Provenance
Leo Castelli Gallery, New York
Locksley Shea Gallery, Minneapolis
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
Brydon Smith, Donald Judd: Catalogue Raisonné of Paintings, Objects, and Wood-Blocks 1960-1974, exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 1975, no. 136, p. 173
Catalogue Essay
"The sense of objects occurs with forms that are near some simple, basic, profound forms you feel. These disappear when you try to make them into imaginable visual or tactile forms. The reference to objects gives them a way to occur." –Donald Judd

Donald Judd’s untitled is a rare four-unit example of the artist’s iconic bullnose wall progressions, one of only two grey-scale galvanized iron versions of this unique form. As each positive segment becomes longer by half an inch from left to right, the negative spaces in between become correspondingly smaller, giving the series to which this work belongs the “wall progression” name. Untitled represents the culmination of a development of wall progressions beginning with the original bullnose 1964 prototype, initially crafted from lacquered red wood. Judd followed this model with his galvanized iron form in red lacquer in 1965, making the present work – constructed in dappled grey galvanized iron – representative of the second wave of Judd’s wall progression series. Executed in 1970, untitled passed directly from Leo Castelli Gallery, New York to Locksley Shea Gallery, Minneapolis, the latter from where Miles and Shirley Fiterman acquired it. Untitled shows that the collectors’ tastes extended well beyond pop, featuring Minimal masterworks like the present work as well.

Although Judd began his career as a painter, he struggled to cleanse his art from the customs which he considered the grime of art history – composition, illusion, anthropomorphism, oil paint, the flat canvas. By 1964, Judd had abandoned painting altogether, now creating three-dimensional forms which emerged out of the wall, into the public space of the spectator. “Because the nature of three dimensions isn’t set, given beforehand, something credible can be made, almost anything” Judd wrote (Donald Judd, “Specific Objects”, 1965 in Donald Judd: The Complete Writings, 1959-1975, New York, 2015, p. 184). The wall progressions begun in this year were each made by extending a tube along the wall and attaching separate boxes to it. As his work matured, Judd also experimented with the installation of each initial wall progression, deciding that the cantilever behind the object must be hidden to make the object appear to rise sharply from the wall, as if floating free from architectural constraints. Accordingly, the site-specific installation of works such as untitled is as unique as the work itself; precise, individual and sensitive to the work’s horizontal alignment.

As his practice evolved, Judd increasingly looked to industrial materials for their anonymity and pliability. In 1964 he first commissioned The Bernstein Brothers, a metal-working shop in New York, to cover his sculptures in galvanized iron, as exemplified in the present lot. Unlike other metals, galvanized iron has a painterly quality to its raw, marbled surface, yet – crucially for Judd’s purposes – it is industrial, thereby preventing the viewer from investing the piece with prefixed cultural meanings. The clarity and simplicity of industrial metal is characteristic to Judd’s emphasis on the object itself as art. Judd believed the truth of art to be free from Western pictorial illusionism. Thus, he wanted his objects to be heterogeneous enough to express a unity indifferent to custom or tradition, yet indicative of a larger truth about the universal human psyche.

Despite its clarity, untitled prompts perceptual questions concerning its arrangement and composition. For example, the object’s smooth metal surface makes it appear to be a solid, bar-like construction incapable of resting on a wall, but closer investigation reveals it to be hollow and light. As David Raskin noted, “Art like Judd’s successfully exposed the drawback of trusting sensations to provide understanding, since it proved that there could never be direct sensory access to reality, which instead waited to be discovered by other analytical means” (David Raskin, “Judd’s Moral Art”, Donald Judd, exh. cat., Tate Modern, London, 2004, p. 80).

This proportional complexity becomes evident in the mathematical spacing of four units in untitled, which is dominated by semicircular contours protruding out of a rectilinear prism. All elements and intervals in Judd’s wall progressions are ordered according to one of four given mathematical formulas: Fibonacci, arithmetic, geometric and inverse natural numbers. These mathematical schemes create an emotionally and intellectually satisfying sense of unity; like seeing a golden mean in nature, mathematics in Judd’s sculpture constitute a philosophical statement on how and why we find art beautiful in the first place. Yet this apparent assertion of pragmatism and order creates further visual puzzles, since the divergence between units means that it is rarely possible to predict the appearance of the whole work from any given side viewpoint of the sculpture. These optical illusions prove that “reality” is always filtered through the senses, that “meaning… is unintelligible apart from … the semiological conventions of the public space” (Rosalind Kraus, “Sense and Sensibility: Reflections on Post ‘60s Sculpture”, Artforum, vol. 12, no. 3, November 1973, p. 47). Balancing an uncompromising material honesty with a maddening ambiguity, untitled represents the absolute vanguard of radical postmodern sculpture.
Artist Biography
Donald Judd
American • 1928 - 1994
Donald Judd came to critical acclaim in the 1960s with his simple, yet revolutionary, three-dimensional floor and wall objects made from new industrial materials, such as anodized aluminum, plywood and Plexiglas, which had no precedent in the visual arts. His oeuvre is characterized by the central constitutive elements of color, material and space. Rejecting the illusionism of painting and seeking an aesthetic freed from metaphorical associations, Judd sought to explore the relationship between art object, viewer and surrounding space with his so-called "specific objects." From the outset of his three-decade-long career, Judd delegated the fabrication to specialized technicians. Though associated with the minimalist movement, Judd did not wish to confine his practice to this categorization.

Inspired by architecture, the artist also designed and produced his own furniture, predominantly in wood, and eventually hired a diverse team of carpenters late in his career.
View More Works

Property from the Miles and Shirley Fiterman Collection

Ο1

Donald Judd

Untitled

galvanized iron
5 x 25 1/2 x 8 5/8 in. (12.7 x 64.8 x 21.9 cm.)
Executed on February 16, 1970.

Estimate
$600,000 - 800,000

Sold for $1,820,000

Contact Specialist
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Evening Sale
New York
+1 212 940 1278

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 16 May | On View at 432 and 450 Park Avenue

1
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $1,820,000
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2
Roy Lichtenstein
Small Wall Explosion
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $860,000
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3
Andy Warhol
David Hockney
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,040,000
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4
Andy Warhol
Two Coke Bottles
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,580,000
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5
Roy Lichtenstein
Modern Painting
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,900,000
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6
Robert Motherwell
Open No. 119: In Blue with Charcoal Line
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,520,000
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7
Roy Lichtenstein
Horse and Rider
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $5,955,000
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8
Andy Warhol
Roy Lichtenstein
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $475,000
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9
Andy Warhol
9 Flowers
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,600,000
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10
Fernando Botero
The Lovers
Estimate $450,000 - 550,000
Sold for $524,000
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11
Alexander Calder
Black Gamma
Estimate $5,000,000 - 7,000,000
Sold for $5,477,500
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12
David Hockney
Study from Parade Triple Bill
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $437,500
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13
Andy Warhol
Soup Can
Estimate $700,000 - 900,000
Sold for $500,000
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14
Joan Miró
Conque
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $800,000
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15
Alexander Calder
White Versus Yellow
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $1,400,000
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16
Nicolas Party
Landscape
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $608,000
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17
KAWS
THE WALK HOME
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $5,955,000
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18
Jordan Casteel
Self Portrait
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $237,500
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19
KAWS
UNTITLED (MBFU9)
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $1,340,000
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20
Tomoo Gokita
Be Just Like Family
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $1,076,000
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21
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Robot Man
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,860,000
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22
Yayoi Kusama
Accumulation by Space (No.62.CO.)
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $2,060,000
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23
Eva Hesse
No title
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,980,000
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24
Mark Bradford
Helter Skelter II
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $8,475,250
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25
Richard Diebenkorn
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,220,000
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26
Frank Stella
Scramble: Descending Blue Values/Ascending Spectrum
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,020,000
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27
Willem de Kooning
Untitled XVI
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $10,268,000
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28
David Hockney
Iris with Evian Bottle
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,204,000
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29
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Self Portrait
Estimate $9,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,500,000
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30
Keith Haring and LA II (Angel Ortiz)
Untitled (Two-Panel Mural)
Estimate $700,000 - 900,000
Sold for $1,040,000
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31
Donald Judd
Untitled
Estimate $1,250,000 - 1,750,000
Sold for $1,385,000
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32
Robert Motherwell
Untitled (Elegy)
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $4,580,000
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33
Pat Steir
Monk Tuyu Meditating Waterfall
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $800,000
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34
Dana Schutz
Signing
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $980,000
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35
Robert Colescott
Knowledge of the Past is the Key to the Future: The Original
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $400,000
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36
This lot is no longer available.
37
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (Piss Piss Piss Piss)
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $620,000
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38
Cy Twombly
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,700,000
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39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Mark Tansey
View from Mt. Hermeneut
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,040,000
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41
Christopher Wool
Untitled
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
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42
Jean Dubuffet
Ciboulot Pistolet
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $500,000
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43
El Anatsui
Alter Ego
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $860,000
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44
Anish Kapoor
Untitled
Estimate $700,000 - 900,000
Sold for $860,000
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45
Chris Ofili
The Naked Spirit of Captain Shit and the Legend of the Black Stars
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $475,000
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York Auction 16 May | On View at 432 and 450 Park Avenue

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Donald Judd

Ο1

Donald Judd

Untitled

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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