Tom Wesselmann - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Thursday, February 17, 2011 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Acquired directly from the artist; Private Collection, Florida

  • 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

248

Smoking Cigarette

1998
Liquitex and paper collage on paper mounted on canvas.
15.2 × 14 cm (6 × 5 1/2 in).

Signed and dated ‘Wesselmann 98’ lower centre.

Estimate
£5,000 - 7,000 

Sold for £10,000

Contemporary Art Day Sale

18 Feb 2011
London