Andy Warhol, Double Torso, 1966. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
Annie Dolan: Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol, Double Torso, 1966. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
“This piece is much more than meets the eye, both literally and contextually,” Head of Morning Session Annie Dolan tells us. The work appears muted and obfuscated in natural light, but under ultraviolet light, a duplicated image of a woman’s nude torso is revealed. As striking as it is for its ability to explore the full visual spectrum, Dolan points out that there’s great conceptual depth as well: “This work was Warhol’s commentary on the censorship laws of the 1960s, and by making the image invisible until it’s viewed under UV light, he challenges the viewer to question what constitutes pornography.”
This work was commissioned by Playboy Magazine at a time when the sexual revolution in the United States was met with reactionary politics. The feature, entitled “The Playmate as Fine Art,” also included works by 11 other prominent artists of the time, from Salvador Dalí to Larry Rivers, James Rosenquist, and Tom Wesselmann.
Patrizia Koenig: Ull Hohn & Lucas Arruda
Ull Hohn, Untitled, 1993. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York.
Head of Afternoon Session Patrizia Koenig selects a pairing of captivating landscapes by Ull Hohn and Lucas Arruda, each revealing more to viewers the deeper we investigate.
German painter Ull Hohn (1960–1995) has been unfairly overlooked, his life tragically cut short as the AIDS crisis swept New York. Hohn studied with Gerhard Richter in Düsseldorf before moving to New York in 1986 to participate in the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program. His landscapes are a commentary on the act of painting itself, showcasing his skillful subversion of painterly conventions and fusing “high” and “low” in works that seem to draw equally from the Hudson River School and the Sunday painter. His now lauded 1993 series of untitled landscapes — which includes this work — employs the step-by-step instructions from episodes of Bob Ross’ television show The Joy of Painting. But in Hohn’s hands, the imagery takes on a powerful strangeness that’s as sublime as it is kitsch.
A major retrospective of his work, Ull Hohn: Reivisions, is currently on view at Haus am Waldsee in Berlin.
Lucas Arruda, Untitled 17, 2011. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York.
A similar sense of the sublime is felt in Brazilian artist Lucas Arruda’s evocative landscapes, which blur the lines between memory and imagination, figuration and abstraction. Often marked by faint horizon lines and intense internal light, his works explore the relationship between the mind and the natural world by way of abstracted, illusory forms, drawing connections to artists like Turner, Monet, and Rothko.
He is currently the subject of two significant institutional exhibitions, including the retrospective Lucas Arruda, Deserto-Modelo at the Carré d'Art - Musée d'art contemporain in Nîmes, France, and Lucas Arruda. Qu’importe le paysag at Musée d'Orsay in Paris.
John McCord: Robert Rauschenberg
Robert Rauschenberg, Untitled, 1968. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
“Untitled is a particularly dense transfer drawing from 1968 that, in many ways, is a dark antithesis to Rauschenberg’s iconic Election of 1960,” explains International Specialist John McCord. Taking as its subject a celebratory portrayal of Jackie and John F. Kennedy, Election was made immediately following the 1960 presidential election but before Kennedy assumed the presidency. It was then gifted to the Kennedys by the artist and remained with Jackie until she passed away.
Likewise, the ominous Untitled transfer on offer here was produced immediately following Richard Nixon’s 1968 election and depicts the incoming president alongside his cabinet. Interestingly, just as is the case in the portrayal of the Kennedys, the wives of Nixon and his cabinet are heavily featured in Untitled.
“Rauschenberg’s transfer drawings strike me as being shockingly undervalued,” adds McCord. “They are among his most iconic works, and when great, as is the case with Untitled, they are layered with subtle imagery and can be endlessly mined.”
Rebekah Bowling: Kaari Upson
Kaari Upson, Mauve and Fluorescent Pink, 2013. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session New York.
As Phillips’ Head of 21st Century Art, it might come as no surprise that Rebekah Bowling would select such a compelling contemporary work. She tells us how excited she is for Phillips to offer one of Kaari Upson’s celebrated mattress sculptures this season.
Upson’s multifaceted practice explored the depths of the American psyche, and more specifically, the illusion of the California Dream. She is perhaps best known for her sculptures that make use of unexpected materials, like this one, which is cast from a discarded mattress in silicone and painted in vibrant color. This 2013 work, Mauve and Fluorescent Pink, is an alluring and haunting reimagination of the original object’s form, imbued with the experiences and memories of the person who used it.
Upson’s powerful influence on contemporary art continues to be felt even after her untimely death from cancer in 2021 at the age of 51. Dollhouse — the first retrospective of her work since her passing — will open later this month at the Louisiana Museum in Denmark.
Takako Nagasawa: Pierre Bonnard & Jean Dubuffet
Pierre Bonnard, Pins (Environs de Cannes), 1921. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
Senior International Specialist Takako Nagasawa is struck by two French works on offer this season. “When looking at Pierre Bonnard’s late canvases, his absolute devotion to and love for his home in Cannes shines through — dozens of green pigments interlace across the foreground, revealing not only his mastery of color, but his knowledge of the natural world,” she tells us. The Bay of Cannes appears in many of Bonnard’s paintings from the ‘20s, and in this work, the bright cobalt blue breaks the wildness below, providing relief and adding a sonic dimension to the composition.
Jean Dubuffet, Animation parcellaire, 1979. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
In Animation parcellaire, Dubuffet pulls back the curtain to reveal eight characters assembled in six groupings across a collaged background, resembling a stage. Translating to “plot animation,” this work highlights Dubuffet’s charm and whimsy. With no clear narrative, this work is an amalgamation of the artist’s life and imagination, mending the two across a detailed background rendered in collage.
Nina Piro: Marc Chagall & Suzanne Valadon
Marc Chagall, Portrait de la soeur de l’artiste, 1908. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
Works that stand out to Specialist Nina Piro this season include an incredibly rare and important early Marc Chagall portrait, one of the very few pictures from a series of works the artist painted between 1907 and 1914. “I personally love the almost electric green and his signature blue — a tone he used throughout his life,” Piro tells us. The painting showcases one of the first instances in which Chagall depicts an open window, which became one of his signature motifs, connoting longing and hope. The figure herself is also striking, as Nina explains that it was rare at the time for artists to depict a Jewish woman reading. Here, the subject is one of his sisters, seen deeply engrossed in religious study — a subject that offers Chagall an opportunity to explore his familial and cultural traditions on canvas.
Adding to its appeal, Piro points out that this painting was once held in the personal collection of Edward Albee, the renowned American playwright and gay icon best known for his searing drama, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Suzanne Valadon, Adam et Ève, 1910. Modern & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York.
Suzanne Valadon’s Adam et Ève also catches Nina’s eye. “Valadon only produced about 500 paintings over the course of her lifetime, so her work coming to auction is rare and exciting,” she says. Valadon was the first woman to enter the turn-of-the-century circle of artists in Montmartre. In addition to pursuing her own painting practice, she was a model for Renoir, Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others, and was Maurice Utrillo’s mother.
Piro explains that Valadon is a vastly undervalued but important female artist who is finally getting her due, adding that this painting is a joyful celebration of female desire, which remains an under-represented theme to this day.
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