2009
2009 HOCKNEY
Winter Timber
2022 SOLD for $ 23.3M by Christie's
Back in 2005 in his beloved East Yorkshire, David Hockney observes with a Fauviste eye the variation of light through the seasons. He took an increased interest to large size views of the countryside in 2006 when visiting the exhibition at Tate Britain where all the six-footers by Constable were exhibited together for the first time ever.
He looks at the geometric contrast between the leafless trees that are surviving winter and the trunks stacked on the ground for the timber industry.
Felled Trees, oil on canvas 122 x 152 cm painted in 2008, was sold for $ 10.8M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 35A. The picture is focused on the foreground of bright stylized logs lying on a deep purple soil.
This painting in a single panel looks like a preparation to the monumental Winter timber, oil on canvas 274 x 610 cm overall in 15 parts painted in 2009 in a totally different angle of view but similar shapes and colors.
This piece is also a keen aesthetic analysis of a confrontation of horizontals, verticals and curves. The contrast is striking between the stacks of freshly felled timber along a road in soft curves and the upright trees and of a remaining trunk in the foreground. The gently turning road provides the geometric anchor to the composition.
Winter Timber was sold for $ 23.3M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 43.
Another painting featuring the felled trees, a stump and the pathway in the woods going to a clearance of white sky is titled More Woldgate Timber and dated October 13th 2009. This oil on canvas 92 x 122 cm was sold for £ 4.6M by Christie's on October 9, 2024, lot 30.
He looks at the geometric contrast between the leafless trees that are surviving winter and the trunks stacked on the ground for the timber industry.
Felled Trees, oil on canvas 122 x 152 cm painted in 2008, was sold for $ 10.8M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 35A. The picture is focused on the foreground of bright stylized logs lying on a deep purple soil.
This painting in a single panel looks like a preparation to the monumental Winter timber, oil on canvas 274 x 610 cm overall in 15 parts painted in 2009 in a totally different angle of view but similar shapes and colors.
This piece is also a keen aesthetic analysis of a confrontation of horizontals, verticals and curves. The contrast is striking between the stacks of freshly felled timber along a road in soft curves and the upright trees and of a remaining trunk in the foreground. The gently turning road provides the geometric anchor to the composition.
Winter Timber was sold for $ 23.3M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 43.
Another painting featuring the felled trees, a stump and the pathway in the woods going to a clearance of white sky is titled More Woldgate Timber and dated October 13th 2009. This oil on canvas 92 x 122 cm was sold for £ 4.6M by Christie's on October 9, 2024, lot 30.
Early Blossom
2023 SOLD for $ 19.4M by Christie's
Back in 2005 in his beloved East Yorkshire, David Hockney observes the variation of light through the seasons. In a systematic approach throughout 2006, he executes nine views of Woldgate Woods each one consisting of two rows of three panels for an overall 183 x 366 cm. An autumn scenery was sold for $ 11.7M by Sotheby's on November 17, 2016, lot 43.
In the following years he maintains this interest in the seasons in series of individual views. Winter is characterized by the felled timber along the road, for which he enhances the colors in a Fauvist manner. In an immersive view 274 x 610 cm overall in 15 parts painted in 2009, the gently turning road provides the geometric anchor to the composition. This Winter Timber was sold for $ 23.3M by Christie's in 2022.
Also in 2009, the bright colors of spring are the subject of a pastoral scenery. A lane is gently waving with its parallel tracks from the foreground to the horizon. It provides the leading lines separating an open field from the shrubs. The single view point at eye level waives the usual challenging of the perspective by the artist.
This oil on single canvas 91 x 183 cm titled Early Blossom and located in Woldgate was sold for $ 19.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 37A.
In the following years he maintains this interest in the seasons in series of individual views. Winter is characterized by the felled timber along the road, for which he enhances the colors in a Fauvist manner. In an immersive view 274 x 610 cm overall in 15 parts painted in 2009, the gently turning road provides the geometric anchor to the composition. This Winter Timber was sold for $ 23.3M by Christie's in 2022.
Also in 2009, the bright colors of spring are the subject of a pastoral scenery. A lane is gently waving with its parallel tracks from the foreground to the horizon. It provides the leading lines separating an open field from the shrubs. The single view point at eye level waives the usual challenging of the perspective by the artist.
This oil on single canvas 91 x 183 cm titled Early Blossom and located in Woldgate was sold for $ 19.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on May 11, 2023, lot 37A.
2009 Devolved Parliament by Banksy
2019 SOLD for £ 9.9M by Sotheby's
Banksy started his underground career in Bristol. Although his identity has not been revealed, he is certainly from that city or its suburbs.
In 2009 the Bristol Museum devotes a major exhibition to Banksy, including more than 100 works of which 78 are new. Devolved Parliament, 276 x 446 cm including the frame, is one of his largest oils on canvas.
The work stages a plenary session of the House of Commons without an empty bench. All MPs are chimpanzees. Their attitude is peaceful and serious, as under the weight of a responsibility that overcomes them. Reality goes beyond fiction : the real representatives of the people have recently been found noisy, screaming, brandishing placards, slamming their desks or threatening the speaker.
A decade later comes the Brexit. Devolved Parliament now belongs to a private owner. This work and its title have never been so close to the real news. It was lent to the Bristol Museum for several months of exhibition, from March to September 2019. Originally this period was to cover the date of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
Devolved Parliament was sold for £ 9.9M from a lower estimate of £ 1.5M by Sotheby's on October 3, 2019, lot 28, four weeks before the new Brexit date.
Banksy, like George Orwell before him, has no confidence in politicians. His position vis-à-vis the Brexit is symbolized by a mural showing a worker on a ladder busy removing with a chisel a star of the European flag. This work made on the wall of a Dover building has been whitened, preventing Banksy from continuing his plan to show the collapse of the same flag after Brexit.
Banksy comments on the inexorable political chaos by stating "Laugh now, but one day no-one will be in charge", which paraphrases with an unprecedented pessimism one of the most recurrent formulas of his gangs of monkeys.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Oct 3, 2019
#AuctionUpdate Monkey Business : #Banksy’s monumental painting of the House of Commons overrun with parliamentary primates sells to applause at £9,879,500 - 9 times its previous record - after a 13 minute bidding battle.
In 2009 the Bristol Museum devotes a major exhibition to Banksy, including more than 100 works of which 78 are new. Devolved Parliament, 276 x 446 cm including the frame, is one of his largest oils on canvas.
The work stages a plenary session of the House of Commons without an empty bench. All MPs are chimpanzees. Their attitude is peaceful and serious, as under the weight of a responsibility that overcomes them. Reality goes beyond fiction : the real representatives of the people have recently been found noisy, screaming, brandishing placards, slamming their desks or threatening the speaker.
A decade later comes the Brexit. Devolved Parliament now belongs to a private owner. This work and its title have never been so close to the real news. It was lent to the Bristol Museum for several months of exhibition, from March to September 2019. Originally this period was to cover the date of the exit of the United Kingdom from the European Union.
Devolved Parliament was sold for £ 9.9M from a lower estimate of £ 1.5M by Sotheby's on October 3, 2019, lot 28, four weeks before the new Brexit date.
Banksy, like George Orwell before him, has no confidence in politicians. His position vis-à-vis the Brexit is symbolized by a mural showing a worker on a ladder busy removing with a chisel a star of the European flag. This work made on the wall of a Dover building has been whitened, preventing Banksy from continuing his plan to show the collapse of the same flag after Brexit.
Banksy comments on the inexorable political chaos by stating "Laugh now, but one day no-one will be in charge", which paraphrases with an unprecedented pessimism one of the most recurrent formulas of his gangs of monkeys.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Sotheby's @Sothebys Oct 3, 2019
#AuctionUpdate Monkey Business : #Banksy’s monumental painting of the House of Commons overrun with parliamentary primates sells to applause at £9,879,500 - 9 times its previous record - after a 13 minute bidding battle.
- The artwork depicts the House of Commons with chimpanzees replacing MPs, a satirical nod by Banksy to the 1833 painting by Sir George Hayter, which commemorated the Great Reform Act, suggesting a critique of modern parliamentary dysfunction.
- Sold for £9.87 million in 2019, the painting’s value reflects Banksy’s reputation for provocative art, amplified by his 2018 stunt where "Girl with Balloon" partially shredded itself post-auction, hinting at a possible expectation of similar theatrics.
- Research from the Journal of Cultural Economics (2021) indicates art prices often spike with political satire during times of social unrest, aligning with the Brexit turmoil of 2019, which may have fueled the bidding war for this piece.
2009 Abstraktes Bild by RICHTER
910-2
2019 SOLD for £ 6.9M by Sotheby's
The 910-1 to 910-7 series of Abstraktes Bild was painted in 2009 by Gerhard Richter. The creation of 910-1 was the subject of a documentary film in which the artist demonstrated his squeegee process and its part of guided chance.
The 910-2, oil on canvas 180 x 180 cm, was sold for £ 6.9M by Sotheby's on March 5, 2019, lot 21. It is made of innumerable sunset hues in dazzling yellow with fields of radiant orange and darker aubergine.
The 910-3, 84 x 84 cm, was sold for $ 3.63M by Christie's on May 14, 2021, lot 113. It is painted in oil on aluminum for a glowing chromatic intensity dominated by a golden yellow interspersed by orange and white. Strokes of aquamarine are anchoring a contradictory oasis amidst that sunny desert.
The 910-2, oil on canvas 180 x 180 cm, was sold for £ 6.9M by Sotheby's on March 5, 2019, lot 21. It is made of innumerable sunset hues in dazzling yellow with fields of radiant orange and darker aubergine.
The 910-3, 84 x 84 cm, was sold for $ 3.63M by Christie's on May 14, 2021, lot 113. It is painted in oil on aluminum for a glowing chromatic intensity dominated by a golden yellow interspersed by orange and white. Strokes of aquamarine are anchoring a contradictory oasis amidst that sunny desert.
910-5
2026 SOLD for $ 6.5M by Christie's
Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (910-5), 2009, sold for USD 6,541,000 at Christie’s New York on May 20, 2026 (Lot 17B in the "Marian’s Richters & 21st Century Evening Sale").
It had been estimated 3.5M-5.5M.
This square oil-on-canvas painting (40 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. / 101.9 x 101.9 cm) is a striking late-career abstract work dominated by ethereal white layers over underlying fields of green, blue, and red. Richter signed, inscribed, and dated it '910-5 Richter 2009' on the reverse.
Key Context and Provenance
Artistic Significance
Richter’s Abstraktes Bild series uses his signature squeegee technique to scrape and layer paint, creating dynamic, blurred surfaces that blur abstraction and representation. This 2009 example stands out for its near-monochrome white veil—rare in the series—which evokes mist, snow, or ice over landscape elements. It connects to Richter’s Romantic influences (e.g., Caspar David Friedrich) and his alpine-inspired landscapes from visits to Sils, Switzerland. Curators and the lot essay link it to themes of the Sublime, nature vs. abstraction, and metaphysical inquiry (parallels to Rothko or Nietzsche). The vertical/horizontal squeegee movements add naturalistic flow, contrasting his more typical horizontal sweeps.
It represents a late reflection on Richter’s decades-long exploration of painting’s possibilities, blending his reality (abstraction) with yearning (landscape).
Note: Other Richter Abstraktes Bild works (e.g., from the 1990s) have achieved higher prices in recent sales, such as a 1991 example at ~US$11.7M in Hong Kong earlier in 2026, reflecting strong but variable market demand for his abstracts depending on scale, period, and provenance.
This piece’s intimate scale, pristine provenance, and poetic white palette made it a highlight of the Goodman collection offering.
It had been estimated 3.5M-5.5M.
This square oil-on-canvas painting (40 1/8 x 40 1/8 in. / 101.9 x 101.9 cm) is a striking late-career abstract work dominated by ethereal white layers over underlying fields of green, blue, and red. Richter signed, inscribed, and dated it '910-5 Richter 2009' on the reverse.
Key Context and Provenance
- Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist by the late Marian Goodman (prominent gallerist and long-time champion of Richter). It comes from her personal collection.
- Exhibitions: Shown at Marian Goodman Gallery, New York (2009–2010) and Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2025–2026).
- Literature: Catalogued in Dietmar Elger’s Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné, Volume 6 (no. 910-5) and other references.
Artistic Significance
Richter’s Abstraktes Bild series uses his signature squeegee technique to scrape and layer paint, creating dynamic, blurred surfaces that blur abstraction and representation. This 2009 example stands out for its near-monochrome white veil—rare in the series—which evokes mist, snow, or ice over landscape elements. It connects to Richter’s Romantic influences (e.g., Caspar David Friedrich) and his alpine-inspired landscapes from visits to Sils, Switzerland. Curators and the lot essay link it to themes of the Sublime, nature vs. abstraction, and metaphysical inquiry (parallels to Rothko or Nietzsche). The vertical/horizontal squeegee movements add naturalistic flow, contrasting his more typical horizontal sweeps.
It represents a late reflection on Richter’s decades-long exploration of painting’s possibilities, blending his reality (abstraction) with yearning (landscape).
Note: Other Richter Abstraktes Bild works (e.g., from the 1990s) have achieved higher prices in recent sales, such as a 1991 example at ~US$11.7M in Hong Kong earlier in 2026, reflecting strong but variable market demand for his abstracts depending on scale, period, and provenance.
This piece’s intimate scale, pristine provenance, and poetic white palette made it a highlight of the Goodman collection offering.
911
2025 SOLD for $ 8.5M by Christie's
Abstraktes Bild 911 painted in 2009 by Richter is a series of five oil on canvas in various formats. From far away they look like a monochrome white but a closer inspection offers the palimpsest of the inner layers of soft hues including greens, reds, blues, pinks and mauves.
Two of them are panoramic formats 200 x 300 cm. 911-3 was sold for $ 8.5M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on May 12, 2025, lot 16A.
Two of them are panoramic formats 200 x 300 cm. 911-3 was sold for $ 8.5M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on May 12, 2025, lot 16A.
2009 Claude LALANNE
Pomme d'Hiver
2026 SOLD for $ 8.8M by Sotheby's
- Pomme d’Hiver (Winter Apple): Larger bronze sculptures, often with a golden or warm patina. These bridge mid- and monumental scales; editions exist in various sizes, with some reaching impressive dimensions suitable for gardens or public display. A 2008/2009 example appeared in exhibitions like those at Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden.
monogrammed C.L., impressed LALANNE, dated 2009, was sold for $ 8.8M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on April 22, 2026, lot 59.
80 ½ in. (204.5 cm) high
75 in. (190.5 cm) maximum diameter
Très Grand Choupatte
2026 SOLD for $ 6M by Sotheby's
Compare two lots (2008 and 2009) :
2008 : Sold for € 5M from a lower estimate of € 1M by Sotheby's on October 31, 2023, lot 8.
Très Grand Choupatte, number 1 from an edition of 8 plus 4 artist's proofs, patinated bronze,
monogrammed CL, impressed LALANNE, dated 2009, sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on April 22, 2026, lot 82.
Both are large-scale bronze sculptures by Claude Lalanne (1925–2019) from her iconic Choupatte ("cabbage foot") series. These whimsical, surreal pieces blend vegetable and animal forms—a giant cabbage body on bird-like legs—characteristic of Les Lalanne's playful, nature-inspired oeuvre.
Key Comparison (Plain Text)
Karpidas Lot (2023, Hydra Collection)
2008 : Sold for € 5M from a lower estimate of € 1M by Sotheby's on October 31, 2023, lot 8.
Très Grand Choupatte, number 1 from an edition of 8 plus 4 artist's proofs, patinated bronze,
monogrammed CL, impressed LALANNE, dated 2009, sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Sotheby's on April 22, 2026, lot 82.
Both are large-scale bronze sculptures by Claude Lalanne (1925–2019) from her iconic Choupatte ("cabbage foot") series. These whimsical, surreal pieces blend vegetable and animal forms—a giant cabbage body on bird-like legs—characteristic of Les Lalanne's playful, nature-inspired oeuvre.
Key Comparison (Plain Text)
Karpidas Lot (2023, Hydra Collection)
- Year: 2008
- Edition: Pièce unique (1/1, special commission, numbered 1/1 P.K.)
- Dimensions: 115 x 135 x 135 cm (≈45¼ x 53⅛ x 53⅛ in.)
- Material/Finish: Patinated bronze
- Provenance: Acquired directly from Claude Lalanne (special commission for Pauline Karpidas)
- Estimate: €1–1.5 million
- Sale Result: ≈€4.97 million (≈$5.28–5.3 million USD, record for the artist at the time)
- Auction Date: October 2023 (Sotheby's Paris)
- Year: 2009
- Edition: Edition of 8 + 4 APs (number 1/8)
- Dimensions: 123.8 x 137.8 x 137.8 cm (≈48¾ x 54¼ x 54½ in.)
- Material/Finish: Patinated bronze
- Provenance: JGM Galerie, Paris; acquired 2010 by Jean & Terry de Gunzburg
- Estimate: $2–3 million
- Sale Result: ≈$5.9–5.98 million (strong result, new high for this subject/edition)
- Auction Date: April 22, 2026 (Sotheby's New York)
- Both are monumental Très Grand Choupatte examples, among the largest in the series, emphasizing scale and presence.
- Patinated bronze construction with signature monograms/stamps.
- Strong market performance, reflecting enduring demand for Claude Lalanne's surreal, organic sculptures. These pieces often appear in major collections and exhibitions.
- Uniqueness vs. Edition: The Karpidas piece is a true one-off (custom-made), which added premium appeal and helped set an artist record. The de Gunzburg example is from a small edition (1/8), still rare but part of a produced series.
- Size: The de Gunzburg version is slightly larger in all dimensions.
- Provenance & Context: Karpidas had a direct artist connection (Hydra island collection). de Gunzburg came through a gallery with extensive exhibition history (e.g., Paul Kasmin Gallery shows, Versailles, Clark Art Institute).
- Market Timing & Currency: Karpidas sold in euros during a strong 2023 Lalanne moment, setting a benchmark. The 2026 sale (in USD, New York) achieved a comparable or slightly higher dollar result amid continued market heat for Les Lalanne.
2009 Untitled (Mountain) by Stingel
2018 SOLD for £ 4.7M by Sotheby's
Rudolf Stingel knows that all art is autobiographical. He reuses four photographs of himself by Sam Samore to make giant self-portraits in oil on canvas, in an attitude without complacency. Untitled (after Sam) painted in 2006, 335 x 457 cm, was sold for $ 10.6M by Christie's on May 17, 2017.
Pictorial art had managed to get freed from photographic realism. In 1963 Gerhard Richter took the opposite direction by using as his models some poor and damaged photos that provide a bridge of a strong social significance between banality and art. After his self-portraits Stingel also retrieves the photographic banality but in a less impersonal sense.
He was born in Merano in the Tyrolean Alps on the Italian side and shares his life between this town and New York City. He can of course observe the panorama but his childhood impression has vanished. He re-interprets it by recovering old photographs which he enlarges excessively to reveal all the defects from origin and conservation. He then copies them on canvas by scrupulously respecting the stains, creases, scratches and loss of density.
With these banal photos whose original author cannot be known, Stingel reveals to the visitor a fake corner of his world, without character and without foreground, and which is not even directly related to his memory. In the following of his career he will further blur his relationship with the collective and the anonymous with his graffiti plates.
On March 7, 2018, Sotheby's sold for £ 4.7M an oil on canvas painted in 2009 on the theme of the re-photographed Tyrolean mountains, lot 19. With its 335 x 460 cm size this outdated view could be confronted with Andreas Gursky's hyper-sharp photographs. Please watch the 'first look' video shared by Sotheby's. It was sold for $ 3.25M by Christie's on May 20, 2026, lot 35B.
Pictorial art had managed to get freed from photographic realism. In 1963 Gerhard Richter took the opposite direction by using as his models some poor and damaged photos that provide a bridge of a strong social significance between banality and art. After his self-portraits Stingel also retrieves the photographic banality but in a less impersonal sense.
He was born in Merano in the Tyrolean Alps on the Italian side and shares his life between this town and New York City. He can of course observe the panorama but his childhood impression has vanished. He re-interprets it by recovering old photographs which he enlarges excessively to reveal all the defects from origin and conservation. He then copies them on canvas by scrupulously respecting the stains, creases, scratches and loss of density.
With these banal photos whose original author cannot be known, Stingel reveals to the visitor a fake corner of his world, without character and without foreground, and which is not even directly related to his memory. In the following of his career he will further blur his relationship with the collective and the anonymous with his graffiti plates.
On March 7, 2018, Sotheby's sold for £ 4.7M an oil on canvas painted in 2009 on the theme of the re-photographed Tyrolean mountains, lot 19. With its 335 x 460 cm size this outdated view could be confronted with Andreas Gursky's hyper-sharp photographs. Please watch the 'first look' video shared by Sotheby's. It was sold for $ 3.25M by Christie's on May 20, 2026, lot 35B.
This is a monumental 2009 oil on canvas by Rudolf Stingel (b. 1956), measuring approximately 132 x 181 inches (335.2 x 459.7 cm). It depicts a vast, photorealistic grayscale mountainscape of the Tyrolean Alps (near his birthplace in Merano, Italy), rendered as a deteriorated vintage gelatin silver print with visible creases, scratches, dust, silver-mirroring, and signs of age.
It belongs to a small series of about a dozen similarly scaled landscape paintings (some shown in the 2010 Neue Nationalgalerie exhibition LIVE in Berlin, where one entered the museum's collection). The work was shown there alongside other pieces, and later at Gagosian Gallery in New York (2014).
Significance in Stingel's Career
Stingel is a conceptual artist known for interrogating painting's boundaries through process, materiality, authorship, and perception. His practice spans:
Key aspects of its importance:
It belongs to a small series of about a dozen similarly scaled landscape paintings (some shown in the 2010 Neue Nationalgalerie exhibition LIVE in Berlin, where one entered the museum's collection). The work was shown there alongside other pieces, and later at Gagosian Gallery in New York (2014).
Significance in Stingel's Career
Stingel is a conceptual artist known for interrogating painting's boundaries through process, materiality, authorship, and perception. His practice spans:
- Early "Instructions" paintings (1980s) using tulle for textured monochromes.
- Participatory installations (carpets, Celotex walls where viewers leave marks).
- Photorealistic works that blur photography, painting, and memory.
Key aspects of its importance:
- Autobiographical and Romantic reclamation: It draws from personal history (Tyrolean Alps, childhood/home) but filters it through a detached, post-photographic lens—evoking Caspar David Friedrich-style sublime landscapes without human figures or overt emotion. The aged photo effect adds nostalgia, melancholy, and the passage of time, themes central to Stingel's later work.
- Process and mediation: Stingel (with studio assistance) meticulously copies the physicality of an old print, emphasizing mediation (photo → re-photo → painting). This extends his career-long interest in authorship, chance, and traces (like footprints on studio floors or viewer marks on installations).
- Context in major exhibitions: Featured in LIVE (Berlin, 2010), a pivotal mid-to-late career survey that included immersive elements like carpets and chandeliers. It also appeared in Gagosian shows, solidifying his market and institutional presence post-2007 Whitney/MCA Chicago retrospective.
- Broader oeuvre: It bridges his abstract/participatory phases with hyper-real figuration/landscape, showing painting's endurance in a post-conceptual, image-saturated world. Comparable to influences like Gerhard Richter, but with Stingel's unique blend of detachment and subtle autobiography.
Stingel's 2009 Untitled (Tyrolean Alps mountainscape) and Gerhard Richter's landscape paintings both engage with photorealism, mediation, and the tradition of Romantic landscape painting, but they diverge significantly in approach, emotional tone, and conceptual emphasis. Richter (b. 1932) is a major influence on Stingel (b. 1956), and critics explicitly frame Stingel's work as a "post-Richter recuperation of the Romantic."
Shared Foundations
Richter pioneered a cool, skeptical approach to painting landscapes after photography's dominance, filtering out overt emotion to probe representation and history. Stingel builds on this but "recuperates" emotional depth and Romanticism, using photorealism to evoke collective longing and the ruin of memory.
Stingel's work feels like a melancholic extension or inversion—more autobiographical and nostalgic—while staying conceptual.In Stingel's career arc, this piece bridges his participatory/process works with hyper-detailed figuration; in dialogue with Richter, it shows how later artists can reclaim expressive territory within photo-mediated painting. Both affirm painting's power in an image-saturated world, but Stingel adds a layer of poignant, time-worn humanity.
Stingel's 2009 Untitled (monumental grayscale Tyrolean Alps painting mimicking a deteriorated vintage photo) and Andreas Gursky's (b. 1955) large-scale landscape photographs share monumental scale, photorealistic precision, and engagement with the sublime, but diverge sharply in medium, process, and conceptual intent. Both artists are associated with post-conceptual approaches to image-making and the Düsseldorf School's legacy (Gursky directly; Stingel through broader German/Austrian influences including Richter), yet they represent painting versus photography in the digital age.
Shared Foundations
Gursky exemplifies photography's triumph in capturing (and fabricating) the scale and complexity of the modern world with technical virtuosity and critical distance. Stingel, in dialogue with this, uses painting to mourn or reclaim the analog, personal, and temporal dimensions that digital perfection can erase—turning a landscape into a meditation on loss and mediation.
In Stingel's career, this work extends his interrogation of painting's boundaries toward hyper-detailed figuration; alongside Gursky, it highlights parallel yet contrasting paths in contemporary art's engagement with landscape after photography and Romanticism. Both affirm the power of vast, mediated nature imagery, but Stingel adds poignant humanity through decay, while Gursky offers detached, constructed totality.
Shared Foundations
- Photographic Mediation: Both artists paint from (or evoke) photographs rather than direct observation, questioning representation in a post-photographic era. Richter's "photo-paintings" often start with his own snapshots, magazine images, or found sources, which he copies with soft blurring to mimic perceptual flux or amateur photography. Stingel's 2009 work meticulously reproduces the physicality of a deteriorated vintage gelatin silver print (creases, scratches, dust, silver-mirroring), creating a painting of a photo of a photo.
- Blur and Distance: Richter uses soft brushing or squeegee techniques for atmospheric haze. Stingel achieves a similar soft-focus effect through the aged photo source, but renders every imperfection hyper-precisely.
- Landscape as Vehicle: Both draw on German Romantic traditions (e.g., Caspar David Friedrich's sublime vistas) but update them for modernity. Richter has said there’s “no difference between a landscape and an abstract painting,” using nature to explore figuration/abstraction binaries.
- Richter's landscapes (e.g., seascapes, meadows, mountains like those inspired by the Engadin Alps, or works like Grünes Feld (1969)) often maintain a clinical detachment or "emotional void." They evoke longing or the "untruthful" glorification of nature but prioritize banality, historical weight (post-Nazi/WWII context), and perceptual ambiguity over overt sentiment.
- Stingel's Untitled infuses deep nostalgia and "collective melancholia." It is explicitly autobiographical (Tyrolean Alps near his Merano birthplace), evoking an "irrecoverable past" through the worn photo object. It reclaims Romantic sublimity—vast, inhospitable peaks without a Rückenfigur (back-view figure)—but adds poignant attachment to loss and memory.
- Richter aims to "paint like a camera," with blurring that dissolves detail into abstraction up close. His process often involves personal or found photos, maintaining a sense of direct (if mediated) engagement.
- Stingel uses studio assistance and emphasizes "automated" or process-based detachment. By copying someone else's aged photo, he inserts distance even in autobiographical subjects, aligning with his broader career (participatory installations, traces of absence). This creates an "index" of time's passage rather than Richter's more fluid perceptual play.
- Both produce monumental works, but Stingel's ~132 x 181 inches immersive grayscale mountainscape feels like a deteriorated artifact enlarged, heightening objecthood and melancholy. Richter's landscapes vary widely, from intimate to large, often oscillating between photographic illusion and painterly abstraction.
Richter pioneered a cool, skeptical approach to painting landscapes after photography's dominance, filtering out overt emotion to probe representation and history. Stingel builds on this but "recuperates" emotional depth and Romanticism, using photorealism to evoke collective longing and the ruin of memory.
Stingel's work feels like a melancholic extension or inversion—more autobiographical and nostalgic—while staying conceptual.In Stingel's career arc, this piece bridges his participatory/process works with hyper-detailed figuration; in dialogue with Richter, it shows how later artists can reclaim expressive territory within photo-mediated painting. Both affirm painting's power in an image-saturated world, but Stingel adds a layer of poignant, time-worn humanity.
Stingel's 2009 Untitled (monumental grayscale Tyrolean Alps painting mimicking a deteriorated vintage photo) and Andreas Gursky's (b. 1955) large-scale landscape photographs share monumental scale, photorealistic precision, and engagement with the sublime, but diverge sharply in medium, process, and conceptual intent. Both artists are associated with post-conceptual approaches to image-making and the Düsseldorf School's legacy (Gursky directly; Stingel through broader German/Austrian influences including Richter), yet they represent painting versus photography in the digital age.
Shared Foundations
- Scale and Immersion: Both create overwhelming, wall-sized works that engulf the viewer. Stingel's ~132 x 181 inches canvas and Gursky's often 6–10+ foot prints (e.g., Rhein II, 1999, ~6 x 11.5 feet) demand physical presence, evoking the Romantic sublime while updating it for contemporary detachment.
- Mediated Landscapes: They filter nature through photography rather than direct observation. Gursky starts with his own or sourced images, often digitally stitching and manipulating for "impossible" clarity and composition. Stingel meticulously paints a re-photographed, aged analog print, reproducing every crease, scratch, dust speck, and silver-mirroring.
- Sublime Tradition: Echoes of Caspar David Friedrich's vast, awe-inspiring vistas appear in both—empty or minimally humanized scenes that dwarf the individual—but stripped of overt emotion for a cooler, conceptual tone.
- Gursky remains a photographer who pushes the medium to its limits with digital tools, creating hyper-detailed, often color-saturated composites that feel god-like or "superhuman" in their clarity and scope. His process involves multiple shots stitched together, removing or adding elements for conceptual perfection.
- Stingel is a painter who simulates photography's objecthood. By copying an old, worn gelatin silver print (autobiographical Tyrolean Alps from his childhood region), he emphasizes mediation, decay, and manual labor (often with studio assistance). This adds layers of nostalgia and "painting as index of time" absent in Gursky's pristine, constructed images.
- Gursky's landscapes frequently incorporate subtle or overt traces of globalization, tourism, or human intervention (e.g., Rhein II with its manicured banks and minimal elements; Engadin Alps works; or earlier pieces like Klausenpass). They convey detachment, banality, or critique of contemporary life—vast yet ordered, often empty of people but shaped by them.
- Stingel's Untitled is deliberately inhospitable and figureless, evoking personal/collective melancholia through the aged photo's wear. It reclaims Romantic attachment and loss ("post-Richter recuperation"), with a faded, soft-focus nostalgia that feels more autobiographical and elegiac than Gursky's clinical or analytical sublime.
- Gursky achieves impossible perfection and density of detail, blurring abstraction/realism from afar (graphic flatness up close). His works comment on perception, economy, and the environment in a post-digital world.
- Stingel highlights imperfection and time's passage—the "ruin" of the photographic object translated into paint. This aligns with his participatory/installation history (traces, carpets, Celotex), focusing on memory, authorship, and painting's endurance.
Gursky exemplifies photography's triumph in capturing (and fabricating) the scale and complexity of the modern world with technical virtuosity and critical distance. Stingel, in dialogue with this, uses painting to mourn or reclaim the analog, personal, and temporal dimensions that digital perfection can erase—turning a landscape into a meditation on loss and mediation.
In Stingel's career, this work extends his interrogation of painting's boundaries toward hyper-detailed figuration; alongside Gursky, it highlights parallel yet contrasting paths in contemporary art's engagement with landscape after photography and Romanticism. Both affirm the power of vast, mediated nature imagery, but Stingel adds poignant humanity through decay, while Gursky offers detached, constructed totality.
2009 Très Grand Ours by Lalanne (posthumous)
2024 SOLD for $ 6.1M by Christie's
François-Xavier's bestiary has no limit in the last phase of his life. He populates with many beasts the workshop home which he shares with Claude in Ury at the south border of the forêt de Fontainebleau. Daughters Dorothée and Marie Lalanne are both supplied with an extensive collection, whether or not with a utilitarian application.
Très Grand Ours is a monumental bear 315 cm high straight standing on its hind legs, by François-Xavier Lalanne.
A patinated bronze number 6/8 from a posthumous cast executed in 2009 by Fonderie Bocquel was sold for $ 6.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on October 10, 2024, lot 20 in the sale of the collection of Dorothée Lalanne.
From the collection of Marie Lalanne, the number 8/8 of La Grande Ourse, 210 cm tall patinated bronze from 2007, was sold for $ 3.66M by Christie's on December 7, 2022, lot 79. The title is of course a pun between the bear and its constellation.
Très Grand Ours is a monumental bear 315 cm high straight standing on its hind legs, by François-Xavier Lalanne.
A patinated bronze number 6/8 from a posthumous cast executed in 2009 by Fonderie Bocquel was sold for $ 6.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on October 10, 2024, lot 20 in the sale of the collection of Dorothée Lalanne.
From the collection of Marie Lalanne, the number 8/8 of La Grande Ourse, 210 cm tall patinated bronze from 2007, was sold for $ 3.66M by Christie's on December 7, 2022, lot 79. The title is of course a pun between the bear and its constellation.
