1996
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Women artists French sculpture Lichtenstein Lichtenstein > 1965 Doig Yoshitomo Nara Dinosaur
See also : Women artists French sculpture Lichtenstein Lichtenstein > 1965 Doig Yoshitomo Nara Dinosaur
1996 Spider by BOURGEOIS
1
2023 SOLD for $ 33M by Sotheby's
Louise Bourgeois desired to interpret her relationship with her own parents, generating a suffering that she appeased by her art at the borderline of sexual provocation. From 1951 to 1980 she tries a psychoanalysis. It is a failure : she considers that Freud does not propose anything for the artists.
She left many writings about her own art but it remains difficult to find the key. The relationship between sex and family, the position of the child within the family cell, are the highly traumatic guides to her creativity. Until 98 years old, she will be an activist in support to all the sexual minorities.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is a further female carnal symbol.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. The spider does not look like us, yet we share the planet with it. Good worker, it tirelessly endeavors to create and repair its web. It disturbs us and has no face, and we interpret it as a threat. This is unfair : the spider protects our health by catching and eating the mosquitoes.
By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
The spider symbolizes her own beloved nurturing mother who had died six decades earlier. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size. Some of them have a dressed body, also recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries. Louise's mother was indeed a weaver, like a spider.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015.
In 1995, at the age of 84, she suddenly understands that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective.
The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
Largest Bourgeois's spiders have a remarkable feature : this figurative sculpture can be viewed from inside by a tall standing person. He or she admires its graceful arches. An abstract precedent was with Calder's monumental stabiles.
A Spider 340 x 670 x 630 cm was cast in bronze in six copies. Its artist's proof is in steel. One of the eight leg's ends is curved as to catch a prey.
The number 1/6 was cast in January 1996. and immediately exhibited in a San Francisco gallery. It was sold for $ 33M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2023, lot 105. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
She left many writings about her own art but it remains difficult to find the key. The relationship between sex and family, the position of the child within the family cell, are the highly traumatic guides to her creativity. Until 98 years old, she will be an activist in support to all the sexual minorities.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is a further female carnal symbol.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. The spider does not look like us, yet we share the planet with it. Good worker, it tirelessly endeavors to create and repair its web. It disturbs us and has no face, and we interpret it as a threat. This is unfair : the spider protects our health by catching and eating the mosquitoes.
By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
The spider symbolizes her own beloved nurturing mother who had died six decades earlier. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size. Some of them have a dressed body, also recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries. Louise's mother was indeed a weaver, like a spider.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015.
In 1995, at the age of 84, she suddenly understands that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective.
The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
Largest Bourgeois's spiders have a remarkable feature : this figurative sculpture can be viewed from inside by a tall standing person. He or she admires its graceful arches. An abstract precedent was with Calder's monumental stabiles.
A Spider 340 x 670 x 630 cm was cast in bronze in six copies. Its artist's proof is in steel. One of the eight leg's ends is curved as to catch a prey.
The number 1/6 was cast in January 1996. and immediately exhibited in a San Francisco gallery. It was sold for $ 33M by Sotheby's on May 18, 2023, lot 105. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
2
2011 SOLD for $ 10.7M by Christie's
The spider does not look like us, yet we share the planet with it. Good worker, it tirelessly endeavours to create its web. It disturbs us and has no face, and we interpret it as a threat.
Louise Bourgeois was not an artist of animal themes when she reached fame in an age when her contemporaries have retired. She thereafter devoted to what she felt as the most intimate, and carved giant spiders.
For Louise, the spider symbolizes her mother whom she had adored. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size.
She created several models of all dimensions. The largest, 9 meters high, are entitled Maman.
A single piece in stainless steel was sold € 2.9M by Christie's in Paris on May 27, 2008. Made in 2003, 1.12 m tall, it has a dressed body, once again recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries.
A large model made in bronze in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on November 8, 2011. Its huge surface of 6.68 x 6.33 m for only 3.38 m high is providing a decidedly protective attitude.
Louise Bourgeois was not an artist of animal themes when she reached fame in an age when her contemporaries have retired. She thereafter devoted to what she felt as the most intimate, and carved giant spiders.
For Louise, the spider symbolizes her mother whom she had adored. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size.
She created several models of all dimensions. The largest, 9 meters high, are entitled Maman.
A single piece in stainless steel was sold € 2.9M by Christie's in Paris on May 27, 2008. Made in 2003, 1.12 m tall, it has a dressed body, once again recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries.
A large model made in bronze in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on November 8, 2011. Its huge surface of 6.68 x 6.33 m for only 3.38 m high is providing a decidedly protective attitude.
1996 Seductive Girl by Lichtenstein
2013 SOLD for $ 31.5M by Christie's
In 1993, when Roy Lichtenstein focuses on the female nude, he actually starts two different lines of images. In one of them, the woman is nude in her apartment, busy in her daily activities. The other set shows her in bust, centered in a bold close-up composition where the frame is cutting hair, arms and lower breast.
Same as Munch, Lichtenstein is a great picture maker who prepares prints. Prints from his later career, after almost twenty years, regularly appear on the market. A printed copy of the 1994 nude with blue hair, 130 x 80 cm, was sold for $ 320K by Christie's on October 30, 2013.
A Seductive Girl painted on canvas in 1996, 127 x 183 cm, was sold for $ 31.5M from a lower estimate of $ 22M by Christie's on November 12, 2013.
This pretty blonde on her bed is a sister of the young women painted by Roy thirty years earlier after copying images in the comic books. Her texture is also composed of colored dots more or less densely arranged for bringing the perspective.
Unlike her former friends, she is naked. As usual with Roy, this modern young woman establishes a communication with the viewer, but for once she is not troubled but troubling. She gently seduces the old Roy.
This creative burst was unfortunately stopped in the following year by the sudden death of Roy, aged 74.
Same as Munch, Lichtenstein is a great picture maker who prepares prints. Prints from his later career, after almost twenty years, regularly appear on the market. A printed copy of the 1994 nude with blue hair, 130 x 80 cm, was sold for $ 320K by Christie's on October 30, 2013.
A Seductive Girl painted on canvas in 1996, 127 x 183 cm, was sold for $ 31.5M from a lower estimate of $ 22M by Christie's on November 12, 2013.
This pretty blonde on her bed is a sister of the young women painted by Roy thirty years earlier after copying images in the comic books. Her texture is also composed of colored dots more or less densely arranged for bringing the perspective.
Unlike her former friends, she is naked. As usual with Roy, this modern young woman establishes a communication with the viewer, but for once she is not troubled but troubling. She gently seduces the old Roy.
This creative burst was unfortunately stopped in the following year by the sudden death of Roy, aged 74.
1996 Ceratosaur
2025 SOLD for $ 30.5M by Sotheby's
Ceratosaurus, meaning horned lizard, is a genus of medium sized carnivorous theropod dinosaurs that lived in the late Jurassic period around 150 million years ago. It was so named for a horn on the snout and a pair of horns over the eyes.
Its species C. nasicornis is nearly a redundant description with the genus.
A juvenile nasicornis was excavated in 1996 in the Morrison Foundation in Wyoming. The skull and the upper and lower dentitions are virtually complete. Four teeth still have no root and five are unerupted in their socket. The fully developed teeth are elongate and razor sharp. The total number of original fossil bones is 139. They are fully mineralized with a dark grey to black coloration. The nasal and orbital horns are well preserved.
After its de-accession from a private museum in Utah that exhibited it in boxes, it was cleaned and mounted as a 190 cm high 325 cm long specimen in an action pose with open jaws. It was sold for $ 30.5M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Sotheby's on July 16, 2025, lot 11. The video is shared by the auction house.
Only four other C. nasicornis fossil skeletons are known, not including fragments, with no other juvenile example.
Its species C. nasicornis is nearly a redundant description with the genus.
A juvenile nasicornis was excavated in 1996 in the Morrison Foundation in Wyoming. The skull and the upper and lower dentitions are virtually complete. Four teeth still have no root and five are unerupted in their socket. The fully developed teeth are elongate and razor sharp. The total number of original fossil bones is 139. They are fully mineralized with a dark grey to black coloration. The nasal and orbital horns are well preserved.
After its de-accession from a private museum in Utah that exhibited it in boxes, it was cleaned and mounted as a 190 cm high 325 cm long specimen in an action pose with open jaws. It was sold for $ 30.5M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Sotheby's on July 16, 2025, lot 11. The video is shared by the auction house.
Only four other C. nasicornis fossil skeletons are known, not including fragments, with no other juvenile example.
A juvenile Ceratosaurus, the only known specimen of its kind, will be offered at #SothebysNewYork this July.
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 16, 2025
Discovered in 1996 at the historic Bone Cabin Quarry, the exceptionally preserved fossil from the Late Jurassic Period will be on public view in a free exhibition… pic.twitter.com/oeONrbeIY6
1996 Masks by Zeng Fanzhi
2020 SOLD for RMB 160M by Yongle
In his early series on Hospitals and Meats, Zeng Fanzhi brings a cruel vision of the relationship between suffering and indifference, and between human beings and flesh. A native of Wuhan, Zeng moved to Beijing in 1993. Like Kirchner in Berlin in 1911, he did not succeed in establishing in the big city a network of social relations that met his emotional need.
He begins in 1994 his series of the Masks showing the dissimulation of people behind the social conventions. The characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own, canceling any specificity. Relations between humans are artificial.
At the same time Zhang Xiaogang's Big Family expresses a similar discomfort of identifying the personality but in an opposite way : individuals are all physically different but their bleak lives are interchangeable.
The red scarf of the Young Pioneers is a rallying symbol of Zeng's masked characters. It also expresses the pride and unease of his own difference. This recruitment is offered to almost all schoolchildren as an incentive to enter the party line but the young Zeng, too bad a pupil or perhaps too emotional or undisciplined, never got it.
It is usually difficult to decide in a Zeng Mask image whether or not we see the real face of a character. This rule has two rare exceptions: self-portraits without the artificial smile and groups where the repetition of the same lines on all the figures reveals the presence of the masks.
Mask 1996 No. 6 is an oil on canvas in diptych for a 200 x 360 cm total size. Eight young Chinese people, all but one with the same face, differentiated by their height and their hairstyle including three girls, are lined up like for a group photography, with hands on the shoulders of others to simulate their comradeship. Everyone has the red scarf confirming their lack of freedom. They all smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
Sold for HK $ 75M by Christie's on May 24, 2008 at lot 156 from a lower estimate of HK $ 15M, No. 6 suddenly attracted the attention of the art market on the young painters of the Chinese social mockery, Zeng, Zhang and Yue Minjun, obscuring for a few years the variety of Chinese painting subsequent to the events of Tiananmen Square. It was sold for HK $ 105M on April 3, 2017 by Poly, lot 173, and for RMB 160M by Yongle on August 20, 2020.
He begins in 1994 his series of the Masks showing the dissimulation of people behind the social conventions. The characters hide their personality for reasons that are probably their own, canceling any specificity. Relations between humans are artificial.
At the same time Zhang Xiaogang's Big Family expresses a similar discomfort of identifying the personality but in an opposite way : individuals are all physically different but their bleak lives are interchangeable.
The red scarf of the Young Pioneers is a rallying symbol of Zeng's masked characters. It also expresses the pride and unease of his own difference. This recruitment is offered to almost all schoolchildren as an incentive to enter the party line but the young Zeng, too bad a pupil or perhaps too emotional or undisciplined, never got it.
It is usually difficult to decide in a Zeng Mask image whether or not we see the real face of a character. This rule has two rare exceptions: self-portraits without the artificial smile and groups where the repetition of the same lines on all the figures reveals the presence of the masks.
Mask 1996 No. 6 is an oil on canvas in diptych for a 200 x 360 cm total size. Eight young Chinese people, all but one with the same face, differentiated by their height and their hairstyle including three girls, are lined up like for a group photography, with hands on the shoulders of others to simulate their comradeship. Everyone has the red scarf confirming their lack of freedom. They all smile without reason, like for a family or team sport photo.
Sold for HK $ 75M by Christie's on May 24, 2008 at lot 156 from a lower estimate of HK $ 15M, No. 6 suddenly attracted the attention of the art market on the young painters of the Chinese social mockery, Zeng, Zhang and Yue Minjun, obscuring for a few years the variety of Chinese painting subsequent to the events of Tiananmen Square. It was sold for HK $ 105M on April 3, 2017 by Poly, lot 173, and for RMB 160M by Yongle on August 20, 2020.
1996 Camp Forestia by Doig
2017 SOLD for £ 15.4M by Christie's
The landscapes painted by Peter Doig are very accurate, benefiting from his mastery of detail, perspective, color, atmosphere and reinforcing the realism of the work by skillful variations in the thickness of the paint.
Yet his landscapes are not real. Doig transfers on the canvas the scenery of his imagination. He admits that he does not know to paint a landscape from outdoor. He eagerly searches for images that best match the visual memories of his childhood in Canada, far beyond the possibilities of a verbal expression.
In the 1990s some themes come regularly such as the reflection of the scene in the calm water of a pond in a dreamlike effect that is indeed duplicated. His parallel universe is not completely wild. There must be a dwelling even if it is close to ruin. A barely sketched human figure sometimes appears.
On October 6, 2017, Christie's sold for £ 15.4M an oil on canvas 170 x 170 cm painted in 1996 which offers all these characteristics, lot 19. It is titled Camp Forestia by reference to the clubhouse on a lakeshore in Seattle of which an old photograph had been accepted within his mental paradise. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Yet his landscapes are not real. Doig transfers on the canvas the scenery of his imagination. He admits that he does not know to paint a landscape from outdoor. He eagerly searches for images that best match the visual memories of his childhood in Canada, far beyond the possibilities of a verbal expression.
In the 1990s some themes come regularly such as the reflection of the scene in the calm water of a pond in a dreamlike effect that is indeed duplicated. His parallel universe is not completely wild. There must be a dwelling even if it is close to ruin. A barely sketched human figure sometimes appears.
On October 6, 2017, Christie's sold for £ 15.4M an oil on canvas 170 x 170 cm painted in 1996 which offers all these characteristics, lot 19. It is titled Camp Forestia by reference to the clubhouse on a lakeshore in Seattle of which an old photograph had been accepted within his mental paradise. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1996 Nice to see you again by Nara
2021 SOLD for $ 15.4M by Sotheby's
Yoshitomo Nara populates the walls of his studio in Cologne with his signature big headed doll girls. Around 1996 his style changes. The head portraits are replaced by full length standing figures. The outlines are less black and pastel hues soften the image.
An acrylic on canvas 180 x 150 cm painted in 1996 is ambiguously titled Nice to see you again. This second degree humor calls the basic displeasure of modern society.
The scene is quiet. The orange dress is not aggressive and the monochrome blue floor, unusual in this series, is also appeasing. The facial expression is serious, including the usual light divergent strabismus.
In opposition to that quietness, the girl holds a knife in her baby's hand, blade upwards. The arm is nevertheless so tiny that it cannot become a threat to anybody. It is obviously not a toy. The girl vainly expects from it a revenge against some unidentified disturbance of real life.
Nice to see you again was sold for $ 15.4M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2021, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
An acrylic on canvas 180 x 150 cm painted in 1996 is ambiguously titled Nice to see you again. This second degree humor calls the basic displeasure of modern society.
The scene is quiet. The orange dress is not aggressive and the monochrome blue floor, unusual in this series, is also appeasing. The facial expression is serious, including the usual light divergent strabismus.
In opposition to that quietness, the girl holds a knife in her baby's hand, blade upwards. The arm is nevertheless so tiny that it cannot become a threat to anybody. It is obviously not a toy. The girl vainly expects from it a revenge against some unidentified disturbance of real life.
Nice to see you again was sold for $ 15.4M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2021, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1996 Sunflowers by Hockney
2020 SOLD for HK$ 115M by Sotheby's
Henry Geldzahler dies in 1994 of liver cancer, at the age of 59. David Hockney, who is two years younger, loses his most effective support in America. Very shocked by this untimely passing and worried about the health of his own mother, David reacts. In 1995 he paints a series of portraits of his dogs because these pets have no reason to share his melancholy.
His sorrow is deep and that first remedy is not enough. He manages to better appreciate his most famous predecessors, starting with a Monet exhibition in Chicago. He makes a trip to The Hague for a Vermeer exhibition which captivates him by the intact transparency of the color layers.
Excited by these examples, he realizes in 1996 a series of 25 paintings about flowers. One of the two largest displays 30 sunflowers divided into five bouquets. This 183 x 183 cm oil on canvas was sold for HK $ 115M by Sotheby's on July 9, 2020, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This painting follows the examples from Monet in 1881 and from van Gogh in 1888 by bringing together several phases of flowering, while a faded sunflower on the table in the foreground echoes Nature Morte à l'Espérance, the tragic painting made by Gauguin in 1901, two years before his death.
Hockney once explained his choice about this theme : “I have always painted flowers for friends who were ill.” His capacity for resilience was further expressed on current year during the Covid-19 health crisis. A painting showing daffodils in a meadow is titled "Do remember they can't cancel the spring".
His sorrow is deep and that first remedy is not enough. He manages to better appreciate his most famous predecessors, starting with a Monet exhibition in Chicago. He makes a trip to The Hague for a Vermeer exhibition which captivates him by the intact transparency of the color layers.
Excited by these examples, he realizes in 1996 a series of 25 paintings about flowers. One of the two largest displays 30 sunflowers divided into five bouquets. This 183 x 183 cm oil on canvas was sold for HK $ 115M by Sotheby's on July 9, 2020, lot 1118. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This painting follows the examples from Monet in 1881 and from van Gogh in 1888 by bringing together several phases of flowering, while a faded sunflower on the table in the foreground echoes Nature Morte à l'Espérance, the tragic painting made by Gauguin in 1901, two years before his death.
Hockney once explained his choice about this theme : “I have always painted flowers for friends who were ill.” His capacity for resilience was further expressed on current year during the Covid-19 health crisis. A painting showing daffodils in a meadow is titled "Do remember they can't cancel the spring".
1996 Self Portrait by Kippenberger
2018 SOLD for £ 8.4M by Phillips
Martin Kippenberger has always questioned civilization. His offbeat art centered on repulsive self-portraits assesses that he cannot get an answer. Society does not prevent disasters. Sometimes it provokes them, causing scandals.
In 1996 he exhibited in Copenhagen his installation entitled The Happy End of Franz Kafka's Amerika. Beside his own work he sees The Raft of the Medusa.
This drifting Radeau painted by Géricault in 1818-1819 ensured the transition between classicism and romanticism, between official obsequious art and political protest. The monumental size of the original, 491 x 716 cm, makes it the equivalent of a modern installation. This painting based on a real fact intertwines the living, the dying and the corpses. Unlike classical painting there is no hero but the lookout sailor who dominates this terrible scene is a black man.
Kippenberger is sick. Cancer attacks his liver and pancreas and he refuses the healing. He is at the age at which Mapplethorpe had died, 43 years old. His wife Elfie photographed him in the positions of Géricault's characters. He produced a large series of paintings, drawings and lithographs on the theme of the Raft, centered on a rug displaying the empty flat raft.
An oil on canvas 150 x 180 cm painted in 1996 was sold for £ 8.4M by Phillips on June 27, 2018, lot 8. This self-portrait is staged in the position of the corpse close to falling into the sea at the bottom right of Géricault's raft. The dark blue stripe shading the left side of the image accentuates the idea that death is inescapable, somehow like Barnett Newman's sinister abstract Black Fire.
In 1996 he exhibited in Copenhagen his installation entitled The Happy End of Franz Kafka's Amerika. Beside his own work he sees The Raft of the Medusa.
This drifting Radeau painted by Géricault in 1818-1819 ensured the transition between classicism and romanticism, between official obsequious art and political protest. The monumental size of the original, 491 x 716 cm, makes it the equivalent of a modern installation. This painting based on a real fact intertwines the living, the dying and the corpses. Unlike classical painting there is no hero but the lookout sailor who dominates this terrible scene is a black man.
Kippenberger is sick. Cancer attacks his liver and pancreas and he refuses the healing. He is at the age at which Mapplethorpe had died, 43 years old. His wife Elfie photographed him in the positions of Géricault's characters. He produced a large series of paintings, drawings and lithographs on the theme of the Raft, centered on a rug displaying the empty flat raft.
An oil on canvas 150 x 180 cm painted in 1996 was sold for £ 8.4M by Phillips on June 27, 2018, lot 8. This self-portrait is staged in the position of the corpse close to falling into the sea at the bottom right of Géricault's raft. The dark blue stripe shading the left side of the image accentuates the idea that death is inescapable, somehow like Barnett Newman's sinister abstract Black Fire.
1996-1997 Shift by Saville
2023 SOLD for $ 11M by Sotheby's
The second half of the twentieth century saw the separation of aesthetics and art. The greatest artists are those who express with strength and originality their intimate view on world and life.
Seen by women, the nude body is a concrete theme. Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown, Marilyn Minter and Marlene Dumas observe it. They cancelled their potential inhibitions up to the limits of pornography. Each one in her own style, these women provide answers to the tragic question of Diane Arbus on the meaning of life seen through abnormalities and through physical or social deviances.
Jenny Saville is a woman. She therefore can not become a transgender. She imagines another hybridization. She painted in 1993 her self-portrait with the naked body of an obese woman. The belly is rigged of lines mapping for a cosmetic surgery of deflation. Saatchi has included this work entitled Plan in his third exhibition of the Young British Artists in 1994. At the same time Lucian Freud explores the naked obesity of Sue.
Saatchi was closely following the progress of Saville. During the preparation of his Sensation exhibition in 1997, he visited Saville in her studio when the artist was finishing Shift. Saatchi is seduced by this new vision of a monumental stack of nude women proposed by Saville, influenced by the parallel position of the girls in the square composition of the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The artist tells today about Shift an inspiration derived from the emotional wrapping of the viewer by Rothko within large size paintings. She wanted that this non-narrative accumulation of flesh pushes art to offer to the viewer a tactile sensation and an illusion of smell. Shift also follows the experiences by De Kooning on the expression of a woman's body through an abstract technique.
By bringing in Sensation all the darings of which some can still now be considered as socially unacceptable, Saatchi has restarted an interest of the public in contemporary art while simultaneously promoting 42 Young British Artists including Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili. 300,000 persons visited that exhibition. It is to the credit of the Royal Academy for hosting this event despite the obvious risk of scandal and of violent reaction.
Shift, oil on canvas 330 x 330 cm dated 1996-1997, was sold by Sotheby's for £ 6.8M on June 28, 2016, lot 25, and for $ 11M on November 15, 2023, lot 4.
Seen by women, the nude body is a concrete theme. Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown, Marilyn Minter and Marlene Dumas observe it. They cancelled their potential inhibitions up to the limits of pornography. Each one in her own style, these women provide answers to the tragic question of Diane Arbus on the meaning of life seen through abnormalities and through physical or social deviances.
Jenny Saville is a woman. She therefore can not become a transgender. She imagines another hybridization. She painted in 1993 her self-portrait with the naked body of an obese woman. The belly is rigged of lines mapping for a cosmetic surgery of deflation. Saatchi has included this work entitled Plan in his third exhibition of the Young British Artists in 1994. At the same time Lucian Freud explores the naked obesity of Sue.
Saatchi was closely following the progress of Saville. During the preparation of his Sensation exhibition in 1997, he visited Saville in her studio when the artist was finishing Shift. Saatchi is seduced by this new vision of a monumental stack of nude women proposed by Saville, influenced by the parallel position of the girls in the square composition of the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The artist tells today about Shift an inspiration derived from the emotional wrapping of the viewer by Rothko within large size paintings. She wanted that this non-narrative accumulation of flesh pushes art to offer to the viewer a tactile sensation and an illusion of smell. Shift also follows the experiences by De Kooning on the expression of a woman's body through an abstract technique.
By bringing in Sensation all the darings of which some can still now be considered as socially unacceptable, Saatchi has restarted an interest of the public in contemporary art while simultaneously promoting 42 Young British Artists including Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili. 300,000 persons visited that exhibition. It is to the credit of the Royal Academy for hosting this event despite the obvious risk of scandal and of violent reaction.
Shift, oil on canvas 330 x 330 cm dated 1996-1997, was sold by Sotheby's for £ 6.8M on June 28, 2016, lot 25, and for $ 11M on November 15, 2023, lot 4.
