1998
1998 HOCKNEY
1
Double East Yorkshire
2018 SOLD for £ 11.3M by Sotheby's
In his 1978 Paper Pulps, David Hockney was managing to divide his subject scenery in panels for reaching a large size. The junctions are made visible. The theme of that series is the swimming pools.
It is undoubtedly the origin of his split landscapes in oil on canvas two decades later. This trend culminates in 2007 with the monumental Bigger Trees near Warter in Yorkshire, 457 x 1219 cm in 50 panels.
Double East Yorkshire is a diptych painted in 1998 when the artist was back in California. It displays in a panoramic format 152 x 386 cm overall an idealized variety of Fauvist colors in the gently rolling fields of Hockney's home countryside, below a very limited sky. This joyful picture is conjuring the concern of the artist with the ill health of both his mother and a supporting friend of him.
This emotional landscape was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.44M on June 26, 2013, lot 10, and for £ 11.3M on June 26, 2018, lot 26.
It is undoubtedly the origin of his split landscapes in oil on canvas two decades later. This trend culminates in 2007 with the monumental Bigger Trees near Warter in Yorkshire, 457 x 1219 cm in 50 panels.
Double East Yorkshire is a diptych painted in 1998 when the artist was back in California. It displays in a panoramic format 152 x 386 cm overall an idealized variety of Fauvist colors in the gently rolling fields of Hockney's home countryside, below a very limited sky. This joyful picture is conjuring the concern of the artist with the ill health of both his mother and a supporting friend of him.
This emotional landscape was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.44M on June 26, 2013, lot 10, and for £ 11.3M on June 26, 2018, lot 26.
2
Grand Canyon
2017 SOLD for £ 6M by Sotheby's
Also painted by Hockney in 1998, 15 Canvas Study of the Grand Canyon is an assembly of five rows of three columns for an overall size of 170 x 167 cm. The technique flattens the perspective from a natural plateau with scattered trees, with the sun drenched Colorado canyon below a high horizon line, providing overall a spectacular immersion.
This view is a preparation for a 7.5 m wide 'Bigger Grand Canyon' currently kept at the National Gallery of Australia. An exhibition in Paris in 1999 enabled to compare the expression of the reds in the Colorado with the greens of the Yorkshire.
The Study was sold for £ 6M from a lower estimate of £ 3.8M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017, lot 6.
This view is a preparation for a 7.5 m wide 'Bigger Grand Canyon' currently kept at the National Gallery of Australia. An exhibition in Paris in 1999 enabled to compare the expression of the reds in the Colorado with the greens of the Yorkshire.
The Study was sold for £ 6M from a lower estimate of £ 3.8M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017, lot 6.
1998 My Lonesome Cowboy by Murakami
2008 SOLD for $ 15.2M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated in 2020
Otaku is the fake culture by which the Japanese indulge in manga and video games without limits, deliberately ignoring the real world. Takashi Murakami perceives a similarity of Otaku with American Pop Art, and especially with the pornographic drift of Warhol.
In 1996 Murakami creates a production business to publish his art. He names it the Hiropon Factory. Factory here is a direct reference to Warhol's workshop, and Hiropon is a Japanese slang for heroin (the drug). This company will be incorporated in 2001 as Kaikai Kiki.
Under the pretext of revealing the underlying sexuality of Otaku, Murakami immediately creates a triad of life-size fiberglass characters, each published in an edition of three plus one or two artist's proofs. Each unit is painted by the artist in oil and acrylic. Colors vary, as Koons does in his Celebrations. The influence of Jeff Koons' Pink Panther on this group looks obvious.
Miss ko² is the first to appear. She is welcoming, dressed as a maid from the Anna Miller restaurant chain. The title is enticing : Ko designates a future geisha before her sexual maturity. A copy was sold for $ 6.8M including premium by Phillips on November 8, 2010 and for $ 3.1M including premium by Sotheby's on November 14, 2019.
The triad is completed by the obscene Western couple, with milk and semen respectively lassoed around the body of the character. The almost naked woman with the enlarged breast is Hiropon. A copy was sold for $ 430K including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2002.
The nude man has no name but this 2.54 m high figure edited in 1998 is called My Lonesome Cowboy by reference to the pornographic film Lonesome Cowboys directed in 1968 by Warhol. A copy was sold for $ 15.2M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008 from a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 9.
In 1996 Murakami creates a production business to publish his art. He names it the Hiropon Factory. Factory here is a direct reference to Warhol's workshop, and Hiropon is a Japanese slang for heroin (the drug). This company will be incorporated in 2001 as Kaikai Kiki.
Under the pretext of revealing the underlying sexuality of Otaku, Murakami immediately creates a triad of life-size fiberglass characters, each published in an edition of three plus one or two artist's proofs. Each unit is painted by the artist in oil and acrylic. Colors vary, as Koons does in his Celebrations. The influence of Jeff Koons' Pink Panther on this group looks obvious.
Miss ko² is the first to appear. She is welcoming, dressed as a maid from the Anna Miller restaurant chain. The title is enticing : Ko designates a future geisha before her sexual maturity. A copy was sold for $ 6.8M including premium by Phillips on November 8, 2010 and for $ 3.1M including premium by Sotheby's on November 14, 2019.
The triad is completed by the obscene Western couple, with milk and semen respectively lassoed around the body of the character. The almost naked woman with the enlarged breast is Hiropon. A copy was sold for $ 430K including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2002.
The nude man has no name but this 2.54 m high figure edited in 1998 is called My Lonesome Cowboy by reference to the pornographic film Lonesome Cowboys directed in 1968 by Warhol. A copy was sold for $ 15.2M including premium by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008 from a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 9.
1998 A McLaren F1 signed by Murray
2015 SOLD for $ 13.8M including premium
The McLaren F1 is the most prestigious production supercar of the 1990s. The project developed by Gordon Murray was to offer the most powerful model that still remained legal for the road. There are however some variations among the 106 vehicles produced from 1992 to 1998.
The F1 GTR is the version for the race. The F1 GT was created to demonstrate to the boards regulating the competitions that the concepts of GTR were consistent with the features of a grand tourer. It was not proposed in the commercial catalog but after the completion of the prototype two F1 chassis were upgraded to F1 GT on special orders from private clients.
The F1 LM is a lighter version of the F1 GTR. Intended for wealthy private clients, it was built in 1995 as one prototype and five units. It could reach 385 km/h through a modification of the engine that disqualified it against the competition regulations.
In 1998 the F1 series is going to its close out. The engineers from McLaren Special Operations are responsible for producing the most exciting car of this so successful series, somehow the ultimate F1 with all possible improvements, the best supercar of its time.
The 63th and penultimate F1 street legal chassis is equipped altogether with an engine meeting the LM specification and with the comfort provided to the wealthy clients of the GT. Aware of creating a masterpiece of contemporary automobile, Murray signed it on the transmission tunnel.
This extraordinary McLaren is for sale by RM Sotheby's in Monterey on August 13, lot 107. This car is exceptional without being unique: another F1 chassis was also equipped with a LM engine.
The F1 GTR is the version for the race. The F1 GT was created to demonstrate to the boards regulating the competitions that the concepts of GTR were consistent with the features of a grand tourer. It was not proposed in the commercial catalog but after the completion of the prototype two F1 chassis were upgraded to F1 GT on special orders from private clients.
The F1 LM is a lighter version of the F1 GTR. Intended for wealthy private clients, it was built in 1995 as one prototype and five units. It could reach 385 km/h through a modification of the engine that disqualified it against the competition regulations.
In 1998 the F1 series is going to its close out. The engineers from McLaren Special Operations are responsible for producing the most exciting car of this so successful series, somehow the ultimate F1 with all possible improvements, the best supercar of its time.
The 63th and penultimate F1 street legal chassis is equipped altogether with an engine meeting the LM specification and with the comfort provided to the wealthy clients of the GT. Aware of creating a masterpiece of contemporary automobile, Murray signed it on the transmission tunnel.
This extraordinary McLaren is for sale by RM Sotheby's in Monterey on August 13, lot 107. This car is exceptional without being unique: another F1 chassis was also equipped with a LM engine.
1998 Frog Girl by Yoshitomo Nara
2021 SOLD for HK$ 96M by Sotheby's
On April 19, 2021, Sotheby's sold for HK$ 96M Frog girl, acrylic on canvas 120 x 111 cm, lot 1133 from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M. This title is a one-off in Nara's corpus and has not been satisfactorily explained.
The dress is light blue, a symbol of kindness in Nara's artistic grammar, and the straight lips give an expression of waiting. Frog Girl anticipates the Knife behind back of 2000, with the same drawing in a left-right reverse position and a totally opposite mood highlighted by only a few significant details.
The dress is light blue, a symbol of kindness in Nara's artistic grammar, and the straight lips give an expression of waiting. Frog Girl anticipates the Knife behind back of 2000, with the same drawing in a left-right reverse position and a totally opposite mood highlighted by only a few significant details.
1998 Audition by Hurvin Anderson
2021 SOLD for £ 7.4M by Christie's
Hurvin Anderson was born in Birmingham to Jamaican parents. In 1998 he was finishing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London.
Like his mentor Peter Doig, Anderson retrieves the sceneries of his deep memory. Audition, painted in February 1998, is an ambitious work in which he acts as the creator of a dream world. The theme is a large swimming pool populated with bathers, divers and rows of spectators in bathing suits all around and perched on the diving boards.
In a difference from David Hockney's private pools, he incorporates many characters and their splashes in a large panoramic view taken from an elevated point. Without details in the face, they are nevertheless the actors of his work. He explained the title by the artist's audition of each of them for defining their right place in the painting, like a movie director would have done. The landscape behind the wide window could be Caribbean.
Audition, a wall size oil on canvas 175 x 254 cm, was sold for £ 7.4M from a lower estimate of £ 1M by Christie's on October 15, 2021, lot 9.
Like his mentor Peter Doig, Anderson retrieves the sceneries of his deep memory. Audition, painted in February 1998, is an ambitious work in which he acts as the creator of a dream world. The theme is a large swimming pool populated with bathers, divers and rows of spectators in bathing suits all around and perched on the diving boards.
In a difference from David Hockney's private pools, he incorporates many characters and their splashes in a large panoramic view taken from an elevated point. Without details in the face, they are nevertheless the actors of his work. He explained the title by the artist's audition of each of them for defining their right place in the painting, like a movie director would have done. The landscape behind the wide window could be Caribbean.
Audition, a wall size oil on canvas 175 x 254 cm, was sold for £ 7.4M from a lower estimate of £ 1M by Christie's on October 15, 2021, lot 9.
1998 Martin's Friend
2019 SOLD for £ 6M including premium
In the 1980s Martin Kippenberger and Albert Oehlen shared jazz and art with the same passion, the desire to live intensely, the opposition to any cultural, aesthetic, political and social convention. Martin manages his artistic career by shocking the bourgeois.
Albert is less visible, with less diversified techniques. Rejecting analyzes and theories, he paints at great speed, without a preconceived plan, to please himself. His works are often abstract, sometimes with the appearance of an incongruous figurative element.
Albert also enjoys the absurd. His holey bull which can be used as a modular construction, 188 x 377 cm diptych painted in 1986, was sold for £ 3.6M including premium by Christie's on October 4, 2018.
On June 26 in London, Sotheby's sells a self-portrait painted by Albert Oehlen in 1998, lot 15 estimated £ 4M. On this oil and acrylic on canvas 200 x 144 cm, the half-length character, shirtless, is larger than life. The gaze expresses the need for a fierce communication. The hands are joining and the fingers are disproportionately spread.
One of Martin's specialties was the abject or macabre self-portrait. Albert's self-portrait is in the style of the mocking self-portraits of his friend. The position of the fingers evokes the nailed legs of the crucified frogs carved by Martin. The hands are empty to show the absence of Martin, who had died in the previous year of liver cancer at 44 years old.
Albert is less visible, with less diversified techniques. Rejecting analyzes and theories, he paints at great speed, without a preconceived plan, to please himself. His works are often abstract, sometimes with the appearance of an incongruous figurative element.
Albert also enjoys the absurd. His holey bull which can be used as a modular construction, 188 x 377 cm diptych painted in 1986, was sold for £ 3.6M including premium by Christie's on October 4, 2018.
On June 26 in London, Sotheby's sells a self-portrait painted by Albert Oehlen in 1998, lot 15 estimated £ 4M. On this oil and acrylic on canvas 200 x 144 cm, the half-length character, shirtless, is larger than life. The gaze expresses the need for a fierce communication. The hands are joining and the fingers are disproportionately spread.
One of Martin's specialties was the abject or macabre self-portrait. Albert's self-portrait is in the style of the mocking self-portraits of his friend. The position of the fingers evokes the nailed legs of the crucified frogs carved by Martin. The hands are empty to show the absence of Martin, who had died in the previous year of liver cancer at 44 years old.
1998 Glenn Brown, the Art Converter
2012 SOLD 5.2 M£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
We have already met Glenn Brown in this column. In a previous article, I described the artist as post-modernist, without finding out if this attribution is academically correct. No matter : Brown is one of the first painters to rely on scanning techniques, and his approach is resolutely contemporary.
Yet his work is inseparable from the history of art. Brown is a converter of the masterpieces of the past which he transfers with a hyperrealist technique before shoving the image by a personal re-appropriation with a title as hermetic as a poem by Miro.
Thus, the preceding discussion in this column dealt with Declining Nude, a reinterpretation of the self-portrait by Pissarro, sold £ 1.27 million including premium by Sotheby's on February 15, 2011.
Brown's inspiration is universal. It was logical that he was interested in John Martin, the English romantic who wanted to show the Apocalypse.
The oil on canvas painted in 1998 for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 26 is monumental, as the art market loves them: 222 x 323 cm. Its title, The Tragic conversion: of Salvador Dali (after John Martin), indicates that Brown considers himself a follower of the creative thinking of the master of Figueras.
This work is estimated £ 2.2 M. I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sotheby's were right when they demonstrated the importance of this artwork. It was sold £ 5.2 million including premium.
We have already met Glenn Brown in this column. In a previous article, I described the artist as post-modernist, without finding out if this attribution is academically correct. No matter : Brown is one of the first painters to rely on scanning techniques, and his approach is resolutely contemporary.
Yet his work is inseparable from the history of art. Brown is a converter of the masterpieces of the past which he transfers with a hyperrealist technique before shoving the image by a personal re-appropriation with a title as hermetic as a poem by Miro.
Thus, the preceding discussion in this column dealt with Declining Nude, a reinterpretation of the self-portrait by Pissarro, sold £ 1.27 million including premium by Sotheby's on February 15, 2011.
Brown's inspiration is universal. It was logical that he was interested in John Martin, the English romantic who wanted to show the Apocalypse.
The oil on canvas painted in 1998 for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 26 is monumental, as the art market loves them: 222 x 323 cm. Its title, The Tragic conversion: of Salvador Dali (after John Martin), indicates that Brown considers himself a follower of the creative thinking of the master of Figueras.
This work is estimated £ 2.2 M. I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
Sotheby's were right when they demonstrated the importance of this artwork. It was sold £ 5.2 million including premium.
1998 A Porsche Supercar in the Street
2017 SOLD for $ 5.7M including premium
The FIA GT championship preceded by the short lived BPR Global GT Series throws on the track in the mid-1990s the precursors of today's supercars. These wonders are the McLaren F1 GTR, the Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR, the Ferrari F40 and the Porsche 911 GT1.
Anticipating some flexibility in the approval rules of the GT competition cars including the demonstration that their models are based on commercial vehicles, Porsche designs directly the 911 GT1 for racing.
The technology restarts in a fast development generating very small series of vehicles with similar designations but increasing performances. The Porsche 911 GT1-98 won the first two places at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1998.
Porsche does not forget however that some customers expect high-performance cars. Such a project is useful to the prestige of the brand even if the profitability is lost in advance. After two prototypes required in 1996 for road homologation, Porsche realizes the 911 GT1 Strassenversion in 20 units which are sold to customers selected in advance by the brand.
This road legal model created high desires by its limited series, by its very high performance worthy of a winner of Le Mans and by the fact that it has never been offered new on the open market. A Strassenversion made in 1998 with less than 5,000 miles from new is for sale on March 10 by Gooding at Amelia Island, lot 042. Here is the link to the press release.
Its price is difficult to anticipate. A 1997 911 GT1 Evo competition car was sold for € 2,8M including premium by RM Sotheby's on May 14, 2016. Also keep in mind the $ 8.5M including premium recorded on August 17, 2013 by Gooding on a 1997 road legal McLaren F1 with less than 14,000 miles from new.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Anticipating some flexibility in the approval rules of the GT competition cars including the demonstration that their models are based on commercial vehicles, Porsche designs directly the 911 GT1 for racing.
The technology restarts in a fast development generating very small series of vehicles with similar designations but increasing performances. The Porsche 911 GT1-98 won the first two places at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1998.
Porsche does not forget however that some customers expect high-performance cars. Such a project is useful to the prestige of the brand even if the profitability is lost in advance. After two prototypes required in 1996 for road homologation, Porsche realizes the 911 GT1 Strassenversion in 20 units which are sold to customers selected in advance by the brand.
This road legal model created high desires by its limited series, by its very high performance worthy of a winner of Le Mans and by the fact that it has never been offered new on the open market. A Strassenversion made in 1998 with less than 5,000 miles from new is for sale on March 10 by Gooding at Amelia Island, lot 042. Here is the link to the press release.
Its price is difficult to anticipate. A 1997 911 GT1 Evo competition car was sold for € 2,8M including premium by RM Sotheby's on May 14, 2016. Also keep in mind the $ 8.5M including premium recorded on August 17, 2013 by Gooding on a 1997 road legal McLaren F1 with less than 14,000 miles from new.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1998 The Girl who had Everything by Cecily Brown
2022 SOLD for £ 4.4M by Christie's
1998 In the Privacy of Tracey Emin
2014 SOLD 2.55 M£ including premium
Provoking and feminist, Tracey Emin has shaken the language of contemporary art. She early realized that much of the public is accessible through voyeurism. In 1993, aged 30, she exhibits trivial ready mades and sordid details of her personal life.
Her first major work, in 1997, is titled Everyone I have ever slept with. The viewer must get inside a tent to discover the names of her bedfellows, including those of her infancy which obviously do not have a sexual connotation. The ambiguity of the message regarding her relationships generated the success of that work which was destroyed by an accidental fire in 2004.
In 1998, Tracey lived several days of suicidal depression after a disappointment in love. Waking up dazed after the fourth day, she observes the condition of total mess of her bed. She decides that the unmade bed reflecting her intense emotion is a work of art and brings around the furniture many orgiastic, sexual and intimate garbage from her four morbid days.
My Bed is estimated £ 800K, for sale by Christie's in London on July 1, lot 19.
Tracey Emin is a versatile artist, using alternately materials as diverse as neon, photography or textile. She is lucky to be British : London is the best place in the world to support a true artist beyond scandal. Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, she is the second woman in two and a half centuries to have become a professor in this institution.
POST SALE COMMENT
This installation has the great merit of being completely out of the traditional artistic language. It was sold for £ 2.55 million including premium.
Her first major work, in 1997, is titled Everyone I have ever slept with. The viewer must get inside a tent to discover the names of her bedfellows, including those of her infancy which obviously do not have a sexual connotation. The ambiguity of the message regarding her relationships generated the success of that work which was destroyed by an accidental fire in 2004.
In 1998, Tracey lived several days of suicidal depression after a disappointment in love. Waking up dazed after the fourth day, she observes the condition of total mess of her bed. She decides that the unmade bed reflecting her intense emotion is a work of art and brings around the furniture many orgiastic, sexual and intimate garbage from her four morbid days.
My Bed is estimated £ 800K, for sale by Christie's in London on July 1, lot 19.
Tracey Emin is a versatile artist, using alternately materials as diverse as neon, photography or textile. She is lucky to be British : London is the best place in the world to support a true artist beyond scandal. Member of the Royal Academy of Arts, she is the second woman in two and a half centuries to have become a professor in this institution.
POST SALE COMMENT
This installation has the great merit of being completely out of the traditional artistic language. It was sold for £ 2.55 million including premium.
