DOCSLIB.ORG

Modern & Contemporary Works of Art (1590) Lot 99

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Modern & Contemporary Works of Art (1590) Lot 99 Modern & Contemporary Works of Art (1590) November 7, 2017 EDT Lot 99 Estimate: $50000 - $80000 (plus Buyer's Premium) Sam Gilliam (American, b. 1933) Idylls I Signed and dated 70 verso, acrylic, metallic paint, traces of crayon and rawhide on unstretched canvas. installed (variable): 76 x 61 in. (193 x 154.9cm) Provenance: Jefferson Place Gallery, Washington, D.C. Barbara Silby, Potomac, Maryland (acquired directly from the above in 1972). note: This lot will be sold along with the artist's original sketch of the work. We are grateful to the Gilliam Studio for their assistance in cataloguing this work. Throughout his long and prolific career, Sam Gilliam has been variously associated with Color Field Painting, Abstract Expressionism and Lyrical Abstraction. Continuously exploring new aesthetic possibilities and employing experimental working techniques, the artist has defied strict characterization, drawing inspiration from each of these movements, while pushing his own artwork ever forward. Gilliam first became interested in Color Field painting upon meeting Thomas Downing in 1963. Downing was a prominent member of the Washington Color School, a group which also included Kenneth Noland, Howard Mehring, Morris Louis, Paul Reed and Gene Davis. Together, these artists were interested in color as a primary subject, often applying it in large, flat planes and utilizing innovative methods to transfer it to the canvas. Gilliam, who had previously been largely influenced by the German Expressionists he had studied at the University of Louisville, was inspired by the group's philosophy and began to work on large-scale colorful paintings of his own. By the mid-1960's, Gilliam had begun to undertake the work that has come to be considered his seminal achievement - his drape paintings. In them, he liberated the canvas from its stretcher, pouring and staining it with acrylic and metallic paints that spread and mingled as he manipulated the fabric. He then draped the canvas from a wall or a ceiling, allowing it to hang, fold or move in ways not previously conceived. In so doing, the work became both painting and sculpture, forever altering the way we perceive the picture plane and its limitations. As the artist recalled, "paint and surface took on an added, third-dimensional reality. Now the canvas was not only the means to, but a primary part of, the object. The suspended paintings began by celebrating the working process and ended with the involvement of the wall, the floor, and the ceiling. The year 1968 was one of revelation and determination - something was in the air, and it was in that spirit that I did the drape paintings." "Idylls I" is an excellent painting from this critical period of Gilliam's career. Painted in 1970, the work exhibits wide swaths of expressive color that move gently across the canvas. The glimmering highlights of metallic paint highlight the artist's interest in light and its effect on the colors and textures woven into his paintings. Hanging from two rawhide ropes at its upper corners and energized by the volumes of its folds, the sculptural quality of the work is unmistakable, reflecting Gilliam's unique and lasting artistic contributions. Barbara Silby acquired "Idylls I" in 1972 from Jefferson Place Gallery in Washington, D.C. At the time, she was working at the gallery, where she came to greatly admire the artist's work. Her collection also included "East II" (lot 98). Barbara would come to be friends with Gilliam and his then-wife, Dorothy, all of whom were residents of the Washington, D.C. area. Freeman's is pleased to bring these treasured works to the market..
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE WASHINGTON COLOR SCHOOL on View September 9, 2021 – October 23, 2021
    For Immediate Release EDWARD TYLER NAHEM PRESENTS PRIMACY: THE WASHINGTON COLOR SCHOOL On View September 9, 2021 – October 23, 2021 Opening Reception: Thursday September 9, 2021 (6:00pm– 8:00pm) (New York) – August 23, 2021 – Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art (ETNFA) is pleased to present Primacy: The Washington Color School, an exhibition curated by Dexter Wimberly of paintings by nine eminent Washington Color School artists: Cynthia Bickley-Green, Gene Davis, Sam Francis, Sam Gilliam, Morris Louis, Howard Mehring, Kenneth Noland, Alma Thomas, and Kenneth V. Young. The origin of the Washington Color School is linked to a 1965 exhibition titled The Washington Color Painters, organized by Gerald Norland at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art in Washington D.C. Five of the six artists in the original 1965 Washington Color Painters exhibition are included in Primacy. Artists of the Washington Color School are distinguished by their rejection of gesture in favor of flat, hard-edged planes of color, as seen in Gene Davis’s adroitly executed Red Dog (ca. 1961) and Morris Louis’s Number 19 (1962), two works in the exhibition that create optical effects and showcase the transcendent potential of painting. Hung next to Howard Mehring’s Blue Note (1964) and Kenneth Noland’s Untitled (1965), these deceptively simple compositions radiate dynamism and tension. In the vanguard of experimentation, the Washington Color School artists pushed boundaries with techniques and processes that would lead them to form individual but related styles, all of which emerged in reaction to Abstract Expressionism. This point of origin is clearly seen in the earliest work in the exhibition, Study for Moby Dick (1958) by Sam Francis, an artist associated with both the Abstract Expressionist movement and Post-Painterly Abstraction.
    [Show full text]
  • Colorful Language: Morris Louis, Formalist
    © COPYRIGHT by Paul Vincent 2014 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To UNC-G professor Dr. Richard Gantt and my mother, for their inspiration and encouragement. COLORFUL LANGUAGE: MORRIS LOUIS, FORMALIST CRITICISM, AND MASCULINITY IN POSTWAR AMERICA BY Paul Vincent ABSTRACT American art at mid-century went through a pivotal shift when the dominant gestural style of Abstract Expressionism was criticized for its expressive painterly qualities in the 1950s. By 1960, critics such as Clement Greenberg and Michael Fried were already championing Color Field painting for its controlled use of color and flattened abstract forms. Morris Louis, whose art typifies this latter style, and the criticism written about his work provides a crucial insight into the socio-cultural implications behind this stylistic shift. An analysis of the formalist writing Greenberg used to promote Louis’s work provides a better understanding of not only postwar American art but also the concepts of masculinity and gender hierarchy that factored into how it was discussed at the time. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to extend my thanks Dr. Helen Langa and Dr. Andrea Pearson for their wisdom, guidance, and patience through the writing of this thesis. I would also like to thank Dr. Juliet Bellow, Dr. Joanne Allen, and Mrs. Kathe Albrecht for their unwavering academic support. I am equally grateful to my peers, Neda Amouzadeh, Lily Sehn, Kathryn Fay, Caitlin Glosser, Can Gulan, Rachael Gustafson, Jill Oakley, Carol Brown, and Fanna Gebreyesus, for their indispensable assistance and kind words. My sincere appreciation goes to The Phillips Collection for allowing me the peace of mind that came with working within its walls and to Mr.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-War & Contemporary
    Post-War & Contemporary Art New York I November 18, 2020 Bonhams Detail Lot 36 © 2020 Bonhams & Butterfields Auctioneers Takashi Murakami,Tongari-kun (Mr. Pointy) Costume, 2003 Corp. All rights reserved. Post-War & Contemporary Art New York | Wednesday November 18, 2020 at 1pm EST BONHAMS INQUIRIES IMPORTANT NOTICES COVID-19 SAFETY STANDARDS 580 Madison Avenue Jacqueline Towers-Perkins Please note that all customers, Bonhams’ galleries are currently New York, New York 10022 +1 212 644 9039 irrespective of any previous activity subject to government restrictions bonhams.com with Bonhams, are required to have and arrangements may be subject to [email protected] proof of identity when submitting bids. change. SALE NUMBER Failure to do this may result in your bid Andrew Huber not being processed. Preview: Lots will be made available 26107 +1 917 206 1633 For absentee and telephone bids for in-person viewing by Lots 1 - 49 [email protected] we require a completed Bidder appointment only. Please contact Registration Form in advance of the the specialist department on AUCTION INFORMATION Sheida Ellini sale. The form can be found at the +1 917 717 0367 or contemporary.us@ Ralph Taylor back of every catalogue and on our bonhams.com to arrange an +1 917 717 0367 2063659-DCA website at www.bonhams.com appointment before visiting our [email protected] Jacqueline Towers-Perkins and should be returned by email to galleries. In accordance with 2068426-DCA the specialist department or to the Covid-19 guidelines, it is mandatory PRESS INQUIRIES Rupert Banner Client Services department at bids.
    [Show full text]
  • Yuri Schwebler the Spiritual Plane
    YURI SCHWEBLER THE SPIRITUAL PLANE ALPER INITIATIVE FOR WASHINGTON ART YURI SCHWEBLER THE SPIRITUAL PLANE Curated by John James Anderson American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC ALPER INITIATIVE FOR WASHINGTON ART Untitled (Blue Haystack), c. 1983. Mixed media on paper. Courtesy Enid Sanford. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS During my research on the Jefferson Place Gallery in 2016, I went on a wild lark trying to find an archive for Yuri Schwebler. That resulted in a 3,000 word essay, published on the Inter- national Sculpture Center’s blog, re:sculpt. The article almost didn’t happen, since it was roughly 2,000 words longer than they typi- cally allowed. The web manager, Karin Jevert, fought for the article’s publication. Thanks to her efforts, the article was published, and it generated some renewed interest in Schwe- bler’s work. Throughout the 1990s, Enid Sanford and a Drawing for an Unrealized Sculpture, c. 1979. Mixed media on paper. Courtesy Enid Sanford. group of supporters attempted to organize a memorial exhibition after Yuri’s death. Absent a willing gallery or museum, those efforts didn’t come to fruition. It’s with great gratitude that, 30 years later, Jack Rasmussen gave it the green light: an exhibition between 2 and 3 decades. Despite the cancellation of the exhibition, due Yuri Schwebler, Washington, DC, 1980. Photo by Mary H.D. Swift. to the international pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, I want to extend my thanks to Jack, Carla Galfano, Sarah Leary, Jessica Pochesci, Kevin Runyon, Kristi-Anne Shaer, and the rest of the staff, assistants, and volunteers who would have helped make this exhibi- tion come together had circumstances remained “normal.” Fortunately, we still have the catalog, and we have Elizabeth Cowgill to thank for that, as well as the generous support of Carolyn Small Alper whose legacy thrives through the exhibitions of Washington art that she championed.
    [Show full text]
  • Michael Clark (A.K.A
    ARTIST MICHAEL CLARK: WASHINGTON April 3 – May 27, 2018 American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center Washington, DC ALPER INITIATIVE FOR WASHINGTON ART FOREWORD Michael Clark (a.k.a. Clark Fox) has been an influential figure in the Washington art world for more than 50 years, despite dividing his time equally between the capital and New York City. Clark was not only a fly on the wall of the art world as the last half- century played out—he was in the middle of the action, making innovative works that draw their inspiration from movements as diverse as Pop Art, Op Art, Conceptual Art, Minimalism, and the Washington Color School. The result of this prolific and varied artistic oeuvre is that Clark’s output is too much for one show. After consulting with former Washington Post art critic Paul Richard, I decided Michael Clark: Washington Artist at the American University Museum would concentrate on his significant artistic contributions to the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s in Washington, DC. In line with his amazingly diverse and productive career, a conversation with Michael Clark is similar to drinking from a fire hose. In one sentence, he can jump from painting techniques using masking tape to making cookies for Jackie Onassis. My transcription of our conversation, presented here as a soliloquy, tries its best to maintain some kind of coherence and order, but in reality, I just tried to hold on for the ride. In contrast, the amazing thing about Clark’s art is how still, focused, and composed it is. The leaps and diversions of his lively mind are transmuted into an almost classical art, more Modigliani than Soutine, probably reflecting the time spent in his early years copying masterworks in the National Gallery of Art.
    [Show full text]
  • Bulletin #3. Peeling Back Robert W. Newmann
    Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio by Antonia 1. 1 Dapena-Tretter dRoSte eFfeCT �BULLETIN 3 Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio 3 WaSHingtoN InStaLlation art: 1. 2 COlor ScHoOl SuBtracTive RoOts: The EaRly LaYeRs 24 ARROws 7 ImmaTeRial Embracing the ScUlPtureS: Literal: ADditive CoNCePtUal Layers 15 CONcluSiONs 38 Peeling Back RoBeRt W. NeWmanN �NarRatiVe PoRtfOlio — by Antonia Dapena-Tretter Abstract Unpacking Robert W. Newmann's portfolio requires a layered approach with equal attention paid to biography, aesthetics, and the larger art market of the 1970s to the present. These diverse methodologies intertwine to reveal the artist's surprising rejection of the Washington 1. 3 Color School tradition of ethereal stained canvases in favor of the real space of large-scale installations. Literal layers—taking the form of pigment added to the canvas or inches of substrate sandblasted away— Bulletin 3 separate Newmann's art from that of his teachers and serve as a common thread, tying together enormous shifts in practice and medium. Although each period of the artist's oeuvre reinforces his strong attraction to the experiential, the unexpected challenges of wedding an artwork to the space around it ultimately drove Newmann to accept and embrace the unavoidable nature of the immaterial. Peeling Back Robert W. Newmann — Narrative Portfolio Washington Post critic Paul Richard theorized that 1960s D.C.-based artists such as Kenneth Noland, Thomas Downing, and Gene Davis «worked from a particular sensibility, nourished by the grids and circles of the original L’Enfant plan.»1 If this is taken to be true, the hard- edged lines of the Washington Color School canvases were born from the same inspiration as Robert Newmann’s For Pierre L’Enfant (pic.
    [Show full text]
  • Free Art and a Planned Giveaway
    54 ARCHIVES of AMERICAN ART JOURNAL | 57.1 fig. 9 Letter from Henri Ehrsam to Gene Davis, June 29, 1965. Henri Gallery Records, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. first attempt to create the paintings, using local art students, so poor that he refused to put his name to them.40 McGowin ultimately enlisted Michael Clark (now known as Clark V. Fox), a recent graduate of the Corcoran School of Art and a skilled artist, to paint the fifty copies.41 The process of mass-reproducing Popsicle highlighted a hierarchy of labor in Giveaway, by which the physical production of the work was subordinate to its conception. Working on five canvases at a time, twelve to sixteen hours a day for nine days, and paid less than a skilled worker’s hourly wages plus meals, Clark painted all fifty works.42 Extant canvases bear the silkscreened names of the three event organizers followed by Clark’s original signature, with some—but not all—of the works also signed by Clark’s assistants ( fig. 10).43 In effect diminishing the painter and fabricators’ skill and artistic contributions, Douglas Davis declared “although his work is original and profound, in some ways Gene Davis is an easy copy.”44 Like Sturtevant’s repetitions, the copies of Popsicle were not exact.45 Mixing pigments to produce the exact hues of the original painting was challenging, given the brevity of Davis’s instructions.46 Moreover, at least one critic noted stylistic differences between Davis’s and Clark’s stripes; the older artist had been interested in how overlapping colors could produce faint effects of subtle vibration, but Clark did not have the luxury of letting one stripe dry before painting the next.47 Subtle aesthetic differences between the original and its reproductions produced fresh skepticism about a model of creative practice unable to see beyond the dichotomy of author and nonauthor.
    [Show full text]
  • Women Light Artists in Postwar California Elizabeth M. Gollnick
    Diffusion: Women Light Artists in Postwar California Elizabeth M. Gollnick Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Elizabeth M. Gollnick All Rights Reserved Diffusion: Women Light Artists in Postwar California Elizabeth M. Gollnick Abstract This dissertation redefines Los Angeles “light and space” art, tracing the multiple strains of abstract light art that developed in California during the postwar technology boom. These artists used new technical materials and industrial processes to expand modernist definitions of medium and create perceptual experiences based on their shared understanding of light as artistic material. The diversity and experimental nature of early Light and Space practice has been suppressed within the discourse of “minimal abstraction,” a term I use to signal the expansion of my analysis beyond the boundaries of work that is traditionally associated with “minimalism” as a movement. My project focuses on three women: Mary Corse, Helen Pashgian and Maria Nordman, each of whom represents a different trajectory of postwar light-based practice in California. While all of these artists express ambivalence about attempts to align their practice with the Light and Space movement, their work provides fundamental insight into the development of light art and minimal abstract practice in California during this era. In chapter one, I map the evolution of Mary Corse’s experimental “light painting” between 1964 and 1971, in which the artist experimented with new technology—including fluorescent bulbs and the reflective glass microspheres used in freeway lane dividers—to expand the perceptual boundaries of monochrome painting by manifesting an experience of pure white light.
    [Show full text]
  • A Finding Aid to the Thomas Downing Papers, Circa 1946-1995, in the Archives of American Art
    A Finding Aid to the Thomas Downing Papers, circa 1946-1995, in the Archives of American Art Rihoko Ueno 2018/01/10 Archives of American Art 750 9th Street, NW Victor Building, Suite 2200 Washington, D.C. 20001 https://www.aaa.si.edu/services/questions https://www.aaa.si.edu/ Table of Contents Collection Overview ........................................................................................................ 1 Administrative Information .............................................................................................. 1 Arrangement..................................................................................................................... 2 Biographical / Historical.................................................................................................... 2 Scope and Contents........................................................................................................ 2 Names and Subjects ...................................................................................................... 3 Container Listing ............................................................................................................. 4 Series 1: Biographical Material, 1949-1995............................................................. 4 Series 2: Correspondence, circa 1948-circa 1987................................................... 5 Series 3: Writings, 1969-1986.................................................................................. 6 Series 4: Personal Business Records, 1950-1986..................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Gene Davis (American Painter, 1920-1985)
    237 East Palace Avenue Santa Fe, NM 87501 800 879-8898 505 989-9888 505 989-9889 Fax [email protected] Gene Davis (American Painter, 1920-1985) Gene Davis, a painter associated with the Washington Color School Painters*, was a self-taught artist whose early work represented several phases of experimentation, including Abstract Expressionism*, Neo-Dada*, and Proto- Pop. Davis was born in Washington, D.C. in 1920. Spending most of his life there, he started painting at a very young age, as the artist himself explains to Buck Pennington in an interview: “I believe – when I was eight, nine years old, somewhere in that vicinity, I used to do little childlike drawings and I sent them in to the Washington Post 's"Children's Page" -- they had a regular "Children's Page" -- and they thought enough of them to publish several of them, one of which won a $1 prize, which was the thrill of a lifetime, of course, in those days. So my interest in visual art goes back to early childhood. And then I took -- I guess it was about a two- or three-hour-a-day drawing course, three times a week, in high school. But then there was a long hiatus there, where I was in the writing " At the age of 19 his first writing job was as a sports writer for the Washington Daily News, a paper that no longer exists. Between 1945 and 1950, Davis wrote for Transradio Press, covering the end of WWII as well as the Truman administration. He earned a living as a writer for close to 35 years before he felt successful enough as an artist to quit his job and to paint full-time in 1968.
    [Show full text]
  • Kenneth Noland Circles—Early and Late (1959-1962/1999-2002)
    PRESS RELEASE KENNETH NOLAND CIRCLES—EARLY AND LATE (1959-1962/1999-2002) YARES ART 745 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10151 (212) 256-0969 Opening reception: Saturday, November 11, 5:30–7:30pm Amusement Blues, 1961. Acrylic on canvas, 94 1/4 x 94 inches (232.4 x 238.8 cm). Courtesy Yares Art, New York. © The Kenneth Noland Foundation/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. YARES ART is pleased to present Kenneth Noland: Circles on view in New York, November 11–December 30. The exhibition comprises twenty major works by Kenneth Noland (1924 –2010), one of the most important American painters of the post-war era. The paintings on view feature Noland’s best-known motif: the circle, in which concentric forms in rich and varied colors radiate from within each square-format compo- sition. Linking Abstract Expressionist bravura to Color Field luminosity, Noland’s large-scale “Circle” canvases, such as This and That (both 1958–59), Amusement Blues, and Spring Call (both 1961)—included in the current Yares Art exhibition—caused a stir when the artist first introduced them to the art world in the early 1960s. Today, their far-ranging influence continues to resonate in the work of a younger generation of artists, including Ugo Rondinone, Anslem Reyle, among numerous others. Noland himself revisited the circle motif in the late 1990s, producing a series of relatively intimate hard-edge compositions with vibrant concentric circles, and heightened color relationships, often employing iridescent hues. This exhibition offers a rare opportunity to compare and contrast Noland’s first landmark series of “Circle” paintings with his last brilliant treatment of this theme.
    [Show full text]
  • ALMA THOMAS: RESURRECTION Curated by Sukanya Rajaratnam September 10 – October 19, 2019
    ALMA THOMAS: RESURRECTION Curated by Sukanya Rajaratnam September 10 – October 19, 2019 Mnuchin Gallery is proud to announce Alma Thomas: Resurrection, curated by Sukanya Rajaratnam. The exhibition will survey Thomas’s singular career, featuring paintings and works on paper from 1959 through 1976. It will be Thomas’s first solo exhibition on the Upper East Side since her 1976 show at Martha Jackson Gallery, and will be among her largest solo exhibitions to date. On view from September 10 through October 19, 2019, it will open with a public reception Tuesday, September 10 from 5-7pm. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue and comprises loans from private collections as well as institutions. Institutional lenders include George Washington University, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Howard University, the Miami-Dade County Art in Public Places Trust, and the Tampa Museum of Art. Alma Thomas was a pioneering figure in American painting of the 1960s and 70s, whose ebullient, light-filled abstractions defy categorization. Her work has often been associated with the Washington Color School, given that she spent her adult life in Washington, D.C. and that she worked alongside Color Field painters such as Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland, Gene Davis and Sam Gilliam. However, rather than using the pouring and staining techniques popular with her Color Field contemporaries, Thomas primed her canvases and applied her paint with a brush. In 45 East 78 Street New York NY 10075 T +1.212.861.0020 F +1.212.861.7858 www.mnuchingallery.com fact, her dense paint application and expressive brushwork linked her to the preceding generation of Abstract Expressionists, although her short and repetitive brushstrokes also looked back to Pointillism while coinciding with some elements of Minimalist application.
    [Show full text]