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Amanda Lo Iacono
\nGlobal Managing Director and Specialist, Head of Evening Sale, New York
\n+1 212 940 1278
\nALoiacono@phillips.com
\n
\nCarolyn Mayer
\nAssociate Specialist, Associate Head of Evening Sale, New York
\n+1 212 940 1206
\nCMayer@phillips.com

\n\n

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Andy Warhol, Nosepicker I: Why Pick on Me (The Broad Gave Me My Face But I Can Pick My Own Nose), 1948. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York.

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As part of our November Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Phillips will offer two early paintings by Andy Warhol: Nosepicker I: Why Pick on Me (The Broad Gave Me My Face But I Can Pick My Own Nose) and Living Room, both created during the artist’s last years at Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). Executed in 1948 and indicative of the genius that was to come, these incredible relics of one of the 20th century’s greatest visionaries have remained in the artist’s family for over seventy years, until now. An additional aspect to the history of these works is the fact that they were thought to have been lost at one point in the late 1970s. The paintings were in the Warhola family car when it was stolen. Fortunately for the family and for art enthusiasts across the globe, the car was recovered, with the artworks completely unscathed. Prior to the sale in New York on 15 November, they will travel to Southampton, Los Angeles, London, and Paris.

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As a 20-year-old art student at the end of 1948, Andy Warhol created his first self-portrait painting, and what many consider to be his first masterwork. Nosepicker I crudely renders the artist then still known as Andrew Warhola — immediately identifiable by his distinctive blonde hair and bulbous red nose — with a finger jammed up his nostril in a gesture that is at once repulsive and absorbing, playful and intimate. A rare example of a painting by Warhol’s hand, it perhaps evokes the expressive rawness of Jean Dubuffet more than the silkscreened aesthetic of his later persona. However, Nosepicker I’s interrogation of reproduction, self-image, and so-called “good” taste epitomize the Warholian themes that already underpinned his revolutionary approach.

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During his senior year at Carnegie Institute of Technology, Warhol was introduced to Ben Shahn and Paul Klee, unique and liberated pictorial language painters. These 20th century masters soon became two of Warhol’s most enduring influences. He began executing humor-inflected paintings and drawings that traced his development of a new technique: “blotted-line” transferring. This idiosyncratic process, a version of monotype printing, became Warhol’s first aesthetic trademark and originally stemmed from financial necessity. The youngest child of a working-class immigrant family in Pittsburgh, the artist was obliged to work with the least expensive drawing paper, which caused the ink to run and smear unpredictably. But where others saw difficulty, Warhol saw opportunity.

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As an early iteration of this new technique, Nosepicker I is one of Warhol’s first works in which the act of reproduction figures as an element of the medium itself. The blotted lines that outline the subject and adorn the decorative background presaged a career later preoccupied with a form of more mechanical repetition: silkscreen printing. This postmodern interrogation of the multiple would also manifest itself in Warhol’s propensity to return to his own image time and time again in an iconic body of self-portraits. Beginning with Nosepicker I and spanning almost four decades, these works traced his evolution from Andrew Warhola to rising ‘60s art world star, and then to one of the greatest figures of the 20th century.

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Soon after completing the work, he sent his daring submission to the 39th Annual Exhibition of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh in January 1949, where it was refused inclusion on the grounds of its supposedly “offensive” subject matter. Undeterred and remaining confident in his first masterwork, Warhol resubmitted it to an exclusive summer group exhibition at the Arts and Crafts Center a few months later. The painting’s audacious irreverence and formal inventiveness attracted much local attention and success. This story of Nosepicker I’s reception is a fitting metaphor for Warhol’s career, which saw him indefatigably pushing up against the walls of what was possible during his time.

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Andy Warhol, Living Room, 1948. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, New York.

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Featured alongside Nosepicker I is another early work from the same year that offers the view a peek into Warhol’s early life and perspective of a youth growing up with his Carpatho-Rusyn emigrant parents and siblings in a small two-bedroom house at 3252 Dawson Street in Pittsburgh. Expertly manipulating the textural versatility of the medium to articulate varying shades of red, Living Room depicts the worn and beloved heart of the Warhola residence, adorned with the family’s shabby maroon sofa and armchair, wooden rocking chair, and brick fireplace that his father built. Like Nosepicker I, it has remained in the Warhola family until now, a rare painted example of the 20th century master’s hand, executed before he transitioned to his silkscreen technique and machine aesthetic.

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A major in “pictorial design,” one exercise given to Warhol called for the students to visualize a living room for an imaginary Oakland family and elucidate in a supplemental written component how the depicted belongings denoted the unseen characters’ status and traits. Having lived in the working class neighborhood for almost 15 years, the artist cleverly bent the rules and covertly rendered the Warhola residence for a multigenerational household of six. The family he envisioned bore a thinly-veiled resemblance to his own. In a sense, Warhol handed himself a more difficult task than was assigned: to understand not only what his family home and belongings said about himself, but also what they might say about their other owners in a parallel universe. The work thus reveals as much about Warhol’s life and childhood as it does that of its hypothetical inhabitants. It is not only an account of his formative years, but a harbinger of what was to come.

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Highlighted in countless museum exhibitions, such as the recent retrospective Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Living Room is a seminal example of Warhol’s signature negotiation of illusion and reality. The false narrative he playfully constructed for a place of deep personal significance to him presages his later unraveling of the glittering face of celebrity and stardom and the turbulent truth that lay behind it. One of the central tenets of his revolutionary approach, which was just becoming visible in Living Room, it was this same interrogation of identity that bridged Andy Warhol the icon and Andrew Warhola the person.

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Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Recommended Reading

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The Rothko Effect: Why Does Art Move Us? >

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New Now's Artists to Watch >

\n","publishDate","2022-10-04T18:05:47.000000Z","authorCredit","Arian Murati","coverPosX",50,"coverPosY",0,"articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/105197000/an-early-glimpse-at-two-rare-early-andy-warhol-paintings","displayOrder",2,"auctionEditorialID",1667,"editorialID",3978,"flocklerID",105197000,"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/twombleytca-e0d740ea-78e2-4e67-844c-35c86471dd0a_s600x0.png","Our 15 November Evening Sale of 20th Century & Contemporary Art in New York will be led by Cy Twombly’s monumental 'Untitled' from 2005.","Cy Twombly's Monumental 'Bacchus' Painting Comes to Phillips New York","

Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2005. Estimate: $35,000,000 – 45,000,000. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

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With exceptional provenance and estimated at $35-45 million, Untitled is a masterpiece from one of Cy Twombly’s last epic series that found its inception in his blackboards and crystallized in the three discrete suites of paintings collectively known as the Bacchus series. The Bacchus paintings began in 2003 amidst the US invasion of Iraq and culminated in 2008 when the artist donated three of the monumental works to the Tate Modern, London. The present work is the second-largest canvas from the 2005 series which were exhibited under the collective title Bacchus Psilax Mainomenos. Recalling the artist’s earlier Blackboard paintings from the late 1960s with its continuous looping forms, the Bacchus series revisits this earlier motif with a renewed vigor and energy which manifests on the surface of Untitled.

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“With the top ten auction prices for works by Cy Twombly having all been set in the past eight years, it’s clear that the market is stronger than ever," says Jean-Paul Engelen, President, Americas, and Worldwide Co-Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art. "At sixteen feet wide, Untitled is among the largest of Twombly’s works to ever appear at auction, with its subject referring to the dual nature of the ancient Greek and Roman god of wine, intoxication, and debauchery. The work hails from the series that marked Twombly’s ultimate artistic expression at the summit of his career and we are proud to offer this masterpiece as the highlight of our Fall season.”

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The translation of Bacchus Psilax Mainomenos references both the exuberance and rage that alcohol can bring, with Tate Director Nicholas Serota remarking about the paintings, “They relate obviously to the god of wine and to abandon, and luxuriance, and freedom.” The work also recalls one of the most violent and emotionally stirring moments of Iliad, when the Greek hero, Achilles, kills the Trojan prince, Hector, dragging his corpse in circles through the desert around the walled city of Troy—just as Twombly’s red line colors the ground of Untitled.

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The repetition of the mythical theme in Twombly’s work, particularly the continued invocation of Bacchus across the years, finds its stylistic parallel in Twombly’s signature, circular, scrawling gesture. Two extremes rise and fall within one ancient deity, cycling, one over the other, just as Twombly’s brush turns across the surface of Untitled. This gesture appeared in the artist’s earlier Blackboard series of the 1960s, making a reprise in Untitled, though with a much wilder red spiral. The red line of Untitled is rich with emotive movement as the spiral turns and drips across the canvas, the result of Twombly likely using his whole body, swinging the brush, which he attached to a long pole, across the canvas.

\n\n

Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Recommended Reading

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Meet the Specialists of Phillips Los Angeles >

\n\n

\n","2022-10-27T15:59:57.000000Z","Phillip Crook","https://www.phillips.com/article/107231782/cy-twombly-bacchus-series-phillips-auction",1668,4001,107231782,"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/screen-shot-2022-10-26-at-9-06-06-am-1dd50c86-1300-4944-bfc6-cdce8522772a_s600x0.png","Five sought-after artists coming to our 15-16 November New York auctions.","Artists to Watch: New York","

Danica Lundy, Miss Fist Kiss, 2019. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

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Danica Lundy

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Canadian artist Danica Lundy’s work draws on a long, painterly interest in the human body and perspective in art history, which she uniquely interprets with disorienting, complex canvases. Lundy cites Italian Renaissance masters like Leonardo da Vinci and Battista Alberti as an early reference point, first learning to draw figures by copying Renaissance sculptures from a book. Yet unlike her Renaissance inspirations, who sought order and harmony in their compositions, Lundy’s paintings lean into the chaos of bodily existence. Seen here, the claustrophobic composition of Miss Fist Kiss depicts bodies with transparencies and overlapping limbs, obscuring where one body ends and another begins. “We live in bodies we can’t usually see into, so why shouldn’t painting be a forum for that imaginary observation?” the artist asks. Lundy completed her BFA at Mount Allison University, Sackville, and her MFA at the New York Academy of Art. Her recently exhibited works include solo shows in the United States, Canada, and Europe, as well as a summer 2022 solo exhibition "Stop Bath" at White Cube in London, where she is represented.

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Devan Shimoyama, Anthony, 2017. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session.

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Devan Shimoyama

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Highlighted in a solo museum exhibition “Devan Shimoyama: Cry, Baby” at the Andy Warhol Museum in 2018, Devan Shimoyama often incorporates three-dimensional materials such as jewelry, flowers, or feathers into his distinctively layered portraits — a practice the artist relates to "the same process a drag queen may use to get ready for a gig. I’m essentially creating a glamorous, sparkling, magical, fictitious version of myself and others... I’m always striving to create my own origin mythology or folklore of the queer Black male.” Shimoyama's collaged portraiture deals largely with themes of societal transformation, referencing both personal narratives and wider cultural touchstones, like classical mythology, tarot cards, films, and pop music icons. Born in Philadelphia, Shimoyama studied drawing and painting at Penn State, followed by an MFA from Yale. His work has been featured at Kavi Gupta Gallery, De Buck Gallery, and the Studio Museum in Harlem.

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Ilana Savdie, Marimonda Desplegada, 2020. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale.

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Ilana Savdie

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For Ilana Savdie, painting is form of protest — themes of power and play inform both the content and the process of creating her work. Savdie’s Marimonda Desplegada fuses the folkloric and the grotesque in a composition inspired by the artist’s upbringing in Barranquilla, the Colombian city that hosts the world’s second-largest carnaval. The painting prominently features several fluorescent marimonda, Columbian jester costumes dating to the 1800s, which mock the elite with their primate-cum-elephant forms. But her works are also festive and hopeful, containing a celebration that pushes against societal boundaries. Moving to Brooklyn, the artist noticed parallels between carnaval and queer spaces in Bushwick. “We can locate in [the marimonda] a very queer history of exaggerating the body, and taking up space beyond imposed and oppressive boundaries as forms of resistance and protest,” Savdie says. “I’m always going to be bigger than the space allotted for me, and embracing that is liberating.” Savdie received a BFA from the Rode Island School of Design and an MFA from Yale. Recent exhibitions include "In Jest" at White Cube in London and "Entrañadas" at Kohn Gallery in Los Angeles.

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Left: Lucy Bull, Untitled, 2019. Right: Lucy Bull, Untitled (Green), 2017. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session.

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Lucy Bull

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After a breakout solo show at David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles last year, Lucy Bull is making a name for herself as one of the most exciting young abstract painters. Bull’s tessellating compositions are both surreal and psychedelic, prompting a visceral experience. “I am a representational painter, but not a painter of appearances," she says. "I paint representational pictures of emotional situations... The paintings kind of function like Rorschachs. If someone were to tell me they see a certain thing in them, it's telling me more about their psychology than about the work itself.” Bull’s work has recently produced stunning auction results, including at Phillips Hong Kong where the work exceeded more than seven times its high estimate. In addition to two solo shows in just as many years at David Kordansky, Bull has been the subject of solo exhibitions at High Art, Human Resources, and Smart Objects. She recently exhibited in "Women of Now" at the Green Family Art Foundation in Dallas, featured alongside Lauren Quin, Anna Weyant and Issy Wood.

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Alannah Farrell, The Dream (Lucky), 2021. 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Afternoon Session.

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Alannah Farrell

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Making their auction debut this season, trans-identifying artist Alannah Farrell spotlights subjects from their local queer community — whether strangers or friends — through powerfully intimate portraits that bring the experiences of each sitter to the surface. “I make paintings that celebrate the brilliant misfits, the survivors, the hustlers, the entrepreneurs, the advocates, the ones thinking and speaking outside the status quo," Farrell says. "My work underlines the perseverance of the community and individual spirit." Now based in Manhattan, Farrell grew up surrounded by a family of painters in Upstate New York. The artist studied at The Cooper Union and is represented by Harper’s Gallery in New York and Anat Ebgi in Los Angeles. Farrell most recently exhibited in a solo show "I Want to Thank You" at Harper's, as well as in previous shows at The Painting Center, Thierry Goldberg Gallery, and Prior Art Space.

\n\n

Discover More from 20th Century & Contemporary Art >

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Meet the Specialists of Phillips Los Angeles >

\n\n

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A pale grey chair sits alone on a white ground in Luc Tuymans’ Absence, 2001. There is a faint, horseshoe-shaped impression in the back of the chair, signaling where someone, now absent, may have been. The motif of the empty chair recurs throughout art history, taken up by artists such as Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, and David Hockney, as both symbol of absence and of the artist’s own presence. This enigmatic work, consistent with the artist’s minimal, realist style, dates to a period of critical and political acclaim for the artist’s paintings, circa 2000-2002. Sold in 2001 to benefit victims of 9/11, Absence’s hauntingly spare composition is all the more poignant.

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\"[left] — [left] Pablo Picasso, *Le Hibou sur la chaise*, 1947. Image: © Christie's Images / Bridgeman Images, Artwork: © 2022 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
\n[right] Vincent Van Gogh, *Van Gogh’s Chair*, 1888. National Gallery, London. Image: © National Gallery, London / Art Resource, NY

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"I am not into aesthetics; I am into meaning and necessity… It’s about anonymous elements, something that is not owned by anybody in particular. It’s a collective thing, it’s precise, it may look banal at first but it isn’t."
\n—Luc Tuymans

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In Absence, Tuymans’ restrained use of paint creates a chair that is more symbolic than representational. “I am not a material painter,” the artist has said, meaning, “I don’t use a lot of paint,” and yet the subtle surfaces that result from his restrained hand have symbolic meaning, too.ⁱ The physical reality of the chair in Absence is not so important as the titular concept it symbolizes; the muted, perhaps fading, form could suggest that even the chair itself is becoming absent. This sense of distance between the viewer and painted object is an essential result of Tuymans’ artistry, recalling an out-of-focus photograph, or a fading memory. In this way, his paintings, though grounded in realism, become abstracted from reality.

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Tuymans’ work draws on collective themes, such as memory, longing, and fear. These muted moments of stillness, blurred in paint, encourage a form of morose introspection in the viewer; Tuymans calls this gloominess “a sort of second skin” on the surface of the painting.ⁱⁱ One could see it as a thematic layer of paint, enshrouding the canvas in emotional resonance.

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Hans Rudolf Reust writes that quiet paintings such as Absence function as “active empty space[s]” in Tuymans’ oeuvre, which throw into relief the sharp political meaning of adjacent works.ⁱⁱⁱ In this context, Absence’s? position between two of Tuymans’ most poignant paintings becomes essential.

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Representing the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Bienale in 2001, Tuymans shocked and provoked attendees with a group of paintings, including Lumumba, 2000, Museum of Modern Art, New York, that directly addressed the legacy of Belgian colonial violence in the Congo.^iv Many expected that his submission for documenta 11 in 2002 would address the recent events of 9/11 in the same manner, so the seemingly banal Untitled (Still Life), 2002, on loan to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, came as a surprise. Tuymans, however, who witnessed the events of 9/11 firsthand, defended the work by saying, “I thought it was impossible to do something with the event at that time. That’s not how painting works.”^v Instead, he sought to react with “a sort of anti-picture.”^vi

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Absence, then, can be seen both as the sort of “active empty space” Reust describes between Lumumba and Untitled (Still Life), and also as a stylistic and symbolic prelude to the latter on its own. In an overwhelming news cycle of graphic images of human suffering, Absence offered a quieter way to process the trauma of 9/11. Rather than focusing on sensational imagery, or becoming overly sentimental, Tuymans’ “anti-picture” gives symbolic image to an emotional state—of memorial, of grief, of absence.

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\nⁱ Luc Tuymans, interviewed by Juan Vincent Aliaga [1996], Luc Tuymans, London; New York, 2003, p. 26.
\nⁱⁱ Ibid.
\nⁱⁱⁱ Hans Rudolf Reust, “Update,” in Luc Tuymans, p. 152.
\n^iv Lisa Liebmann, “Best of 2001: Top Tens,” ArtForum, December 2001, p. 96.
\n^v Luc Tuymans, quoted in Ben Eastham, “A Necessary Realism: Interview with Luc Tuymans”, Apollo, August 8, 2015, online.
\nvi Luc Tuymans, quoted in exhibition guide to Luc Tuymans, Tate Modern, London, 2004, p. 8.

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43

Luc Tuymans

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Luc Tuymans