63
Tom Wesselmann
Beautiful Kate No. 17
- Estimate
- $20,000 - 30,000
$42,500
Lot Details
graphite and Liquitex on rag board
signed, numbered and dated "#17. Wesselmann 81" lower right; further titled and inscribed "Beautiful Kate #17 GIFT JeNNY WESSELMANN1983" on the reverse of the board; further signed, titled and dated "BEAUTIFUL KATE #17 (VARIABLE EDITION) 1981 WESSELMANN" on the reverse of the backing board
3 5/8 x 8 3/4 in. (9.2 x 22.2 cm.)
Executed in 1981.
Specialist
Full-Cataloguing
Provenance
Tom Wesselmann
American | B. 1931 D. 2004As a former cartoonist and leading figure of the Pop Art movement, Tom Wesselmann spent many years of his life repurposing popular imagery to produce small to large-scale works that burst with color. Active at a time when artists were moving away from the realism of figurative painting and growing increasingly interested in abstraction, Wesselmann opted for an antithetical approach: He took elements of city life that were both sensual and practical and represented them in a way that mirrored Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's own methodologies.Wesselmann considered pop culture objects as exclusively visual elements and incorporated them in his works as pure containers of bold color. This color palette became the foundation for his now-iconic suggestive figurative canvases, often depicting reclining nudes or women's lips balancing a cigarette.
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