Cary Leibowitz, Worldwide Co-Head of Editions

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Imi Knoebel Betoni, 1990 (three works) and Pinguin, 1992

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You may want to say 'Oh yeah, Ellsworth Kelly or Donald Judd!', but my eye and taste takes me to Imi Knoebel. Wikipedia says he is a minimalist but here's my take: He may be more akin to the conceptual nature of the shy, quiet Richard Tuttle than the purity and bombast of a minimalist.

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Imi Knoebel (born Klaus Wolf Knoebel) was born in 1940 even though his work can pass for something that was made by someone born in 1992 or 1993. Imi Knoebel sounds familiar to many but is unknown to most. His works are only modest compared to the heroics of others.

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The first thing you might notice is that these works (lots 152-156) are small and 3-dimensional—in fact, very small and very 3-dimensional. They all have depth and are very object-like. They are magical, and if I had one I would find a 10-foot wall and only let this one jewel hang on it, radiating a weird joy...or joie de vivre, as we say on Park Avenue.

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If you ask me which one from this group of five lots you should focus on, I'd say it's a bit like adopting a rescue puppy—it will come to you. Roll with the punches; they are all winners.

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Don't worry if your future mate is allergic to cats and Imi Knoebels—they can take a pill.

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Louisa Earl, Administrator

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William Kentridge Living Language (Cat), 1999

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What I love about the Living Language series is the inventiveness of the printmaking process, in which Kentridge experimented with using a gramophone record as the printing plate. Kentridge scratched his drypoint lines directly onto each record, incorporating its features to form holistic compositions. The subtle nuances of the cat’s posture being formed around the record, curling its body to fit the circular shape, captures the incredibly flexible habits of cats that like to creep into odd spaces and squeeze into hidden nooks.

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Since the human eye expects a record to be black, and the cat turns around the record so easily, I think it doesn't pounce at the viewer immediately. It takes a second glance to realize that there is something lurking in the shadows. This secretiveness of the image catches the quiet contemplative feline nature. In contrast, the cat's fur has been drawn in such a way as to appear 'electrified', a typical rendition of the black cat that makes an appearance in several Kentridge works. I think this dynamic portrayal alludes to the volatile personalities that keep all cat lovers on their toes.

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Rebecca Tooby-Desmond, Associate Specialist

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Left to Right: Edward & Nancy Kienholz The Block Head, 1979/1981; The Econo-Can, 1977; The Same Old Shoe, 1984

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Rather than selecting a single lot, I've chosen three that are cumulatively less than £5,000. I think this rule-breaking would be entirely approved of by the artists I've chosen: Edward and Nancy Kienholz.

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First it was Ed, then Ed & Nancy, and now just Nancy (Ed was buried in 1994 inside a vintage Packard coupé, stocked with cigarettes, wine and the ashes of his dead dog Smash). Their co-authorship, so out of line with the 19th-century idea of a lone (and usually male) artistic genius, yielded these three wonderfully clunky and ugly multiples, published by Gemini G.E.L. Each piece is assembled from the detritus of Modern existence: televisions, luggage, radios, light-bulbs, plastic knobs, tin cans, useless wires and antennae; each serves as a shrine to the junk that becomes treasure in an apocalyptic future.

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These works are somehow both rancid and precious; they make me want to cringe and reach out to touch them at the same time. Their cumbersome forms, rendered void of any functionality, are drizzled in an extra-terrestrial slime-like polyester resin, embalming them as reliquaries of consumption and consumerism.

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Ross Thomas, Specialist

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Hurvin Anderson Sun Shade, 2013

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Maybe it's the fond memory of hurricane-force ice winds lashing tiny pellets of sand against my face, while huddled behind a makeshift striped storm curtain eating small cartons of Sun-Maid raisins, that draws me to this work by Hurvin Anderson. Not that the pure thrill of contracting hypothermia could ever come close to the calming warmth that exudes Anderson's portrait of beach life, but it's nice to know that somewhere on earth this scene might well exist. Somewhere where the sand is too hot to walk on and the sea is like a warm bath.

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Anderson presents us with a snapshot of holiday-living that could be anywhere in the world—even England for one day in August—where, just for a moment, the screaming children kicking sand into your cucumber sandwiches and the repetitive breaking of the waves are silent for one perfect second of peace and quiet. It's at that moment when you wake from a deep beach slumber, the heat from the sun gently burnishing your pale English skin, and you think to yourself, 'This is the life.' Then your body stirs, your torso contracts and you realize the sun has moved and you've been walrus-like in the midday sun for 3 hours.

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This scene has everything: it's at once fast-paced and utterly still; it's burning hot but with a refreshing sea breeze. I like it a lot—now pass the after sun.

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Anne Schneider-Wilson, Senior Specialist

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Andy Warhol Birmingham Race Riot, from Ten Works by Ten Painters, 1964

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This is the third screenprint Andy Warhol made that was published in 1964 in a portfolio called Ten Works by Ten Artists. This print is based on a photograph by Charles Moore from Life Magazine in 1963. The magazine presented a picture story of police dogs attacking a black man during the Birmingham race riots.

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What I like about this print is that Warhol moves away from images of mass consumerism to show a darker side of the American Dream. A lot of people associate Warhol with bright bold colors of mass-produced popular culture, and so I find this politically charged black and white print fascinating. This image is part of Warhol’s disaster series, focused on photographs from newspapers depicting victims in car or plane crashes, or, as here, in the American Civil Rights movement. Because it was published in a large edition of 500 and the print is not signed by the artist, you can buy a very important work by a blue-chip artist for only £2,000-3,000. That is what I love about Editions; you can acquire significant artworks for, relatively speaking, very little money.

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Robert Kennan, Head of Editions, Europe

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Mark Grotjahm and Takashi Murakami Untitled (Scarlet Lake and Indigo Blue Butterfly 826); and Untitled (Canary Yellow and Black Butterfly 830), 2008-2010

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Francesco Clemente I, 1982

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I've always liked collaborations between artists, so my choice is lot 321: the Murakami / Grotjahn pair. It's East-meets-West, layered over one another. Murakami's superflat Japanese characters, spelling out his collaborator's name in gold leaf, float above a Grotjahn "Butterfly" vortex, inspired by Op art and Piero della Francesca.

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Another joint effort of note is lot 218: Francesco Clemente's self-portrait, a masterpiece of printmaking, created from 17 wood blocks by Ukiyo-e artist Tadashi Toda. The two were brought together by Kathan Brown of Crown Point Press in the early 1980s. As part of the same project, she introduced many other Western artists to Toda, including Wayne Thiebaud, whose Dark Cake graces our catalogue's front cover.

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Kelly Troester, Worldwide Co-Head of Editions

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Salvador Dalí Le Cracking du pétrole (Cracking Petroleum), from Hommage à Leonardo da Vinci (American Inventions), 1975

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What I love about this Salvador Dalí piece is that it shows us a glimpse of the process of making a fine art print—the artist and craftsmen working together in studio to achieve the final version to be hand-printed in a limited edition. Printmaking incorporates a vast array of techniques that can be quite challenging to understand or envision. You have to become familiar with the surface details and read the clues to figure out how it was made.

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This unique color proof starts with a printed impression of the drypoint (etching) image—the velvety black lines—and then Dalí paints with watercolor to see what colors he wants to add, ultimately done through the use of aquatint plates for the edition. His extensive French pencil annotations and instructions in the margins tell the printer how he wants these areas to look and pertain to color and shade refinement, shapes, deletions and notes about the print run. The painterly additions and specific notes make for a historically important work on paper straddling many collecting interests.

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This proof of Catalytic Cracker was done for the series Homage to Leonardo da Vinci (American/Great Inventions), 1975, and was one of 12 images illustrating various important inventions such as the airplane, car, computer circuit, sewing machine, linotype, rocket, telephone, light bulb, air brake, wireless phone and the harvesting reaper.

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\n","publishDate","2018-01-23T18:03:27.000000Z","coverPosX","coverPosY","articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/28816148/specialist-picks-14-editions-under-5000-pounds","auctionEditorialID","editorialID","flocklerID",28816148,{"_6435":6454,"_6437":168,"_6438":6455,"_6401":6456,"_6441":6457,"_6443":6458,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6459,"_408":175,"_6449":4871,"_6450":4412,"_6451":6460},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/fo_001_s600x0.jpg","The collection of Warner Bros. Pictures heiress Betty Sheinbaum and political activist Stanley Sheinbaum presents a tightly curated selection of post-war art and mid-century American craft. ","The Modern Form: Property from the Collection of Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum","

Installation view of the Sheinbaum residence, Los Angeles. From left to right: Robert Motherwell Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 50, 1958; Henry Moore Two Seated Women, 1948; Richard Diebenkorn Driveway, 1956; Maquettes by Henry Moore, 1952-1956

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The collection of Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum illustrates an exceptional vision that was ahead of its time. With works ranging from sculptures by Henry Moore, masterpieces by Robert Motherwell and Richard Diebenkorn, ceramics by Pablo Picasso and the sculptural icon Rondena by Peter Voulkos, among many others, a visit to the couple's Los Angeles residence provided visitors with an eclectic feast for the senses. These works will be featured across Phillips' 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Day Sale, Design and Editions in New York, London and Hong Kong.

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Betty and Stanley in their Los Angeles home circa 2000

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Initially formed by Betty with her first husband, Hollywood producer Milton Sperling, and later in partnership with political activist Stanley Sheinbaum upon their marriage in 1964, this remarkable collection is unique for its commitment to both contemporary art and mid-century American craft. Largely assembled within a period of just four years between 1958 and 1962, the works that comprise this collection were very much contemporaneous to the epoch – offering a fascinating snapshot of the vanguard of collecting at this crucial moment in time.

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A Hollywood Story

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Heiress to one of the most successful motion picture and television dynasties in the world, Betty Sheinbaum was born to Harry Warner in New York City in 1920 as the youngest of two siblings. At that time, what was to become Warner Bros. Pictures was still a fledgling, albeit pioneering, motion picture company that Harry and his brothers Albert, Sam and Jack had founded in Los Angeles in 1918. In these nascent days, Harry handled finance and distribution from New York City while his brothers focused on production.

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It was only in 1923, thanks to Harry’s ability to secure a large loan, that Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. was officially established – marking it as one of the first movie studios in the world. Harry, now the first President of the company, moved his family to Los Angeles.

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Original Warner Brothers Studio, 1918. Image Hulton Archive/Stringer/ @ Archives at the University of Southern California

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The 1920s were a time in which the motion picture industry began to truly flourish – and Hollywood was at its very epicenter. Betty witnessed Warner Bros.' legendary ascent first-hand as it was catapulted to the forefront of the film industry. At age 19, Betty married the up-and-coming screenwriter Milton Sperling, with whom she would have four children. Following the end of World War II, Harry Warner made Sperling a producer at Warner Bros.

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While immersed in the glamorous Hollywood scene, Betty forged her path with a distinctive sense of independence – living her life at the junction of art and politics. Long before it was common for women to take on roles other than that of wife and mother, Betty took night courses at the University of California, Los Angeles, and began art school at age thirty.

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A lot of people buy art to have its value go up and to stick it on the wall and stand back from it. My mom bought because she loved a piece and knew the artist. She had a collection to live with.
\n— Karen Sperling
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Robert Motherwell A Sculptor's Picture, with Blue. Oil on canvas. Painted in 1958.

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After many years of ardently following and engaging with the groundbreaking developments in art happening around her, Betty between 1958 and 1962 assembled a superb collection with that focus and that connoisseurship of a collector finally given the opportune moment.

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Betty started her collection with maquettes by Henry Moore, whose trailblazing work she had discovered nearly twenty years earlier on a trip to England. By the time she acquired these works from the great British dealer Eric Estorick, who founded the Grosvenor Gallery in London, Moore was well-known but still in his mid-career. The acquisition of such a superb and varied group of works by Moore – demonstrating the full breadth of his iconic practice – was a sign of a collector with a remarkable vision.

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Indeed, Betty was not only one of the earliest American collectors of Henry Moore's work, but also an ardent supporter of cutting-edge American art – adding works by the broader New York School group of artists such as Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Richard Diebenkorn and William Baziotes, to her collection at a time when these artists had not yet fully established themselves.

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Richard Diebenkorn Driveway. Oil on canvas. Painted in 1956.

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The Sheinbaums dedicated themselves to human rights, social justice, education, politics and world affairs. With Betty by his side, Stanley held the position of Chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, and following the Rodney King beating, became President of the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, amongst others. According to Tony Podesta, Stanley was "the Statue of Liberty for liberal politics in America."

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The selfless dedication that characterized Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum's political efforts was matched perhaps only in their support of the burgeoning crafts movement in California in the 1960s. Long before the art world took a concerted interest, the Sheinbaums acquired works by Peter Voulkos in particular, who is now widely considered one of America's most significant sculptors of the 20^th century. The emergence of collectors such as Betty and Stanley in the 1960s significantly advanced the field of American crafts within the art community.

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I felt that…a new vital spirit was in the crafts.
\n— Betty Sheinbaum
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Peter Voulkos Rondena, 1958. Stoneware, paddled and constructed wheel-thrown elements, brushed cobalt, iron and white slips, epoxy.

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Recognizing the lack of exhibition venues for crafts, the Sheinbaums notably founded two highly influential galleries exclusively devoted to contemporary crafts on the West and East Coast, the Galeria del Sol opened in Santa Barbara in 1968 and the Fairtree Gallery in New York in 1971. Upon closing, the Sheinbaum's legacy continued to live on in their extensive archive of over 3,000 slides of artworks, which they graciously donated to the Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles in 1978.

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Exemplifying a deeply personal, all-inclusive and democratic vision, the Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum Collection demonstrates the same unwavering commitment that defined their legacy of shared political activism.

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As such, the Betty and Stanley Sheinbaum Collection bespeaks the passion, unwavering dedication and incredible foresight of two of the most important collectors and patrons of contemporary art and American craft.

\n","2017-11-02T15:08:22.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/18906030/the-modern-form-property-from-the-collection-of-betty-and-stanley-sheinbaum",18906030,{"_6435":6462,"_6437":201,"_6438":6463,"_6401":6464,"_6441":6465,"_6443":6466,"_6467":6468,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6469,"_408":108,"_6449":4888,"_6450":3852,"_6451":6470},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/and-the-bridegroom_s600x0.jpg","Nicola Bowery, a former sitter for Lucian Freud during the 1990s, reflects on her friendship with the artist. ","Sitting for Lucian: A British Model's Memories of Freud","

Lucian Freud And the Bridegroom, 1993 (oil on canvas) / Private Collection / © The Lucian Freud Archive / Bridgeman Images. Featuring Nicola Bowery and her then-husband Leigh Bowery.

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When I went to Lucian's studio, at the top studio flat up five flights of stairs in Holland Park, London, I always looked forward to seeing Lucian and having a good chat, usually about my previous day or nights' activities. (I was a bit of a slut in those days, but it wasn't easy being married to a gay man.) I would amuse Lucian greatly—he had a wicked sense of humor, and I like to think I do as well. I was different than the other female models he painted and more similar to the gay models. We felt very comfortable in each other's company, and we would read the ten newspapers that Lucian got delivered daily.

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Just to explain about the sitting or modelling times of Lucian, he had two or three paintings on the go at the same time. And there would be day paintings and night paintings with different models. A day painting would start at 7:30 in the morning, which is when Lucian expected his models to arrive, and after a cup of green tea and maybe a croissant, the sitting sessions would begin. The modelling would last for 35 to 40 minutes before a break of 10 to 15 minutes, and this would continue until 13:00-14:00pm. Once the model would leave, Lucian would have a nap for a few hours.

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Lucian would always cook us dinner of partridge, lamb chops or oysters or lobster with a green salad and a raspberry vinaigrette...
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Lucian Freud Four Figures, 1991

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Lucian painted every day including Saturdays and Sundays, so I, for instance, sat 3 mornings and 5-6 nights a week.

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The night paintings would start between 18:30-20:30pm depending on whether it was dark enough to continue and the light was right, as in winter it got dark early, but it was more variable in the summer. Lucian would always cook us dinner of partridge, lamb chops or oysters or lobster with a green salad and a raspberry vinaigrette, followed by custard and raspberry jelly tart I can't remember the name of. Lucian thought that a well-fed model would be more docile and settled, and would sit for longer sessions at a time. These night paintings would go on until 1-2:00am, and Lucian would give us money for cabs home. A typical painting by Lucian could take 6 to 9 months for him to complete.

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During the breaks we would read the many newspapers that got delivered in the morning, and Lucian would cut slices of cheese from huge blocks of stilton or parmesan or Gouda for us to eat. At the time that Leigh Bowery and I were posing for And the Bridegroom (1993), Lucian also painting Bruce Bernard, so even though we didn't meet at that point I saw the painting of him develop and I got to know a little about him. When I saw the etching of Bruce Bernard taped to cardboard in the bin full of newspapers, I immediately asked Lucian why he had thrown it...he was dismissive of it but said I could have it if I wanted, so I took it home with me and got it framed.

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Lucian Freud Head of Bruce Bernard, 1985

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When I met Bruce Bernard, I was very impressed by him; he was a gentle soul, shy and unassuming, and Lucian trusted him completely, allowing Bruce to take photographs of him working, sometimes naked, as well as us models in our poses. He was one of three people allowed to photograph Lucian as Lucian hated publicity.

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It occurs to me that maybe Lucian deliberately left [items and artworks] on show for me to have.
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Lucian Freud The artist's palette, c. 2000

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Lucian always had a pile of hospital sheets in the studio that he would rip up into bits so that he could wipe his paint brushes as he painted. Leigh, my husband of the time, used to take these rags home with him and cut them into squares and then sew them together to make curtains, duvets and also the very famous cape with the image of Adolf Hitler made out of the different shades of paint rags. One day as And the Bridegroom was being painted, the paint palette that Lucian had been using was discarded amongst the rags, so I asked Lucian if I could have it as to me it was a piece of art in its own right. I thought the paint palette was fantastic and I told him so; I loved the fact that it was made especially for him because Lucian was left-handed and painted with his left hand while holding the palette in his right. I loved that you could see the outline of his thumb. I also wanted a reminder of the time I sat for And the Bridegroom with Leigh because I wasn't sure if Lucian would want to paint me again after the painting was finished, but fortunately, he did.

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I was being painted by myself in 1994 for Girl in the attic (1995), a particularly poignant painting to me. It was while I was sitting for this that my husband, Leigh Bowery, became very ill with Cryptococci meningitis, and because he developed AIDS he died five short weeks later on New Year's Eve 1994. Lucian continued to paint this picture, and basically looked after me by demanding me to come and sit for him and getting me a job with his daughter Bella Freud. The two of them kept me very busy, and with my family's help I managed to overcome my total devastation and grief of the death of Leigh, whom I loved with all my heart.

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Bruce Bernard came and took a photograph of me at this time, and in this photo he managed to get me to smile and laugh—quite a feat in those dark days. He also very kindly gave me a photo that he had taken of Leigh, which was very thoughtful of him. Lucian had a bin in his kitchen that was exclusively used for all the newspapers he read. Sometimes there would be a book or some artwork left sticking out, and as I write this, it occurs to me that maybe Lucian deliberately left these items on show for me to have. It's not that I was digging through the bin: these things were placed on top in the open, and now as I really think about it, the bin would sometimes be placed right in the middle of the kitchen in the way, which I would move to stop Lucian from bumping into it.

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Lucian Freud Reclining Figure, 1994

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Some of the artworks I retrieved were a book called the case of the Wolf man, which contained woodcuts and etchings by Jim Dine with an introduction written by Richard Wollheim. There's written extracts by his father Sigmund called "From the history of an infantile neurosis." I asked Lucian why he had thrown it, but he said he didn't find it interesting and that I could have it if I wanted. I looked at him as if he was crazy, which amused him. Another time, there was a small bronze abstract sculpture that had been given to him at Christmas 1993 by Momart. Another time there was paint brushes placed in the bin which he said I could have. I made a tribal chest piece out of the brushes which he found amusing when I showed him. There were beaded wooden curtains that had been used in a very early painting called Father and daughter (1949) and, as previously mentioned, there was the etching of Bruce Bernard sticking out.

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I want to sell the rest of the etchings...and I know that I would have the approval of Lucian Freud, who always looked out for me.
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Lucian Freud Large Head, 1993

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Throughout my time of sitting for Lucian, which lasted about three years, he gave me an etching of Leigh Bowery called Large Head, which I gave to Leigh's father Tom Bowery because I acquired the same etching that Lucian had given to Leigh. I also acquired the other two etchings on sale. Lucian also gave me the first painting he did of And the Bridegroom, which was unfinished. He had only worked on it for a couple of months before he realized that he wanted to make the painting a lot bigger. But this painting I sold back in 1998, when I wanted to buy a house for my daughter and myself to live in after a failed relationship. Lucian suggested that I sell the painting and he had organized it for me. Now that it's 2017, I want to sell the rest of the etchings so that I can buy my three children a house, and I know that I would have the approval of Lucian Freud, who always looked out for me.

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These select works from Nicola Bowery's collection are now on view at Phillips Berkeley Square through 19 August 2017. View the exhibition details here.

\n","2017-08-11T19:48:27.000000Z","authorCredit","Nicola Bowery ","https://www.phillips.com/article/15840995/lucian-freuds-sitter",15840995,{"_6435":6472,"_6437":201,"_6438":6473,"_6401":6474,"_6441":6475,"_6443":6476,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6477,"_408":265,"_6449":4907,"_6450":5147,"_6451":6478},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/60_001_v2_s600x0.jpg","Mature rectilinear woodcuts from the late 1980s reveal a collaborative printmaking venture between father and son.","Line and Color: Donald Judd's Woodcuts","

It was with ambivalence that Donald Judd first approached the woodcut medium in 1953. The physical, messy nature of carving the wood initially caused trepidation for an artist who did not like to work with his hands or fuss with tools. Yet the woodcut medium afforded Judd a crucial moment of artistic experimentation. His drawings and lithographs up to this point had included flowing lines and blended colors, but the hard birch woodcuts allowed only sharp, clean lines. Judd was thereby encouraged to graduate from his initial figurative experimentations of 1953 to briefly engage with the organic, abstract shapes of 1955-1960, before reaching the clarity and power of the parallelograms of 1961.

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The straight lines of these shapes, however, are difficult to create in wood, requiring cuts across the grain that surpassed Judd's skills and tools, and so he turned to his woodworking father, Roy, for assistance. Prior to his father's involvement, Judd would carve the wood himself before printing one or two copies. It was a process of thinking with his hands — thinking through doing. Once he had relinquished the labor of cutting the wood, Judd was able to take a step back and isolate the ideas in his head from the making process, which now required translation and became more deliberate.

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Together, father and son embarked on a collaborative printmaking venture that would free Judd from the burden of making and allow his woodcuts to evolve into the mature rectilinear forms we present in the following two lots from our January Evening & Day Editions sale in London.

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The viewer is invited to choose which rectangle to visually inhabit and to imagine the numerous possibilities of space created by a single color and just a few elegant, precisely carved lines.
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Donald Judd Untitled, 1988

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Donald Judd Untitled, 1988-90

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No longer limited by his own carpentry skills, Judd worked prolifically throughout the 1960s on a series of geometric woodcut iterations that focused on the binary. He tested various thicknesses of line and modification of shape, with the cut of the wood dictating an either/or situation: either wood (color) or line (blank paper). However, it was not until 1986 with Judd's production of four woodcuts for the portfolio For Joseph Beuys that the artist departed from the series of parallelograms—and with that period, we see a true visual predecessor to the present two lots. These four woodcuts depict a single field of colored ink matching the rectangular shape of the paper.

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This series was something of a declaration in its simple-yet-uncompromising celebration of color. As Marietta Josephus Jitta stated on Judd, "In his graphical work, [this] series is continually referred to as the basis for new research on the flat surface."

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This continued reference is demonstrated with Untitled, 1988-90, where Judd plays with yellow and orange hues to create positive and negative pairs of this initial rectangle of color. There is a vital physicality to this set of woodcuts, which can be considered analogous to Judd's three-dimensional objects in that an inner volume and an outer frame have been transferred onto flat paper.

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Detail of Donald Judd Untitled, 1988-90

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With Untitled, 1988, however, Judd pushed his spatial experimentations further, creating a sequence of works that elaborate upon the possibilities for dividing pictorial space. The series itself is formed of five sets of pairs—each one the direct inverse of the other, alternating richly inked solids and paper voids. The pairs are then rhythmically subdivided into halves and thirds, creating numerous possibilities of space for the viewer to inhabit.

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Detail of Donald Judd Untitled, 1988

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In his 1958 book The Poetics of Space, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard described the lived experience of space, surmising that "it is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality." Despite his choice of medium, Judd's divisions of pictorial space are not hard-edged, prescriptive boxes confining the viewer's eye to the paper surface and the inked borders.

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Instead, his meticulous divisions and subdivisions can be read as the start of pattern that hints towards endless repetition. The viewer is invited to choose which rectangle to visually inhabit and to imagine the numerous possibilities of space created by a single color and just a few elegant, precisely carved lines.

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\n","2017-12-21T20:30:58.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/25964484/line-and-color-donald-judds-woodcuts",25964484,{"_6435":6480,"_6437":201,"_6438":6481,"_6401":6482,"_6441":6483,"_6443":6484,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6485,"_408":564,"_6449":4926,"_6450":5164,"_6451":6486},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/113083-1_uc156719_s600x0.jpg","Artist Paula Rego combines vibrant humor and macabre chiaroscuro, creating clever reimaginations of poignant fairytales.","The Beautiful Grotesque: Paula Rego's Experiments with Printmaking","

Detail from Paula Rego Peter Pan: eleven plates, 1992

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I turn to etching, and lithography, with a sense of exuberance and relief. In printmaking, you can give your imagination full-range and see the results almost immediately. So one image triggers the idea for the next one and so on.
\n—Paula Rego
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Paula Rego is fundamentally a storyteller. Her love of children's stories, with their strong symbolism and often moralizing undertones, has particularly influenced her graphic work. In series such as Nursery Rhymes, 1989 and Peter Pan, 1992, Rego explores the forbidden and confronts the bizarre—re-interpreting familiar texts with an inventive and subversive eye.

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She injects cruelty, fear and desire into the intimately-scaled etchings that fully explore the possibilities of intaglio printing. Her chiaroscuro approach and macabre narratives call to mind the etchings of Francisco Goya's The Disasters of War (1810-20), but the vibrant, biting humor that underpins Rego's works imbue her prints with an exuberant originality.

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Detail from Paula Rego Peter Pan: eleven plates, 1992

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Rego begins each image by freely drawing the general design with gouache onto a copper plate prepared with a wax hard ground. She then works into the wax with etching needles to outline and then deepen the image using line and cross-hatching. The technique allows her to indulge in her primary passion: drawing, and transfers her spontaneous images quickly onto the paper. She has the opportunity to continually re-work sections of the plates as she builds the final image without losing any of the urgency that gives her etchings their evocative directness.

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Paula Rego Little Miss Muffet I from Nursery Rhymes, 1989

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Rego's explorations with lithography, from the early Dr Dog, Dr Cat and Lessons from 1982 to the Jane Eyre series of 2001-02, demonstrate the artist's insistent curiosity and inventive approach to printmaking. Echoing the pastels she predominantly uses for works on paper, the soft lithographic lines capture the unease and ambiguity of her subject matter. The bright colors and sumptuous, almost crayon-like effect coalesce to form what Rego describes as "the beautiful grotesque."

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Paula Rego Come to Me, from Jane Eyre, 2001-2002

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Printmaking offers Rego the opportunity to pursue bold avenues of creative impulse, bringing to life works that exist in dialogue with her paintings that are nonetheless unequivocally unique.

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\n","2017-12-21T21:38:44.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/25969660/the-beautiful-grotesque-paula-regos-experiments-with-printmaking",25969660,{"_6435":6488,"_6437":201,"_6438":6489,"_6401":6490,"_6441":6491,"_6443":6492,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6493,"_408":200,"_6449":4945,"_6450":5336,"_6451":6494},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/254_001--87tey0qmzr_s600x0.jpg","With the Slade School of Fine Art, we take a look inside the studio of Phyllida Barlow and hear from the artist on her transition from three-dimensional art-making to printmaking.","Phyllida Barlow: The Rhythm of Printmaking","

Phyllida Barlow Untitled: Dog Door, 2013

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With nearly a decade of Editions auctions under our belt, Phillips has long been committed to educating a new generation's eye and introducing our clients to new artists and techniques. Conversely, it is a pleasure when artists themselves flip the script and experiment with printmaking for the first time.

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Phyllida Barlow did just that when she was invited by her alma mater, The Slade School of Fine Art, to produce the first in their series of Slade Editions, sold to raise funds to support Slade students and print initiatives.

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An artist more used to creating monumental, amorphous sculptures and installations, Barlow initially struggled with printmaking, which to her seemed like a very complicated, inside-out way of working. She experimented with inked-up torn strips of card, layered in a collage-like fashion and run through the press, before eventually focusing on the medium of linocut to create her final Dog Door design.

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I like pink because it's a sort of in-between colour. I suppose it has a lot of symbolic qualities that I'm not particularly interested in. I like it for the colour that it is rather than for its meaning.
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Importantly for Barlow, each print in this edition is unique, combining layers of freely rolled pink and orange ink resulting in direct, informal images that describes a cumulative process instead of a reproductive one.

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In this video above, Barlow discusses the difficulties of translating her experience of working in three-dimension to printmaking and experimenting with various forms and techniques to create, as she describes it, a "dramatic image, floating in its own space."

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\n","2018-01-10T18:35:05.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/27690617/phyllida-barlow-the-rhythm-of-printmaking",27690617,{"_6435":6496,"_6437":201,"_6438":6497,"_6401":6498,"_6441":6499,"_6443":6500,"_6445":1426,"_6446":412,"_6447":6501,"_408":617,"_6449":5002,"_6450":5389,"_6451":6502},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/56_001--lh1jsy5w58_s600x0_c2431x1421_l605x963.jpg","Richter's 'September' assembles a visual archive of mass media images through which the world experienced the 9/11 tragedy, yet it delicately and deliberately obscures, opening gaps of meaning between us and the images we recall so well.","History, Obscured: Gerhard Richter Interprets Tragedy","

Detail of Gerhard Richter September, 2009

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September is a history painting, but not in the way that we might expect. Counter to the tradition of depicting a major event in a rhetorically grandiose format, Gerhard Richter instead presents us with an intimately scaled, almost obscured image that slowly unfurls before the viewer. Taken from the 2005 painting of the same title, Richter's print, sandwiched between planes of glass, presents a crucial moment of the attacks of September 11th, 2001.
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\nThe artist's initial painted composition was delicately, realistically reproduced in colorful detail—as Richter described it, "with the garish explosion beneath the wonderful blue sky and the flying rubble." However, he found the painting unbearable in this form, too real and too close both pictorially and perhaps emotionally. He stated: "That couldn't work; only when I destroyed it, so to speak, scratched it off, was it fit to be seen." By flaying the surface of the image, Richter disrupts the meticulous paintwork, rendering the trauma not only visible but palpable.

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...garish explosion beneath the wonderful blue sky and the flying rubble...
\n—Gerhard Richter
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The image exists at the edge of being recognizable, at the liminal point where the information it contains could assemble into a number of known narratives, and the mind must work to create coherence from the ill-defined contours of form and blurred color.

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A figment, or fraction, of memory rather than a documentation of history, Richter's September assembles the multitude of recorded and recycled mass media images from the viewer's visual archive, with the glass plates recalling the digital and televisual mediums through which most of the world collectively witnessed this event. Yet by obscuring the image, Richter chooses to distance the viewer from this remembered visual record, deliberately opening gaps of meaning between us and the images we know so well.

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\n","2018-01-18T16:43:37.000000Z","https://www.phillips.com/article/28378661/gerhard-richter",28378661,[6504],{"_71":200,"_73":201,"_75":201},{"_359":360,"_444":362},"totalLotCount","1-IVMYX","https://www.phillips.com/auction/UK030118","messageBanners",[],"晚間及日間限量版畫, 倫敦 Thursday, January 25, 2018 at GMT | Phillips","isPreview",[6514,6516,6522,6525,6527,6529,6531,6533,6536,6538,6541,6542],{"_6401":6515},"A Rowney wooden artist's palette Evening & Day Editions",{"_335":336,"_337":6517,"_339":432,"_6518":6519,"_6520":6521},"preload","as","image","imageSrcSet","https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_LotDetailThumb/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 120w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_SingleCell_NoPad_dev2/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 200w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_LotDetailMainImage/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 367w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_TwoColumns_dev2/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 467w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_TwoRows/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 487w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_TwoLotsOneRow/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 750w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_TwoRowsTwoColumns/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 868w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_TwoColumnsOneRowNoPad/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 928w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_ThreeColumns/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 1302w,\n https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_LotDetailZoomImage/auctions/UK030118/18_001.jpg 1500w",{"_342":6523,"_344":6524},"keywords","Phillips Auctioneers LLC, auction, Lot, undefined, London Auction 25 January 2018",{"_342":409,"_344":6526},"Discover A Rowney wooden artist's palette in Phillips' Evening & Day Editions Auction auction in London. Browse, bid, and explore art, design, and luxury at Phillips.",{"_342":6528,"_344":6515},"twitter:title",{"_342":6530,"_344":6526},"twitter:description",{"_342":6532,"_344":432},"twitter:image",{"_6534":6535,"_344":6515},"property","og:title",{"_6534":6537,"_344":6526},"og:description",{"_6534":6539,"_344":6540},"og:image","https://assets.phillips.com/t_Website_CuratedAuction_SingleCell_NoPad_dev2/auctions/UK030118/18_001.webp",{"_335":336,"_337":338,"_339":340,"_84":169},{"_342":343,"_344":6543},"app-id=397496674","actionData","errors"]

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A Rowney wooden artist's palette

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