
His breakthrough picture, Christina's World, painted in 1948, features a day dreaming neighbor from Maine. She is semi-reclining in a white dress in an open field. The pathetic thing is that the 55 year old woman was in real life crippled from a genetic neuropathy and unable to walk.
Andrew's art is unconventional. Asked in 1977 to identify the most overrated and underrated artists, an art critic provided the same name for both categories : Andrew Wyeth.
In 1971 in Pennsylvania, the old timer of the neighboring family needed a nurse for his care. Helga, the 38 year old helper, became a new model for the artist who broke her intimacy up to 1985 in an estimated 45 paintings and more than 200 drawings.
Day Dream features the Pennsylvania caretaker in a bedroom of Wyeth's Maine home. The beautiful Helga in full nudity is deeply asleep on a bed which is wrapped in a transparent canopy that protects her vulnerability. This tempera on panel 48 x 69 cm painted in 1980 was sold for $ 23.3M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 33.
1980 Tibetan Shepherds by Chen Danqing
2021 SOLD for RMB 160M by Poly
Chen Danqing graduated in 1980 with his Tibetan series at the Oil Painting Department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
This series is made of seven paintings executed in Lhassa between 1978 and 1980. Fully departing from the official propagandist art, it was featuring humanistic scenes of the harsh daily life of non-Han people. The artist had been influenced by an exhibition of French countryside artists of the 19th century including Courbet, Millet and Bastien-Lepage.
Displayed at the 1980 Exhibition of Graduates of the Academy, the series was immediately applauded as the triggering as a post Maoist art with a come back to the emotional. Chairman Mao had died in 1976. That exhibition also featured Father by Luo Zhongli.
The seventh and last opus, titled Shepherds, is the most emotional. A Tibetan man and a Tibetan woman are exchanging a loving kiss. They are standing in their heavy Tibetan coats against a parapet in the countryside near Lhassa.
This oil on panel 79 x 52 cm was sold by Poly for RMB 36M in 2007 and for RMB 160M on June 4, 2021, lot 3307.
This rendering of rustic civilizations anticipate the 1981 scene of Kirghiz wrestling by Huang Zhou, sold for RMB 130M by Poly on December 2, 2013, lot 1921, and the scenes in Tibet by Chen Yifei of which an example painted in 1994 was sold for RMB 81M by China Guardian on May 21, 2011.
This series is made of seven paintings executed in Lhassa between 1978 and 1980. Fully departing from the official propagandist art, it was featuring humanistic scenes of the harsh daily life of non-Han people. The artist had been influenced by an exhibition of French countryside artists of the 19th century including Courbet, Millet and Bastien-Lepage.
Displayed at the 1980 Exhibition of Graduates of the Academy, the series was immediately applauded as the triggering as a post Maoist art with a come back to the emotional. Chairman Mao had died in 1976. That exhibition also featured Father by Luo Zhongli.
The seventh and last opus, titled Shepherds, is the most emotional. A Tibetan man and a Tibetan woman are exchanging a loving kiss. They are standing in their heavy Tibetan coats against a parapet in the countryside near Lhassa.
This oil on panel 79 x 52 cm was sold by Poly for RMB 36M in 2007 and for RMB 160M on June 4, 2021, lot 3307.
This rendering of rustic civilizations anticipate the 1981 scene of Kirghiz wrestling by Huang Zhou, sold for RMB 130M by Poly on December 2, 2013, lot 1921, and the scenes in Tibet by Chen Yifei of which an example painted in 1994 was sold for RMB 81M by China Guardian on May 21, 2011.
1980 Bridge by Ryman
2015 SOLD for $ 20.6M by Christie's
Robert Ryman is a security guard in the MoMA from 1953 to 1960. He meets the minimalists Sol LeWitt and Dan Flavin and watches the abstract expressionist paintings recently acquired by the museum.
Ryman is interested in the act of painting. By a curious coincidence Brice Marden will follow in a similar path in 1963 : guard at the Jewish Museum, Marden discovered the pop art during an exhibition dedicated to Jasper Johns.
After Johns, Ryman rejects the narrative in art. Same as Manzoni on the other side of the Atlantic he refuses all the colors because they are already loaded with symbols. He desires not to be mingled with pre-existing artistic movements such as minimalism, conceptual art or abstract expressionism.
Like Donald Judd, Ryman watches the effect of lighting on his work. For half a century he produces his paintings in full white on various supports, usually in a thick impasto that creates surface asperities and generates brightness variations under the light. He states that his art is an experience. His achievement is like a meaningless material and the title is not significant.
Bridge, 192 x 183 cm made in 1980 in oil and rust preventative paint on canvas, was sold for $ 20.6M by Christie's on May 13, 2015 from a lower estimate of $ 10M, lot 38 B.
Ryman is interested in the act of painting. By a curious coincidence Brice Marden will follow in a similar path in 1963 : guard at the Jewish Museum, Marden discovered the pop art during an exhibition dedicated to Jasper Johns.
After Johns, Ryman rejects the narrative in art. Same as Manzoni on the other side of the Atlantic he refuses all the colors because they are already loaded with symbols. He desires not to be mingled with pre-existing artistic movements such as minimalism, conceptual art or abstract expressionism.
Like Donald Judd, Ryman watches the effect of lighting on his work. For half a century he produces his paintings in full white on various supports, usually in a thick impasto that creates surface asperities and generates brightness variations under the light. He states that his art is an experience. His achievement is like a meaningless material and the title is not significant.
Bridge, 192 x 183 cm made in 1980 in oil and rust preventative paint on canvas, was sold for $ 20.6M by Christie's on May 13, 2015 from a lower estimate of $ 10M, lot 38 B.
1980 Three Studies for a Self Portrait by Bacon
2013 SOLD for £ 13.7M by Sotheby's
Throughout his career, Bacon questioned the meaning of human life and, of course, of his own life. Hypersensitive and relevant, he makes no concessions to aesthetics. His world is ugly.
He is increasingly haunted by death. Let's be honest: in the evolution offered by Bacon of his own image, we are not interested by himself but rather in the projection of his vision on our own issues. Bacon is a psychologist but not a metaphysician, and all of that fascinates us without leading to anything. He is the most disturbing of modern artists.
In his portrait format standardized by him in triptychs of elements 35 x 30 cm in oil on canvas, Francis Bacon executed eleven triptychs of his own face, starting this drama shortly before the death of George Dyer.
The penultimate tryptic made in this format was sold for £ 13.7M by Sotheby's on February 12, 2013.
It was made in 1980, when Bacon was 71 years old. His round face is recognizable throughout his work, but this time his triple mirror returns an almost realistic picture without excessive sinister deformation and without the colored spots of the necrosis of flesh. The gaze is chilling : facing an invisible mirror, the character sees only himself. Communication and commiseration are impossible.
By such a realism, Bacon wants to believe that he is not aging, so his actual age is undefined. The white collar is a sign that he continues his professional activity. Five years later, he will provide in another format the final counterpart to his illusory swan song : he will display himself in the attitude of an old man.
He is increasingly haunted by death. Let's be honest: in the evolution offered by Bacon of his own image, we are not interested by himself but rather in the projection of his vision on our own issues. Bacon is a psychologist but not a metaphysician, and all of that fascinates us without leading to anything. He is the most disturbing of modern artists.
In his portrait format standardized by him in triptychs of elements 35 x 30 cm in oil on canvas, Francis Bacon executed eleven triptychs of his own face, starting this drama shortly before the death of George Dyer.
The penultimate tryptic made in this format was sold for £ 13.7M by Sotheby's on February 12, 2013.
It was made in 1980, when Bacon was 71 years old. His round face is recognizable throughout his work, but this time his triple mirror returns an almost realistic picture without excessive sinister deformation and without the colored spots of the necrosis of flesh. The gaze is chilling : facing an invisible mirror, the character sees only himself. Communication and commiseration are impossible.
By such a realism, Bacon wants to believe that he is not aging, so his actual age is undefined. The white collar is a sign that he continues his professional activity. Five years later, he will provide in another format the final counterpart to his illusory swan song : he will display himself in the attitude of an old man.
1980 Naked Portrait with Reflection by Freud
2008 SOLD for £ 11.8M by Christie's
A young woman who is featuring her full nudity in the studio of Lucian Freud must not feel obliged to listen to his endless stories. A snooze or a sleep is instead more conducive to that intimate smiling which is a natural expectation for all women.
Naked portrait with reflection, oil on canvas 91 x 91 cm painted in 1980, was sold for £ 11.8M by Christie's on June 30, 2008, lot 18.
The fully grown nude body is comfortably laying on her back on the signature green sofa of the artist's studio. She is viewed downward in a diagonal with a relaxed position of her limbs. The right knee is resting on a small cushion while the foot is crossing the other leg. The eyes are open for some happy day dream, in a deliberate ignorance to the artist. Gradually applied swirls of oil paint are capturing the details in her curves.
The reflection addressed in the title refers to a pair of male shoed feet and lower pants behind the sofa which are considered as a selfie of that peeping artist who once said : "Living people interest me far more than anything else. I'm really interested in them as animals". That word was sometimes used by Lucian for self portraits reflected in a mirror.
Naked portrait with reflection, oil on canvas 91 x 91 cm painted in 1980, was sold for £ 11.8M by Christie's on June 30, 2008, lot 18.
The fully grown nude body is comfortably laying on her back on the signature green sofa of the artist's studio. She is viewed downward in a diagonal with a relaxed position of her limbs. The right knee is resting on a small cushion while the foot is crossing the other leg. The eyes are open for some happy day dream, in a deliberate ignorance to the artist. Gradually applied swirls of oil paint are capturing the details in her curves.
The reflection addressed in the title refers to a pair of male shoed feet and lower pants behind the sofa which are considered as a selfie of that peeping artist who once said : "Living people interest me far more than anything else. I'm really interested in them as animals". That word was sometimes used by Lucian for self portraits reflected in a mirror.
1980 Untitled I by de Kooning
2012 SOLD for $ 14M by Christie's
Untitled I, 1980, oil on canvas 203 x 178 cm by de Kooning, was sold for $ 14M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Christie's on May 8, 2012, lot 21. That standardized format 80 x 70 inches is one of the preferred sizes of the artist in his Untitled series started in 1975.
This opus is in fact a tentative to restart the luminous style that culminated in the abstract landscapes of 1977 and had been suspended when he fell once again in 1978 in alcoholism and anxiety. The floating of colored forms on a luminous white background may be compared with the Untitled VI of 1975, sold for $ 12.4M by Phillips de Pury on May 10, 2012, lot 19.
Such a come back to the beginning of that creative phase is significant. After the exciting but exhausting abstract landscapes of 1977, the structuring lines separating the colors will now cancel the thematic inspiration in a fall back to a mere abstractions.
The rarity of de Kooning's art in 1979 and 1980 attests of the sustained psychological difficulty of the artist then aged 76. They have been made still scarcer by the practice of the artist to scrap his own work when it did not match his expectancies.
This opus is in fact a tentative to restart the luminous style that culminated in the abstract landscapes of 1977 and had been suspended when he fell once again in 1978 in alcoholism and anxiety. The floating of colored forms on a luminous white background may be compared with the Untitled VI of 1975, sold for $ 12.4M by Phillips de Pury on May 10, 2012, lot 19.
Such a come back to the beginning of that creative phase is significant. After the exciting but exhausting abstract landscapes of 1977, the structuring lines separating the colors will now cancel the thematic inspiration in a fall back to a mere abstractions.
The rarity of de Kooning's art in 1979 and 1980 attests of the sustained psychological difficulty of the artist then aged 76. They have been made still scarcer by the practice of the artist to scrap his own work when it did not match his expectancies.
1980 The New Jeff Koons
2013 SOLD for $ 9.4M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
Jeff Koons' first solo exhibition, titled The New, took place in May and June 1980 in New York at the New Museum of Contemporary Art. It consists of Hoover and Shelton vacuum cleaners and household items installed individually in plexiglass display cases, with fluorescent lighting by spotlights and through the rear.
Another step is immediately taken. If a vacuum cleaner is a work of art, the artist himself is also worthy to be admired.
Under the title The New Jeff Koons, he introduces in his series The New a photographic portrait of himself at the age of 4, which he assembles in a fluorescent light box 103 x 78 x 20 cm. This piece will remain unique in its kind, as if it were a prototype intended to explore new avenues of creativity.
Koons is ambitious. The image he displays of himself is a model of kindness devoid of shyness : calm, smiling amiably, dressed and combed neatly. The felt-tip pens symbolize the birth of his artistic genius.
The New Jeff Koons was sold for $ 9.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M, lot 9. It is the most expensive photo in auction history, $ 5 million more than Gursky's monumental Rhein II.
Another step is immediately taken. If a vacuum cleaner is a work of art, the artist himself is also worthy to be admired.
Under the title The New Jeff Koons, he introduces in his series The New a photographic portrait of himself at the age of 4, which he assembles in a fluorescent light box 103 x 78 x 20 cm. This piece will remain unique in its kind, as if it were a prototype intended to explore new avenues of creativity.
Koons is ambitious. The image he displays of himself is a model of kindness devoid of shyness : calm, smiling amiably, dressed and combed neatly. The felt-tip pens symbolize the birth of his artistic genius.
The New Jeff Koons was sold for $ 9.4M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2013 from a lower estimate of $ 2.5M, lot 9. It is the most expensive photo in auction history, $ 5 million more than Gursky's monumental Rhein II.
1980 Nine Gold Marilyns Reversal by Warhol
2013 SOLD for $ 9.1M by Phillips
The Nine repeated Marilyn gold reversal painted by Warhol in 1980 comes in the follow of the colored reversals of the previous year excepted that the lines are not multicolored but a bright monochrome gold. The nine figures have almost the same density excepted one lighter in the upper right corner, increasing the otherworldly impression.
This gold acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas of same size 137 x 106 cm as the 1979 examples was sold for $ 7.9M by Phillips de Pury on November 7, 2011, lot 8, for $ 9.1M by Phillips on November 11, 2013, lot 8, and for £ 6.5M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2021, lot 124.
A reversal Four White on White Mona Lisas, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 135 x 102 cm painted in 1980, was sold for $ 3.5M by Christie's on May 13, 2021, lot 36 B.
This gold acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas of same size 137 x 106 cm as the 1979 examples was sold for $ 7.9M by Phillips de Pury on November 7, 2011, lot 8, for $ 9.1M by Phillips on November 11, 2013, lot 8, and for £ 6.5M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2021, lot 124.
A reversal Four White on White Mona Lisas, acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas 135 x 102 cm painted in 1980, was sold for $ 3.5M by Christie's on May 13, 2021, lot 36 B.
