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Gary Hume, 'Magnolia Door One', Lot 21
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, 13 February
Provenance
Richard Salmon Gallery, London
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1988
Catalogue Essay
‘Just listen with the vastness of the world in mind. You can’t fail to get the message’ – Pierre Boulez

‘The doors swing to and fro, all day and all night long…’ (Adrian Searle, ‘Gary Hume’, Frieze, 5 June 1993, online).

Opening and closing to the thoroughfare of bodies, hasty nurses, convoys of cleaning equipment and new life, hospital doors are silent witnesses to life’s most defining and perfunctory moments, encapsulating the spectrum of complexity that commands each person’s existence. In Gary Hume’s Magnolia Door One, 1988, the faint traces of circular windows in the upper quadrant of the canvas and the neat separation at its centre re-envision a door in its static state. An early example of Hume’s iconic series of Door Paintings, Magnolia Door One is an important formulation in which the artist employed the eponymous colour, immediately following the three seminal Mint Green Doors he presented at Damien Hirst’s Freeze show in 1988. Commenced the same year, the Magnolia doors were conceptualised specifically in reference to their colour. ‘I went to St Bartholomew's Hospital with a tape measure and a piece of paper, measured numerous doors and made schematic copies of them’, he said. ‘I used house paint in an institutional colour, magnolia, which is a colour of no choice… it was about democratic use of the symbol of the door’ (Gary Hume, quoted in 'Brilliant': New Art from London, exh. cat., Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, 1995, p. 45). Though Hume’s early doors captured the interest of only a select few in 1988, the artist went on to represent Great Britain in the Venice Biennale eleven years later. Today, his works are held in the prominent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate, London, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among others.

A study in liminality, Hume’s Magnolia Door One looks at the dutiful structure of the door that, in the context of hospitals, physically separates life from death. At the same time, the artist uses a neutral, transitional hue that vacillates between many different colours, evoking the chromatically diminished art of Agnes Martin, who equally studied chromatic soothening in her minimalist canvases. Pink, beige, or green according to the viewer’s position and perspective, Magnolia Door One posits as a chameleon of sorts, adapting to all situations like a double-swing door. As a result, the painting is as transitional in subject matter as it is in aesthetic; it presents itself as a great leveller both in meaning and in form. Commenting on the portals’ capacity to carry poetic meaning, Adrian Searle writes, ‘It seems entirely appropriate to our time that the painting-as-window should have become a painting-as-door, and that the door should be closed. It is an image of closure and impenetrability which still manages to allude to the idea of something beyond – withheld, unseen, absent. There's a dumb poetry in the image of the shut door. The paint is built up, layer on layer, accentuating in relief the parts of the door. It is painted as well or as badly as you or I might decorate a door. Any drips are accidental’ (Adrian Searle, ‘Gary Hume’, Frieze, 5 June 1993, online).

Similarly displacing and physically embodying objects to elevate, honour and commemorate all the things that surround us, Rachel Whiteread's sculptural output sheds light on the household items and familiar architectural structures we often overlook. Just like Hume’s work, Whiteread’s sculptures are evocative of much more than that which they represent indexically. They bring the viewer back to the notion of inescapability, as outwardly closed and impenetrable structures. Equally, Robert Gober and Felix Gonzalez-Torres’ silent sculptures come to mind – notably in their transformation of movable or live constructions into mute, seemingly sterile forms. In displacing what was once known into the realm of the nebulous, these artists address the poetry that is located in the ordinary – those small alterations that render the invisible visible again.

Exploring the difference between the painted and the real, Magnolia Door One moves between strangely representational and iconographically minimal. Like a doorway, it is just the right size to encompass a human body – designed to meet human needs, and therefore, immediately evocative. An exceptional example of one of Hume’s most compelling ideas, the present painting demonstrates the medium’s ability to convey emotion through a simple, quintessential rendering.

The Robert Tibbles Collection: Young British Artists & More

21

Gary Hume

Magnolia Door One

signed and titled 'MAGNOLIA DOOR ONE HUME' on the reverse; further inscribed 'SOLD TO STOCKBROKER' on a label affixed to the reverse
household gloss on canvas
254 x 162.6 cm (100 x 64 in.)
Painted in 1988.

Estimate
£20,000 - 30,000 ♠

Sold for £40,000

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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 13 February 2020

1
Amoako Boafo
The Lemon Bathing Suit
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £675,000
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2
Julie Curtiss
Four Buns
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £137,500
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3
Tschabalala Self
Princess
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000
Sold for £435,000
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4
Eddie Martinez
Neanderthal Jeans
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £375,000
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5
Katharina Grosse
Untitled
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £137,500
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6
Yayoi Kusama
INFINITY-NETS (KSUZL)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £525,000
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7
El Anatsui
Affirmation
Estimate £700,000 - 900,000 ‡
Sold for £915,000
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8
Jia Aili
The Young
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £855,000
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9
Ed Ruscha
God Knows Where
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡
Sold for £3,375,000
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10
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate £3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for £3,206,000
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11
A.R. Penck
AUFSTAND DER SPIELER
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £200,000
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12
Günther Förg
Untitled
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡♠
Sold for £411,000
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13
This lot is no longer available.
14
Anish Kapoor
Blade
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
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15
Michael Craig-Martin
Full
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ♠
Sold for £162,500
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16
Damien Hirst
Antipyrylazo III
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ♠
Sold for £1,275,000
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17
Damien Hirst
Bodies
Estimate £1,200,000 - 1,800,000 ♠
Sold for £1,368,600
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18
Gilbert & George
CITY FAIRIES
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
Sold for £156,250
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19
Damien Hirst
Summer Breeze
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £435,000
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20
Damien Hirst
Beautiful tropical, jungle painting (with pink snot)
Estimate £270,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £350,000
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21
Gary Hume
Magnolia Door One
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠
Sold for £40,000
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22
Peter Doig
Camp Forestia
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ♠
Sold for £800,000
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23
Cecily Brown
Girl Eating Turtle Dove
Estimate £550,000 - 750,000 ‡♠
Sold for £615,000
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24
Sean Scully
Robe Green Gold
Estimate £700,000 - 1,000,000 ‡♠
Sold for £987,000
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25
This lot is no longer available.
26
Alex Katz
Gray Bow
Estimate £500,000 - 700,000
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27
Tom Wesselmann
Reverse Drawing: Bedroom Blonde with Irises
Estimate £320,000 - 420,000 ‡
Sold for £375,000
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28
Michaël Borremans
Untitled
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ♠
Sold for £350,000
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29
Adrian Ghenie
Pie Fight Study 4
Estimate £350,000 - 450,000 ♠
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30
Marlene Dumas
Chained to the Bed for 15 Years
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡♠
Sold for £325,000
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31
Takashi Murakami
Cosmic Power
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000 ‡
Sold for £375,000
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32
KAWS
FAR AWAY FRIENDS
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for £900,000
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33
Takashi Murakami
Dragon Heads - Gold
Estimate £400,000 - 600,000 ‡
Sold for £495,000
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34
This lot is no longer available.
35
Anish Kapoor
Sky Mirror
Estimate £800,000 - 1,200,000 ‡♠
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36
Raoul De Keyser
Hellepoort
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 ♠
Sold for £131,250
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37
Marcel Broodthaers
Moules
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ♠
Sold for £168,750
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38
Carol Rama
Pornografia due
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £150,000
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39
This lot is no longer available.
40
Roman Opałka
OPAŁKA 1965/1 – ∞ DETAIL 4514079 – 4536373
Estimate £250,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £471,000
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41
KAWS
ON TIME
Estimate £300,000 - 400,000
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20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London Auction 13 February 2020

Create your first list.

Video

Provenance

Catalogue Essay

21

Gary Hume

Magnolia Door One

20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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