Art/Auctions: Contemporary Art Day Auction at Christie's New York, November 12, 2015

Lot 145, "Bird Talk," by Lee Krasner, oil, paper, photographs and canvas collage on canvas, 58 by 56 inches, 1955

By Carter B. Horsley

The Fall 2015 Contemporary Art day auction at Christie's New York is highlighted by an important collage by Lee Krasner, fine abstractions by Joan Mitchell and Theodoros Stamos, a very good urbanscape by Richard Estes, two superb paintings each by Franz Kline and Robert Motherwell, and an interesting figure study by Jean Dubuffet.

The sale total was $59,462,875.

Lot 145 is a fine oil, paper, photographs and canvas collage on canvas by Lee Krasner (1908-1984) entitled "Bird Talk." It measures 58 by 56 inches and was painted in 1955.

It has been widely exhibited and published.

The catalogue provides the following commentary:

"Lee Krasner’s Bird Talk is a triumphant milestone in the history of both painting and collage. Comprised of colorful shreds of oil-drenched paper, rough-hewn swatches of raw canvas and fragments of blurry photographs (executed by the artist herself), the work vibrates with an intensity of tone and composition that is mesmerizing. Scraps of fuchsia and Halloween-orange careen across the night sky canvas with reckless abandon, creating a network of luminous sparks that dazzle and stun....unlike many of her peers, who fashioned themselves as romantic iconoclasts or misanthropic outcasts, Krasner adopted an approach to art-making devoid of ego, in that it was essentially opposed to objectified individuality. While so many Abstract Expressionists would eventually develop a signature style, inevitably becoming static and predictable, Krasner remained committed throughout her artistic career to exploration, permutation and pure freedom. Emblematic of this commitment is the artist’s recollection of how she began making collage: “It started in 1953—I had the studio hung solidly with drawings... floor to ceiling all around. Walked in one day, hated it all, took it down, tore everything and threw it on the floor, and when I went back—it was a couple of weeks before I opened that door again—it was seemingly a very destructive act. I don’t know why I did it, except I certainly did it. When I opened that door and walked in, the floor was solidly covered with these torn drawings that I had left and they began to interest me and I started collaging. Well, it started with drawings. Then I took my canvases and cut and began doing the same thing, and that ended in my collage show in 1955” .... Held at the Stable Gallery, the artist’s exhibition of collage was later referred to by Clement Greenberg as one of the most important exhibitions of the entire decade. Bird Talk was included in that show, and is the first known large-scale work that Kranser signed on the front with her full name. Harnessing destruction as a form of creation, Krasner forged a mode of expression that was simultaneously self-affirming and self-effacing. Combining elements of painting, drawing, collage and even photography, Bird Talk retains a remarkably contemporary aesthetic. Another important element of the work is the invocation of language in its title. For Krasner, language was an integral element of the self, and her emphasis on its importance had featured in her work since the late-1940s, when she began to frequently incorporate sequences of glyph-like shapes and cryptic symbols as all-over motifs. Whereas in these earlier works, the calligraphic markings appear in nearly legible intervals and grids, such as in Painting No. 19, 1947-1948, Bird Talk presents the viewer with a chaotic, even menacing barrage of beak-like prisms and shapes resembling talons or wings. It is a work of staggering ferocity and animal dynamism that defies comprehension, but nevertheless speaks to something primitive and essential in the heart of human consciousness.In the decades following the Stable Gallery exhibition the year it was made, Bird Talk was shown many times across the country in numerous museums, as well as in the United Kingdom, but its crowning exhibition was certainly the widely-acclaimed retrospective, Lee Krasner: The Education of an Artist which debuted at the Houston Museum of Arts in 1983 and ended in New York, at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1985. At 75 years of age, this was Krasner’s first major retrospective. She attended the opening in Houston but passed away before she could witness the vindication of her artistic career at the hallowed grounds of the MoMA."

The lot has a modest estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. It sold for $1,205,000 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article.

Lot 145, "Une pensee pour Zouka," by Joan Mitchell, diptych, overall 76 3/4 by 76 inches, 1976

Lot 145 is a sumptuous diptych by Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) entitled "Une pensee pour Zouka." An oil on canvas, it measures 76 3/4 by 76 inches and was painted in 1976.

The catalogue entry begins with the following quotation from P. Schimmel: “Her works epitomize a shift in abstract expressionism from chance, hazard, and the uncontrolled freedom of the unconscious to a new direction with breath, freshness, and light within a highly structured armature” and adding another quotation from P. Schjeldahl that "There isn’t a wrong note in her cadenzas - only a swarm of piquant, fugitive grace notes falling like loose change.”

"With its vibrant palette of electric blue and intense painterly passion," the entry continued, "Joan Mitchell’s striking canvas, Une pensée pour Zouka belongs to a group of significant works demonstrating the artist’s unrivaled skill at producing paintings which evoke the rich emotions of nature and landscape. This lush canvas was titled in homage to a friend, the artist Zuka Mitelberg whom Mitchell had met in the early 1940s at an art colony in Michigan. Mitelberg’s relocation to France in 1948 concided with Mitchell’s travelling scholarship there, prompting the move that would imbue Mitchell’s art, which already benefitted from New York School rigor, with a lovely Parisian sensuousness. With redolent colors and poetic strokes of paint “exactly where they’re supposed to be,” Une pensée pour Zouka is a masterful example of the gestural abstraction for which Mitchell has become rightly famous....Standing over seven feet high, Une pensée pour Zouka allows Mitchell to engage the full force of her body in the making of her works. This physicality is evidenced in the meticulous working of every inch of the surface of the canvas, often covered with repeated layers of paint. She thrived on the physical intensity of a process that allowed her to pour every ounce of her energy directly onto the canvas, producing graceful gestures that pulsate with poetic vitality. This vast and expressive canvas is a superb example of Joan Mitchell’s preoccupation with physicality and spatial orientation, her ability to give paint mass and weight or a rising lightness...The intense blue and liquescent brushstrokes of Une pensée pour Zouka recall the watery depths of Monet’s iconic paintings of water lilies that were painted only a few miles away at Giverny. The present painting was titled as an homage to the artist’s dear friend and fellow painter, Zuka Mitelberg. Mitelberg, affectionately nicknamed “Zouka,” figured into every major juncture of Mitchell’s life. The two met at Oxbow, an art colony in Saugatuck, Michigan run by The Art Institute of Chicago that Mitchell attended in the summers of 1942 and 1943; it was at Oxbow that Mitchell began to paint intensively outdoors, daily for hours at a time. Mitchell found herself painting alongside Mitelberg (then Omalev), who was the daughter of Russian Revolution escapees, a fine arts major at the University of California, and the wife of an All-American basketball player. The women became fast friends, and after Mitchell’s first year at the School of the Art Institute they headed to Mexico together with the unmappable colonial city of Guanajuato as their final destination. Several years later in 1948 when Mitchell visited Paris, Mitelburg met her boat with a big bouquet of bright blue and orange flowers....Une pensée pour Zouka was painted during a significant period of Mitchell’s career. Having settled into her new surroundings she began producing a series of monumental canvases that reflected this new sense of space and freedom. Along with other works painted during this period, such as Field for Skyes and Clearing (in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art, respectively) this painting demonstrates Mitchell’s ability to depict space on canvas. Resulting in part from her membership of the Abstract Expressionist generation, Mitchell never felt the need to emulate the physical landscape. Evoking the tradition of many of the great landscape painters of the past, including the nineteenth century master J. M. W. Turner, Mitchell demonstrates her skill at elevating into oil paint the feelings and visceral memories that the landscape evoked in her. In this way she created what were modern incarnations of the pastoral or sublime landscape."

The lot has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $2,629,000.

Lot 242, "Oaxaca," by Robert Motherwell, acrylic and paper collage on canvas mounted on paperboard, 48 by 36 inches, 1976

Lot 242 is a very strong collage by Robert Motherwell (1915-1991) entitled (Oaxaca). An acrylic and paper collage on canvas mounted on paperboard, it measures 48 by 36 inches and was created in 1976.

The catalogue entry provides the following commentary:

"Robert Motherwell’s Oaxaca is a bold display, a confidence in color, gestural automatism, and collaged forms that was not present in his earliest collaged works. The artist’s collages were the preliminary stepping stone - essential to the development of his canvas works, even if laden with blatant struggles in composition and in color. The introduction to collage gave Motherwell the ability to experiment with a medium that dried faster than oil paint, and represented the world without literally illustrating it. In 1941, Motherwell left school and embarked on a journey with his friend, Roberto Matta, into Taxco, Mexico. Here he spent six months painting and struggling to obtain his own voice, or achieve some sort of unique perspective. Through Matta, Robert Motherwell was first introduced to Peggy Guggenheim who, in 1943, invited him to participate in her Exhibition of Collage. This invitation was extended to several abstract expressionist painters including Jackson Pollock and William Baziotes, none of whom were familiar with the art of collaging. Neither Pollock nor Baziotes decided to take anything from this exercise, but for Motherwell, this exhibition marked an exciting turn of direction for his artwork, even attracting public attention and his first museum purchase. With Matta’s encouragement, Motherwell made more collages. These collages then formed the vocabulary for Motherwell’s subsequent works of art. Thirty years down the line, Robert Motherwell’s use of color to evoke experience is visible through the reds, pinks, whites, blacks, purples, and even the small specks of blue peeking through from under the surface of Oaxaca. According to Motherwell, he associates these colors with Mexican folk art. The gestural brushstrokes incorporate Motherwell’s love of paint with his fascination with the torn paper edge. Oaxaca sets itself apart from Motherwell’s earlier works in his evident control of his mediums without sacrificing raw, uninhibited expression. Rather than filling the picture plane with dark washes and cut paper and violent splashes of color, Motherwell here displays maturity in his minimal abstract composition, bearing distinct influence and similarities to Pablo Picasso’s paper collage, Violin with sheet of music. Similar to the manner in which Picasso does not naturalistically represent a violin in his collage, but instead uses a ready-made sheet of music to imply the sounds the instrument might make, Motherwell also avoids the naturalistic expression in favor of more subtle color symbolism. Yet, the burst of black strokes activate the collaged plane in sudden, dynamic energy and agitation."

The lot has a modest estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. It sold for $242,000.

Lot 255, "Africa No. 3," by Robert Motherwell, acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 24 by 36 inches, 1975

Another very good abstraction by Motherwell is Lot 255, "Africa No. 3," an acrylic on canvas mounted on board that measures 24 by 36 inches. It was created in 1975. It has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $485,000.

Lot 236, "Untitled," by Franz Kline, oil, printed paper collage and tape on paperboard, 12 3/8 by 11 1/8 inches,1 982

Lot 236 is a strong, small and untitled collage by Kline that measures 12 3/8 by 11 1/8 inches. It was created in 1982. It has an estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. It failed to sell.

Lot 237, "Black Angle with Yellow" by Franz Kline, oil on paper collage mounted on canvas, 13 3/4 by 12 inches, 1959

Lot 237 is a very strong collage by Franz Kline (1910-1962) entitled "Black Angle with Yellow." An oil on paper collage mounted on canvas, it measures 13 3/4 by 12 inches and was paper in 1959.

The catalogue entry quotes Elaine de Kooning, the wife of Willem de Kooning, as stating that “it was Kline’s unique gift to be able to translate the character and the speed of a one-inch flick of the wrist to a brush-stroke magnified a hundred times. (Who else but Tintoretto has been able to manage this gesture?) All nuances of tone, sensitivity of contour, allusions to other art are engulfed in his black and white insignia, as final as a jump from the top floor of a skyscraper.”

The lot has a modest estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It sold for $269,000.

Lot 236, "Untitled," by Franz Kline, oil, printed paper collage and tape on paperboard, 12 3/8 by 11 1/8 inches,1 982

Lot 236 is a strong, small and untitled collage by Kline that measures 12 3/8 by 11 1/8 inches. It was created in 1982. It has an estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. It failed to sell.

Lot 135, "Le Jardinier," by Jean Dubuffet, oil, dry botanical elements and paper collage on paper, 26 by 19 3/4 inches, 1959

Lot 135 is an oil, dry botanical elements and paper collage on paper by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985). It measures 26 by 19 3/4 inches and was exhibited in 1962 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Los Angles County Museum of Art. It has an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It sold for $329,000.

Lot 111, untitled, by Richart Pousette-Dart, oil on masonite, 48 1/4 by84 inches, 1940-43

Lot 111 is a strong untitled oil on masonite by Richard Pousette-Dart (1916-1992) that measures 48 1/4 by 84 inches. It was painted 1940-43. It has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $905,000.

Lot 226, "Skylite," by Theodoros Stamos, oil on canvas, 24 by 30 inches, circa 1960s

Lot 226 is a fine and very colorful abstraction by Theodoros Stamos (1922-1997) entitled "Skylite." An oil on canvas, it measures 24 by 30 inches and was painted circa 1960s. It has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It sold for $87,500.

Lot 147, "Lake Placid," by Helen Frankenthaler, acrylic on canvas, 68 by 78 inches, 1989

Lot 147, "Lake Placid," is a large acrylic on canvas by Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) that was painted in 1989 and measures 68 by 78 inches.

The catalogue entry begins with the following quotation from the artist:

“In making a painting, you have to allow for the awareness in you that is not fully conscious, allowing for the disorder or chaos that is not yet order, the kind of chaos sometimes expressed in dreams. Then consciously, you try to read the message. Having a dream, thinking about that dream, telling the dream, and discussing a subconscious, nonverbal way, then realize it through making a painting”

The entry continues to provide the following commentary:

"The ethereal washes of delicate color which Helen Frankenthaler orchestrates across the surface of this canvas embody her lifelong determination to pursue her own artistic path within the male dominated realm of Abstract Expressionism. While her unique expressive forms are the direct descendants of Jackson Pollock’s drips, unlike the forceful brushwork of her male counterparts, Frankenthaler’s motifs are much more fluid and harmonious, lending her work a rich and poetic quality. Comprised of vivid passages of blue, green and mauve, Lake Placidallows these colors to engage in a dialogue with each other and the air around them, responding to the movement of the eye as it glides across the surface of this monumental painting. The full chromatic spectrum - and blue in particular - that Frankenthaler lays out across the surface of Lake Placid is matched only by the infinite nuances of the surface of the lake itself. Passages of the purest blue coexist next to ethereal washes of cyan, which disperse into threads of white. Through this shroud of color, bodies of green begin to emerge before seemingly receding before our very eyes. Along the extreme upper and lower edges of the canvas, this color intensity reaches a crescendo as striations of high-keyed color pigment frame the entire composition."
The lot has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. It sold for $1,109,000.

Lot 229, "Times Square," by Richard Estes, oil on panel, 34 1/8 by 23 1/4 inches, 2005

Lot 229 is a good oil on panel by Richard Estes (b. 1932) entitled "Times Square." It measures 34 1/8 by 23 1/4 inches and was painted in 2005. it was shown at the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid in 2007. It has an estimate of $180,000 to $250,000. It sold for $245,000.

Lot 270, "Cono I," by Arnaldo Pomodoro, bronze, 43 1/2 inches high, 1971, one from an edition of two plus one artist's proof

Lot 270 is a fine bronze by Arnaldo Pomodor (b. 1926) that is entitled "Cono I." It is 43 1/.2 inches high and is number one from an edition of two plus one artist's proof. It has an estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $87,500.

Lot 112, "Billiard Player Construction," by David Smith, iron and oil on artist's painted wood base, 16 1/4 inches high 1937

Lot 112 is an excellent small iron and oil on artist's painted wood base by David Smith (1906-1965) entitled "Billiard Player Construction." It is 16 1/4 inches high and was executed in 1937. It has been widely published and exhibited.

The catalogue provides the following commentary:

"While David Smith is most known for his monumental abstract sculptures, the works he produced in the earliest years of his sculptural explorations overthrew the prevailing stereotypes of the genre. Smith made most of his early sculptures on a small scale, and often portrayed human figures as his subjects. The sculptures Smith created between 1935 and 1936 provide visual evidence of the artist’s shifting interest from painting to sculpture as his primary medium, as well as his transition between working predominantly in the Cubist and Surrealist styles to creating fully abstract works.

"Smith’s Billiard Player Construction is comprised of two planes of iron which resemble a billiard player leaning in to place a shot with his cue. The frontal plane, depicting the billiard player’s shoulders and elbows, is coated with red and blue oil paint, instilling the sculpture with a spirit of playfulness. Smith’s application of paint to the surface marks his refusal to give up painting even when focusing on sculpting: 'I’ve been painting sculpture all my life'....Behind the solid metal mass of the player’s upper body, Smith shaped the player’s head from a thinner vertical piece of steel. Winding in and around of the holes in the steel are pieces of twisted metal, which suggest the features of a human face in an abstract manner. The winding wire recalls the Surrealist act of creating automatic line drawings....The sharp angles of the billiard player’s body and Smith’s fragmenting of his subject’s body into separate sections also incorporates elements of Cubism; Smith credits Jan Matulka, under whom he studied, with introducing him to the possibilities of 'cones and cubes and Cézanne'....Smith’s preferred working materials, iron and steel, bring to mind capitalist industry, the military-industrial complex, mass production on factory assembly lines, and advances in industrial technology that continued to change the lives of people during the twentieth century. Smith’s use of steel also reflects the economic circumstances of America in the 1930s. Using a relatively cheap and common material for his sculptures, Smith engaged with the Depression-era mindset of resourcefulness and thriftiness. In spite of the influence of early twentieth century artistic trends like Cubism and Surrealism in his early work, Smith’s use of industrial metals prefigured the Minimalist artists who would later work with such materials by decades....Early Smith sculptures like Billiard Player Construction expose the artist at the most important part of his career. Transitioning from drawing and painting, Smith began working with welded and twisted metals, yet the linear and colorful aspects of works like Billiard Player Construction reveal that he never truly left the earliest form of art-making he learned behind. Building off ideas put forth by a small group of earlier ground-breaking sculptures, Smith was integral in changing the face of American sculpture and the potential of metal, line, and open space in sculpture."

The lot has an estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000. It sold for $1,505,000.

See The City Review article on the Sotheby's evening auction May 10, 2000 of Impressionist & Modern Art

See The City Review article on the May 11, 2000 auction at Sotheby's of Impressionist & Modern Art, Part 2

See The City Review article on the Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Auction, Part I, Nov. 11, 1999

See The City Review article on Part Two of the Sotheby's auction November 11, 1999 of Impressionist & Modern Art

See The City Review article on the Christie's Nov. 8, 1999 evening sale of Impressionist & Post Impressionist Art

See The City Review article on the morning auction Nov. 9, 1999 of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art at Christie's

See The City Review article on the afternoon auction Nov. 9, 1999 of Impressionist and Twentieth Century Works on Paper at Christie's

See The City Review article on the Christie's Nov. 9, 1999 evening auction of Twentieth Century Art

See The City Review article on the Christie's Nov. 10, 1999 day auction of Twentieth Century Art

See The City Review analysis of Part 1 of the Sotheby's auction May 11, 1999 of Impressionist and Modern Art

See The City Review analysis of Part 2 of the Sotheby's May 12, 1999 auction of Impressionist and Modern Art

See The City Review article on the Christie's May 12, 1999 auction of Impressionist Art and 19th Century Art

See The City Review of the Christie's May 13, 1999 auction of 20th Century and Modern Art

Recap of the Spring 1998 Impressionist and Modern Auctions

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