Cecily BROWN (born in 1969)
Intro
Cecily Brown is the daughter of David Sylvester, the British art critic who promoted Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. She moves permanently to New York in 1994.
Her artistic target is unprecedented but quite logical : the viewer must be fascinated by the art to the point of not being able to turn his gaze away. A painting makes a relationship between the artist and the voyeur. The artist is a storyteller, a stage designer. The viewer only expects to be captivated or titillated.
She builds her recipe with simple elements : large size, impasto, shameless sex. She associates the thick naked flesh by Lucian Freud with the torments of Francis Bacon in a boundary between expressionism and abstraction. She gets her first successes by introducing group exhibitionism into her abstractions.
Her paintings are a mingle of colors in heavy layers. The flesh is recognizable by its color but mostly hidden in the folds of the impasto. The viewer cannot perceive from a single angle all the secrets of the composition and stays in front of the canvas until he believes having elucidated its mystery.
The sceneries take place within an intensely colorful fragmented background that reminds the enigmatic abstract landscapes painted by de Kooning in Long Island. She undoubtedly applies de Kooning's famous statement : "Flesh is the reason (why) oil paint was invented".
The early titles are often taken from musical films. They play a major role in the magic of the image, inviting the viewer to discover in the rest of the scene some pornographic or orgiastic details which are or are not therein.
The tangle of colors is such that an overall interpretation is impossible regardless of the time spent by the observer in his contemplation. This subtle game between the fantasy and the perceived goes beyond the figures covered by Pollock and Klein. Cecily Brown is the first artist to have brought a feminine sensibility to abstract expressionism.
Her artistic target is unprecedented but quite logical : the viewer must be fascinated by the art to the point of not being able to turn his gaze away. A painting makes a relationship between the artist and the voyeur. The artist is a storyteller, a stage designer. The viewer only expects to be captivated or titillated.
She builds her recipe with simple elements : large size, impasto, shameless sex. She associates the thick naked flesh by Lucian Freud with the torments of Francis Bacon in a boundary between expressionism and abstraction. She gets her first successes by introducing group exhibitionism into her abstractions.
Her paintings are a mingle of colors in heavy layers. The flesh is recognizable by its color but mostly hidden in the folds of the impasto. The viewer cannot perceive from a single angle all the secrets of the composition and stays in front of the canvas until he believes having elucidated its mystery.
The sceneries take place within an intensely colorful fragmented background that reminds the enigmatic abstract landscapes painted by de Kooning in Long Island. She undoubtedly applies de Kooning's famous statement : "Flesh is the reason (why) oil paint was invented".
The early titles are often taken from musical films. They play a major role in the magic of the image, inviting the viewer to discover in the rest of the scene some pornographic or orgiastic details which are or are not therein.
The tangle of colors is such that an overall interpretation is impossible regardless of the time spent by the observer in his contemplation. This subtle game between the fantasy and the perceived goes beyond the figures covered by Pollock and Klein. Cecily Brown is the first artist to have brought a feminine sensibility to abstract expressionism.
Aged 28 in 1997, Cecily Brown demonstrated her unprecedented themes and style in her first solo exhibition in Deitch gallery in New York.
Painted in 1998, The Girl who had everything gathers all the elements of Brown's style.
The size, 254 x 280 cm, is monumental. The title is taken from a 1953 romance film starring Elizabeth Taylor. The flesh color is dominant and some erotic forms are clearly visible, including a pair of buttocks in the foreground. The style is mingling Bacon's obsession of flesh with de Kooning's hiding of carnal elements within an overall abstraction.
The title girl appears at bust length at the lower right corner. She has a white gown and a hat. The elusive erotic rest of the composition is her hidden frenzy punctuated with flaming red areas..
This oil on linen was sold for £ 4.4M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 50.
Painted in 1998, The Girl who had everything gathers all the elements of Brown's style.
The size, 254 x 280 cm, is monumental. The title is taken from a 1953 romance film starring Elizabeth Taylor. The flesh color is dominant and some erotic forms are clearly visible, including a pair of buttocks in the foreground. The style is mingling Bacon's obsession of flesh with de Kooning's hiding of carnal elements within an overall abstraction.
The title girl appears at bust length at the lower right corner. She has a white gown and a hat. The elusive erotic rest of the composition is her hidden frenzy punctuated with flaming red areas..
This oil on linen was sold for £ 4.4M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 50.
1999 Suddenly Last Summer
2018 SOLD for $ 6.8M by Sotheby's
From Cecily Brown's early series with romance film titles, Suddenly Last Summer refers to a 1959 hit directed by Mankiewicz, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Katharine Hepburn and Montgomery Clift.
Within a mingle of fleshy pinks, verdant greens, bright reds, and deep blues and purples, specialists catch famous paintings of the nude : the Judgement of Paris by Rubens, the Grandes Baigneuses by Cézanne and the Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Manet.
This oil on canvas 254 x 280 cm painted in 1999 was sold for $ 6.8M from a lower estimate of $ 1.8M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 43.
Within a mingle of fleshy pinks, verdant greens, bright reds, and deep blues and purples, specialists catch famous paintings of the nude : the Judgement of Paris by Rubens, the Grandes Baigneuses by Cézanne and the Déjeuner sur l'herbe by Manet.
This oil on canvas 254 x 280 cm painted in 1999 was sold for $ 6.8M from a lower estimate of $ 1.8M by Sotheby's on May 16, 2018, lot 43.
1999 Spree
2021 SOLD for $ 6.6M by Sotheby's
From the same series as the example above, Spree refers to a 1967 film. That title is pleasurable. The movie itself was not significant but it was released one week before the death in a car accident of its star actress Jayne Mansfield. A blonde sex symbol in the 1950s, Jayne had been in 1963 the first major US movie actress of the post silent era to perform in the nude.
Spree, oil on canvas 190 x 190 cm painted in 1999 by Cecily Brown, was sold for $ 6.6M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on November 19, 2021, lot 112.
The pink anthropomorphic hues are mingled with yellows and greens plus dark abstract recesses in the signature thick impasto of the artist. The joyful painting style may have been inspired from Arshile Gorky's floating masses.
Again in the series of paintings supported by a film, Eyes wide shut refers to Kubrick' s masterpiece released in 1999. Painted by Cecily Brown in 2001, the oil on canvas 203 x 203 cm was sold for $ 4.5M by Sotheby's on November 17, 2022, lot 11.
Spree, oil on canvas 190 x 190 cm painted in 1999 by Cecily Brown, was sold for $ 6.6M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on November 19, 2021, lot 112.
The pink anthropomorphic hues are mingled with yellows and greens plus dark abstract recesses in the signature thick impasto of the artist. The joyful painting style may have been inspired from Arshile Gorky's floating masses.
Again in the series of paintings supported by a film, Eyes wide shut refers to Kubrick' s masterpiece released in 1999. Painted by Cecily Brown in 2001, the oil on canvas 203 x 203 cm was sold for $ 4.5M by Sotheby's on November 17, 2022, lot 11.
1999 Bedtime Story
2025 SOLD for $ 6.2M by Sotheby's
With its elusive fleshy colors and an appealing title, Bedtime Story is displaying a mingle of body elements within an overall abstraction.
This oil on linen 190 x 190 cm painted by Cecily Brown in 1999 was sold for $ 6.2M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on May 14, 2025, lot 7B. The title comes from a 1964 film starring Marlon Brando repeated by an album released by Madonna in 1994.
This oil on linen 190 x 190 cm painted by Cecily Brown in 1999 was sold for $ 6.2M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on May 14, 2025, lot 7B. The title comes from a 1964 film starring Marlon Brando repeated by an album released by Madonna in 1994.
2002 Bend Sinister
2021 SOLD for $ 6.4M by Sotheby's
Bend Sinister is painted in 2002 by Cecily Brown in loose brushstrokes. Verdant green and sky blue may evoke a woodland which would be populated by quiet nudes in the follow of the Grandes Baigneuses by Cézanne. In the center of the canvas the viewer may also catch some jubilant hares.
This medium size 122 x 122 cm oil on canvas was sold for $ 6.4M from a lower estimate of $ 800K by Sotheby's on November 19, 2021, lot 113.
Looking for a further evolution from the hidden eroticism of her early themes, Cecily Brown tries her hand to abstract impressions of landscapes.
The title I will not paint any more boring leaves is a final statement that she is not happy with the result. This phrase is also a pastiche of the 1971 project by Baldessari I will not make any more boring art. She later stated : “Figures are the only thing that I’ve ever painted. I’m interested in the human need or desire to represent itself. I’m fascinated with human narcissism and obsessions with bodies.”
The opus 2 of the I will not paint any more boring leaves nevertheless does not reach Joan Mitchell's fuller landscape abstraction. The blue of the sky and the vertical trunks are in the upper part while the green and brown of a sun dapped ground are in the lower part. The image is centered by a white ghostly form positioned behind the shrubs of the foreground.
This oil on canvas 203 x 214 cm painted in 2004 was sold for $ 5.1M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 6.
This medium size 122 x 122 cm oil on canvas was sold for $ 6.4M from a lower estimate of $ 800K by Sotheby's on November 19, 2021, lot 113.
Looking for a further evolution from the hidden eroticism of her early themes, Cecily Brown tries her hand to abstract impressions of landscapes.
The title I will not paint any more boring leaves is a final statement that she is not happy with the result. This phrase is also a pastiche of the 1971 project by Baldessari I will not make any more boring art. She later stated : “Figures are the only thing that I’ve ever painted. I’m interested in the human need or desire to represent itself. I’m fascinated with human narcissism and obsessions with bodies.”
The opus 2 of the I will not paint any more boring leaves nevertheless does not reach Joan Mitchell's fuller landscape abstraction. The blue of the sky and the vertical trunks are in the upper part while the green and brown of a sun dapped ground are in the lower part. The image is centered by a white ghostly form positioned behind the shrubs of the foreground.
This oil on canvas 203 x 214 cm painted in 2004 was sold for $ 5.1M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 6.
2005 Angie
2022 SOLD for $ 6M by Phillips
Angie provides a dense juxtaposition of male and female human heads in a high variety, some of them in couples with a distorted or nearly realistic expression. Cecily Brown was an admirer of Bosch and this exuberant painting could have been inspired from the Garden of Earthly Delights mingled with figures of George Dyer by Bacon.
This oil on linen 216 x 226 cm painted in 2005 was sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 27. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
The title may refer to the 1973 emotional song by the Rolling Stones,
This oil on linen 216 x 226 cm painted in 2005 was sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 4.5M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 27. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
The title may refer to the 1973 emotional song by the Rolling Stones,
2007 Untitled
2021 SOLD for $ 6.1M by Phillips
A large size painting executed by Cecily Brown in 2007 is densely composed of her signature evocations of ancient art.
In the foreground a nude blonde viewed from back is entering the orgy of colors and forms in which the exegetes of the artist may recognize pieces from Bosch, Rubens, Veronese, Delacroix, Degas and Cézanne. Such a mingling arguably explains why the artist did not coin a title for that specific work.
This oil on canvas 226 x 216 cm was sold for $ 6.1M from a lower estimate of $ 3.5M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 11. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In the foreground a nude blonde viewed from back is entering the orgy of colors and forms in which the exegetes of the artist may recognize pieces from Bosch, Rubens, Veronese, Delacroix, Degas and Cézanne. Such a mingling arguably explains why the artist did not coin a title for that specific work.
This oil on canvas 226 x 216 cm was sold for $ 6.1M from a lower estimate of $ 3.5M by Phillips on November 17, 2021, lot 11. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
2006-2008 Carnival and Lent
2020 SOLD for £ 4.9M by Christie's
In the mid-2000s decade, Cecily Brown extends her inspiration without changing her technique. Quotes from poetry may supersede the film titles and the references from the music hall. Like most contemporary artists, she works in very large formats.
Looking for the sources of communication, she does not like the isolation of the individual in the modern world. She finds the sensual passions in the paintings of Bosch or Bruegel or the Raft of the Medusa and manages to imitate the powerful palette of Rubens or Delacroix. She remains intimidated by the perfection of Titian.
She observes that painting has not fundamentally changed since the Renaissance : with oil colors on a canvas, artists express feelings and passions. Released by her growing fame from a sort of obligation to offer sexual scenes, she turns to the great masters of the past.
She feels affinities with the abounding style of Bosch and Bruegel. She has also interpreted Michelangelo and loves Titian and Delacroix.
Thus the Battle between Carnival and Lent, oil on wood 118 x 165 cm painted by Bruegel in 1559, is only displaying a Flemish festival which stages crowds of variegated characters in picturesque and obsolete occupations, and nobody cares any more about the moralizing purposes of yesteryear.
On July 10, 2020, Christie's sold for £ 4.9M Carnival and Lent, oil on linen 246 x 262 cm painted by Cecily Brown in 2006-2008, lot 45.
The artist obviously took great pleasure in this work. She copied the circular suite of characters of the two groups from a plunging perspective. Some details including heads emerge from her signature abstract luxuriance. The color balance is also inspired by the original.
A "real" Carnival and Lent, oil on canvas 119 x 171 cm painted by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, was sold for £ 6.9M by Christie's on December 6, 2011. Who will win the auction battle between the Ancients and the Moderns ?
Looking for the sources of communication, she does not like the isolation of the individual in the modern world. She finds the sensual passions in the paintings of Bosch or Bruegel or the Raft of the Medusa and manages to imitate the powerful palette of Rubens or Delacroix. She remains intimidated by the perfection of Titian.
She observes that painting has not fundamentally changed since the Renaissance : with oil colors on a canvas, artists express feelings and passions. Released by her growing fame from a sort of obligation to offer sexual scenes, she turns to the great masters of the past.
She feels affinities with the abounding style of Bosch and Bruegel. She has also interpreted Michelangelo and loves Titian and Delacroix.
Thus the Battle between Carnival and Lent, oil on wood 118 x 165 cm painted by Bruegel in 1559, is only displaying a Flemish festival which stages crowds of variegated characters in picturesque and obsolete occupations, and nobody cares any more about the moralizing purposes of yesteryear.
On July 10, 2020, Christie's sold for £ 4.9M Carnival and Lent, oil on linen 246 x 262 cm painted by Cecily Brown in 2006-2008, lot 45.
The artist obviously took great pleasure in this work. She copied the circular suite of characters of the two groups from a plunging perspective. Some details including heads emerge from her signature abstract luxuriance. The color balance is also inspired by the original.
A "real" Carnival and Lent, oil on canvas 119 x 171 cm painted by Pieter Brueghel the Younger, was sold for £ 6.9M by Christie's on December 6, 2011. Who will win the auction battle between the Ancients and the Moderns ?
2013 Untitled (The Beautiful and Damned)
2023 SOLD for $ 6.7M by Christie's
Cecily Brown refers to a whole range of culture. A triptych in oil on canvas 210 x 375 cm overall painted in 2011 was sold for $ 3.74M by Sotheby's on September 26, 2019, lot 210. The break of continuity between the three elements may be a reference to the triptychs of the Christian Renaissance. The title is the promise of divine bliss in the Book of Isaiah : Have you not known, have you not heard.
The Sick Leaves, a triptych in oil on linen 260 x 630 cm overall dated 2009-2011, was sold for £ 1.8M by Christie's on March 7, 2017, lot 34.
An oil on canvas painted in 2013 goes back to the orgiastic themes with dense references to art history. It is titled Untitled with the sub-title The Beautiful and Damned. The subtitle is taken from a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the excessive hedonism of the jazz age.
This piece is not a diptych but the background is equally separated in two sections of totally different tones, lighter with identifiable bodies on the right side, darker with cooler bodies on the left side. Its monumental dimensions 277 x 434 cm enable to display in life size the nude woman seated in the center of the foreground.
The references to art include Degas whose boy from the Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys is clearly referred. Other details refer to Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon while the overall composition and palette may evoke Matisse's Bonheur de vivre or Beckmann's Männer am Meer or the epic gendered war of David's Enlèvement des Sabines.
The painting was sold for $ 6.7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 5 B.
The Sick Leaves, a triptych in oil on linen 260 x 630 cm overall dated 2009-2011, was sold for £ 1.8M by Christie's on March 7, 2017, lot 34.
An oil on canvas painted in 2013 goes back to the orgiastic themes with dense references to art history. It is titled Untitled with the sub-title The Beautiful and Damned. The subtitle is taken from a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the excessive hedonism of the jazz age.
This piece is not a diptych but the background is equally separated in two sections of totally different tones, lighter with identifiable bodies on the right side, darker with cooler bodies on the left side. Its monumental dimensions 277 x 434 cm enable to display in life size the nude woman seated in the center of the foreground.
The references to art include Degas whose boy from the Young Spartan Girls Challenging Boys is clearly referred. Other details refer to Picasso's Demoiselles d'Avignon while the overall composition and palette may evoke Matisse's Bonheur de vivre or Beckmann's Männer am Meer or the epic gendered war of David's Enlèvement des Sabines.
The painting was sold for $ 6.7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 5 B.
2013 The Butcher and the Policeman
2024 SOLD for $ 6M by Christie's
The Butcher and the Policeman was painted by Brown in 2013 in her signature style hiding anthropomorphic forms within a near abstract exuberant surrounding that covers the whole surface.
Brown is a very strict vegetarian and an activist for animal rights who cannot accept the business of a butcher and dreams here of some intervention of police. The title is otherwise unexplained.
This oil on linen 170 x 165 cm was sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 6B.
Brown is a very strict vegetarian and an activist for animal rights who cannot accept the business of a butcher and dreams here of some intervention of police. The title is otherwise unexplained.
This oil on linen 170 x 165 cm was sold for $ 6M from a lower estimate of $ 4M by Christie's on November 21, 2024, lot 6B.
2015 Free Games for May
2023 SOLD for $ 6.7M by Sotheby's
Games For May is the title of a concert of the Pink Floyd made in May 1967 in London. By modifying this phrase to Free Games for May, Cecily Brown adds the idea of bodies in the joyous liberty of the spring.
This oil on linen 170 x 165 cm was sold for $ 6.7M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2023, lot 1.
Brown views herself as a figurative painter. Human forms and landscape mingle together while keeping their colors, overall constructing a total abstraction in the follow of the Untitled of the later 1970s by de Kooning. The figures are only remaining as ghostly traces. The brush strokes bring energy and movement to her abstraction.
This oil on linen 170 x 165 cm was sold for $ 6.7M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2023, lot 1.
Brown views herself as a figurative painter. Human forms and landscape mingle together while keeping their colors, overall constructing a total abstraction in the follow of the Untitled of the later 1970s by de Kooning. The figures are only remaining as ghostly traces. The brush strokes bring energy and movement to her abstraction.
