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The cropped, central figure in The Red Pants, 2016, is emblematic of the unique visual language of Louise Bonnet's surreal, distended universe. Featured in the artist’s first solo show at Nino Mier Gallery in Los Angeles in 2016, the intentionally claustrophobic composition centers on the pelvis of a figure whose long, drooping nose swings into view like a fleshy necktie. Sausage-like fingers hold buttercups, pulled together loosely with twined white string, one of the artist’s long-standing motifs. The Red Pants brings together the artist’s signature combination of bodily distortion and a sense of unease.
René Magritte, La lampe philosophique, 1936. Private collection. Image: Banque d'Images, ADAGP / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2023 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Bonnet’s treatment of the body—particularly her bulbous noses—caused sensation in Los Angeles, where she lived, worked, and exhibited, in the mid-2010s.i The artist addresses the phallic likeness of her noses head-on: “The figures make some people uncomfortable maybe because the noses look like penises, but I don’t start out thinking I’m going to paint penises. I just like when things go in and out of something.”ii Indeed, The Red Pants, and her oeuvre at large, traverses a wide range of graphic references, from Surrealists like René Magritte, to the late work of Philip Guston; the underground cartoons of R. Crumb, and even medieval European devotional art.
The hands holding buttercups function as a fig-leaf to the exposed nose above, recalling medieval Christian floral symbolism. The picked flowers and color palette of The Red Pants are reminiscent of the aesthetics of medieval books of hours, particularly those from the Flemish and Netherlandish schools, c. 1500, which featured illustrations of flowers as life-like as those found in contemporary herbals.
Detail, book of hours, c. 1500, Utrecht, the Netherlands. Morgan Library, MS G5 fol. 18v. Image: The Morgan Library & Museum / Art Resource, NY More widely, in medieval European art, Christian saints are painted holding attributes, such as flowers, that symbolize the plot of a story from the saint’s life.iii St. Elizabeth of Hungary’s cloak full of roses, for example, reminds the viewer of when the saint miraculously turned bread into roses. Bonnet likes this aspect of medieval European art, explaining how painting from this time is “really in the service of an idea, and it’s trying to tell a story,” just like her own work.iv In The Red Pants, for instance, the viewer is keenly aware that the content on the canvas is only part of the scene. The drooping nose belongs to some invisible face; the buttercups were picked elsewhere. “I like the idea of viewing the paintings like they’re in the middle of a movie, almost like a still,” Bonnet says. “There’s a story before and after what you’re seeing, but it’s not given away.”v
Pietro Nelli, St. Elizabeth of Hungary, c. 1365. Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht. Image: © Peter Cox / Collection Bonnefanten, on loan Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands Beyond art historical referents, the artist cites the influence of a fevered hallucination from her childhood, called Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, on her work: “it’s a kind of hallucination where you feel your limbs growing, it feels like they’re becoming these gigantic balloons,” she explains.vi Oil paint proved the perfect medium to illustrate this dysmorphic experience to the viewer; the palms and fingers of the figure in The Red Pants seem to be growing, as Bonnet’s subtle treatment of oil paint lends a glowing, expanding sheen to the edges of the figure.
Sensations of anxiety, loneliness, and the generally awkward experience of existing in a human body, play out, too.vii Bonnet’s highly finished surfaces, and the long U-curves of pants pocket, nose, and crotch, give the work a slickness that’s almost sweaty. “I am interested in the body. In what having a body feels like, or how we try to hide the way it feels… the ornamentation of it…” Bonnet says.viii But there’s no hiding in The Red Pants; the close, full-frontal composition holds the viewer in its awkwardness, red pants, buttercups, and all.
Collectors’ Digest
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Bonnet's work is represented in the permanent collections of the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, among others.
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Recent solo and group exhibitions include Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, Louise Bonnet: Onslaught, 2022, and The Venice Biennale, The Milk of Dreams, 2022.
i Michael Slenske, “Louise Bonnet is on the Nose,” Cultured, Apr. 19, 2016, online.
ii Louise Bonnet, quoted ibid.
iii Sharon Mizota, “Full-frontal absurdity: The world of Louise Bonnet’s fleshy, surreal portraits,” The Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2016, online.
iv Bonnet, quoted in Pac Pobric, “’I Don’t Mind Being Repulsive’: Swiss Painter Louise Bonnet on the Lure of Ugliness and How Horror Films Inspire Her Work,” artnet, Oct. 29, 2020, online.
v Bonnet, quoted in “Louise Bonnet and Dodie Bellamy,” Gagosian Quarterly, Summer 2022, online.
vi Bonnet, quoted in “Louise Bonnet and Dodie Bellamy.”
vii Mizota.
viii Bonnet, quoted in Daniel Milroy Maher, “Louise Bonnet paints exaggerated bodies as symbols of melancholy and loneliness,” It’s Nice That, Apr. 23, 2019, online.
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Provenance
Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles
Private Collection
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Los Angeles, Nino Mier Gallery, Louise Bonnet: Paintings, April 23–June 4, 2016
Literature
SAL, “Showing: Louise Bonnet – “Paintings” @ Mier Gallery,” Arrested Motion, May 9, 2016, online (Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, 2016, installation view illustrated)
Sharon Mizota, “Review: Full-frontal absurdity: The world of Louise Bonnet’s fleshy, surreal portraits,” Los Angeles Times, May 26, 2016, online
Louise Bonnet, exh. cat., Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles, 2018, no. 10, n.p. (illustrated, n.p.)
Ο6
The Red Pants
oil on canvas
50 x 52 in. (127 x 132.1 cm)
Painted in 2016.
Estimate
$300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $406,400
Carolyn Mayer
Associate Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
+1 212 940 1206
CMayer@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 May 2023
1
Noah Davis
Untitled
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $990,600
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2
Caroline Walker
Conservation
Estimate $150,000 - 350,000
Sold for $469,900
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3
Julien Nguyen
Jeu de Paume
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $127,000
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4
Pablo Picasso
Tête de femme au chignon
Estimate $6,000,000 - 9,000,000
Sold for $7,320,000
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5
This lot is no longer available.
6
Louise Bonnet
The Red Pants
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $406,400
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7
Yayoi Kusama
Red Stripes
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,722,000
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8
Yayoi Kusama
Blue Spots
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,206,000
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9
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Untitled (after Ernst Thelott)
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $635,000
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10
Andy Warhol
Self-Portrait (Fright Wig)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,633,000
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11
Ed Ruscha
Dixie Red Seville
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
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12
Yoshitomo Nara
Guitar Girl
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,480,000
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13
Banksy
Banksquiat. Boy and Dog in Stop and Search
Estimate $8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold for $9,724,500
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14
Henry Taylor
Dakar, Senegal #3
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $584,200
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15
Robert Colescott
A Death of an Old Mulatta
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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16
Rashid Johnson
Untitled Escape Collage
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $990,600
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17
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18
Roy Lichtenstein
Mirror #7
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $2,843,000
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19
Damien Hirst
Reconciliation
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $927,100
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20
Robert Ryman
Mark
Estimate $3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Sold for $3,811,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Chocolate Merangue
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,238,000
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22
Anna Weyant
Unconditional Love
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $609,600
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23
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24
María Berrío
No One Can Hear You, Only the Wind
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $635,000
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25
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Standard Lotus XVI Face 44.15)
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $4,295,000
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26
Wayne Thiebaud
Levee and Cow
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,085,000
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27
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,117,600
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28
Andy Warhol
Mona Lisa Four Times
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,359,000
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29
Ed Ruscha
Manual Mobility
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $3,448,000
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30
Jadé Fadojutimi
The Menstrual Marshland
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $533,400
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31
Helen Frankenthaler
On the Road
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,875,000
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32
Robert Rauschenberg
Bath
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $444,500
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33
This lot is no longer available.
34
Sanya Kantarovsky
Deprivation
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $266,700
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35
Roy Lichtenstein
Girl in Mirror
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,505,000
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36
Issy Wood
Untitled (Harley's foot thing)
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
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37
Simone Leigh
Figure (Cobalt)
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $825,500
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38
Joan Miró
L’Espace
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $381,000
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39
Joan Miró
Femme et oiseau
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
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40
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
“Untitled” (March 5th) #2
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $635,000
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41
Sturtevant
Study for Warhol Marilyn
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $2,419,500
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