Current Art by Women
See also : Women artists Current art French sculpture Animals 20th century furniture Canada Japan and Korea
Chronology : 1990-1999 1996 2000
Chronology : 1990-1999 1996 2000
1992 Self-Portrait in a Swollen Body
2018 SOLD for £ 9.5M including premium
Jenny Saville graduates in 1992 from the Glasgow School of Art. She is 22 years old. She watches with disapproval the young women of her generation, obsessed with their bodies, threatened by anorexia, tempted by cosmetic surgery. She creates larger-than-life self-portraits with a recognizable head tilted backwards and an enlarged naked body.
A painting on canvas 210 x 179 cm titled Branded gives the key to the thought of the artist. The words of femininity are inscribed on this flaccid body : Decorative, Supportive, Irrational, Delicate. They are words from the language of men. The total contradiction between text and image is a clever provocation. Branded was sold for £ 1.5M including premium by Christie's on February 16, 2011.
For her degree show, Saville displays an installation titled Propped consisting of an oil on canvas 213 x 183 cm and a mirror. The composition of this self-portrait gives the illusion that the character comes out of her frame by her obesity. She is huge but vulnerable, with clenched hands and feet.
A text is superimposed on this image, in a plane as if it were scratched on a window. It is in reverse writing so that only the woman can read it. The role of the mirror is to provide its understanding to the art school jury. Subsequently and with the agreement of the artist, the mirror will no longer be used.
The text in Propped is a quote from the psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray who considers that men and women have a different language. Women however want to speak the language of men. In doing so, they flatter the male narcissism and erase their own personality.
Propped is estimated £ 3M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 5, lot 6.
The audacity of Propped and Branded seduced Saatchi, and Saville will be a leading artist in his Young British Artists exhibitions. Titled Shift, a promiscuity of naked female bodies exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts brings in 1997 to Saville the celebrity by the indecency supported by Saatchi. Shift was sold for £ 6.8M including premium by Sotheby's on June 28, 2016.
Breaking all the canons of beauty, the art of Saville could not have been created by a man.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
A painting on canvas 210 x 179 cm titled Branded gives the key to the thought of the artist. The words of femininity are inscribed on this flaccid body : Decorative, Supportive, Irrational, Delicate. They are words from the language of men. The total contradiction between text and image is a clever provocation. Branded was sold for £ 1.5M including premium by Christie's on February 16, 2011.
For her degree show, Saville displays an installation titled Propped consisting of an oil on canvas 213 x 183 cm and a mirror. The composition of this self-portrait gives the illusion that the character comes out of her frame by her obesity. She is huge but vulnerable, with clenched hands and feet.
A text is superimposed on this image, in a plane as if it were scratched on a window. It is in reverse writing so that only the woman can read it. The role of the mirror is to provide its understanding to the art school jury. Subsequently and with the agreement of the artist, the mirror will no longer be used.
The text in Propped is a quote from the psychoanalyst Luce Irigaray who considers that men and women have a different language. Women however want to speak the language of men. In doing so, they flatter the male narcissism and erase their own personality.
Propped is estimated £ 3M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 5, lot 6.
The audacity of Propped and Branded seduced Saatchi, and Saville will be a leading artist in his Young British Artists exhibitions. Titled Shift, a promiscuity of naked female bodies exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts brings in 1997 to Saville the celebrity by the indecency supported by Saatchi. Shift was sold for £ 6.8M including premium by Sotheby's on June 28, 2016.
Breaking all the canons of beauty, the art of Saville could not have been created by a man.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1994 Women viewed by One of Them
2019 SOLD for £ 5.4M including premium
During her studies, Jenny Saville naively researched the role of women in art. She saw pretty bodies created to please the gentlemen and lamented the absence of the creative woman. Nowhere has she seen the real aversion of women to the risk of obesity. Excessive sportswomen or anorexics, they still seek to be considered by men.
Taboos fall in front of this very young woman. She implants her own head on an obese body that is not hers. She adds ridiculous words that are only the language by men to talk about women. The oil on canvas Propped, prepared for her degree show in 1992, includes in a hermetic superposition a mirror writing that quotes a feminist psychoanalyst. Propped was sold for £ 9.5M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2018.
Jenny Saville then takes as theme the intimacy of the female nude reinterpreted on a monumental scale, with a humor both sordid and scathing. She wraps the observer in a flood of flabby flesh, consciously inspired by Rothko's abstract stagings.
The head remains a secondary element, intruder and incongruous. In a self-portrait 270 x 210 cm painted in 1993, the head is bent, but not enough to avoid being truncated at the top of the image. This frontal nude body titled Plan is not too inflated but includes the incisions preparing the cosmetic surgery, a useless and psychologically degrading action according to the feminist conceptions of the artist.
Intimate details call for even larger sizes. In an oil on canvas titled Juncture painted in 1994, the seated flabby nude is seen from behind. The head is stuck in the top left of the image and the nose is painfully crumbling on the left edge as if the format 305 x 168 cm was too narrow to express the monumentality desired by the artist.
Juncture is estimated £ 5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on March 5, lot 5. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Taboos fall in front of this very young woman. She implants her own head on an obese body that is not hers. She adds ridiculous words that are only the language by men to talk about women. The oil on canvas Propped, prepared for her degree show in 1992, includes in a hermetic superposition a mirror writing that quotes a feminist psychoanalyst. Propped was sold for £ 9.5M including premium by Sotheby's on October 5, 2018.
Jenny Saville then takes as theme the intimacy of the female nude reinterpreted on a monumental scale, with a humor both sordid and scathing. She wraps the observer in a flood of flabby flesh, consciously inspired by Rothko's abstract stagings.
The head remains a secondary element, intruder and incongruous. In a self-portrait 270 x 210 cm painted in 1993, the head is bent, but not enough to avoid being truncated at the top of the image. This frontal nude body titled Plan is not too inflated but includes the incisions preparing the cosmetic surgery, a useless and psychologically degrading action according to the feminist conceptions of the artist.
Intimate details call for even larger sizes. In an oil on canvas titled Juncture painted in 1994, the seated flabby nude is seen from behind. The head is stuck in the top left of the image and the nose is painfully crumbling on the left edge as if the format 305 x 168 cm was too narrow to express the monumentality desired by the artist.
Juncture is estimated £ 5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on March 5, lot 5. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1996 Mother and Spider
2011 SOLD 10.7 M$ including premium
The spider does not look like us, yet we share the planet with it. Good worker, it tirelessly endeavours to create its web. It disturbs us and has no face, and we interpret it as a threat.
Louise Bourgeois was not an artist of animal themes when she reached fame in an age when her contemporaries have retired. She thereafter devoted to what she felt as the most intimate, and carved giant spiders.
For Louise, the spider symbolizes her mother whom she had adored. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size.
She created several models of all dimensions. The largest, 9 meters high, are entitled Maman.
A single piece in stainless steel was sold € 2.9 million including premium by Christie's in Paris on May 27, 2008. Made in 2003, 1.12 m tall, it has a dressed body, once again recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries.
A large model made in bronze in 1996 is for sale on November 8 at Christie's in New York. Its huge surface of 6.68 x 6.33 m for only 3.38 m high is providing a decidedly protective attitude. This artwork is estimated $ 4M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The spider by Louise Bourgeois sits firmly among the major works of contemporary art. This specimen was sold for $ 10.7 million including premium.
Louise Bourgeois was not an artist of animal themes when she reached fame in an age when her contemporaries have retired. She thereafter devoted to what she felt as the most intimate, and carved giant spiders.
For Louise, the spider symbolizes her mother whom she had adored. The high legs provide a shelter. Their slimness is a technical achievement, like the thread of the spider which is of extreme strength considering its size.
She created several models of all dimensions. The largest, 9 meters high, are entitled Maman.
A single piece in stainless steel was sold € 2.9 million including premium by Christie's in Paris on May 27, 2008. Made in 2003, 1.12 m tall, it has a dressed body, once again recalling the memory of the mother whose job was to repair tapestries.
A large model made in bronze in 1996 is for sale on November 8 at Christie's in New York. Its huge surface of 6.68 x 6.33 m for only 3.38 m high is providing a decidedly protective attitude. This artwork is estimated $ 4M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The spider by Louise Bourgeois sits firmly among the major works of contemporary art. This specimen was sold for $ 10.7 million including premium.
1997 Maman Long Legs
2019 SOLD for $ 32M including premium
Louise Bourgeois desired to interpret her relationship with her own parents, generating a suffering that she appeased by her art at the borderline of sexual provocation. From 1951 to 1980 she tries a psychoanalysis. It is a failure : she considers that Freud does not propose anything for the artists.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This symbol of maternity breaks with the artist's earlier assimilation of the spider with a prostitute. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015 against a lower estimate of $ 4M.
In the following year, at the age of 84, she suddenly understands that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective. The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
A spider 3.26 m high on a 7.56 x 7.06 m overall perimeter designed in 1996 was sculpted in steel and cast in bronze in 1997 in six copies plus one artist's proof and one variant in bronze. The number 3/6 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on November 10, 2015. The 2/6 is estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 15, lot 21 B.
In 1994 she builds a small steel spider 28 cm high which carries marble eggs in a bag under its body. This symbol of maternity breaks with the artist's earlier assimilation of the spider with a prostitute. This sculpture, one of the first by Bourgeois on this theme, passed at Sotheby's on November 11, 2015 against a lower estimate of $ 4M.
In the following year, at the age of 84, she suddenly understands that the spider's maternal function will solve her fantasies. She sculpts new steel spiders and edits them in bronze, in various configurations : lowered body for climbing on the wall or raised on its tall thin legs.
The perimeter of the legs is the safety zone offered by the mother to her offspring. The comparison with the Lupa Capitolina suckling Romulus and Remus is relevant. The spiders of Louise Bourgeois personify her own mother, too frail but intensely protective. The gigantic dimension of the sculptures, culminating in 1999 with a 10 m high Maman, solves this contradiction. Maman carries her eggs as in the original spider five years earlier.
A spider 3.26 m high on a 7.56 x 7.06 m overall perimeter designed in 1996 was sculpted in steel and cast in bronze in 1997 in six copies plus one artist's proof and one variant in bronze. The number 3/6 was sold for $ 28M including premium by Christie's on November 10, 2015. The 2/6 is estimated $ 25M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 15, lot 21 B.
1997 The Female Spider
2015 SOLD for $ 28M including premium
Louise Bourgeois left many writings about her own art but it remains difficult to find the key. The relationship between sex and family, the position of the child within the family unit, are the highly traumatic guides to her creativity. Until 98 years old, she will be an activist in support to all the sexual minorities.
She is already an octogenarian when she develops the theme of the spider. By entitling Maman her most mesmerizing spiders, she seems to clarify her most intimate desire but in reality she blurs it with complacency.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. She amazed those who approached her since the mythological times. By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M including premium a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is certainly another female carnal and Freudian symbol.
A spider 6.68 x 6.33 m for 3.38 m high cast in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7 million including premium by Christie's in New York on November 8, 2011. On November 10, the same auction house offers another even wider variant also in bronze, 7.56 x 7.06 x 3.26 m, executed in 1997, lot 10B.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's.
She is already an octogenarian when she develops the theme of the spider. By entitling Maman her most mesmerizing spiders, she seems to clarify her most intimate desire but in reality she blurs it with complacency.
The world of a real spider is certainly of high complexity. It (she) is patient, steady in the center of her web which she builds and efficiently repairs after a destruction. The polygon of her eight legs offers a shelter for her loved ones, but she is also a fierce predator to the insects. Her small size makes her vulnerable but the artist will enlarge it to make her the towering star of a dehumanized parallel universe.
The spider is not a vertebrate and her behavioral psychology is inaccessible. She amazed those who approached her since the mythological times. By choosing this beast as a symbol of motherhood, Louise Bourgeois is not an artist of animals but indeed a highly disturbing surrealist artist in the line of Wifredo Lam.
Within her old age, Louise Bourgeois remained hypersensitive to sexual ambiguity and sexual promiscuity. On October 15, 2015, Sotheby's sold for £ 1.2M including premium a showcase realized in 2001 titled Mother and child, exhibiting a limp infant on the nude torso of a woman like some externalization of pregnancy. The carefully carved body of Bourgeois's spiders is certainly another female carnal and Freudian symbol.
A spider 6.68 x 6.33 m for 3.38 m high cast in 1996 was sold for $ 10.7 million including premium by Christie's in New York on November 8, 2011. On November 10, the same auction house offers another even wider variant also in bronze, 7.56 x 7.06 x 3.26 m, executed in 1997, lot 10B.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's.
1997 Spiders on the Wall
2017 SOLD for $ 14.7M including premium
By realizing her spiders in bronze from 1995 Louise Bourgeoisconcretizes with an indestructible material her lifelong fantasies about the intrauterine relations. The cohort of these protective spiders form a deeply feminine surrealist universe. The bronzes are edited in six copies plus an artist's proof.
Spider I (127 x 117 x 31 cm) and II (185 x 185 x 57 cm) conceived in 1995 and Spider IV (203 x 180 x 53 cm) conceived in the following year have a lowered body that invites to apply them on a wall. The right rear leg of Spider IV is folded simulating an upward walking.
Spider III (48 x 84 x 83 cm) designed in 1995 is raised on its legs and anticipates the gigantic bronzes of 1996 and 1997 that can be used as garden shelters. The culmination of this evolution is the 9.20 m high spider named Maman made in 1999 which can be used as a city monument.
Two of these bronzes are estimated $ 10M each in the upcoming New York evening sales. On November 15, Christie's sells a Spider II edited in 1995, lot 7 B. On November 16, Sotheby's sells a Spider IV from the 1997 original edition, lot 34.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
RESULTS INCLUDING PREMIUM
Spider II at Christie's : $ 11.6M
Spider IV at Sotheby's : $ 14.7M
Spider I (127 x 117 x 31 cm) and II (185 x 185 x 57 cm) conceived in 1995 and Spider IV (203 x 180 x 53 cm) conceived in the following year have a lowered body that invites to apply them on a wall. The right rear leg of Spider IV is folded simulating an upward walking.
Spider III (48 x 84 x 83 cm) designed in 1995 is raised on its legs and anticipates the gigantic bronzes of 1996 and 1997 that can be used as garden shelters. The culmination of this evolution is the 9.20 m high spider named Maman made in 1999 which can be used as a city monument.
Two of these bronzes are estimated $ 10M each in the upcoming New York evening sales. On November 15, Christie's sells a Spider II edited in 1995, lot 7 B. On November 16, Sotheby's sells a Spider IV from the 1997 original edition, lot 34.
Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
RESULTS INCLUDING PREMIUM
Spider II at Christie's : $ 11.6M
Spider IV at Sotheby's : $ 14.7M
1997 The Bodies of Jenny Saville
2016 SOLD for £ 6.8M including premium
The second half of the twentieth century saw the separation of aesthetics and art. The greatest artists are those who express with strength and originality their intimate view on world and life.
Seen by women, the nude body is a concrete theme. Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown, Marilyn Minter and Marlene Dumas observe it. They cancelled their potential inhibitions up to the limits of pornography. Each one in her own style, these women provide answers to the tragic question of Diane Arbus on the meaning of life seen through abnormalities and through physical or social deviances.
Jenny Saville is a woman. She therefore can not become a transgender. She imagines another hybridization. She painted in 1993 her self-portrait with the naked body of an obese woman. The belly is rigged of lines mapping for a cosmetic surgery of deflation. Saatchi has included this work entitled Plan in his third exhibition of the Young British Artists in 1994. At the same time Lucian Freud explores the naked obesity of Sue.
Saatchi was closely following the progress of Saville. During the preparation of his Sensation exhibition in 1997, he visited Saville in her studio when the artist was finishing Shift. Saatchi is seduced by this new vision of a monumental stack of nude women proposed by Saville, influenced by the parallel position of the girls in the square composition of the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The artist tells today about Shift an inspiration derived from the emotional wrapping of the viewer by Rothko within large size paintings. She wanted that this non-narrative accumulation of flesh pushes art to offer to the viewer a tactile sensation and an illusion of smell. Shift also follows the experiences by De Kooning on the expression of a woman's body through an abstract technique.
By bringing in Sensation all the darings of which some can still now be considered as socially unacceptable, Saatchi has restarted an interest of the public in contemporary art while simultaneously promoting 42 Young British Artists including Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili. 300,000 persons visited that exhibition. It is to the credit of the Royal Academy for hosting this event despite the obvious risk of scandal and of violent reaction.
Shift, oil on canvas 330 x 330 cm dated 1996-1997, is estimated £ 1.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 28, lot 25.
Seen by women, the nude body is a concrete theme. Jenny Saville, Cecily Brown, Marilyn Minter and Marlene Dumas observe it. They cancelled their potential inhibitions up to the limits of pornography. Each one in her own style, these women provide answers to the tragic question of Diane Arbus on the meaning of life seen through abnormalities and through physical or social deviances.
Jenny Saville is a woman. She therefore can not become a transgender. She imagines another hybridization. She painted in 1993 her self-portrait with the naked body of an obese woman. The belly is rigged of lines mapping for a cosmetic surgery of deflation. Saatchi has included this work entitled Plan in his third exhibition of the Young British Artists in 1994. At the same time Lucian Freud explores the naked obesity of Sue.
Saatchi was closely following the progress of Saville. During the preparation of his Sensation exhibition in 1997, he visited Saville in her studio when the artist was finishing Shift. Saatchi is seduced by this new vision of a monumental stack of nude women proposed by Saville, influenced by the parallel position of the girls in the square composition of the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The artist tells today about Shift an inspiration derived from the emotional wrapping of the viewer by Rothko within large size paintings. She wanted that this non-narrative accumulation of flesh pushes art to offer to the viewer a tactile sensation and an illusion of smell. Shift also follows the experiences by De Kooning on the expression of a woman's body through an abstract technique.
By bringing in Sensation all the darings of which some can still now be considered as socially unacceptable, Saatchi has restarted an interest of the public in contemporary art while simultaneously promoting 42 Young British Artists including Damien Hirst and Chris Ofili. 300,000 persons visited that exhibition. It is to the credit of the Royal Academy for hosting this event despite the obvious risk of scandal and of violent reaction.
Shift, oil on canvas 330 x 330 cm dated 1996-1997, is estimated £ 1.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on June 28, lot 25.
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.
2000 The Diaphanous Happiness of Agnes Martin
2015 SOLD for £ 2.84M including premium
Influenced by Zen, Agnes Martin finds joy in the contemplation of the desert in Taos. She shares it through her paintings made of grids of equidistant lines. The surface appearance, plain but not strictly monochrome, expresses her vision of the dune, the beach or the mountain. She wraps the viewer in her art and readily admits that her work belongs to abstract expressionism.
Agnes Martin restarted her work in her later life with another pattern. The canvas is prepared with a gesso that will bring the luminosity. The horizontal bands drawn freehand with pencil are replacing the grid and define alternative areas of diaphanous colors, mostly pink and blue.
It is a rare case of an artist who was able to go up to the ultimate in her search and expression of happiness. Although her technique is different, she is close to the art of Gaitonde who had himself been influenced by Rothko.
The titles now express feelings. Loving love, 152 x 152 cm, painted in Taos in 2000 when the artist was 88 years old, was sold for £ 2.1 million including premium by Christie's on July 1, 2014. The stripes are of uniform width, except that the two central ones are blue, accentuating the impression of symmetry.
An untitled work made in the same year or maybe the year before in the same format is estimated £ 2.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 15, lot 7. The pink stripes are twice wider than the blue.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Agnes Martin restarted her work in her later life with another pattern. The canvas is prepared with a gesso that will bring the luminosity. The horizontal bands drawn freehand with pencil are replacing the grid and define alternative areas of diaphanous colors, mostly pink and blue.
It is a rare case of an artist who was able to go up to the ultimate in her search and expression of happiness. Although her technique is different, she is close to the art of Gaitonde who had himself been influenced by Rothko.
The titles now express feelings. Loving love, 152 x 152 cm, painted in Taos in 2000 when the artist was 88 years old, was sold for £ 2.1 million including premium by Christie's on July 1, 2014. The stripes are of uniform width, except that the two central ones are blue, accentuating the impression of symmetry.
An untitled work made in the same year or maybe the year before in the same format is estimated £ 2.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 15, lot 7. The pink stripes are twice wider than the blue.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
2008 How Mehretu fills the Space
2013 SOLD 3.1 M$ including premium
Julie Mehretu works basically at the opposite of Pollock: on the immense surface of her paintings, she begins by positioning an elegant multitude of colored signs.
This work initially abstract, as hermetic as a Kandinsky, is not enough for her and she decides to provide it with a life in time and space. The finishing of a painting by Mehretu is a tight pattern of barely perceptible lines adding an unlimited urban structure onto the lighter areas of the image.
On September 25, 2010, Sotheby's sold $ 1M including premium an untitled painting, or more exactly an Untitled 1, 152 x 213 cm, made in 2001.
Discussing the result, I stated that the value of Mehretu's art deserved to be followed. Events made me right. As early as on 9 November 2010, Sotheby's sold $ 2.3 million including premium an ambitious painting made in 2004 in ink and acrylic, 285 x 630 cm, titled The Seven Acts of Mercy.
On April 22 in Doha, Sotheby's sells a painting made in 2008 in ink and synthetic polymers, 244 x 366 cm. Note thatthe artist, who is working in New York, is Ethiopian so that collectors from the Middle East will certainly find similarities of inspiration with the contemporary Islamic art.
Then aged 38, Mehretu no longer needed patches of bright colors to express her message. The balance of the tangled lines provides to the work a great lightness. It is entitled Rising Down, a contradiction worthy of Miro that expressesthe desire of the artist to fill the space and dominate her world.
Rising Down is estimated U.S. $ 2M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
It was a great idea to sell an outstanding painting by Mehretu in Doha: U.S. $ 3.1 million including premium.
This work initially abstract, as hermetic as a Kandinsky, is not enough for her and she decides to provide it with a life in time and space. The finishing of a painting by Mehretu is a tight pattern of barely perceptible lines adding an unlimited urban structure onto the lighter areas of the image.
On September 25, 2010, Sotheby's sold $ 1M including premium an untitled painting, or more exactly an Untitled 1, 152 x 213 cm, made in 2001.
Discussing the result, I stated that the value of Mehretu's art deserved to be followed. Events made me right. As early as on 9 November 2010, Sotheby's sold $ 2.3 million including premium an ambitious painting made in 2004 in ink and acrylic, 285 x 630 cm, titled The Seven Acts of Mercy.
On April 22 in Doha, Sotheby's sells a painting made in 2008 in ink and synthetic polymers, 244 x 366 cm. Note thatthe artist, who is working in New York, is Ethiopian so that collectors from the Middle East will certainly find similarities of inspiration with the contemporary Islamic art.
Then aged 38, Mehretu no longer needed patches of bright colors to express her message. The balance of the tangled lines provides to the work a great lightness. It is entitled Rising Down, a contradiction worthy of Miro that expressesthe desire of the artist to fill the space and dominate her world.
Rising Down is estimated U.S. $ 2M. Here is the link to the catalog.
POST SALE COMMENT
It was a great idea to sell an outstanding painting by Mehretu in Doha: U.S. $ 3.1 million including premium.
