Tom Wesselmann - Contemporary Art Day Sale New York Friday, May 17, 2013 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    Max Lang Gallery, New York
    Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York

  • Artist Biography

    Tom Wesselmann

    American • 1931 - 2004

    As 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.

    View More Works

151

Drawing for Great American Nude #87

1966-75
pencil and thinned Liquitex on Bristol board
8 1/4 x 11 1/2 in. (21 x 29.2 cm.)
Signed and dated "Wesselmann 66" upper right.

Estimate
$40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for $37,500

Contact Specialist
Amanda Stoffel
Head of Sale
astoffel@phillips.com
+1 212 940 1261

Contemporary Art Day Sale

New York 17 May 2013 10am