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"I don’t have much interest in what could be labelled as ‘reality.’ I’m more interested in the signs, symbols and codes we’ve created for reality."
—Nicolas PartyOne of just two pastels presenting an architectural landscape, Houses is a rare example showcasing Nicolas Party’s distinctive visual language. Executed in 2015, the present work featured in the artist’s first major institutional show in the United Kingdom at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh later that same year. Rendered as simplified geometric shapes in saturated color, Houses oscillates between still life and landscape, representation and abstraction—at once evoking the familiar and the surreal.
The present work installed at Nicolas Party, Boys and Pastel, Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, May 2 – June 21, 2015. Image: Courtesy of Inverleith House, Edinburgh, Photo: Michael Wolchover, Artwork: © 2021 Nicolas PartyNotably foreshadowing Party’s preoccupation with arches, Houses eloquently captures the influence of classical architecture on his practice. Recently in 2020, the artist further elucidated in reference to the present work, “I did two pastels a while ago with arches, the only two pastels with houses. I still want to go back to that, but I haven’t yet. The Karma show [in 2017] was the first time that I used arches, and as soon as I did, I was like, ‘Oh my God, that's very powerful and it works extremely well.’”i
"Arches have been used, obviously, in a lot of temples or churches and they make you feel very different when you cross through them in those spaces...I really do believe that can affect you, along with the colors, basically the forms and shapes in different aspects of space."
—Nicolas Party![[left] Giorgio de Chirico, Italian Square with Politician (Piazza d’Italia con uomo politico), 1950-1955. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, Image: Mondadori Portfolio / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome [right] René Magritte, La Poitrine (The Breast), 1961. Private Collection, Brussels, Image: Herscovici / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York](https://phillips.vo.llnwd.net/v1/web_dev/lot-component/154106_FIG 2_3_3e7b2aa3-a19f-43a5-a38a-330d250dd609.png)
[left] Giorgio de Chirico, Italian Square with Politician (Piazza d’Italia con uomo politico), 1950-1955. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, Image: Mondadori Portfolio / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome [right] René Magritte, La Poitrine (The Breast), 1961. Private Collection, Brussels, Image: Herscovici / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New YorkDrawing upon the Convent of San Marco in Florence decorated by Fra Angelico, the geometric curvatures of arches are now immediately recognizable across Party’s compositions and installations—a device he deploys to coalesce the past and present in Houses. “When you look at an artwork from the past, you feel that time becomes much more elastic. Time and history become a ‘zone’ where you can travel,” the artist expressed.ii “At the end it is exactly what being an artist means: exploring the incredible, imaginative power of the human mind.”iii
Giorgio Morandi, Still Life, 1948. Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Image: © DeA Picture Library / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, RomeBest known for reviving pastel as a contemporary medium, Party plays with form, space, and color to reinvigorate the traditional genres of landscape, still life, and portraiture. Here, Party’s biomorphic, volumetric rendering of the houses recall the tranquil, focused compositions of Giorgio Morandi and Milton Avery. At once redolent of his own still lifes of pots, Houses exemplifies the fascinating visual and conceptual discourse on reality and perception that permeates Party’s oeuvre.
"I like simplicity that has an inherent complexity...How many masterful pieces are made of the simplest of subjects?"
—Nicolas PartyA classically trained, Swiss-born artist with a background in graffiti art, Party channels his unique sensibility in creating his surrealist figurations that evoke the likes of David Hockney, René Magritte, and Giorgio de Chirico. “The super-bright colors, the very clear lines and effective shapes, these are all things you do with graffiti,” he explained.iv Set against a white backdrop and maroon-brown ground, edifices of dynamic scales and shapes alternate between Fauvist and earthy hues. Here, the artist presents a masterful dialogue on the power of color in constructing a composition with optical force. As he expressed, “A color by itself doesn’t mean anything. It’s only the relationship between them that makes something happen in a painting.”v Transforming reality into illusory visions on canvas, Party’s crisp lines and nuanced tones present the suggestion of volume without ceding the effect of flatness, suffusing life into the dreamlike composition.
i Nicolas Party, quoted in Sasha Bogojev, “Nicolas Party: A Hug From On Top of You,” Juxtapoz, Fall 2020, online.
ii Nicolas Party, quoted in Rita Vitorelli, “Interview Nicolas Party,” Spike Art Magazine, no. 44, Summer 2015, online.
iii Nicolas Party, quoted in Manuela Martorelli, “Nicolas Party,” ODDA Magazine, 2018.
iv Nicolas Party, quoted in Catherine Hong, “Nicolas Party’s Audacious Sense of Color,” Surface, December 4, 2019, online.
v Nicolas Party, quoted in Elena Bordignon, “Two Naked Women: Interview with Nicolas Party,” ATPdiary, March 24, 2015.Provenance
The Modern Institute, Glasgow
Private Collection, USA
Acquired from the above by the present ownerExhibited
Edinburgh, Inverleith House, Nicolas Party: Boys and Pastel, May 2 – June 21, 2015
Literature
Nicolas Party, Nicolas Party: Pastel, New York, 2017, n.p. (illustrated)
Artist Biography
Nicolas Party
Nicolas Party (b. 1980) is a Swiss visual artist living and working in New York City and Brussels.
He received his BFA from the Lausanne School of Art in 2004 and his MFA from the Glasgow
School of Art, in Glasgow, Scotland in 2009. Party’s works on paper and canvas are most often done
in colorful soft pastel, the most common subject matter being fantastical still life and portraits.Recent solo exhibitions include Karma, New York (2021–22, 2017); Le Consortium,
Dijon, France (2021); Kunsthalle Marcel Duchamp, Cully, Switzerland (2021); MASI
Lugano, Switzerland (2021); Hauser & Wirth, Los Angeles (2020); Xavier Hufkens,
Brussels (2019); Modern Institute, Glasgow (2019); M Woods Museum, Beijing
(2018); Magritte Museum, Brussels (2018); Kaufmann Repetto, Milan (2018);
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2016); and Dallas Museum of Art (2016). Party’s
work is represented in the collections of the David Roberts Art Foundation, London;
Migros Museum, Zurich; Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany; and the Sifang Art
Museum, Nanjing, China.
Property from an Important East Coast Collection
42
Houses
signed and dated "Nicolas Party 2015" on the reverse
soft pastel on linen
58 3/4 x 39 1/4 in. (149.2 x 99.7 cm)
Executed in 2015.
Estimate
$400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,724,000
Amanda Lo Iacono
New York Head of Department & Head of Auctions
+1 212 940 1278
aloiacono@phillips.com
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 17 November 2021
1
Shara Hughes
Inside Outside
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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2
Jadé Fadojutimi
My Umbrella Has A Nourishing Disguise
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $877,000
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3
Ewa Juszkiewicz
Girl in Blue
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $730,800
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4
Kwesi Botchway
Green Sofa
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $214,200
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5
Titus Kaphar
Fade With Time
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $816,500
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6
David Hammons
Puzzling Times
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $877,000
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7
Raymond Pettibon
No Title (Let him come...)
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $3,418,000
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8
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $11,870,000
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9
Georgia O'Keeffe
Crab’s Claw Ginger Hawaii
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $7,748,000
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10
Alexander Calder
White Moon
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,628,000
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11
Cecily Brown
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,140,500
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12
Willem de Kooning
Composition
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
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13
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
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14
This lot is no longer available.
15
Amy Sherald
Welfare Queen
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $3,902,000
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16
Francis Bacon
'Pope with Owls'
Estimate $35,000,000 - 45,000,000
Sold for $33,000,000
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17
Luc Tuymans
Wallpaper
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,250,000
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18
Pierre Bonnard
Panier de fruit
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $4,991,000
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19
Honor Titus
Linden Blvd Jazz Radio
Estimate $30,000 - 50,000
Sold for $163,800
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20
Matthew Wong
Time After Time
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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21
Avery Singer
European Ego Ideal
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $4,023,000
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22
Mark Tansey
Garden
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
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23
KAWS
THE WAY HE KNOWS
Estimate $850,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $1,542,500
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24
Wassily Kandinsky
Fliessend
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
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25
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (from Famous Negro Athlete Series)
Estimate $750,000 - 1,100,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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26
Peter Saul
Ice Box #3
Estimate $350,000 - 450,000
Sold for $441,000
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27
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled (The Door)
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $8,549,500
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28
Emily Mae Smith
Feast and Famine
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,361,000
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29
Gerhard Richter
Weiß (White)
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $5,717,000
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30
Robert Ryman
Series #25 (White)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,421,500
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31
Frank Stella
Double Concentric Square
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $1,845,000
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32
Carmen Herrera
Amarillo y Negro
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $630,000
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33
Andy Warhol
The Last Supper/Be a Somebody with a Body
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $6,806,000
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34
Christopher Wool
Blue Fool
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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35
This lot is no longer available.
36
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
Six PM, Malaga
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $567,000
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37
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Qusuquzah #5
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $504,000
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38
Mike Kelley
Memory Ware Flat #3
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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39
George Condo
Collision Course
Estimate $1,800,000 - 2,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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40
Bruce Nauman
Untitled (from Fifteen Pairs of Hands)
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $983,000
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41
David Hammons
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $3,660,000
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42
Nicolas Party
Houses
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $1,724,000
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43
Hurvin Anderson
Country Club—Mixed Doubles
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $604,800
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44
Max Ernst
Ohne Titel (les hommes ne le sauront jamais)
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $504,000
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45
Max Ernst
Kachina, le chien de Peggy Guggenheim
Estimate $280,000 - 350,000
Sold for $277,200
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46
Cy Twombly
Untitled
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $786,250
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47
Reggie Burrows Hodges
On the Verge: Green
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $567,000
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48
Max Ernst
Portrait de Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $176,400
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