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Painted in 2018, Fort Greene embodies Salman Toor’s signature practice of fusing memory and fantasy through his unique painterly language. Titled after the culturally diverse neighborhood in Brooklyn, the present work depicts a man wearing a fusion of traditional Pakistani clothing and ripped jeans mingling with a fashionable Brooklynite outside of a brownstone in which figures enjoy a moment of intimacy or quiet solitude. Based on his personal or observed experiences as a South Asian-born man living in New York, Toor’s oeuvre was recently celebrated in his first institutional solo exhibition, Salman Toor: How Will I Know, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, from November 2020 to April 2021. The present work featured in Salman Toor: Time After Time at the Aicon Gallery in New York in 2018.
[left] Gustave Courbet, Bonjour, Monsieur Courbet, 1854. Musée Fabre, Montpellier, Image: © RMN-Grand Palais / Art Resource, NY [right] Édouard Manet, Chez le Père Lathuille, 1879. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Tournai, Image: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY “All my paintings are imagery, so when I’m painting there aren’t any sources in front of me” Toor explained. “I am thinking of particular memories, people or moods as I’m painting.”i Presenting an amalgamation of his personal experiences and his rigorous studies of the Western art historical canon, Toor masterfully references the Old and Modern Masters as a catalyst for his work that showcase an extraordinary display of pastiche, stylistically and thematically. In the present work, Toor addresses the themes of encounter, love, and friendship as Gustave Courbet and Édouard Manet had done, through the filter of his own subjectivity—resulting in an illuminating and holistic picture of contemporary New York City social life.
![[left] Charles Demuth, On “That” Street, 1932. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Image: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY [right] Harvey Dinnerstein, Brownstone, 1958-1960. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Harvey Dinnerstein](https://phillips.vo.llnwd.net/v1/web_dev/lot-component/156577_FIG 1_2_22714988-d465-49b9-8ad5-ecfc9f4a9e94.png)
[left] Charles Demuth, On “That” Street, 1932. Alfred Stieglitz Collection, Art Institute of Chicago, Image: The Art Institute of Chicago / Art Resource, NY [right] Harvey Dinnerstein, Brownstone, 1958-1960. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Harvey Dinnerstein Best known for his figurative paintings that fuse academic technique with an expressive graphic style, Toor creates intimate, imagined narratives of young, queer Brown men navigating their place between South Asia and New York. Born and raised in Lahore, Pakistan, and now living between the two cities, Toor constructs his images out of fiction as much as reality, drawing from South Asian literature and contemporary novels as well as his own life. “The pictures are about personal fantasies that define the queer experience,” Toor elucidates.ii “Painting is a process of self-definition for me, as an outsider in multiple worlds which become more and more entangled and complex.”iii A mélange of sensuality, hedonistic leisure, and painterly flamboyance, the present work propounds the protagonist’s identity—a multicultural dandy oscillating between queer boy and Brown transnational man—through Toor’s examination of the self.
"I grew up drawing and painting and thinking of the body, the body as a tool of meditation, the body as the site of memory, fantasy, and sensuality…"
—Salman Toor
Paul Cadmus, Finistere, 1952. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Image: © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY, Artwork: © Estate of Paul Cadmus / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York For Toor, the body is the site of introspective and artistic exploration. By inserting his queer Brown figure into a mainstream cosmopolitan culture, Ambika Trasi observes, “he counters the persistent invisibility—or reductive and predominantly negative portrays, when they are portrayed—of Brown men in Western media and the art historical canon.”iv In Toor’s words, “It is to enter Brown bodies into the language of the humanities…But I also enjoy being insolent within that, for instance painting Brown bodies that are skinny or hairy in these privileged spaces.”v Like Kerry James Marshall, Toor employs the power of figuration as a mode through which historically absent bodies blossom into visibility within the Western art historical canon. “In New York,” Toor expressed, “I see myself proliferating the stories of brown bodies, of assimilation, of belonging, of rituals that unite and divide us. For brown bodies—faces—just to be presented and to be present in the slipstream of cultural forms and sound bites that come out of New York City is extraordinary.”vi
"My own positioning between places which we designate East and West is an amusing point from which to look at the world and the histories of both Indian and European painting, both of which are a part of my work."
—Salman Toor
Oscillating between fiction and autobiography, academicism and illustration, Fort Greene is emblematic of Toor’s ambitious engagement with the painterly vocabulary of the Old Masters through his singular sensibility. On embracing the Old Master technique, Toor explained, “I think that was the result of me, as someone from the Third World, arriving in a museum of the First World, which was filled with an unfathomable number of gorgeous pictures. I was overwhelmed by this experience and felt something akin to rapture, totally inspired by the largely Christian pictures, which made me want to compete with the hundreds of dead aesthetes!”vii In the present work, the artist renders his protagonist with a glowing halo around his head, recalling its longstanding iconographic history in religious imagery, while conjuring the scenes and technical handling of the Impressionist masters. Toor, like his predecessor Nicole Eisenman, amalgamates art historical references with everyday contemporary life to explore new narratives on sexuality and social dynamics, but through a refreshing lens of multicultural empathy. In his words, “I think of the pictures as short stories where the emphasis falls on unexpected places, seemingly mundane situations become illuminating or interesting ones. It’s a way of dealing in clichés and daring to do them well."viii
i Salman Toor, quoted in “I Wanted to be as Good as the White Old Masters,” It’s Nice That, Ayla Angelos, November 7, 2019.
ii Salman Toor, quoted in “Salman Toor in the Studio,” Luhring Augustine, November 2020, online.
iii Salman Toor, quoted in, Micah Pegues, “Interview with Salman Toor,” Polychrome Magazine, February 11, 2019, online.
iv Ambika Trasi, “The Self as Cipher: Salman Toor’s Narrative Paintings,” Salman Toor: How Will I Know, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020, online.
v Salman Toor, quoted in Ambika Trasi, “The Self as Cipher: Salman Toor’s Narrative Paintings,” Salman Toor: How Will I Know, Whitney Museum of American Art, 2020, online.
vi Salman Toor, quoted in, Micah Pegues, “Interview with Salman Toor,” Polychrome Magazine, February 11, 2019, online.
vii Salman Toor, quoted in “Salman Toor: Q & A with Violet Shuraka,”Cheap & Plastique Magazine, no. 12, n.p.
viii Salman Toor, quoted in, Micah Pegues, “Interview with Salman Toor,” Polychrome Magazine, February 11, 2019, online.
Provenance
Aicon Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2018Exhibited
New York, Aicon Gallery, Salman Toor: Time After Time, October 26 - December 1, 2018
Property from the Collection of Edie Campbell
3
Fort Greene
oil on panel
24 x 19 7/8 in. (61 x 50.5 cm)
Painted in 2018.
Estimate
$100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
Amanda Lo Iacono
Head of Auctions
New York
+1 212 940 1278
20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
New York Auction 23 June 2021
1
Cinga Samson
Two piece 1
Estimate $25,000 - 35,000
Sold for $378,000
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2
Jadé Fadojutimi
Untitled
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $390,600
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3
Salman Toor
Fort Greene
Estimate $100,000 - 150,000
Sold for $478,800
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4
Avery Singer
Untitled
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $4,144,000
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5
Matthew Wong
The Reader
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $2,329,000
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6
Winston Churchill
The Moat, Breccles
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,845,000
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7
Matthew Wong
Field in a Dream
Estimate $1,500,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $2,934,000
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8
Jean Dubuffet
L'homme à la toque
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,571,000
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9
Emily Mae Smith
Waiting Room
Estimate $40,000 - 60,000
Sold for $756,000
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10
Nicole Eisenman
Whatever Guy
Estimate $600,000 - 800,000
Sold for $840,700
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11
Norman Lewis
Abstract City
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,119,000
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12
Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol
Bananas
Estimate $4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold for $4,300,000
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13
David Hockney
A Neat Lawn
Estimate $9,500,000 - 10,500,000
Sold for $11,000,000
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14
Vija Celmins
Untitled (Ocean)
Estimate $5,500,000 - 6,500,000
Sold for $7,748,000
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15
Carmen Herrera
Green and Orange
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,200,000
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16
This lot is no longer available.
17
Brice Marden
Elements III
Estimate $3,200,000 - 3,800,000
Sold for $5,233,000
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18
Amoako Boafo
Untitled
Estimate $80,000 - 120,000
Sold for $655,200
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19
Titus Kaphar
Untitled III
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $1,058,500
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20
Amy Sherald
It Made Sense...Mostly In Her Mind
Estimate $500,000 - 700,000
Sold for $3,539,000
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21
Wayne Thiebaud
Winding River
Estimate $6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Sold for $9,809,000
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22
Mark Rothko
Untitled
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,700,000
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23
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Batman
Estimate $1,600,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,800,000
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24
Keith Haring
Untitled (For John Sex)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $899,000
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25
Takashi Murakami
Red Demon and Blue Demon with 48 Arhats
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $6,080,000
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26
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (940-2)
Estimate $4,500,000 - 5,500,000
Sold for $5,112,000
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27
Joan Mitchell
Untitled
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $3,902,000
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28
Willem de Kooning
East Hampton V
Estimate $700,000 - 1,000,000
Sold for $3,055,000
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29
Amy Sillman
Flower Giver
Estimate $300,000 - 400,000
Sold for $598,500
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30
Alexander Calder
Fourteen Black Leaves
Estimate $2,000,000 - 3,000,000
Sold for $2,300,000
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31
This lot is no longer available.
32
Julie Curtiss
Three Widows
Estimate $110,000 - 150,000
Sold for $466,200
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33
Norman Rockwell
My Mother (Soldier with French Woman)
Estimate $350,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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34
Richard Prince
Nurses Dormitory #3
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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35
Mickalene Thomas
Portrait of Jessica
Estimate $200,000 - 300,000
Sold for $1,542,500
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36
Andy Warhol
Mao
Estimate $3,500,000 - 4,500,000
Sold for $3,000,000
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37
Georg Baselitz
Drei Herzen (Three Hearts)
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,450,000
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38
Carl Andre
36 Copper Square
Estimate $2,500,000 - 3,500,000
Sold for $2,692,000
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39
Robert Rauschenberg
Untitled (Elemental Sculpture)
Estimate $250,000 - 350,000
Sold for $315,000
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40
Bruce Nauman
Musical Chair
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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41
David Hammons
It’s Not Necessary
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $5,475,000
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42
Andy Warhol
Shadow (Double)
Estimate $800,000 - 1,200,000
Sold for $877,000
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43
Toyin Ojih Odutola
Quality Control
Estimate $150,000 - 200,000
Sold for $340,200
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44
Robert Colescott
Gift of the Sea
Estimate $300,000 - 500,000
Sold for $504,000
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45
Dana Schutz
Swiss Family Traveling
Estimate $1,200,000 - 1,800,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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46
Banksy
Love Is In The Air
Estimate $1,000,000 - 2,000,000
Sold for $1,179,500
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47
Keith Haring
Untitled
Estimate $1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Sold for $1,482,000
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48
Louise Bourgeois
Labyrinthine Tower
Estimate $550,000 - 750,000
Sold for $756,000
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49
Paul McCarthy
White Snow Dwarf (Doc)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000
Sold for $403,200
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50No Reserve
Jeff Koons
Gazing Ball (Demeter)
Estimate $400,000 - 600,000 •
Sold for $998,000
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