1993
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Richter Doig Ruscha Marshall Modern watches
See also : Richter Doig Ruscha Marshall Modern watches
1993 Abstraktes Bild 797-2 by Richter
2021 SOLD for $ 33M by Sotheby's
Gerhard Richter admitted that the process for his abstract paintings included some unplanned effect to be offset by his ultimate inspection of his creation. In all cases, even in his sublimely chaotic and most sumptuous abstract works, chance followed a detailed preparation adapted for each opus.
The catalogue raisonné for 1993 begins with Grün Blau Rot, a series of no less than 126 oils on canvas 30 x 40 cm continuously numbered in two sub-series from 789-1 to 789-115 and from 789-a to 789-k.
This time consuming task was obviously intended to test the visual effects of detailed forms confronting three basic colors without changing the pigments. The Rot Blau Gelb of 1973, numbered 338-1 to 338-100 in rectangular format and 339-1 to 339-7 in square format, had been a similar experience.
The 1993 green blue red was immediately reused by the artist with the brushes as the background layer in seven large size square paintings. Random effects were added with the squeegee in the desired range of vibrant colors. Richter's tool has here a deconstructing role that cancels forever the intermediate states, same as the drippings for Pollock.
The importance of this process is confirmed by the fact that one of these Abstrakte Bilder was representing Richter's abstractions in the severely selected Macklowe collection. This 797-2, oil on canvas 240 x 240 cm painted in 1993, was sold for $ 33M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 22.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 16, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: Gerhard Richter’s towering ‘Abstraktes Bild’ from 1993 fetches $33M.
The catalogue raisonné for 1993 begins with Grün Blau Rot, a series of no less than 126 oils on canvas 30 x 40 cm continuously numbered in two sub-series from 789-1 to 789-115 and from 789-a to 789-k.
This time consuming task was obviously intended to test the visual effects of detailed forms confronting three basic colors without changing the pigments. The Rot Blau Gelb of 1973, numbered 338-1 to 338-100 in rectangular format and 339-1 to 339-7 in square format, had been a similar experience.
The 1993 green blue red was immediately reused by the artist with the brushes as the background layer in seven large size square paintings. Random effects were added with the squeegee in the desired range of vibrant colors. Richter's tool has here a deconstructing role that cancels forever the intermediate states, same as the drippings for Pollock.
The importance of this process is confirmed by the fact that one of these Abstrakte Bilder was representing Richter's abstractions in the severely selected Macklowe collection. This 797-2, oil on canvas 240 x 240 cm painted in 1993, was sold for $ 33M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Sotheby's on November 15, 2021, lot 22.
Grok thought :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Nov 16, 2021
#AuctionUpdate: Gerhard Richter’s towering ‘Abstraktes Bild’ from 1993 fetches $33M.
- Sotheby's post highlights the $33 million sale of Gerhard Richter's 1993 oil-on-canvas "Abstraktes Bild (797-2)," a 240x240 cm square abstract featuring layered reds, greens, and blues created via his signature squeegee technique for unpredictable textures.
- The painting sold on November 15, 2021, during the Macklowe Collection auction at Sotheby's New York, which achieved a record $676 million total, reflecting Richter's status as a top living artist with abstracts dominating high-end sales.
- Provenance traces from Marian Goodman Gallery to the Macklowes in 2005; the work toured Australian exhibitions in 1998-2000, embodying Richter's exploration of chance and control in post-war abstraction.
1993 Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion by Chen Yifei
2017 SOLD for RMB 150M by China Guardian
Chen Yifei loved pretty women and beautiful clothes. Trained in oil painting by a Soviet artist, he abandons without regret the political themes after the Cultural Revolution but maintains a fully realistic line with shimmering colors.
Returning to Shanghai in 1990 after ten years in the United States, he observes that women are badly dressed. He will devote a considerable energy to remedy it while reviving ancient traditions.
He paints groups of beauties who would have their place in a fashion show. He also became a filmmaker, created the Layefe brand first for elegant and affordable clothing and then also for interior design, piloted a model agency and died of overwork in 2005.
In his paintings graceful women let themselves be quietly admired in the manner of the Japanese geishas.
Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion was sold for RMB 150M by China Guardian on December 19, 2017. It was shared post sale by China Daily. This oil painting i170 x 244 cm executed in 1993 is depicting the life in Shanghai in the 1930s with many characters gathering around a tea table.
On May 26, 2018, Christie's sold for HK $ 83M as lot 30 a 190 x 208 cm oil on canvas painted in 1997 by Chen Yifei, featuring four standing women with sophisticated and colorful long gowns. The artwork is titled Beauties on Promenade by reference to a poem by Du Fu of the Tang era that glorified the elegant fashion of his time with embroidered silk dresses and jade ornaments on heads.
Returning to Shanghai in 1990 after ten years in the United States, he observes that women are badly dressed. He will devote a considerable energy to remedy it while reviving ancient traditions.
He paints groups of beauties who would have their place in a fashion show. He also became a filmmaker, created the Layefe brand first for elegant and affordable clothing and then also for interior design, piloted a model agency and died of overwork in 2005.
In his paintings graceful women let themselves be quietly admired in the manner of the Japanese geishas.
Warm Spring in the Jade Pavilion was sold for RMB 150M by China Guardian on December 19, 2017. It was shared post sale by China Daily. This oil painting i170 x 244 cm executed in 1993 is depicting the life in Shanghai in the 1930s with many characters gathering around a tea table.
On May 26, 2018, Christie's sold for HK $ 83M as lot 30 a 190 x 208 cm oil on canvas painted in 1997 by Chen Yifei, featuring four standing women with sophisticated and colorful long gowns. The artwork is titled Beauties on Promenade by reference to a poem by Du Fu of the Tang era that glorified the elegant fashion of his time with embroidered silk dresses and jade ornaments on heads.
1993 Cold Beer Beautiful Girls by Ruscha
2022 SOLD for $ 19M by Sotheby's
The signature letter art by Ed Ruscha is a new language in the follow of Pop art.
That minimalist style can express feelings and fun. Executed in 1993, the large scale COLD BEER BEAUTIFUL GIRLS brings a double word message of happiness in clean white block letters emerging from a nice background of blue sky loaded with dynamic white clouds underlined by a narrow land edge.
This acrylic on canvas 193 x 252 cm was sold for $ 19M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 106.
It had been sold for $ 540K by Christie's on November, 2002, lot 39. The catalogue quoted Hamlet : Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Sotheby's 2022 catalogue reported a surrealist statement by the artist : Taking things out of context is a useful tool to an artist.
Another painting from the same period states that Irresistible Singles Win Incredible Dates.
That minimalist style can express feelings and fun. Executed in 1993, the large scale COLD BEER BEAUTIFUL GIRLS brings a double word message of happiness in clean white block letters emerging from a nice background of blue sky loaded with dynamic white clouds underlined by a narrow land edge.
This acrylic on canvas 193 x 252 cm was sold for $ 19M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 106.
It had been sold for $ 540K by Christie's on November, 2002, lot 39. The catalogue quoted Hamlet : Words without thoughts never to heaven go. Sotheby's 2022 catalogue reported a surrealist statement by the artist : Taking things out of context is a useful tool to an artist.
Another painting from the same period states that Irresistible Singles Win Incredible Dates.
DOIG
Peter Doig’s Cabin series (often called the Concrete Cabins) follows directly from The Architect’s Home in the Ravine (1991). This earlier work depicts a house (designed by architect Eberhard Zeidler) barely visible through dense foliage in Toronto’s Rosedale ravine, blending rigid geometry with wild nature to evoke memory, displacement, and the uncanny.
Doig, who moved between Scotland, Trinidad, Canada, and London, has long explored motifs of isolated cabins as symbols of “homeliness” mixed with vacancy and voyeurism, drawing on childhood memories, photographs, film stills, and art-historical references. The Concrete Cabins series (roughly 1991–1999, with about nine large-scale works) shifts to Le Corbusier’s abandoned Unité d’Habitation (a modernist “cité radieuse” or vertical city) at Briey-en-Forêt, France. Doig visited in 1991 with a restoration group; the building, left to ruin after social and economic failure, struck him as a utopian dream overtaken by nature—especially when glimpsed through trees.
Overview and inspiration: The series captures the tension between modernist architecture (rational, communal ideals post-WWII) and encroaching wilderness, symbolizing faded utopias, memory’s fragmentation, and the interplay of built and natural worlds. Doig worked from his own video footage (filmed on site), spliced into black-and-white stills, then photocopied for further blurring—mimicking how memory and vision work as fluid, layered processes rather than static images.
Intention: To depict the “movement of an eye” and the sensation of looking through layers (foreground foliage and background structure simultaneously), evoking psychological depth, déjà vu, and the hazy quality of recollection. Trees act as a screen or veil, much like snow in other works.
Breakthrough: These paintings marked Doig’s emergence as a major figure. They built on earlier cabin motifs but scaled up ambition with monumental canvases, technical virtuosity, and a distinctive synthesis of figuration and abstraction. Cabin Essence featured prominently in his 1994 Turner Prize exhibition.
Style and technique: Dreamlike, luminous landscapes with psychological tension. Doig layers paint in complex ways—fluid impasto trails, translucent ribbons, stippled specks, and thick encrusted passages—to create shifting focus, holographic effects, and surface tactility. Influences include Cézanne (glimpsing architecture through foliage), Bonnard (space “behind the eyes”), Munch, Richter, and others. He often painted the building through the trees rather than overlaying foliage, heightening immediacy.
Legacy: The series is a cornerstone of Doig’s oeuvre, celebrated in major retrospectives (Tate Britain 2008, Fondation Beyeler 2014–15, etc.). It exemplifies his exploration of memory, place, and painting’s materiality, influencing contemporary figurative and landscape painting. The motif recurs in later “cabins and canoes” themes.
Doig, who moved between Scotland, Trinidad, Canada, and London, has long explored motifs of isolated cabins as symbols of “homeliness” mixed with vacancy and voyeurism, drawing on childhood memories, photographs, film stills, and art-historical references. The Concrete Cabins series (roughly 1991–1999, with about nine large-scale works) shifts to Le Corbusier’s abandoned Unité d’Habitation (a modernist “cité radieuse” or vertical city) at Briey-en-Forêt, France. Doig visited in 1991 with a restoration group; the building, left to ruin after social and economic failure, struck him as a utopian dream overtaken by nature—especially when glimpsed through trees.
Overview and inspiration: The series captures the tension between modernist architecture (rational, communal ideals post-WWII) and encroaching wilderness, symbolizing faded utopias, memory’s fragmentation, and the interplay of built and natural worlds. Doig worked from his own video footage (filmed on site), spliced into black-and-white stills, then photocopied for further blurring—mimicking how memory and vision work as fluid, layered processes rather than static images.
Intention: To depict the “movement of an eye” and the sensation of looking through layers (foreground foliage and background structure simultaneously), evoking psychological depth, déjà vu, and the hazy quality of recollection. Trees act as a screen or veil, much like snow in other works.
Breakthrough: These paintings marked Doig’s emergence as a major figure. They built on earlier cabin motifs but scaled up ambition with monumental canvases, technical virtuosity, and a distinctive synthesis of figuration and abstraction. Cabin Essence featured prominently in his 1994 Turner Prize exhibition.
Style and technique: Dreamlike, luminous landscapes with psychological tension. Doig layers paint in complex ways—fluid impasto trails, translucent ribbons, stippled specks, and thick encrusted passages—to create shifting focus, holographic effects, and surface tactility. Influences include Cézanne (glimpsing architecture through foliage), Bonnard (space “behind the eyes”), Munch, Richter, and others. He often painted the building through the trees rather than overlaying foliage, heightening immediacy.
Legacy: The series is a cornerstone of Doig’s oeuvre, celebrated in major retrospectives (Tate Britain 2008, Fondation Beyeler 2014–15, etc.). It exemplifies his exploration of memory, place, and painting’s materiality, influencing contemporary figurative and landscape painting. The motif recurs in later “cabins and canoes” themes.
Le Corbusier’s Unité d’Habitation (Housing Unit), also known as Cité Radieuse (“Radiant City”), is a modernist residential typology developed in the post-WWII era. It represents his vision of a “vertical garden city” that balances individual living with communal facilities, drawing on principles from his earlier Ville Radieuse urban planning concepts and the Athens Charter.
Core Design Principles and the Prototype (Marseille, 1947–1952)
The first and most iconic Unité was built in Marseille. Key features include:
Variations and the Briey-en-Forêt Unité (1959–1961)
Five main Unités were built:
It was fully occupied by 1961 but declined rapidly due to:
Peter Doig Connection: In summer 1991, Doig visited the derelict Briey Unité as part of a restoration/artists’ group. He was struck by the modernist structure emerging through dense surrounding forest— a utopian dream overtaken by nature. This directly inspired his Concrete Cabins series (including Cabin Boiler House and Cabin Essence), where he captured the veiled, dreamlike tension between rational architecture and encroaching wilderness using video stills, photocopies, and layered painting.
Legacy and Critique
The Unités influenced 20th-century housing and Brutalism but faced criticism for:
Core Design Principles and the Prototype (Marseille, 1947–1952)
The first and most iconic Unité was built in Marseille. Key features include:
- Scale and Structure: A massive concrete block (135m long, 24m wide, 56m high) on pilotis (stilts), allowing ground-level open space for circulation and greenery. It houses 337 apartments (23 types) for ~1,600–1,700 people across 12–18 storeys (variations exist).
- "Bottle Rack" Construction: Apartments slot into an independent reinforced concrete frame (posts and beams) like bottles in a rack. Duplex (two-storey) units interlock, with double-height living spaces and large windows for east-west light and views.
- Modulor System: All proportions based on Le Corbusier’s human-scale measurement system (derived from a 1.83m man with arm raised), incorporating the golden ratio for ergonomic harmony.
- Communal Amenities: Internal “streets” on floors 7–8 with shops, hotel, school, and services. Rooftop terrace with nursery, pool, running track, and recreational spaces—treating the building as a self-contained village.
- Brutalist Aesthetic: Exposed béton brut (raw concrete), colorful brise-soleil (sun breakers) on facades, and functional, ship-like interiors. It pioneered Brutalism.
Variations and the Briey-en-Forêt Unité (1959–1961)
Five main Unités were built:
- Marseille (prototype)
- Nantes-Rezé (1955)
- Berlin (1957, adapted for Interbau exhibition)
- Briey-en-Forêt (1959–61)
- Firminy-Vert (1965–67)
It was fully occupied by 1961 but declined rapidly due to:
- Economic downturn in local steel/mining industries → worker redundancy and out-migration.
- Poor management by the social housing office (HLM).
- Isolation, maintenance issues, vandalism, and design/maintenance flaws.
Peter Doig Connection: In summer 1991, Doig visited the derelict Briey Unité as part of a restoration/artists’ group. He was struck by the modernist structure emerging through dense surrounding forest— a utopian dream overtaken by nature. This directly inspired his Concrete Cabins series (including Cabin Boiler House and Cabin Essence), where he captured the veiled, dreamlike tension between rational architecture and encroaching wilderness using video stills, photocopies, and layered painting.
Legacy and Critique
The Unités influenced 20th-century housing and Brutalism but faced criticism for:
- Social failures (isolation, maintenance challenges in some locations).
- Rigid modernism not always adapting well to real-life needs or economies.
- However, Marseille remains vibrant and UNESCO-listed (2016) as part of Le Corbusier’s works.
1
1993 Cabin Boiler House
2020 SOLD for £ 14M by Christie's
After the war, it was necessary to rebuild. Le Corbusier offers a new concept with a social vocation, the Unité d'Habitation, better known as Cité Radieuse. The first example, the Maison du Fada in Marseille, is immediately famous.
On the same principle of building bars housing more than 300 apartments, Le Corbusier constructs from 1959 in the middle of the forest the Unité d'Habitation of Briey, for enabling a housing solution to the influx of workers in Lorraine. The recession of the mining basin and various construction defects led to the final evacuation of the building in 1983.
Le Corbusier is the symbol of social modernism. His frontages with a too strict geometry evoke the compositions of Mondrian. In 1991, the Unité of Briey is left as nothing more than an abandoned work of art 110 meters long, 56 meters high and 19 meters wide. Peter Doig visits the site with a group solicited to propose a restoration and takes some photos through the trees.
For the young artist, the Unité of Briey is a memory which reconstructs a bygone past. The theme combines art, modernism, the reconquest of the site by nature. He begins his series of nine large-format paintings titled Concrete Cabins. Through the dark trees, the bar has no perspective, in a dynamic overview in the manner of Cézanne. The mingle of pictorial techniques is influenced by Richter.
One of the nine opus shows another view. 300 meters from the main structure, the boiler house had anticipated the disuse of the rest of the Unité. We no longer use coal heating. The two-level facade is decrepit and the windows are gaping. The chimneys look like two horns above this haggard dwelling even more sinister or pitiful in the bright daylight.
Cabin Boiler House, oil on canvas 200 x 275 cm painted in 1993, was sold for £ 14M by Christie's on October 22, 2020, lot 110.
The building bar and the boiler house have both been listed in the inventory of the French historical monuments with the label of Patrimoine du XXème siècle, respectively in 1993 and 2007.
Cabin Boiler House (1993)
This large work (200 × 275 cm, oil on canvas) stands out in the series as it focuses on the separate boiler house (about 300m from the main Unité), rather than the main building veiled by foliage. The angular structure emerges more prominently, with windows like eyes and surrounding pillars evoking anthropomorphic figures. Lighter palette with golden hues, white highlights, and metallic glow on the building contrasts denser earlier works; ethereal, hazy passages mix with impasto.
It was exhibited widely (Prix Eliette von Karajan 1994, which Doig won; Tate Britain retrospective, etc.) and is noted for its painterly bravura and psychological charge—offering a “startled jolt” of clarity amid the dreamlike forest. The building’s history (decommissioned after the Unité’s decline) ties into themes of lost modernist hopes, amplified by Doig’s journey past WWI graveyards. Technique emphasizes rhythmic vertical tree segments, marbled colors, and quivering sunlight, creating multiple perceptual layers.
On the same principle of building bars housing more than 300 apartments, Le Corbusier constructs from 1959 in the middle of the forest the Unité d'Habitation of Briey, for enabling a housing solution to the influx of workers in Lorraine. The recession of the mining basin and various construction defects led to the final evacuation of the building in 1983.
Le Corbusier is the symbol of social modernism. His frontages with a too strict geometry evoke the compositions of Mondrian. In 1991, the Unité of Briey is left as nothing more than an abandoned work of art 110 meters long, 56 meters high and 19 meters wide. Peter Doig visits the site with a group solicited to propose a restoration and takes some photos through the trees.
For the young artist, the Unité of Briey is a memory which reconstructs a bygone past. The theme combines art, modernism, the reconquest of the site by nature. He begins his series of nine large-format paintings titled Concrete Cabins. Through the dark trees, the bar has no perspective, in a dynamic overview in the manner of Cézanne. The mingle of pictorial techniques is influenced by Richter.
One of the nine opus shows another view. 300 meters from the main structure, the boiler house had anticipated the disuse of the rest of the Unité. We no longer use coal heating. The two-level facade is decrepit and the windows are gaping. The chimneys look like two horns above this haggard dwelling even more sinister or pitiful in the bright daylight.
Cabin Boiler House, oil on canvas 200 x 275 cm painted in 1993, was sold for £ 14M by Christie's on October 22, 2020, lot 110.
The building bar and the boiler house have both been listed in the inventory of the French historical monuments with the label of Patrimoine du XXème siècle, respectively in 1993 and 2007.
Cabin Boiler House (1993)
This large work (200 × 275 cm, oil on canvas) stands out in the series as it focuses on the separate boiler house (about 300m from the main Unité), rather than the main building veiled by foliage. The angular structure emerges more prominently, with windows like eyes and surrounding pillars evoking anthropomorphic figures. Lighter palette with golden hues, white highlights, and metallic glow on the building contrasts denser earlier works; ethereal, hazy passages mix with impasto.
It was exhibited widely (Prix Eliette von Karajan 1994, which Doig won; Tate Britain retrospective, etc.) and is noted for its painterly bravura and psychological charge—offering a “startled jolt” of clarity amid the dreamlike forest. The building’s history (decommissioned after the Unité’s decline) ties into themes of lost modernist hopes, amplified by Doig’s journey past WWI graveyards. Technique emphasizes rhythmic vertical tree segments, marbled colors, and quivering sunlight, creating multiple perceptual layers.
2
1993-1994 Cabin Essence Black
2015 SOLD for £ 9.6M by Christie's
The man leaves sometimes within nature the grandiose remains of his desires and of his abandoned projects. Peter Doig is an explorer of such lost sites that emit an intense emotion. He is also a contemporary painter with an impeccable technique who readily acknowledges the influence of the masters onto his art.
His large size paintings provide a fascinating effect. His bold compositions are inspired by Cézanne, who knew to incorporate foregrounds in a scenery without hiding the majesty of the background while also avoiding to cheat against the laws of perspective. The achievement is the impression of an approachable infinity.
In his imaginary scenes with empty canoes in a wild forest, Doig achieved this effect by the reflection in the water and the disappearance of the horizon. Swamped, painted in 1990, was sold for $ 26M by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
The artist visited in 1991 Le Corbusier's cité in Briey-en-Forêt, emptied fifteen years before. He was influenced by its architectural style that is linked to the abstract expression of nature by Mondrian. Above all, the view of this ghost urbanization through the dense network of trees provided one of these post-Cézannian themes which were the thread of his own research. He began the series entitled Concrete Cabins.
Painted in 1991, the Architect's home in the ravine is a daylight view of a site near Toronto. The house is gradually covered by the trees same as when Pollock covered his canvases with colors. This oil on canvas 200 x 250 cm was sold for £ 14.4M by Sotheby's on March 7, 2018.
On October 16, 2015, Christie's sold for £ 9.6M Cabin Essence Black, oil on canvas 230 x 350 cm dated 1993-1994, lot 11.
The large building in the night, inspired from Briey, seems very near with its many lights filtered through the dark trees. Doig was probably influenced by the latest expressionist researches of Richter. The result is a sumptuous effect of shine and shadow that may be seen as an echo to the Isle of the dead by Böcklin.
Cabin Essence (Black) (1993–94)
This monumental painting (230 × 350 cm, oil on canvas; also called Cabin Essence Black) is widely regarded as the pinnacle and largest/finest of the Concrete Cabins. It shows the main Unité gleaming through dense forest, with liquescent ribbons of color (russet, green, yellow, blue), vibrant stippled canopy, and floating, carved paint globules mimicking studio detritus or film-still splatters. The surface shifts between watery reflections, impenetrable encrustations, and electric flashes—distilling “rationality submerged in mystery.”
It was central to the 1994 Victoria Miro Concrete Cabins show, Turner Prize display (on the catalogue cover), and later retrospectives. Doig has highlighted it as capturing the building’s emotional transformation when seen through trees: from architecture to pure feeling, representing “thousands of people” in a failed utopia. The black variant emphasizes darker, glowing depths with heightened lyrical abstraction.
Both works exemplify Doig’s mastery in turning personal and historical encounters into immersive, timeless painted experiences.
His large size paintings provide a fascinating effect. His bold compositions are inspired by Cézanne, who knew to incorporate foregrounds in a scenery without hiding the majesty of the background while also avoiding to cheat against the laws of perspective. The achievement is the impression of an approachable infinity.
In his imaginary scenes with empty canoes in a wild forest, Doig achieved this effect by the reflection in the water and the disappearance of the horizon. Swamped, painted in 1990, was sold for $ 26M by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
The artist visited in 1991 Le Corbusier's cité in Briey-en-Forêt, emptied fifteen years before. He was influenced by its architectural style that is linked to the abstract expression of nature by Mondrian. Above all, the view of this ghost urbanization through the dense network of trees provided one of these post-Cézannian themes which were the thread of his own research. He began the series entitled Concrete Cabins.
Painted in 1991, the Architect's home in the ravine is a daylight view of a site near Toronto. The house is gradually covered by the trees same as when Pollock covered his canvases with colors. This oil on canvas 200 x 250 cm was sold for £ 14.4M by Sotheby's on March 7, 2018.
On October 16, 2015, Christie's sold for £ 9.6M Cabin Essence Black, oil on canvas 230 x 350 cm dated 1993-1994, lot 11.
The large building in the night, inspired from Briey, seems very near with its many lights filtered through the dark trees. Doig was probably influenced by the latest expressionist researches of Richter. The result is a sumptuous effect of shine and shadow that may be seen as an echo to the Isle of the dead by Böcklin.
Cabin Essence (Black) (1993–94)
This monumental painting (230 × 350 cm, oil on canvas; also called Cabin Essence Black) is widely regarded as the pinnacle and largest/finest of the Concrete Cabins. It shows the main Unité gleaming through dense forest, with liquescent ribbons of color (russet, green, yellow, blue), vibrant stippled canopy, and floating, carved paint globules mimicking studio detritus or film-still splatters. The surface shifts between watery reflections, impenetrable encrustations, and electric flashes—distilling “rationality submerged in mystery.”
It was central to the 1994 Victoria Miro Concrete Cabins show, Turner Prize display (on the catalogue cover), and later retrospectives. Doig has highlighted it as capturing the building’s emotional transformation when seen through trees: from architecture to pure feeling, representing “thousands of people” in a failed utopia. The black variant emphasizes darker, glowing depths with heightened lyrical abstraction.
Both works exemplify Doig’s mastery in turning personal and historical encounters into immersive, timeless painted experiences.
1993 Beauty Examined by Marshall
2022 SOLD for $ 13.5M by Sotheby's
Kerry James Marshall started by confronting the black and the white. Painted in 1991, Nat Shango displays an African American activist holding an ax, resolutely turning his back to a wall of blonde pin up posters. This mixed media on linen 187 x 142 cm was sold for $ 7.5M by Christie's on May 11, 2021, lot 12 A.
Executed in the same year in a similar format, another opus displays a similar background with the blondes in a lower contrast. Titled You must suffer if you want to be beautiful, it displays a standing Lady whose eyes are the only discernable detail in a typical silhouette of an African woman. It was sold for $ 2.3M by Christie's on May 17, 2018, lot 54 B.
In the follow, Beauty Examined is still more politically corrosive. The silhouetted woman is lying on her back like a corpse in a morgue. A rolled up sleeve provides a visibility on bones and veins of the arm in the taste of Basquiat's anatomical transparencies.
The dead beauty is indeed in a display in a dissection room, as confirmed by the labels Exhibit and Anatomical Axiom, and by the caption detailing the age, race and weight of that female subject. The wall is covered with anatomical figures and with three portraits of blacks, arguably from the medical staff. A motto Beauty is only skin deep reinforces the social statement.
No white figure is visible. The artist does not need them any more to shout his message about the unacceptable condition of the African Americans in the USA.
This acrylic and collage on canvas 215 x 250 cm painted in 1993 was sold for $ 13.5M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 11, for the benefit of an Adventist medical research center.
It had been sold in April 1993 through a gallery in Los Angeles. The artist moved to Chicago in the same year.
Executed in the same year in a similar format, another opus displays a similar background with the blondes in a lower contrast. Titled You must suffer if you want to be beautiful, it displays a standing Lady whose eyes are the only discernable detail in a typical silhouette of an African woman. It was sold for $ 2.3M by Christie's on May 17, 2018, lot 54 B.
In the follow, Beauty Examined is still more politically corrosive. The silhouetted woman is lying on her back like a corpse in a morgue. A rolled up sleeve provides a visibility on bones and veins of the arm in the taste of Basquiat's anatomical transparencies.
The dead beauty is indeed in a display in a dissection room, as confirmed by the labels Exhibit and Anatomical Axiom, and by the caption detailing the age, race and weight of that female subject. The wall is covered with anatomical figures and with three portraits of blacks, arguably from the medical staff. A motto Beauty is only skin deep reinforces the social statement.
No white figure is visible. The artist does not need them any more to shout his message about the unacceptable condition of the African Americans in the USA.
This acrylic and collage on canvas 215 x 250 cm painted in 1993 was sold for $ 13.5M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on May 19, 2022, lot 11, for the benefit of an Adventist medical research center.
It had been sold in April 1993 through a gallery in Los Angeles. The artist moved to Chicago in the same year.
1993 WOOL
1
multi-colored fuckem
2023 SOLD for $ 10M by Christie's
The If You by Christopher Wool has a shorter variant. The text in five rows is FUCKEM IFTHEY CANT TAKE AJOKE.
A FUCKEM with alignment on the left side and tiny drippings, enamel on aluminum 132 x 91 cm painted in 1992, was sold for $ 7.3M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 4.
An Untitled enamel on aluminum 198 x 152 cm painted in 1993 has the same FUCKEM phrase in the same disposition but a goodie is added : each letter has another color, superseding the black and covering the full color spectrum.
A close inspection reveals that some colors have been over-painted on another one, leaving dirty traces through thin coverage areas. Also considering the usual drippings, this opus provides a sharp contradiction with the impression of full cleanliness of the previous items of the series. This color under a color also reminds the signature hidden elements of Jasper Johns.
This FUCKEM is indeed a culmination of the series, demonstrating a posteriori the complexity of the artistic language and possibly expressing the dirt of real urban life. It was sold for $ 10M by Christie's on May 17, 2023, lot 18C.
A FUCKEM with alignment on the left side and tiny drippings, enamel on aluminum 132 x 91 cm painted in 1992, was sold for $ 7.3M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 4.
An Untitled enamel on aluminum 198 x 152 cm painted in 1993 has the same FUCKEM phrase in the same disposition but a goodie is added : each letter has another color, superseding the black and covering the full color spectrum.
A close inspection reveals that some colors have been over-painted on another one, leaving dirty traces through thin coverage areas. Also considering the usual drippings, this opus provides a sharp contradiction with the impression of full cleanliness of the previous items of the series. This color under a color also reminds the signature hidden elements of Jasper Johns.
This FUCKEM is indeed a culmination of the series, demonstrating a posteriori the complexity of the artistic language and possibly expressing the dirt of real urban life. It was sold for $ 10M by Christie's on May 17, 2023, lot 18C.
2
P174
2022 SOLD for $ 9M by Christie's
After his letter art of 1988-1992 in his signature enamel on aluminum, Christopher Wool re-used that painting technique in another theme in a triple reference to Warhol.
The silkscreen is now superseding the stencil. The repeated picture of a flower is Warholian, and the symmetry of the ink spot reminds Warhol's Rorschach series of 1984. Christopher's father was a psychiatrist.
The opus P174 230 x 176 cm painted in 1993 nearly cancels the flowers within the density of the black pigment, reminding Pollock's hidden figures. It was sold for $ 9M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 118.
The silkscreen is now superseding the stencil. The repeated picture of a flower is Warholian, and the symmetry of the ink spot reminds Warhol's Rorschach series of 1984. Christopher's father was a psychiatrist.
The opus P174 230 x 176 cm painted in 1993 nearly cancels the flowers within the density of the black pigment, reminding Pollock's hidden figures. It was sold for $ 9M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 118.
3
P183
2014 SOLD for $ 8.9M by Christie's
Painted in 1993, the opus P183 displays in its center an accumulation of kitsch daisies obtained from multiple layers of silkscreen. It is an example of new experiences by Wool toward a decorative effect in which the black ink cancels the natural colored beauty of the flowers, re-interpreting the early black and white screen prints of flowers by Warhol.
This enamel on aluminum 230 x 152 cm was sold for $ 8.9M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 39.
Painted in 1995, the P209, titled Feet don't fail me now after a 1982 album of rock song by Utopia, mingles several stenciled floral patterns. This enamel on aluminum 274 x 183 cm retrieves the usual monumental size of the 1990 letter art. It was sold for $ 8.9M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 5.
This enamel on aluminum 230 x 152 cm was sold for $ 8.9M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on November 12, 2014, lot 39.
Painted in 1995, the P209, titled Feet don't fail me now after a 1982 album of rock song by Utopia, mingles several stenciled floral patterns. This enamel on aluminum 274 x 183 cm retrieves the usual monumental size of the 1990 letter art. It was sold for $ 8.9M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2018, lot 5.
1993 FP Journe 15/93
2024 SOLD for CHF 7.3M by Phillips
In 1983 François-Paul Journe completed his first pocket watch, incorporating in the following of Breguet a tourbillon with a detent escapement. He then designs a pocket watch with remontoir. Established in Paris in 1985 he creates a high complication pocket watch inspired by Breguet's Marie-Antoinette. This chronometer incorporates a remontoir, a perpetual calendar and a detent escapement.
In 1991 Journe's first wristwatch includes a tourbillon and a remontoir d'égalité. Invented by John Harrison for his marine chronometer, that remontoir had never been embedded before in a wristwatch. This component provides an equal amount of energy whatever the winding level of the main spring. The combination of tourbillon and remontoir improves the accuracy. This watch is kept in the collection of the inventor.
The second tourbillon wristwatch à remontoir d'égalité is built by Journe in 1993, entirely by hand, in platinum with a 18k gold calibre. Its aesthetics is inspired from Berthoud. It is inscribed FP JOURNE on the dial with a reference 15/93 identifying it as the 15th piece ever made by that watchmaker. 16/93 is a replica from the same year.
The first owner of the 15/93 and his family kept it with its original invoice and technical drawings and with period documents. The watch was serviced by Journe himself in 2024. It was sold for CHF 7.3M from an estimate in excess of CHF 2M by Phillips on November 8, 2024, lot 14.
Journe created Montres Journe SA in Geneva in 1999.
In 1991 Journe's first wristwatch includes a tourbillon and a remontoir d'égalité. Invented by John Harrison for his marine chronometer, that remontoir had never been embedded before in a wristwatch. This component provides an equal amount of energy whatever the winding level of the main spring. The combination of tourbillon and remontoir improves the accuracy. This watch is kept in the collection of the inventor.
The second tourbillon wristwatch à remontoir d'égalité is built by Journe in 1993, entirely by hand, in platinum with a 18k gold calibre. Its aesthetics is inspired from Berthoud. It is inscribed FP JOURNE on the dial with a reference 15/93 identifying it as the 15th piece ever made by that watchmaker. 16/93 is a replica from the same year.
The first owner of the 15/93 and his family kept it with its original invoice and technical drawings and with period documents. The watch was serviced by Journe himself in 2024. It was sold for CHF 7.3M from an estimate in excess of CHF 2M by Phillips on November 8, 2024, lot 14.
Journe created Montres Journe SA in Geneva in 1999.
