Tom Wesselmann - Under the Influence New York Thursday, September 19, 2013 | Phillips

Create your first list.

Select an existing list or create a new list to share and manage lots you follow.

  • Provenance

    Private Collection, Switzerland
    Christies, South Kensington, Post-War and Contemporary Art, April 5, 2007, lot 738
    Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

  • Artist Biography

    Tom Wesselmann

    American • 1931 - 2004

    As a former cartoonist and leading figure of the Pop Art movement, Tom Wesselmann spent many years of his life repurposing popular imagery to produce small to large-scale works that burst with color. Active at a time when artists were moving away from the realism of figurative painting and growing increasingly interested in abstraction, Wesselmann opted for an antithetical approach: He took elements of city life that were both sensual and practical and represented them in a way that mirrored Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's own methodologies.

    Wesselmann considered pop culture objects as exclusively visual elements and incorporated them in his works as pure containers of bold color. This color palette became the foundation for his now-iconic suggestive figurative canvases, often depicting reclining nudes or women's lips balancing a cigarette.

    View More Works

54

Study for Smoker #27

1978
ball-point pen, colored pencil on tracing paper
2 3/4 x 3 1/4 in. (7 x 8.3 cm.)
Signed and dated "Wesselmann 78" lower center. This work is registered in the archives of the Tom Wesselmann Estate under number 78D7862.

Estimate
$20,000 - 30,000 

Contact Specialist
Benjamin Godsill
Head of Sale bgodsill@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1260

Under the Influence

New York 19 September 2013 2pm