Mary Heilmann - 20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session New York Tuesday, December 8, 2020 | Phillips

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  • Painted in 2001-2002, Mary Heilmann’s Glide is a quintessential example of Mary Heilmann's subversive approach to abstract painting. A response to the rigid, often clinical and uncompromising languages the minimalism, Heilmann’s paintings disavow the tenets of rigid formalism, and instead celebrate the spontaneous ethos of the act of painting itself, inspired by the Beat Generation and the artist’s formative years on the West Coast. 
    "We argued in bars and we took ourselves very seriously. I mean, you hated the color field painters." —Mary Heilmann

    In the artist’s often-visited diptych form, Glide presents the juxtaposition of bold angled lines and bright circles of vivid color with thick horizontal colored bands that are reminiscent of a Mexican sarape, with both panels unified by a cool turquoise background. Exemplary of the artist’s most celebrated compositions and monumental in its scale, Glide is suffused with Heilmann’s iconic, joyous approach to form and color that equally draws on the rich history of modern painting, popular culture and her everyday experiences.

     

    Cut from the Archives


    On the occason of Mary Heilmann: Looking at Pictures at Whitechapel Gallery in London in 2016, the artist reflected on over four decades of painting.  

     

     

    • Provenance

      The Artist
      Galerie Hauser & Wirth, Zurich
      Private Collection
      SBI Art Auction Co., Ltd., Tokyo, April 18, 2015, lot 103
      Private Collection (acquired at the above sale)
      Christie’s, New York, May 11, 2016, lot 570
      Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

    • Exhibited

      Vienna, Galerie Meyer Kainer, Mary Heilmann, May 4 - June 5, 2001 (right canvas exhibited)
      Vienna, Secession, Mary Heilmann, All Tomorrrow's Parties, July 4 - September 7, 2003, p. 80 (illustrated, n.p.)
      London, Hauser & Wirth, Mary Heilmann, January 27 - March 6, 2004

    • Literature

      Mary Heilmann: Good Vibrations, exh. cat., Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, 2012, pp. 108-109 (illustrated)

Property of an Important New York Estate

141

Glide

signed and dated “M Heilmann 2001” on the reverse of the left canvas; further signed, inscribed and dated “M Heilmann 2001 Blue Sky Serape” on the reverse of the right canvas
oil on canvas, diptych
each 54 x 36 in. (137.2 x 91.4 cm)
overall 54 x 72 in. (137.2 x 182.9 cm)

Painted in 2001-2002.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$150,000 - 200,000 

Sold for $126,000

Contact Specialist

John McCord
Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
New York
+1 212 940 1261

jmccord@phillips.com

20th c. and Contemporary Art Day Sale - Morning Session

New York 8 December 2020