Decade 1980-1989
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Painting The Man Nude Groups Christianity Animals Abstract art II USA USA II Basquiat Warhol Later Warhols Bacon Later Bacons UK II Freud Early Freud China Modern China Zao Wou-Ki Sculpture Koons
See also : Painting The Man Nude Groups Christianity Animals Abstract art II USA USA II Basquiat Warhol Later Warhols Bacon Later Bacons UK II Freud Early Freud China Modern China Zao Wou-Ki Sculpture Koons
Triptych by BACON
1
1981 inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus
2020 SOLD for $ 85M by Sotheby's
Francis Bacon has long sought his way to illustrate human weaknesses and suffering. The major influence on his art is the Oresteia by Aeschylus. When he discovers this trilogy, he stops destroying his own productions. It is certainly no coincidence that his seminal work, made in 1944 at the age of 35, is a triptych.
This painting is titled Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. As a challenge against Christianity, he does not display the Passion but pictures of the Furies who forever pursue their vengeance on the guilty Orestes.
In 1962 Bacon begins using a new format for his completed works : the triptych of oils on canvas sized 198 x 148 cm for each element. He will make 28 of them. Aeschylus continues to haunt him. A triptych painted in 1976 featuring in the central panel Prometheus devoured by the eagle in the presence of the Furies was sold for $ 86M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On June 29, 2020, Sotheby's sold for $ 85M from a lower estimate of $ 60M Triptych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, painted in 1981, lot 105. Please watch the First Look video and the Expert Voices video shared by the auction house.
Unlike the Prometheus in the example above, the artist avoids any narrative aspect in his Oresteia to better focus on the sensations. The main figure of each of the three elements is made up of contorted nudity fragments. Homosexual, sado-masochist and atheist, Francis Bacon proclaims his difference by taking Aeschylus as a reference for interpreting the human passions and the impossibility of escaping the Furies of destiny.
This painting is titled Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion. As a challenge against Christianity, he does not display the Passion but pictures of the Furies who forever pursue their vengeance on the guilty Orestes.
In 1962 Bacon begins using a new format for his completed works : the triptych of oils on canvas sized 198 x 148 cm for each element. He will make 28 of them. Aeschylus continues to haunt him. A triptych painted in 1976 featuring in the central panel Prometheus devoured by the eagle in the presence of the Furies was sold for $ 86M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On June 29, 2020, Sotheby's sold for $ 85M from a lower estimate of $ 60M Triptych inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus, painted in 1981, lot 105. Please watch the First Look video and the Expert Voices video shared by the auction house.
Unlike the Prometheus in the example above, the artist avoids any narrative aspect in his Oresteia to better focus on the sensations. The main figure of each of the three elements is made up of contorted nudity fragments. Homosexual, sado-masochist and atheist, Francis Bacon proclaims his difference by taking Aeschylus as a reference for interpreting the human passions and the impossibility of escaping the Furies of destiny.
2
1984 John Edwards
2014 SOLD for $ 81M by Christie's
Francis Bacon enjoyed confrontations. Having become famous, he despised the deference of his interlocutors. In 1974 in Soho, he was aggressed by the bartender John Edwards who criticized his selfishness after a missed visit to his London pub. John was right. Francis returns to his studio and begins to paint his first portrait of John Edwards.
John was handicapped by a severe dyslexia which had ruined his education. He could barely read and write but his behavior was direct and sociable. Francis will say of John that he was the only true friend he ever had. The age difference was 40 years. John will be the sole heir of Francis and keeper of his estate.
Such a trust was new to the old artist. John became his photographer. This strong boy could also be his bodyguard. On happy days, he had the privilege of entering the workshop while Francis was painting. He was the only witness to the lifelong drama of the artist who constantly seemed to be fighting with his canvas.
Francis painted more than twenty portraits of John. Their friendship changed his style. No more caricatured faces and deliquescent bodies.
A large size triptych portrait of John painted in 1984, 198 x 148 cm for each element, was sold for $ 81M by Christie's on May 13, 2014. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
John is gently seated on a stool and normally dressed. He is recognizable by his prominent jaw which the artist reinforced with a white line in the two side views. The face is made expressive by his usual range of colors, from flesh to crimson. The sitter is enclosed in Bacon's signature threadlike cage which was a tribute to Giacometti. The large empty room with the concave wall is the arena in which the artist exhibits his model.
The originality of this artwork in Bacon's corpus is that the face is realistic, peaceful and confident. Francis stated that John's triptych is one of his most successful works. It certainly means that his empathy with the disabled model was complete.
John was handicapped by a severe dyslexia which had ruined his education. He could barely read and write but his behavior was direct and sociable. Francis will say of John that he was the only true friend he ever had. The age difference was 40 years. John will be the sole heir of Francis and keeper of his estate.
Such a trust was new to the old artist. John became his photographer. This strong boy could also be his bodyguard. On happy days, he had the privilege of entering the workshop while Francis was painting. He was the only witness to the lifelong drama of the artist who constantly seemed to be fighting with his canvas.
Francis painted more than twenty portraits of John. Their friendship changed his style. No more caricatured faces and deliquescent bodies.
A large size triptych portrait of John painted in 1984, 198 x 148 cm for each element, was sold for $ 81M by Christie's on May 13, 2014. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
John is gently seated on a stool and normally dressed. He is recognizable by his prominent jaw which the artist reinforced with a white line in the two side views. The face is made expressive by his usual range of colors, from flesh to crimson. The sitter is enclosed in Bacon's signature threadlike cage which was a tribute to Giacometti. The large empty room with the concave wall is the arena in which the artist exhibits his model.
The originality of this artwork in Bacon's corpus is that the face is realistic, peaceful and confident. Francis stated that John's triptych is one of his most successful works. It certainly means that his empathy with the disabled model was complete.
BASQUIAT
1
January 1982
2017 SOLD for $ 110M by Sotheby's
The participation of Jean-Michel Basquiat in a collective exhibition in February 1981 attracted the attention of three merchants who will separately have a leading role in the start of his career : Emilio Mazzoli, Annina Nosei and Bruno Bischofberger.
It is to the honor of Annina Nosei to have convinced Jean-Michel that her basement was more appropriate than the streets of New York to let his skills explode. This close collaboration during which the artist can finally work regularly on very large canvases lasted from September 1981 to November 1982.
During that first year Jean-Michel mostly displays characters in full length, apostles of negritude whose transparency of the flesh reveals the skeleton. His perfectly mastered technique with acrylic, spray and oilstick and his fast and accurate stroke bring the expression of an activism unprecedented in art.
The monumental heads painted in 1982 are the culmination of the art of Jean-Michel. On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M from an estimate in excess of $ 60M a painting 183 x 173 cm executed in January 1982 for the Nosei Gallery, lot 24.
Like many opus by Jean-Michel, it is untitled. The theme is limited to a huge head to which bright colors and aggressive teeth provide an angry expression. By its transparency, it is a skull or perhaps a mask. Without neck or body, it floats before a blue sky that is perhaps only a gap in a tagged wall.
It is to the honor of Annina Nosei to have convinced Jean-Michel that her basement was more appropriate than the streets of New York to let his skills explode. This close collaboration during which the artist can finally work regularly on very large canvases lasted from September 1981 to November 1982.
During that first year Jean-Michel mostly displays characters in full length, apostles of negritude whose transparency of the flesh reveals the skeleton. His perfectly mastered technique with acrylic, spray and oilstick and his fast and accurate stroke bring the expression of an activism unprecedented in art.
The monumental heads painted in 1982 are the culmination of the art of Jean-Michel. On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M from an estimate in excess of $ 60M a painting 183 x 173 cm executed in January 1982 for the Nosei Gallery, lot 24.
Like many opus by Jean-Michel, it is untitled. The theme is limited to a huge head to which bright colors and aggressive teeth provide an angry expression. By its transparency, it is a skull or perhaps a mask. Without neck or body, it floats before a blue sky that is perhaps only a gap in a tagged wall.
2
March 1982
2022 SOLD for $ 85M by Phillips
Jean-Michel Basquiat made two trips to Italy early in his career. The first visit in the spring of 1981 was caused by the exhibition dedicated to him in Modena by Emilio Mazzoli.
Jean-Michel returns to Modena in March 1982. Through the example of the Field next to the other road painted there in 1981 on a 221 x 401 cm canvas, he appreciated that the basement of Annina Nosei was already not sufficient to match his grand vision. This painting was sold for $ 37M by Christie's in 2015. He will part from the Nosei gallery in favor of Bischofberger in the summer of 1982.
During his Spring 1982 stay in Modena, he executes a pair of paintings on the traditional Italian theme of paradise and hell but as usual he blurs the message to exacerbate his vision of the power to the blacks. An advised art critic would later comment that Jean-Michel Basquiat had been the Jimi Hendrix of painting.
Jean-Michel understood the visual advantage of gigantism which will be one of the essential characteristics of the art of our time : the size of the canvas is 239 x 500 cm. It is painted in acrylic without oil stick, enabling to introduce some drippings below the puddles of bright colors surrounding the horned head.
Some observers see a self-portrait in this devil. This is an excessive opinion because the lines are stylized, but indeed this threatening tribal face reflects the ambition of the young artist to become a redeemer of the world.
That vision of hell was sold for $ 57M by Christie's on May 10, 2016, lot 36 B. Please watch the video shared by Christie's. It was sold for $ 85M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 12.
Jean-Michel had not needed to give a title to his Demon, unlike the divine figure which he called Profit I by one of his usual claw blows against capitalism. The contrast is striking : here the background is dark and tagged, the round mouth is shouting a sermon that nobody will listen.
Profit I, 220 x 400 cm, had established a temporary world record at auction for the artist on May 14, 2002 when it was sold by Christie's for $ 5.5M from a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 34.
Jean-Michel returns to Modena in March 1982. Through the example of the Field next to the other road painted there in 1981 on a 221 x 401 cm canvas, he appreciated that the basement of Annina Nosei was already not sufficient to match his grand vision. This painting was sold for $ 37M by Christie's in 2015. He will part from the Nosei gallery in favor of Bischofberger in the summer of 1982.
During his Spring 1982 stay in Modena, he executes a pair of paintings on the traditional Italian theme of paradise and hell but as usual he blurs the message to exacerbate his vision of the power to the blacks. An advised art critic would later comment that Jean-Michel Basquiat had been the Jimi Hendrix of painting.
Jean-Michel understood the visual advantage of gigantism which will be one of the essential characteristics of the art of our time : the size of the canvas is 239 x 500 cm. It is painted in acrylic without oil stick, enabling to introduce some drippings below the puddles of bright colors surrounding the horned head.
Some observers see a self-portrait in this devil. This is an excessive opinion because the lines are stylized, but indeed this threatening tribal face reflects the ambition of the young artist to become a redeemer of the world.
That vision of hell was sold for $ 57M by Christie's on May 10, 2016, lot 36 B. Please watch the video shared by Christie's. It was sold for $ 85M by Phillips on May 18, 2022, lot 12.
Jean-Michel had not needed to give a title to his Demon, unlike the divine figure which he called Profit I by one of his usual claw blows against capitalism. The contrast is striking : here the background is dark and tagged, the round mouth is shouting a sermon that nobody will listen.
Profit I, 220 x 400 cm, had established a temporary world record at auction for the artist on May 14, 2002 when it was sold by Christie's for $ 5.5M from a lower estimate of $ 3M, lot 34.
3
1983 In this Case
2021 SOLD for $ 93M by Christie's
There is a tragic turning point in the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat after his two wonder years. As early as January 1983, he tells Geldzahler that his art is now 80 % anger.
In the first phase, the skull viewed through the head or in place of it was a mere artefact, just like the bones viewed through the skin. The two monumental "skull" views of 1982, one sold for $ 110M by Sotheby's in 2017 and the other for $ 57M by Christie's in 2016, use the skull for featuring a terrible and playful demon. Both paintings are untitled.
Also in 1982, an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas is titled Red Skull. It displays around that new theme Jean-Michel's signature explosions of seven bright colors. This painting 152 x 152 cm was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, lot 8.
The game becomes serious. On May 11, 2021, Christie's sold at lot 8 A for $ 93M In this case, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 198 x 187 cm painted in 1983. The April 26 press release had announced an estimate of $ 50M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The skull occupies now the whole surface of the canvas, without a reference to a skin. A half of it is missing, evidencing the post death decay. The surrounding color is a very violent red. The cheek embeds a one-hand clock ticking the disaster of time and the precarity of black men in the US society. The single eye is yellow and the teeth are green.
This opus is considered convincingly as a tribute to the street artist Michael Stewart, beaten to death in September 1983 by the police while attempting to tag in the New York subway. The young African-American graffiti artist was a close friend of Jean-Michel of whom he was dating a previous girlfriend.
The title is a pun, of course. It does not refer to the trivial phrase nor to the cranial case but to the coffin of the friend, while also forwarding a desire of Jean-Michel to go to court against the brutality of the cops.
In the first phase, the skull viewed through the head or in place of it was a mere artefact, just like the bones viewed through the skin. The two monumental "skull" views of 1982, one sold for $ 110M by Sotheby's in 2017 and the other for $ 57M by Christie's in 2016, use the skull for featuring a terrible and playful demon. Both paintings are untitled.
Also in 1982, an acrylic, oilstick and collage on canvas is titled Red Skull. It displays around that new theme Jean-Michel's signature explosions of seven bright colors. This painting 152 x 152 cm was sold for £ 16.5M by Christie's on October 6, 2017, lot 8.
The game becomes serious. On May 11, 2021, Christie's sold at lot 8 A for $ 93M In this case, acrylic and oilstick on canvas 198 x 187 cm painted in 1983. The April 26 press release had announced an estimate of $ 50M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The skull occupies now the whole surface of the canvas, without a reference to a skin. A half of it is missing, evidencing the post death decay. The surrounding color is a very violent red. The cheek embeds a one-hand clock ticking the disaster of time and the precarity of black men in the US society. The single eye is yellow and the teeth are green.
This opus is considered convincingly as a tribute to the street artist Michael Stewart, beaten to death in September 1983 by the police while attempting to tag in the New York subway. The young African-American graffiti artist was a close friend of Jean-Michel of whom he was dating a previous girlfriend.
The title is a pun, of course. It does not refer to the trivial phrase nor to the cranial case but to the coffin of the friend, while also forwarding a desire of Jean-Michel to go to court against the brutality of the cops.
4
1983 The Nile
2023 SOLD for $ 67M by Christie's
The epic style with many tag like inscriptions started by Basquiat in 1983 is conceived to vilify slavery. Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta, on five joined panels 125 x 475 cm overall, was sold for $ 23.7M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2014, lot 20.
An acrylic and oilstick on canvas mounted on wood in three parts 173 x 360 cm overall is dealing with Egypt. It is titled The Nile on the reverse while a Latino inscription El Gran Espectaculo is assimilating history to a mere show.
A black figure in the right panel is unambiguously labeled as Slave. Beside him a dog is keeping safe some dictator with the inscription A Dog Guarding the Pharoh. It is not the only deliberate misspelling. Starting the voyage in the left panel, two figures reside in Nuba. A link is made with the USA with Memphis referring to both Thebes and Tennesee, a racial southern state.
A gold sickle is so titled three times, symbolizing the pre-Pharaonic dwellers. Several antique boats transfer them to slavery. Some other inscriptions are erased, including an Amenophis. Symbols include the Eye of Horus in a dominant position.
The first owner of The Nile had been the Nosei gallery of which the artist had departed in the summer of 1982. It was sold for $ 67M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 6 B.
Beside The Nile and The Undiscovered Genius, Basquiat's great epic anti-slavery paintings are History of Black People and Toussaint L'Overture versus Savonarola.
An acrylic and oilstick on canvas mounted on wood in three parts 173 x 360 cm overall is dealing with Egypt. It is titled The Nile on the reverse while a Latino inscription El Gran Espectaculo is assimilating history to a mere show.
A black figure in the right panel is unambiguously labeled as Slave. Beside him a dog is keeping safe some dictator with the inscription A Dog Guarding the Pharoh. It is not the only deliberate misspelling. Starting the voyage in the left panel, two figures reside in Nuba. A link is made with the USA with Memphis referring to both Thebes and Tennesee, a racial southern state.
A gold sickle is so titled three times, symbolizing the pre-Pharaonic dwellers. Several antique boats transfer them to slavery. Some other inscriptions are erased, including an Amenophis. Symbols include the Eye of Horus in a dominant position.
The first owner of The Nile had been the Nosei gallery of which the artist had departed in the summer of 1982. It was sold for $ 67M by Christie's on May 15, 2023, lot 6 B.
Beside The Nile and The Undiscovered Genius, Basquiat's great epic anti-slavery paintings are History of Black People and Toussaint L'Overture versus Savonarola.
1983 After Watteau by Freud
2022 SOLD for $ 86M by Christie's
Lucian Freud was keen to confront his art with antique or ancient masterpieces.
In 1981 the renowned collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza is sitting in Lucian's studio in London for a portrait, achieved in 1982. Behind the head, the artist paints in a fair rendering a half hidden replica of a small fête galante by Watteau recently acquired by the Baron.
The Watteau, titled Pierrot content, features five characters in a garden, four of them seated in a row on a bench. A pretty Columbine is playing mandolin. Lucian will transfer this scene into his own universe in a stand alone picture.
Lucian's oil on canvas, titled Large Interior, W11 (After Watteau) is completed in 1983. It is unprecedented in Lucian Freud's art by its size, 185 x 198 cm, by the staging of more than two characters, and by the fact that the sitters dis not attend together the posing sessions.
It is typical by its very thick impasto and by the fact that Watteau's figures have been replaced by close relatives including his daughter Bella playing Columbine with the mandolin.
The rest of it is Lucian's fancy. The scene is staged in his studio, also referred by the part post code W11 in the title. Watteau's charming high society faces are replaced by unpleasantly concerned figures in creased attire, two of them bare foot.The fountain is now a sink with a running tap. The bench had been recently acquired by Lucian for £ 7.
After Watteau was sold for $ 86M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 34.
In 1981 the renowned collector Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza is sitting in Lucian's studio in London for a portrait, achieved in 1982. Behind the head, the artist paints in a fair rendering a half hidden replica of a small fête galante by Watteau recently acquired by the Baron.
The Watteau, titled Pierrot content, features five characters in a garden, four of them seated in a row on a bench. A pretty Columbine is playing mandolin. Lucian will transfer this scene into his own universe in a stand alone picture.
Lucian's oil on canvas, titled Large Interior, W11 (After Watteau) is completed in 1983. It is unprecedented in Lucian Freud's art by its size, 185 x 198 cm, by the staging of more than two characters, and by the fact that the sitters dis not attend together the posing sessions.
It is typical by its very thick impasto and by the fact that Watteau's figures have been replaced by close relatives including his daughter Bella playing Columbine with the mandolin.
The rest of it is Lucian's fancy. The scene is staged in his studio, also referred by the part post code W11 in the title. Watteau's charming high society faces are replaced by unpleasantly concerned figures in creased attire, two of them bare foot.The fountain is now a sink with a running tap. The bench had been recently acquired by Lucian for £ 7.
After Watteau was sold for $ 86M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 34.
Juin-Octobre 1985 by Zao Wou-Ki
2018 SOLD for HK$ 510M by Sotheby's
The architect I.M. Pei has considerably influenced the style of the great modern cities. When his fame becomes international, he revisits his native China. In the 1970s the Far East no longer wants its urbanism to follow the West. They always desire higher, more spectacular, more functional. Pei is building an office skyscraper 198 meters high in Singapore.
Zao Wou-Ki also made his own return to his sources. In the 1980s the originality of his abstract paintings inspired by East and West met with great success in the Far East.
Pei is creating in Singapore a complex named Raffles City based on a tower and two hotels, and incorporating a shopping center and a convention center. In 1985 the project is advanced enough to anticipate the interior design. Zao is traveling in the Far East. Pei makes him visit the Raffles site and commissions him a gigantic painting for adorning the grand lobby of the main building alongside abstractions by Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland in the minimalist taste of the architect.
Back in France, Zao prepares this work with a passion comparable to Monet opening with the Grandes Décorations the ultimate phase of his career. The result is a triptych of oils on canvas, 2.80 m x 10 m overall, which is installed in 1986 as planned and will remain there until 2005. Contrary to Zao's usual practice, the title is not a mere date but a period, Juin-Octobre 1985, thus confirming the prolonged attention given by the artist in its execution.
Juin-Octobre 1985 is the most monumental artwork in Zao's entire career. According to his inspiration in that decade, it evokes the mystical unicity between nature and the infinite. The incandescent center is seen beyond a dark curtain accented by strident blue.
It was sold for HK $ 510M from an expectation beyond HK $ 350M by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018, lot 1004.
Zao Wou-Ki also made his own return to his sources. In the 1980s the originality of his abstract paintings inspired by East and West met with great success in the Far East.
Pei is creating in Singapore a complex named Raffles City based on a tower and two hotels, and incorporating a shopping center and a convention center. In 1985 the project is advanced enough to anticipate the interior design. Zao is traveling in the Far East. Pei makes him visit the Raffles site and commissions him a gigantic painting for adorning the grand lobby of the main building alongside abstractions by Ellsworth Kelly and Kenneth Noland in the minimalist taste of the architect.
Back in France, Zao prepares this work with a passion comparable to Monet opening with the Grandes Décorations the ultimate phase of his career. The result is a triptych of oils on canvas, 2.80 m x 10 m overall, which is installed in 1986 as planned and will remain there until 2005. Contrary to Zao's usual practice, the title is not a mere date but a period, Juin-Octobre 1985, thus confirming the prolonged attention given by the artist in its execution.
Juin-Octobre 1985 is the most monumental artwork in Zao's entire career. According to his inspiration in that decade, it evokes the mystical unicity between nature and the infinite. The incandescent center is seen beyond a dark curtain accented by strident blue.
It was sold for HK $ 510M from an expectation beyond HK $ 350M by Sotheby's on September 30, 2018, lot 1004.
1986 Rabbit by Koons
2019 SOLD for $ 91M by Christie's
Jeff Koons began his artist's career by gathering casts and ready-mades in solo and group exhibitions. In 1979 Inflatables assembles vinyl flowers with mirrors. He exhibits Equilibrium in 1983 and Luxury and Degradation including the Jim Beam train in 1986.
With Statuary in 1986 and Banality in 1988, Koons pushes kitsch to the rank of a major art : his unlimited exploitation of the consumer society is ultra-modernist, in the wake of the everyday objects hugely increased by Oldenburg.
Statuary includes ten stainless steel sculptures. The terrible banality of this group is broken by the two highest pieces in a total opposition of style : a bust of Louis XIV 117 cm high and a rabbit 104 cm high. With this Rabbit, Koons makes a great promotion for his own art. The closest antecedent is the unique Bunny which had slipped into his previous series of inflatable flowers.
The new rabbit has smooth forms and no face. It brings up to the position of its mouth a carrot in which some visitors see a sexual symbol, an impression reinforced by the information that the steel had been molded over an inflatable doll. The spectators satisfy their own ego by contemplating themselves in the mirror-like surface of the rabbit. The artist's statements complacently maintain all these ambiguities.
After this great success of his rabbit, Koons appreciates that other figures or toys much stylized and disproportionately enlarged will have a considerable impact on the public. His Celebrations, designed from 1994 in a range of colors, will offer a similar mirror effect.
Rabbit was edited in three units plus one artist's proof. Number 2/3 was sold for $ 91M from a lower estimate of $ 50M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 15 B. The Louis XIV artist's proof was sold for $ 10.8M by Christie's on May 13, 2015.
With Statuary in 1986 and Banality in 1988, Koons pushes kitsch to the rank of a major art : his unlimited exploitation of the consumer society is ultra-modernist, in the wake of the everyday objects hugely increased by Oldenburg.
Statuary includes ten stainless steel sculptures. The terrible banality of this group is broken by the two highest pieces in a total opposition of style : a bust of Louis XIV 117 cm high and a rabbit 104 cm high. With this Rabbit, Koons makes a great promotion for his own art. The closest antecedent is the unique Bunny which had slipped into his previous series of inflatable flowers.
The new rabbit has smooth forms and no face. It brings up to the position of its mouth a carrot in which some visitors see a sexual symbol, an impression reinforced by the information that the steel had been molded over an inflatable doll. The spectators satisfy their own ego by contemplating themselves in the mirror-like surface of the rabbit. The artist's statements complacently maintain all these ambiguities.
After this great success of his rabbit, Koons appreciates that other figures or toys much stylized and disproportionately enlarged will have a considerable impact on the public. His Celebrations, designed from 1994 in a range of colors, will offer a similar mirror effect.
Rabbit was edited in three units plus one artist's proof. Number 2/3 was sold for $ 91M from a lower estimate of $ 50M by Christie's on May 15, 2019, lot 15 B. The Louis XIV artist's proof was sold for $ 10.8M by Christie's on May 13, 2015.
1986 Last Supper by Warhol
2017 SOLD for $ 61M by Christie's
Shy and famous at the same time, Andy Warhol was discussing with friends throughout his career before selecting his most popular themes. The story of the dollar at the very beginning of his realization of multiples is typical. In 1985 the gallery owner Alexander Iolas suggests a new theme of interpretations of Leonardo's Last Supper to be exhibited in Milan across the street from the permanent location of the original.
Warhol is working hard on this project that had everything to seduce him. For devout Catholics the Last Supper is the founding act of the mystical Christianity by which Christ announces his death and resurrection and especially his sharing with the whole mankind.
Warhol had himself something like a resurrection in 1968 when his heart restarted after the assassination attempt. He felt that he was going to die during the surgical operation of his gallbladder which was inevitable but was constantly postponed by him. This intuition was right.
In that impulse Warhol realized about 100 variations around Leonardo's Last Supper in 1986 while about 20 were enough for the Milan exhibition. He did not take as model the original painting but two poor photographs of old copies. This final project brilliantly terminates his own pop art revolution by which the visual message and the ability to copy and multiply it are more important than the skill even when the artist is Leonardo himself.
This series includes a few monumental pieces in a perfect repetition that reaches the infinite. Christ 112 times in yellow which is a reproduction of a detail measures 203 x 1069 cm. This artwork was sold for $ 9.5M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On November 15, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 61M as lot 13 B a multiplication of the entire picture, Sixty Last Suppers. This 295 x 998 cm canvas which is undoubtedly the largest in the series and perhaps even in his entire career in terms of surface was not included in the Milan exhibition. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Warhol is working hard on this project that had everything to seduce him. For devout Catholics the Last Supper is the founding act of the mystical Christianity by which Christ announces his death and resurrection and especially his sharing with the whole mankind.
Warhol had himself something like a resurrection in 1968 when his heart restarted after the assassination attempt. He felt that he was going to die during the surgical operation of his gallbladder which was inevitable but was constantly postponed by him. This intuition was right.
In that impulse Warhol realized about 100 variations around Leonardo's Last Supper in 1986 while about 20 were enough for the Milan exhibition. He did not take as model the original painting but two poor photographs of old copies. This final project brilliantly terminates his own pop art revolution by which the visual message and the ability to copy and multiply it are more important than the skill even when the artist is Leonardo himself.
This series includes a few monumental pieces in a perfect repetition that reaches the infinite. Christ 112 times in yellow which is a reproduction of a detail measures 203 x 1069 cm. This artwork was sold for $ 9.5M by Sotheby's on May 14, 2008.
On November 15, 2017, Christie's sold for $ 61M as lot 13 B a multiplication of the entire picture, Sixty Last Suppers. This 295 x 998 cm canvas which is undoubtedly the largest in the series and perhaps even in his entire career in terms of surface was not included in the Milan exhibition. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
