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LOT CONTENT
Global notice COVID-19 Important notice
1. November 9 | Live Auction 20095
21st Century Evening Sale
Lot 8 A
8 A
2 More
Superzoom
STANLEY WHITNEY (B. 1946)
UNTITLED
Estimate
USD 500,000 - USD 700,000
Estimates do not reflect the final hammer price and do not include buyer's
premium, and applicable taxes or artist's resale right. Please see Section D of
the Conditions of Sale for full details.
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STANLEY WHITNEY (B. 1946)
UNTITLED
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* Details
* Lot essay
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DetailsLot essayMore from
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STANLEY WHITNEY (B. 1946)
Untitled
signed and dated 'Stanley Whitney 1999' (on the reverse)
oil on linen
72 ½ x 85 in. (184.2 x 215.9 cm.)
Painted in 1999.
Provenance
The artist
Lisson Gallery, London/New York/Shanghai
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Literature
S. Whitney, Stanley Whitney, New York, 2015, n.p. (illustrated).
* Conditions of Sale
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
Ana Maria Celis Senior Vice President, Senior Specialist
acelis@christies.com +1 212 641 5774
LOT ESSAY
Present lot illustrated (detail).
Present lot illustrated (detail).
A staunch proponent of painted abstraction, Stanley Whitney is one of a handful
of artists that critic Peter Schjeldahl referred to as “resiliently
individualist American painters,” (P. Schjeldahl, “Shapes and Colors,” New
Yorker, July 27, 2015). Among his like-minded colleagues are the likes of David
Reed, Mary Heilmann, and Jack Whitten, all of whom have eschewed the mainstream
trends in an effort to more fully realize their strongest work. Achieving a
degree of success at a time when many Black American artists felt pressure to
turn toward figuration in order to represent social struggles, Whitney dug in
his heels and made a stand in the nonrepresentational mode. Moving to New York
in the late 1960s, he was introduced to the work of Barnett Newman and the color
field painters, and the realization that such power could come from the use of
pure color and shape changed his working practice forever. Schjeldahl, reviewing
Whitney’s first solo museum exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem, noted,
“The glamour of the work alerts you to an onset of beauty, pending the
appropriate feeling and an endorsement in thought. But the juxtapositions and
the compositional rhythms of the colors, jarring ever so slightly, won’t resolve
into unity. What’s going on? Does the artist aim at order and miss, or does he
try, and fail, to destroy it? It’s as if you can’t quite get started looking,
but you can stop only by force of will” (Ibid.).
Stanley Whitney in his studio, Italy, 1990s. Photograph by Athina Ioannou.
Photo/Artwork: © Stanley Whitney, Courtesy Lisson Gallery.
Stanley Whitney in his studio, Italy, 1990s. Photograph by Athina Ioannou.
Photo/Artwork: © Stanley Whitney, Courtesy Lisson Gallery.
The delicate dance Whitney weaves between order and chaos in his heavily worked
grids sets up a visual tension that entices and excites. Remaining vehemently
focused on his own exploration of chromatic relationships and their place in
abstract painting, the artist’s oeuvre is a testament to the power of a
painter’s will. Stanley Whitney will be the subject of a major retrospective
exhibition organized by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York,
opening in 2023.
> “Until I went to Egypt, I had this idea that if I put the colors right next to
> one another there wouldn’t be any air. I wanted color like Rothko, but I
> wanted air like Pollock. I didn’t realize that the space was in the color. But
> the architecture of Rome and Egypt taught me that space was in the color, not
> the color in the space.”
> Stanley Whitney
Mark Rothko, No. 3 / No. 13 (Magenta Black Green on Orange), 1949. Museum of
Modern Art, New York. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by
SCALA / Art Resource, New York.
Mark Rothko, No. 3 / No. 13 (Magenta Black Green on Orange), 1949. Museum of
Modern Art, New York. © 1998 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists
Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: © The Museum of Modern Art / Licensed by
SCALA / Art Resource, New York.
Delineated into four horizontal rows, Untitled is a canvas rife with expressive
color and energetic brushwork within an orderly construct. The top row is made
up of six blocks in overlapping jewel tones that glow with an internal light.
Whitney paints over an initial layer with a secondary color and leaves just
enough of the original that it peers from between the scumble of lines like a
lantern through the occluding branches of a forest. The second and third rows
continue this trend but are slowly given over to more dense applications of
paint that begin to drip and merge into the subsequent register below. The last
row is a more claustrophobic array of several smaller squares that are nearly
solid in their pigment, only allowing a small amount of the buttery yellow
background to glint forth. Pulling from sources as diverse as the works of Piet
Mondrian, experimental jazz, and the legacy of American quilting, Whitney
organizes his canvases around rectilinear forms and lines in various competing
and complementary colors.
Paul Klee, Architecture of the Plain, 1923. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
National Galerie, Museum Berggruen.
Paul Klee, Architecture of the Plain, 1923. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin,
National Galerie, Museum Berggruen.
Speaking about his life and working methods with colleague David Reed, Whitney
notes, “The only system I have really is top, middle, and bottom. Even if I
wanted to make a red painting, I couldn’t do it. I have to let the color take me
wherever it takes me. [...] The idea is that color cannot be controlled and that
it has total freedom. One color can’t overpower another color, you know. It’s
very democratic, very New York.” (S. Whitney, quoted in D. Reed, “Stanley
Whitney by David Reed,” BOMB, April 1, 2013). Balancing a diversity of hues
within the composition so that each reacts and contributes to the others and the
overall work is no easy feat. Whitney pushes here and there with each
application of paint in an effort to reconcile the canvas into a perfect
chromatic amalgam.
> “Painting is like music. When I first saw Cézanne, I thought, This is like
> Charlie Parker, only painting. It’s like polyrhythm, a beat and a beat and a
> beat and a beat, like call and response, you know—in the middle of the beat
> there’s another beat. Cézanne was key and a big source for me. Going back and
> forth—the music, the color, the rhythm, the beat.”
> Stanley Whitney
Present lot illustrated (detail).
Present lot illustrated (detail).
Whitney’s paintings often adhere to a grid structure that shifts and changes
from canvas to canvas in ways that still acknowledge the formula but provide
drastically different results. In works like Untitled, Whitney improvises within
an established ground in order to create something new. The relationship this
process has to jazz is not lost on the artist, and he talks readily about the
connections he has made between the history of art and the history of American
music. “Painting is like music. When I first saw Cézanne, I thought, ‘This is
like Charlie Parker, only painting.’ It’s like polyrhythm, a beat and a beat and
a beat and a beat, like call and response, you know— in the middle of the beat
there’s another beat. Cézanne was key and a big source for me. Going back and
forth—the music, the color, the rhythm, the beat” (Ibid.). Keeping both auditory
and visual history in mind while painting, Whitney is able to coalesce the two
artforms into dynamic compositions that jostle and breathe like an absorptive
painting or a mind-altering riff.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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MORE FROM 21ST CENTURY EVENING SALE
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Item 1 out of 11
Lot 9 A
Lot 9 A
PETER DOIG (B. 1959)
Swamped
PETER DOIG (B. 1959), Swamped, titled twice, inscribed and dated ‘SWAMP’ED
‘WHITENOISE’ SWAMP-ED APRIL-JUNE 90’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 77 ½ x 95
in. (197 x 241 cm.), Painted in 1990.
PETER DOIG (B. 1959), Swamped, titled twice, inscribed and dated ‘SWAMP’ED
‘WHITENOISE’ SWAMP-ED APRIL-JUNE 90’ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 77 ½ x 95
in. (197 x 241 cm.), Painted in 1990.
Estimate on request
Save
Lot 10 A
Lot 10 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955)
Untitled
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled, signed, inscribed and dated 'WOOL 2000
(S153)' (on the stretcher bar), silkscreen and spray enamel on linen, 66 x 48
in. (167.6 x 121.9 cm.), Executed in 2000.
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled, signed, inscribed and dated 'WOOL 2000
(S153)' (on the stretcher bar), silkscreen and spray enamel on linen, 66 x 48
in. (167.6 x 121.9 cm.), Executed in 2000.
EstimateUSD 3,000,000 - USD 5,000,000
Save
Lot 11 A
Lot 11 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954)
Untitled
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
7/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number seven…
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
7/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number seven from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
7/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number seven from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
EstimateUSD 2,000,000 - USD 3,000,000
Save
Lot 12 A
Lot 12 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954)
Untitled
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, , chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9
cm.), Executed in 1981. This work is number two from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, , chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9
cm.), Executed in 1981. This work is number two from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
EstimateUSD 2,000,000 - USD 3,000,000
Save
Lot 13 A
Lot 13 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954)
Untitled
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
6/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number six…
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
6/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number six from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
CINDY SHERMAN (B. 1954), Untitled, signed, numbered and dated 'Cindy Sherman
6/10 1981' (on the reverse), chromogenic print, 24 x 48 in. (61 x 121.9 cm.),
Executed in 1981. This work is number six from an edition of ten plus two
artist's proofs.
EstimateUSD 1,000,000 - USD 1,500,000
Save
Lot 14 A
Lot 14 A
JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES (B. 1960)
Untitled
JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES (B. 1960), Untitled, signed and dated 'Humphries 2013' (on
the reverse), oil and enamel on linen, 100 x 111 in. (254 x 282 cm.), Painted in
2013.
JACQUELINE HUMPHRIES (B. 1960), Untitled, signed and dated 'Humphries 2013' (on
the reverse), oil and enamel on linen, 100 x 111 in. (254 x 282 cm.), Painted in
2013.
EstimateUSD 300,000 - USD 500,000
Save
Lot 15 A
Lot 15 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955)
Untitled
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled, signed, titled, inscribed and dated 'WOOL
1995 UNTITLED (P246)' (on the reverse), enamel, spray enamel and silkscreen ink
on aluminum, 108 x 72 in. (274.3 x 182.9…
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled, signed, titled, inscribed and dated 'WOOL
1995 UNTITLED (P246)' (on the reverse), enamel, spray enamel and silkscreen ink
on aluminum, 108 x 72 in. (274.3 x 182.9 cm.), Executed in 1995.
CHRISTOPHER WOOL (B. 1955), Untitled, signed, titled, inscribed and dated 'WOOL
1995 UNTITLED (P246)' (on the reverse), enamel, spray enamel and silkscreen ink
on aluminum, 108 x 72 in. (274.3 x 182.9 cm.), Executed in 1995.
EstimateUSD 7,000,000 - USD 10,000,000
Save
Lot 16 A
Lot 16 A
Image World: Property from a Private American Collection
BARBARA KRUGER (B. 1945)
Untitled (Your Manias Become Science)
BARBARA KRUGER (B. 1945), Untitled (Your Manias Become Science), black and white
photograph, in artist's frame, 49 x 61 ½ in. (124.5 x 156.2 cm.), Executed in
1981. This work is the artist's proof…
BARBARA KRUGER (B. 1945), Untitled (Your Manias Become Science), black and white
photograph, in artist's frame, 49 x 61 ½ in. (124.5 x 156.2 cm.), Executed in
1981. This work is the artist's proof aside from an edition of one.
BARBARA KRUGER (B. 1945), Untitled (Your Manias Become Science), black and white
photograph, in artist's frame, 49 x 61 ½ in. (124.5 x 156.2 cm.), Executed in
1981. This work is the artist's proof aside from an edition of one.
EstimateUSD 500,000 - USD 700,000
Save
Lot 17 A
Lot 17 A
Property from the Private Collection of Sir Paul Smith
BANKSY
Sunflowers from Petrol Station
BANKSY, Sunflowers from Petrol Station, signed ‘Banksy’ (center left); signed
and dated ‘BANKSY OCTOBER 2005’ (on the stretcher), oil on canvas, in artist's
frame, 40 5/8 x 34 3/8 in. (102.6 x 87.5…
BANKSY, Sunflowers from Petrol Station, signed ‘Banksy’ (center left); signed
and dated ‘BANKSY OCTOBER 2005’ (on the stretcher), oil on canvas, in artist's
frame, 40 5/8 x 34 3/8 in. (102.6 x 87.5 cm.), Executed in 2005. This work is
accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity issued by Pest Control.
BANKSY, Sunflowers from Petrol Station, signed ‘Banksy’ (center left); signed
and dated ‘BANKSY OCTOBER 2005’ (on the stretcher), oil on canvas, in artist's
frame, 40 5/8 x 34 3/8 in. (102.6 x 87.5 cm.), Executed in 2005. This work is
accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity issued by Pest Control.
EstimateUSD 12,000,000 - USD 18,000,000
Save
Lot 18 A
Lot 18 A
DAVID HAMMONS (B. 1943)
Untitled
DAVID HAMMONS (B. 1943), Untitled, signed and dated 'Hammons 04' (on the
reverse), wall-mounted sculpture comprised of 13 African masks, wood, metal,
wire, rope, straw and mirror, 39 x 11 x 55 in.…
DAVID HAMMONS (B. 1943), Untitled, signed and dated 'Hammons 04' (on the
reverse), wall-mounted sculpture comprised of 13 African masks, wood, metal,
wire, rope, straw and mirror, 39 x 11 x 55 in. (99.1 x 27.9 x 139.7 cm.),
Executed in 2004.
DAVID HAMMONS (B. 1943), Untitled, signed and dated 'Hammons 04' (on the
reverse), wall-mounted sculpture comprised of 13 African masks, wood, metal,
wire, rope, straw and mirror, 39 x 11 x 55 in. (99.1 x 27.9 x 139.7 cm.),
Executed in 2004.
EstimateUSD 3,000,000 - USD 5,000,000
Save
Lot 19 A
Lot 19 A
Property of an Important European Collector
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
The Guilt of Gold Teeth
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Guilt of Gold Teeth, titled ‘“THE GUILT OF
GOLD TEETH”’ (lower left); signed, inscribed and dated ‘MODENA / JEAN MICHEL
BASQUIAT 1982’ (lower right); signed,…
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Guilt of Gold Teeth, titled ‘“THE GUILT OF
GOLD TEETH”’ (lower left); signed, inscribed and dated ‘MODENA / JEAN MICHEL
BASQUIAT 1982’ (lower right); signed, titled, inscribed and dated again ‘"THE
GUILT OF GOLD TEETH" Jean-Michel Basquiat 1982 MODENA" (on the reverse),
acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas, 94 ½ x 165 7/8 in. (240 x 421.3
cm.), Executed in 1982.
JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988), The Guilt of Gold Teeth, titled ‘“THE GUILT OF
GOLD TEETH”’ (lower left); signed, inscribed and dated ‘MODENA / JEAN MICHEL
BASQUIAT 1982’ (lower right); signed, titled, inscribed and dated again ‘"THE
GUILT OF GOLD TEETH" Jean-Michel Basquiat 1982 MODENA" (on the reverse),
acrylic, spray paint and oilstick on canvas, 94 ½ x 165 7/8 in. (240 x 421.3
cm.), Executed in 1982.
EstimateUSD 40,000,000 - USD 80,000,000
Save
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