1998
See also : Yoshitomo Nara Supercars British cars McLaren Sport Basketball Jordan Sport uniform Textiles Garment
1998 HOCKNEY
1
masterpiece
A Bigger Grand Canyon
National Gallery of Australia
The landscape should be the most authentic expression of nature. In the 20th century, the theme became boring, in large part due to the overabundance of photographs. In his permanent desire to act against the tide, David Hockney manages to rehabilitate the landscape.
He has a revelation in a road tunnel in 1985. The dot of light he sees beyond the darkness grows larger as the car moves forward. Photography lies doubly, because it shows the landscape from a still point of view and because the lens brings distortions. To paint a landscape, it will first be necessary to abolish perspective. The old Chinese masters understood it : their hand scrolls are travellings.
The division of an image into sections had been made necessary by the small individual format of the paper pulps prints, a technique tested by the artist in 1978. He applies this principle to painting.
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, sold for £ 6M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017, lot 6.
This view is a preparation for the 207 x 750 cm Bigger Grand Canyon in a 12 x 5 arrangement also painted in 1998. 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.
In 2007 Bigger Trees near Warter, again in Yorkshire, measures 460 x 1220 cm overall in 50 panels which cancel the distortion.
He has a revelation in a road tunnel in 1985. The dot of light he sees beyond the darkness grows larger as the car moves forward. Photography lies doubly, because it shows the landscape from a still point of view and because the lens brings distortions. To paint a landscape, it will first be necessary to abolish perspective. The old Chinese masters understood it : their hand scrolls are travellings.
The division of an image into sections had been made necessary by the small individual format of the paper pulps prints, a technique tested by the artist in 1978. He applies this principle to painting.
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, sold for £ 6M by Sotheby's on October 5, 2017, lot 6.
This view is a preparation for the 207 x 750 cm Bigger Grand Canyon in a 12 x 5 arrangement also painted in 1998. 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.
In 2007 Bigger Trees near Warter, again in Yorkshire, measures 460 x 1220 cm overall in 50 panels which cancel the distortion.
2
Study of the Grand Canyon
2017 SOLD for £ 6M by Sotheby's
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, 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 the Bigger Grand Canyon.
This view is a preparation for the Bigger Grand Canyon.
3
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.
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 by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 10.
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 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 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 by Phillips de Pury on November 8, 2010, lot 10.
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 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 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 Michael Jordan Last Dance Road Jersey
2022 SOLD for $ 10M by Sotheby's
The 1998 Finals were a key event in NBA history, opposing the Utah Jazz and the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan, who had hitherto made his whole NBA career with the Bulls, won the Most Valuable Player award of the Finals and his sixth NBA championship.
The first game was made in Salt Lake City on June 3, in a surrounding ambience hostile to the Bulls. Utah won it by a narrow margin, despite the 33 points scored by Jordan.
The road jersey worn by Michael Jordan in that Game 1 was sold for $ 10M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on September 15, 2022, lot 1. It has been photo matched in game use by MeiGray.
After Game 5 the Bulls were leading 3-2 and Utah could expect a tie as the home team in Game 6. The game was tied 83-83 with one minute left. Utah scored with 43 seconds left and Jordan brought the victory of Game 6 and the Finals to the Bulls at 87-86 with 5 seconds and a timeout left. Jordan had scored 45 points in Game 6 where he wore a similar red and black road jersey as in Game 1.
That win was also the end of an era for the Bulls plagued by tension between manager and coach. Jordan announced his retirement but made a come back as NBA player with the Washington Wizards in 2001 after the September 11 attack.
In 2020 The Last Dance raised a worldwide attention to Michael Jordan as an all sport Greatest Of All Time. This 10-part TV documentary relied on 500 hour footage of candid film of the Bulls in that highly successful 1997-1998 season, made by an entertainment crew for use in a documentary. The project had been delayed until Jordan gave his permission;
The first game was made in Salt Lake City on June 3, in a surrounding ambience hostile to the Bulls. Utah won it by a narrow margin, despite the 33 points scored by Jordan.
The road jersey worn by Michael Jordan in that Game 1 was sold for $ 10M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on September 15, 2022, lot 1. It has been photo matched in game use by MeiGray.
After Game 5 the Bulls were leading 3-2 and Utah could expect a tie as the home team in Game 6. The game was tied 83-83 with one minute left. Utah scored with 43 seconds left and Jordan brought the victory of Game 6 and the Finals to the Bulls at 87-86 with 5 seconds and a timeout left. Jordan had scored 45 points in Game 6 where he wore a similar red and black road jersey as in Game 1.
That win was also the end of an era for the Bulls plagued by tension between manager and coach. Jordan announced his retirement but made a come back as NBA player with the Washington Wizards in 2001 after the September 11 attack.
In 2020 The Last Dance raised a worldwide attention to Michael Jordan as an all sport Greatest Of All Time. This 10-part TV documentary relied on 500 hour footage of candid film of the Bulls in that highly successful 1997-1998 season, made by an entertainment crew for use in a documentary. The project had been delayed until Jordan gave his permission;
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 Ferrari F300
2022 SOLD for $ 6.2M by RM Sotheby's
After being Formula 1 world champion with Benetton in 1994 and 1995, Michael Schumacher became Ferrari's star driver in 1996. At that time Ferrari was entering a new model every year in the Grand Prix.
Ferrari had not won a Formula One world drivers' championship since 1979 and the championship for constructors since 1983. They become once again a formidable challenger in 1998 with the F300 and Schumacher as its leading driver. The 1998 winners were Häkkinen just ahead of Schumacher and McLaren-Mercedes just ahead of Ferrari.
The Ferrari model of the 1998 season was the F300. Its new 3.0-liter 80 degrees V-10 engine reached 17,500 rpm producing 800 hp. The aerodynamics was improved from the previous F310B by a width shortening and a new exhaust reduced the heating.
Schumacher competed in the 16 Grand Prix of the season, winning 6 of them. He used various F300 cars for that purpose.
One of these cars was undefeated in its four entries. After being an unused spare cars in Monaco, it won the three successive Canadian, French and British Grand Prix in June and July plus the Italian Grand Prix in September. It is still now the only undefeated FIA Grand Prix chassis with at least three wins.
It was never re-used after its Italian win and was kept in an unrestored and unaltered as-raced condition. It was sold for $ 6.2M by RM Sotheby's on August 20, 2022, lot 342. Please watch the video shared by the auction including an interview with Jean Todt, the team manager who was operating in that period the resurgence of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1.
Another F300 also driven by Schumacher in 1998 fetched $ 1.87M in January 2014 at Barrett-Jackson.
Ferrari had not won a Formula One world drivers' championship since 1979 and the championship for constructors since 1983. They become once again a formidable challenger in 1998 with the F300 and Schumacher as its leading driver. The 1998 winners were Häkkinen just ahead of Schumacher and McLaren-Mercedes just ahead of Ferrari.
The Ferrari model of the 1998 season was the F300. Its new 3.0-liter 80 degrees V-10 engine reached 17,500 rpm producing 800 hp. The aerodynamics was improved from the previous F310B by a width shortening and a new exhaust reduced the heating.
Schumacher competed in the 16 Grand Prix of the season, winning 6 of them. He used various F300 cars for that purpose.
One of these cars was undefeated in its four entries. After being an unused spare cars in Monaco, it won the three successive Canadian, French and British Grand Prix in June and July plus the Italian Grand Prix in September. It is still now the only undefeated FIA Grand Prix chassis with at least three wins.
It was never re-used after its Italian win and was kept in an unrestored and unaltered as-raced condition. It was sold for $ 6.2M by RM Sotheby's on August 20, 2022, lot 342. Please watch the video shared by the auction including an interview with Jean Todt, the team manager who was operating in that period the resurgence of the Scuderia Ferrari Formula 1.
Another F300 also driven by Schumacher in 1998 fetched $ 1.87M in January 2014 at Barrett-Jackson.
