THE HALSEY MINOR COLLECTION - The Hook
THE HALSEY MINOR COLLECTION - The Hook
THE HALSEY MINOR COLLECTION - The Hook
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<strong>THE</strong> HAL SEY <strong>MINOR</strong> <strong>COLLECTION</strong><br />
13 MAY 2 010 NEW YORK
<strong>THE</strong> HAL SEY <strong>MINOR</strong> <strong>COLLECTION</strong><br />
13 MAY 2 010 7pm NEW YORK<br />
Lots 1-22<br />
Front Cover Richard Prince, Nurse in Hollywood #4, 2004, Lot 8 (detail)<br />
Back Cover Marc Newson, Prototype “Lockheed Lounge,” 1988, Lot 4<br />
Viewing<br />
Saturday 1 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Sunday 2 May, 12pm – 6pm<br />
Monday 3 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Tuesday 4 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Wednesday 5 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Thursday 6 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Friday 7 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Saturday 8 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Sunday 9 May, 12pm – 6pm<br />
Monday 10 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Tuesday 11 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Wednesday 12 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Thursday 13 May, 10am – 12pm
Collecting is about learning and it is developing<br />
connoisseurship. It is an intense ongoing process<br />
of education, and it is my mission to collect<br />
only the best.<br />
Halsey Minor
<strong>The</strong> boldness of Halsey Minor’s collecting vision lies in its identification of<br />
energy, of a constant flow of ideas emanating from the questions art asks of<br />
its viewers and of their place in the wider world. ‘Collecting is about learning<br />
and it is developing connoisseurship,’ Minor has stated. ‘It is an intense<br />
ongoing process of education, and it is my mission to collect only the best.’<br />
Why people collect art is as straightforward and as complex as why<br />
people fall in love. <strong>The</strong>re are infinite reasons. For Halsey Minor, collecting<br />
Contemporary Art and Design is a hunger that cannot be satisfied, a thirst<br />
that cannot be quenched. It is the addiction to this nectar, to put together<br />
one of the most formidable collections of Marc Newson and Ed Ruscha, for<br />
instance that drives him. It is this story, narrated via 22 voices both daring<br />
and subtle, that is being told this evening. It is a story whose themes are<br />
written by many of the Postwar and Contemporary period’s iconic artists:<br />
Ed Ruscha, John Baldessari, Takashi Murakami and designer Marc Newson,<br />
but especially Richard Prince, the artist whose body of work is represented<br />
here by three pieces headed by one of the collection’s indubitable stars<br />
– the arresting Nurse in Hollywood #4, 2004. <strong>The</strong> 96 total works owned by<br />
Minor constitute a collection of singular importance and one which Phillips<br />
de Pury & Company is privileged to present this evening, as well as in our<br />
forthcoming auctions of Contemporary Art Part II and Design.<br />
<strong>The</strong> collecting life of Halsey Minor, founder of CNET and CEO of Minor<br />
Ventures, has wholeheartedly embraced and passed through a number<br />
of chapters – to date, American Modernism, Pop Art, cutting-edge<br />
Contemporary Art and 20th-century design – and all have presented<br />
themselves as discernible, even disparate, themes. However, there is very<br />
little discontinuity present in Minor’s eye: the individual works are all linked<br />
by the passionate focus that the collector has brought to his activity. Art is<br />
an intangible asset of immense importance for it is the stimulus of an intense<br />
and intimate conversation between its viewer and its maker, not something<br />
simply of monetary value. Minor once spoke about his passion – art – in these<br />
terms: ‘Whatever I do, I have to feel I rounded out the story – the collection –<br />
about the artist. If I lose a piece, I lose the collection.’<br />
Many of the works here this evening depict a fascination with the properties<br />
of the world. Not simply an approximation of the world’s overt appearance<br />
– as seen, perhaps in Ruscha’s mountain range of Higher Standards/Lower<br />
Prices, 2007 – but what isn’t. And so we have (Ruscha again) an iconic<br />
painting, Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk, 1965, depicting the trompe<br />
l’oeil of a bird tricked into thinking that a glass on its side is still filled with<br />
something other than the solid form of its plaster milk; Marc Newson’s 1988<br />
prototype Lockheed Lounge, a riveted piece of design that references not<br />
only the classical divan, but hints, in a sleight of artistic alchemy, at the<br />
sheer fluidity of mercury. Like Charlotte Perriand’s Bibliothèque Asymetrique,<br />
ca 1958, or George Nakashima’s free-form Minguren I table, 1964, the<br />
lynchpin joining the entire Minor collection is a dialogue of what is and what<br />
isn’t. It is a dialogue that – like the shelves of Perriand’s Bibliothèque – is<br />
eternally dynamic.<br />
And while this evening’s sale marks the end of one single-owner collection,<br />
Halsey Minor’s vision nevertheless continues.<br />
Louise Gray, April 2010
1 RICHARD PRINCE b. 1949<br />
Untitled (Almost Original), 2006<br />
Gouache and graphite on board and book cover in artist’s metal frame. 37 x 33 in.<br />
(94 x 83.8 cm). Signed and dated “R. Prince 06” on board; Signed and dated “R. Prince<br />
2006” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $6 0,0 0 0 - 8 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Gladstone Gallery, New York<br />
It is hard not to be attracted to a work by Richard Prince but explaining why<br />
can prove more difficult. Fundamentally, the immediate attraction is about<br />
seeing something easily recognizable whether it’s an old ad for liquor or<br />
furniture, cigarette pushing cowboys, or other people’s girlfriends they are<br />
all images we can decipher, but few are ones that have any recognizable<br />
emotion invested in them. <strong>The</strong>y are fundamentally mundane.<br />
Like Duchamp and Warhol before him Prince is often playing a game in<br />
which the artist is able to take that which is not “art” and make it so simply<br />
by changing the intention. Prince makes an ordinary ad into an artwork by<br />
photographing it and re-contextualizing it, subverting its original intention for<br />
his own purpose. He carries on a continual taunting dialogue with an empty,<br />
consumer driven society by taking images from advertising, low brow special<br />
interest magazines, or disposable romance novels and recasting them as his<br />
own. Through this action we are made to confront the meaningless of our<br />
own production; as though he is saying “we cannot even make things that are<br />
our own, everything can be reproduced as another’s’ and become theirs” or<br />
even at an extreme “authorship is dead.”<br />
In works that can be considered Nurses or more broadly grouped as works<br />
dealing with “nurses” that underlying sexiness is everywhere. <strong>The</strong> pretty<br />
nurses are always partly obscured, by uniforms, hats, masks or blood, while<br />
the titles are straight from book covers that are meant to get a housewife<br />
to make a quick supermarket decision to buy Nurse in Love or in this case<br />
Celebrity Suite Nurse (what could be more commercial? Celebrity—we all<br />
want to be one or sleep with one, Suite—fancy private clinic, Nurse—she has<br />
it all). Yet they are not overt enough to be embarrassing, again the sexiness<br />
is obscured and who knows how racy the stories are inside. Certainly the<br />
imagery implies that this nurse is doing more for her patients and doctors<br />
than setting out cups of aspirin.<br />
Richard Prince conscripts us over and over because he plays with language<br />
and images that are so basic and straightforward that we cannot help but<br />
get the message. He then plays with that message and it takes on another<br />
meaning or multiple meanings and becomes other. We become part of his<br />
discourse, we are engaged with deciphering a deeper meaning within the<br />
simplicity, within the mundane, we cannot help it we are engaged.<br />
Alongside this dialogue is the other important element to Prince’s work,<br />
underlying teenage boy prurience. So much of his work is imbued with this<br />
particular sexuality, one that seems adolescent in nature, not necessarily<br />
connected with sex acts but with the wink-wink-nudge-nudge of looking at a<br />
stolen dirty magazine, where the excitement is that the possibility exists or the<br />
inference of the possibility. It is not hard core porn or detailed sex acts; it is a<br />
“dirty” joke that alludes to sex or a cartoonish biker babe mooning at a rally.
2 MARK GROTJAHN b. 1968<br />
Untitled (Black Butterfly over Lime), 2004<br />
Oil on linen. 36 x 29 in. (91.4 x 73.7 cm). Signed and dated “M.Grotjahn 04” twice on<br />
the overlap.<br />
Estimate $3 0 0,0 0 0 - 4 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Private Collection<br />
It’s something of a cliché to say that paintings conceal as much as they reveal<br />
but so much in Grotjahn’s work seems buried under the skin, and so little is<br />
ever really given away, that one bestows unusual significance upon the painterly<br />
glitches and hiccups that occur. Apparently evidencing trial and error, the smears<br />
of ink and pencil that litter the surfaces of his drawings lend them a work-a-day<br />
honesty that, ironically, seems quite underhand – as if the artist was calling our<br />
bluff. Revealed beneath the thick surfaces of his paintings are flashes of other<br />
colours and traces of earlier activity in stark contrast to the chromatic sobriety<br />
and measured pace of the ‘finished’ article – loosely applied acid yellow beneath<br />
green, purple beneath black, for example. Where a second colour peeks through<br />
at a vanishing point, celestial connotations are brought to the fore.<br />
M.Coomer, “<strong>The</strong> Butterfly Effect”, ArtReview, Issue 03, September, 2006, p.76
3 FLORIAN MAIER-AICHEN b. 1973<br />
Untitled (Mount Wilson), 2002<br />
C-print. 63 1/2 x 81 3/8 in. (161.3 x 206.7 cm). Signed, dated “Florian Maier-Aichen 2002” and<br />
numbered of six on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $10 0,0 0 0 -15 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Blum & Poe, Los Angeles; Private collection, London<br />
literature J. Tumler, “Outside the Frame: Florian Maier-Aichen,” Aperture, New York,<br />
Summer 2007, p. 46<br />
To place Florian Maier-Aichen, rather, inside the photograph is to place him<br />
just about anywhere, as we are no longer dealing with a strictly delimited field<br />
of operation. <strong>The</strong> so-called digital turn in photographic technology foretells the<br />
emergence of the borderless image, dematerialized and ergonomic. Its contents<br />
always exceed the frame -consider the “classic” overview of night-time Los<br />
Angeles that Maier-Aichen regularly revisits, as a stand-in of sorts, notably in [the<br />
present lot] Untitled (Mount Wilson), 2002. To represent the endlessly receding<br />
landmass crisscrossed by gently flickering streets and freeways is to represent<br />
information; the city as gigantic circuit-board advancing on all sides. Ed Ruscha,<br />
who visualized it in much the same way, in 1987 went so far as to inscribe the<br />
words “Talk Radio” over a painting of the luminous grid, specifying the electrically<br />
charged atmosphere as the true subject of his work. In comparison with<br />
Ruscha’s Talk Radio, the Maier-Aichen work is “silent” -but that is the source of<br />
its particular strength, as these or any other words would only obscure the deepstructural<br />
connection that it wants to mine between this city as subject matter<br />
and the present condition of the photograph as its material substrate.<br />
J. Tumler, “Outside the Frame,” Aperture, New York, Summer 2007, p. 46<br />
Ed Ruscha Talk Radio, 1987
4 MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Prototype “Lockheed Lounge,” 1988<br />
Fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin core, blind-riveted sheet aluminum, paint.<br />
34 1/2 x 65 3/4 x 24 1/2 in. (87.6 x 167 x 62.2 cm). Handmade by Marc Newson at Basecraft<br />
for Pod, Australia. Unique prototype with white feet in addition to the edition of ten plus<br />
four artist’s proofs. Underside impressed with “BASECRAFT.”<br />
Estimate $1,0 0 0,0 0 0 -1,50 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Marc Newson, Australia; Private Collection, Australia; Sotheby’s, Important<br />
20th Century Design, New York, June 14, 2006, Lot 162; Sebastian + Barquet, New York<br />
selected literature Davina Jackson, “Open the Pod Door,” Blueprint, February 1990,<br />
pp. 28-29; Mario Romanelli, “Marc Newson: Progetti tra il 1987 e il 1990,” Domus, March<br />
1990, p. 67; Alexander von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design<br />
Museum Collection, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, 1996, pp. 172-173; Mel<br />
Byars, 50 Chairs: Innovations in Design and Materials, Crans-Prés-Celigny, 1997, pp. 94-97;<br />
Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, pp. 18-21; Charlotte and Peter Fiell, eds.,<br />
1000 Chairs, Cologne, 2000, p. 605; Sarah Nichols, Aluminum by Design, exh. cat., Carnegie<br />
Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, 2000, front and back covers and p. 264; Conway Lloyd Morgan,<br />
Marc Newson, London, 2002, pp. 154-155; Benjamin Loyauté, “Le Design Aluminium au XXe<br />
Siècle,” Connaissance des Arts, October 2003, p. 98; Marc Newson Pop On Pop Off, exh. cat.,<br />
Groninger Museum, 2004, pp. 1 and 12-13; Steven Skov Holt and Mara Holt Skov, Blobjects<br />
and Beyond: <strong>The</strong> New Fluidity in Design, San Francisco, 2005, p. 38; Phaidon Design Classics,<br />
Volume Three, London, 2006, no. 860; Deyan Sudjic, <strong>The</strong> Language of Things, London, 2008,<br />
front cover and pp. 206-207; Sophie Lovell, Limited Edition: Prototypes, One-Offs and Design Art<br />
Furniture, Basel, 2009, p. 249; David Linley, Charles Cator and Helen Chislett, Star Pieces: <strong>The</strong><br />
Enduring Beauty of Spectacular Furniture, New York, 2009, front cover and p. 198<br />
<strong>The</strong> prototype “Lockheed Lounge” will be included as “MN-1LLW-1988” in<br />
the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited editions by Marc Newson being<br />
prepared by Didier Krzentowski of Galerie kreo, Paris.<br />
<strong>The</strong> present prototype “Lockheed Lounge” is the only example with white<br />
exposed fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin feet. All other examples have<br />
rubber-coated black feet.<br />
All examples of the “Lockheed Lounge” were built at Basecraft, a small<br />
Sydney workshop where Newson developed his “LC1” chaise longue in<br />
1985-1986. That chair was first exhibited at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney,<br />
June 1986, and is now in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of South<br />
Australia, Adelaide. Although a markedly different chair, Newson’s “LC1”<br />
led to the present form, the “Lockheed Lounge,” of which fifteen exist: the<br />
prototype (the present lot), four artist’s proofs, and a further edition of ten.<br />
Newson began producing “Lockheed Lounges” in 1988.<br />
In the order of their acquisition, examples of the “Lockheed Lounge” are in<br />
the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne;<br />
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney; Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein; and<br />
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company would like to thank Marc Newson and Didier<br />
Krzentowski for their assistance in cataloging this lot. With regard to date,<br />
description, manufacture, material, and catalogue raisonné number, this entry<br />
supersedes all previous publications of this particular “Lockheed Lounge.”
At Sydney College of the Arts, Newson studied sculpture, jewelry, and<br />
furniture design. In 1984 he graduated with the outlines of a plan: technical<br />
materials, futurism, fluidity—and with inexperience, the burden of every<br />
graduate. <strong>The</strong> following year he conceived his “LC1” chaise longue (a<br />
precursor to the “Lockheed Lounge”), which he exhibited at the Roslyn<br />
Oxley9 Gallery in Sydney in June 1986. Unsatisfied with the scrolling backrest<br />
of that first chair, he refined its lines and arrived at the present form. Newson<br />
shaped “Lockheed Lounge” from foam, as one would a surfboard “blank,”<br />
with a wire brush and a Stanley Surform plane. His intention had been to<br />
cover its fiberglass core with a single sheet of aluminum: “I tried laminating<br />
it, but the thing fell apart…Eventually, I came up with the idea of beating little<br />
pieces of metal into shape with a wooden mallet, and attaching them with<br />
rivets.” (Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, p. 5)<br />
In 1943 the Lockheed Corporation transformed air travel by christening its<br />
L049 Constellation, a radical airliner capable of transatlantic runs at 300 mph.<br />
Nearly a half century later, Newson transformed the design market with his<br />
coyly named “LC1” chaise lounge, an immediate critical success (purchased<br />
by the Art Gallery of South Australia). But like the Constellation—a propellerdriven<br />
plane—Marc Newson had not yet achieved Mach 1 speeds. <strong>The</strong> handwrought<br />
curves of his chair hint at fundamental human limitations while<br />
simultaneously suggesting the perfection of industrial processes. “Lockheed<br />
Lounge,” a paragon of youthful ambition, engendered all of Newson’s later<br />
preoccupations with flow and speed.<br />
A hallmark of Newson’s later work is “seamlessness,” to borrow from Louise<br />
Neri. Smoothness triumphs: neither joint nor junction disrupts the contours<br />
of his Alessi tray, for example, or his extruded marble tables shown at<br />
Gagosian Gallery in 2007. “Lockheed Lounge,” furrowed with seams, beguiles<br />
for the opposite reason: imperfection. Flat-head rivets literally and visually<br />
suture together a patchwork of aluminum. Coarse seams betray Newson’s<br />
limitations, but the chair’s fluid silhouette affirms its maker’s search for a<br />
clear ideal. At its core—fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin—“Lockheed<br />
Lounge” is seamless.
5 TAKASHI MURAKAMI b. 1963<br />
Flower Ball (3-D) Kindergarten, 2007<br />
Acrylic and platinum leaf on canvas mounted on board. Diameter: 39 1/2 in. (100.3 cm).<br />
Signed and dated “Takashi 06” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $40 0,0 0 0 - 6 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Acquired directly from the artist; Gagosian Gallery, New York; John<br />
Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco<br />
© 2007 Takashi Murakami / Kai Kai KiKi Co., Ltd.<br />
All Rights Reserved<br />
Once every two days, I would buy flowers for my lesson and make compositions<br />
for my students to work on. At the beginning, to be frank, I didn’t like flowers,<br />
but as I continued teaching in the school, my feelings changed: their smell, their<br />
shape-- it all made me feel almost physically sick, and at the same time I found<br />
them very ‘cute’. Each one seemed to have its own feelings, its own personality.<br />
My dominant feeling was one of unease, but I liked that sensation. And these<br />
days, now that I draw flowers rather frequently, that sensation has come back<br />
very vividly. I find them just as pretty, just as disturbing. At the same time there<br />
is this strength in them; it is the same image of strength I find when drawing<br />
the human face. So I thought that if the opportunity arose, I would pretty much<br />
like to make a work in which I would represent them as if in a ‘crowd scene’, in<br />
the manner of these scenes of moving crowds that you see in films. […] I really<br />
wanted to convey this impression of unease, of the threatening aspect of an<br />
approaching crowd…<br />
Takashi Murakami in H. Kelmachter, Takashi Murakami Kaikai Kiki, Paris,<br />
2002, p. 84-85<br />
<strong>The</strong> Japanese art-world superstar Takashi Murakami is known for his<br />
energetic fusion of 18th and 19th century Japanese artistic canons with<br />
modern-day Japanese social movements such as the culture of “manga”.<br />
“Manga”, characterized by the notion of”kawaii” or “cuteness”, is expressed<br />
through various forms of digital media, most notably the cartoonish, hyperrealistic<br />
animae films. <strong>The</strong> present lot was inspired by Murakami’s artistic<br />
heritage as a student of the art of nihon-ga or “Japanese-style” painting. This<br />
concept, which focuses on keeping alive Japanese artistic traditions such<br />
as painting flowers, was initially developed as a reaction to the increasing<br />
influence of Western culture in Japan during the 19th century. Murakami<br />
often notes that he owes much of his artistic aesthetic to the rich and<br />
turbulent history of his native country paired with the explosion of global<br />
connectivity and access to information that has defined contemporary<br />
society the past twenty years. By mining his personal and artistic heritage,<br />
a dazzling array of Eastern and Western traditions, Murakami has combined<br />
these to develop a unique aesthetic which has generated instantly<br />
recognizable images and icons. Murakami perfectly exemplifies the artist<br />
as a global brand, spanning a range of admirers from varying nationalities,<br />
social classes and ethnicities the world over.<br />
Takashi Murakami Kiki, 2000<br />
© 2000 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co.,<br />
Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
6 MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Prototype “Pod of Drawers,” 1987<br />
Fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin core, blind-riveted sheet aluminum, paint.<br />
50 3/4 x 27 1/2 x 18 1/2 in. (128.9 x 69.9 x 47 cm). Handmade by Marc Newson at Basecraft for<br />
Pod, Australia. Unique prototype with white feet in addition to the edition of ten plus two<br />
artist’s proofs.<br />
Estimate $5 0 0,0 0 0 -70 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Marc Newson, Australia; Galerie kreo, Paris<br />
literature Mario Romanelli, ”Marc Newson: Progetti tra il 1987 e il 1990,” Domus, March<br />
1990, p. 67; Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, p. 23; Hilary Jay, “Rising Design<br />
Stars,” Art and Antiques, April 2001, p. 61; Stephen Crafti, Request.Response.Reaction. <strong>The</strong><br />
Designers of Australia & New Zealand, Victoria, 2002, p. 86; Conway Lloyd Morgan, Marc<br />
Newson, London, 2003, p. 166; Béatrice Salmon, ed., Masterpieces of the Museum of Decorative<br />
Arts, Paris, 2006, pp. 205-206; Julie Brener and Sarah Douglas, “Dealer’s Choice,” Art +<br />
Auction, September 2008, p. 172<br />
Thirteen “Pod of Drawers” exist: one example with white feet (the present<br />
lot), two artist’s proofs, and a further edition of ten.<br />
<strong>The</strong> prototype “Pod of Drawers” will be included as “MN - 1PODW - 1987” in<br />
the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited editions by Marc Newson being<br />
prepared by Didier Krzentowski of Galerie kreo, Paris.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company would like to thank Marc Newson and Didier<br />
Krzentowski for their assistance in cataloging this lot.<br />
Who can resist a good figure? Not Marc Newson. Since first riveting “Pod of<br />
Drawers” in 1987, he has returned again and again to the hourglass shape as<br />
inspiration for much of his work: “Lockheed Lounge,” “Embryos,” “Orgone<br />
Lounges.” Airplanes, cars, and surfboards are metaphors for Newson, their<br />
construction and materials a common point of departure, but the human<br />
torso is as fertile a seed for his imagination. Newson is at heart organic,<br />
in the vital not voguish sense. <strong>The</strong> seat and backrest of his “Felt Chair”<br />
stretches and bends like a torso. His related “Wicker Lounge” recalls a nubile<br />
in repose, or two. Both “Pod of Drawers” and “Lockheed Lounge” set the<br />
stage for these later works. Even his everyday products—pepper grinders,<br />
bath pillows, bottle openers, doorstops—are buxom. Objects resonate when<br />
they relate to us. A Newson maxim might read: one must mimic the body to<br />
hold the body.
7 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Higher Standards/Lower Prices, 2007<br />
Acrylic on canvas in two parts. 48 x 110 in. (121.9 x 279.4 cm) each. Signed, titled and dated<br />
“Ed Ruscha ‘Higher Standards’ 2007” on the reverse of the left panel; signed, titled and<br />
dated “Ed Ruscha ‘Lower Prices’ 2007” on the reverse of the right panel. This work will be<br />
included in a forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings.<br />
Estimate $1,50 0,0 0 0 -2,50 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Gagosian Gallery, London<br />
exhibited London, Gagosian Gallery, Ed Ruscha: Paintings, February 5 – March 20, 2008<br />
literature B. Fer, Ed Ruscha: Paintings, Ostfildern, 2008, n.p. (illustrated); B. Schwabsky,<br />
“Ed Ruscha: Talks About His Most Recent Paintings,” Artforum, New York, 2008, p. 358<br />
(illustrated)<br />
I was searching for a title and I saw this slogan<br />
on a grocery truck in LA. In the second of the two<br />
paintings these buildings suddenly shoot up out<br />
of nowhere like an instant industrial village of<br />
Wal-Marts and Costcos—so that says to me lower<br />
prices. But then you have your higher standards—<br />
there’s some serious geology going on in those<br />
mountains.<br />
Ed Ruscha in O. Ward, “Ed Ruscha: Interview,” Time Out, London, 2007
Andy Warhol Paramount, 1985 © 2010 <strong>The</strong> Andy Warhol Foundation for the<br />
Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<br />
Ed Ruscha’s response when asked what inspired the title of the present work,<br />
Higher Standards/Lower Prices, epitomizes his artistic career. Ruscha’s art<br />
tends to have a timeless quality to it, somehow managing to stay incredibly<br />
relevant without tying itself too much to one particular decade or movement.<br />
He culls inspiration from day to day American culture – in this case, the<br />
supersize stores and billboards that span the country. <strong>The</strong>se symbols of<br />
consumer culture are as deeply rooted in the American vernacular as the<br />
mountains Ruscha paints. And what incredible mountains he paints. <strong>The</strong><br />
towering white peaks he gives us are beautiful studies in geology and<br />
technique, deriving from a recognizable amalgam of famous mountains and<br />
hinting towards a long history of art historical relevance on the subject.<br />
Much in the same way that the words thematically vandalize nature in these<br />
earlier mountain paintings, so do the buildings in the present work. <strong>The</strong><br />
strength of Higher Standards/Lower Prices begins with the juxtaposition of the<br />
two panels next to each other. <strong>The</strong> diptychs is a comparative study. In both<br />
panels, the snow capped peaks of his mountains sparkle in warm sunlight<br />
under contrasting ashen sky. <strong>The</strong>y remain wonderfully unadulterated in the<br />
first panel however, in the second panel the tops of two unrealistically tall<br />
buildings begin to obstruct the view of the mountains. <strong>The</strong> building rooftops<br />
are oddly and jarringly out of place against this pristine background. <strong>The</strong><br />
way the rooftops appear to hover in the lower plane of the canvas creates a<br />
dynamically active canvas, as if they could, at any moment, continue to rise.<br />
Mountain imagery has always served as a visual shorthand for the sublime, from<br />
the pantheist canvases of Caspar David Friedrich and the Catskills of the Hudson<br />
River School to Ansel Adams’s photographs of the Rockies . Mountains, in their<br />
everyday untouchability, still seem like residences for the gods. But Ruscha<br />
resists knee-jerk spiritualism (and, one might argue, his own often mentioned<br />
dormant Catholicism) by emblazoning slogans that render the scenes absurd.<br />
M. Schwendener, “Ed Ruscha – Reviews”, ArtForum, New York , November,<br />
2002<br />
Ruscha is perhaps most widely known for his word paintings which he<br />
began in the 1960s. His clever word associations pop off brightly colored<br />
canvases daring the viewer to react. <strong>The</strong>y range from one-off declarations<br />
such as OOF, LISP, Noise to longer phrases that cause the viewer to take<br />
a momentary puzzled pause. Ruscha would stumble upon these words,<br />
considering them to be his own version of Duchampian readymades. When<br />
the words began to invade his mountain paintings the result was boldly<br />
striking and beautifully absurd. <strong>The</strong> mountains receded to the background<br />
while statements such as <strong>THE</strong> and CO. threw themselves at the front of the<br />
plane with big, look-at-me lettering making it impossible not to enjoy these<br />
clever combinations.<br />
This work is part of a series of seven works created by Ruscha in 2007. <strong>The</strong><br />
presumably gargantuan size of these fictitious buildings speaks to how<br />
commercialism and consumerism are slowly encroaching on the natural<br />
world. This work is about before and after and the passage of time.<br />
<strong>The</strong> presence of these man-made structures is unnatural and harsh yet they<br />
accurately reflect the effect that our consumer-driven culture has on the<br />
dwindling unspoiled natural world. <strong>The</strong>se megastores are empires in their<br />
own right and have left an indelible imprint on our world. <strong>The</strong> unblemished<br />
views of these pristine monuments are slowly being encroached upon by<br />
sprawling suburban strip malls and colossal super stores. “<strong>The</strong> buildings<br />
violate the beauty of these mountains,” says Ruscha. “It’s kind of a comment<br />
on the rolling thunder of change. It’s only a matter of time before everything<br />
decays and rapidly disintegrates.” He pauses, then chuckles. “But I’m not<br />
a nihilist! I do have optimism towards the future” (A. Sooke, “Ed Ruscha:<br />
Painting’s maverick man of letters,” Telegraph, February 9, 2008).<br />
<strong>The</strong> present work makes a much subtler but much more powerful statement<br />
than some of Ruscha’s more overtly bold pieces. Without specifically<br />
knowing the roots of Ruscha’s inspiration, the viewer would be hard-pressed<br />
to specifically identify the structures occupying the forefront of this canvas.<br />
<strong>The</strong> abstraction with which he renders the buildings is classic Ruscha – he<br />
doesn’t give us too much but just enough to trigger our imaginations and<br />
associations. <strong>The</strong> subtlety of this rendering allows this painting to leave a far<br />
more substantial imprint on the viewer and make a much stronger statement<br />
on the condition of our world. If Ruscha had chosen to write the names of the<br />
stores across the front of the works as he did with his Standard gas stations<br />
or his Hollywood signs, the effect would have been entirely different.<br />
Ruscha’s mountain ranges suggest some of the world’s most famous peaks<br />
from Mt. Everest to the Matterhorn. <strong>The</strong>y also suggest fictitious mountains,<br />
such as the Paramount Pictures emblem, which are just as famous. <strong>The</strong><br />
Paramount emblem is said to have derived from a casual sketch done by the<br />
W. W. Hodkinson, founder of the studio. This simple drawing was based<br />
on his own personal vernacular from a childhood spent in Utah. In much<br />
the same way, Ruscha’s mountains are amalgams of memories and derived<br />
images of the real and the invented.<br />
Georgia O’Keefe Datura Pedernal, 1940 © Georgia O’Keefe Museum/Artists Rights Society<br />
(ARS), New York
Paul Cézanne, Mont-Sainte Victoire, 1888-1890<br />
This very subject has inspired a far-ranging group of artists from Andy<br />
Warhol’s pop representations of the Paramount logo to Georgia O’Keefe’s<br />
evocative canvases of brilliantly pastel-hued mountain ranges. Like Warhol,<br />
Ruscha has been classified as a pop artist but unlike Warhol, he does not<br />
epitomize the movement. His art bears a surrealist influence with its appeal<br />
to the subconscious interpretation of its symbolism. He dips his toes into<br />
Dadaism, frequently addressing the influence that Marcel Duchamp had on<br />
his art. Perhaps, more subconsciously, one can also see the influence of<br />
Rene Magritte on his work, in particular on the word paintings.<br />
Ed Ruscha is easily among the most ingenious artists of the 20th century.<br />
Higher Standards/Lower Price is a stunning diptych which speaks to his<br />
incredible far-reaching vision as an artist, touching on both the malaise and<br />
beauty of our transience and permanent footstep on this world.<br />
In a 2005 interview with Richard Prince, Ruscha and Prince banter back and<br />
forth regarding art and their inspiration for it:<br />
ER: I love to look “at” things that I would normally look through or beyond, but<br />
I guess I can’t always be at attention. I want to be up to speed when an idea<br />
kicks in, but often I’m half asleep or half awake.<br />
RP: Is it newspapers, novels, comic books, fiction, biographies, or histories<br />
for you?<br />
ER: I read newspapers, nature, geology, and science books, some sci-fi, J.G.<br />
Ballard, H.P. Lovecraft, Philip K. Dick, and John Fante. I just finished <strong>The</strong><br />
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.<br />
RP: You’ve influenced a lot of other artists. What do you think about the idea<br />
of continuation?<br />
ER: Continuation in the realm of art is a solid idea. Artists express things for<br />
the moment to be added upon later by others, or maybe reexpressed or even<br />
reused. Fodder for the future. We’re all frozen food for the future.<br />
RP: I’ve never thought there was such a thing as pop art, but if I did I would<br />
boil it down to two artists—you and Warhol. Warhol, East coast; Ruscha,<br />
West coast.<br />
RP: I like that you photograph gasoline stations and apartment buildings<br />
and then paint them too. It’s kind of like you own them. Walker Evans said<br />
something like, “I photograph what I collect.” Do you ever go beachcombing?<br />
ER: I believe that cultural curators will forever be unearthing significant<br />
unknown American artists, writers, musicians, architects, and composers.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se people will be in every state of the Union, not just New York, Chicago,<br />
or L.A. Am I dreaming?<br />
ER: I do collect images in my mind of many gas stations. <strong>The</strong>y sit there,<br />
sometimes transformed into mini-markets or massage parlors or just<br />
abandoned completely. Some I haven’t seen in over 40 years--funny, I don’t<br />
own the things I collect.<br />
RP: I collect your books. I have almost all of them. I even have a great copy of<br />
Dutch Details. Pools and parking lots are so much about where you live. Only<br />
in Los Angeles. I really love the photos of the empty parking lots. Anybody<br />
doing abstract art should take a long look. Do you ever wonder what else is<br />
out there that you’ve seen but never really see? I guess what I’m trying to say<br />
is, When does something like parking lots kick in?<br />
RP: I read somewhere that you think the best paintings are not the most<br />
realistic.<br />
ER: All my life I’ve been thrown by the word “realistic”--I think I said I’m<br />
essentially an abstract artist.<br />
R. Prince, “Interview: Richard Prince with Ed Ruscha (2005),” American<br />
Suburb X, (Online content) July 2005<br />
Ed Ruscha, Standard Station, 1966
8 RICHARD PRINCE b. 1949<br />
Nurse in Hollywood #4, 2004<br />
Acrylic and inkjet on canvas. 69 x 42 in. (175.3 106.7 cm). Signed, titled and dated “2004 R.<br />
Prince Nurse in Hollywood #4” on the overlap.<br />
Estimate $5,0 0 0,0 0 0 -7,0 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Gladstone Gallery, New York; <strong>The</strong> Collection of Steven and Alexandra<br />
Cohen, Connecticut<br />
When a Hollywood producer ‘discovers’ nursing<br />
student Kitty Walters he asks her t0 choose:<br />
her dream of becoming a R.N. or every girl’s<br />
DREAM OF BECOMING A STAR.<br />
J. Converse, Nurse in Hollywood, New York, 1965<br />
Book cover source material for artist.
Andy Warhol, Grace Kelly, 1984 © 2010 <strong>The</strong> Andy Warhol<br />
Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society<br />
(ARS), New York<br />
“A nurse!” the red-haired dynamo with the crew cut shouted<br />
ecstatically to no one in particular. “This doll’s a nurse!”<br />
J. Converse, Nurse in Hollywood, New York, 1965, p. 18<br />
<strong>The</strong> Nurse. She is historically typecast as an icon of goodness, a benevolent<br />
caregiver and healer. However the 20th century has played with that role and<br />
eroticized it, casting her as a different character: a lustful and naughty object<br />
of sexual desire. It is this striking tension between the good and the wicked<br />
that Richard Prince so astutely captures in his Nurse series and what makes<br />
these works such intriguing and sought after paintings.<br />
Richard Prince. <strong>The</strong> name alone conjures up a whirlwind of images, all<br />
indelibly cemented in the culture of American kitsch and mass media. One<br />
cannot hear his name without picturing his most recognizable icons: the<br />
cowboy, the Marlboro Man and of course, his most coveted, the Nurse.<br />
<strong>The</strong> visual iconography of Prince’s work over the last thirty years spans<br />
the gamut of the American vernacular from the opulent to the seedy. His<br />
early photographic representations of lavish luxury items remarked on<br />
consumerism while those of almost-naked women splayed across their<br />
boyfriends’ motorcycles addressed overt sexuality and gender roles. From his<br />
early unadulterated snapshots of cigarette ads to his latest painterly homage<br />
to de Kooning, his art re-appropriates and re-imagines what art means and<br />
what it can be. Nurse in Hollywood # 4 is the apotheosis of this varied and<br />
exceptional career, and is easily the finest piece from his Nurse series.<br />
Prince began his artistic career at Time-Life magazine, clipping articles<br />
of potential interest for the writers. What remained, most would have<br />
considered useless scraps, but instead Prince saw ready-made art. <strong>The</strong><br />
simplicity of his genius lay in taking (or in his own words, stealing) these<br />
un-authored images, re-photographing them and calling them art. <strong>The</strong><br />
comparison to the pioneering Marcel Duchamp is powerful and significant.<br />
In the same way that Duchamp challenged the preconceptions of the artistic<br />
process and of what could be labeled as art for his generation, so does Prince<br />
for ours. Duchamp said of his first readymade, the famous Bicycle Wheel,<br />
that he “created” it because he enjoyed looking at it. This is a fundamental<br />
principle of Prince’s art and is evident in all of his work. Richard Prince<br />
believes art should make people feel good and so he creates what he likes.<br />
He first exhibited the Nurse series in 2003 at Barbara Gladstone Gallery in<br />
New York. <strong>The</strong> show sold out of these highly coveted paintings even before<br />
it officially opened. In his introductory essay for the catalogue, Matthew<br />
Collings surmises on Prince’s attraction to this new subject:<br />
Some of these nurse’s are blind! Maybe it’s because he’s noticed there’s<br />
something going on generally in the series to do with veiled or masked or<br />
restrained feeling, and so he occasionally experiments with emphasizing<br />
blindness […] And I suppose he gets [the nurses] from book jacket illustrations<br />
because he likes the sexy stream in modern ordinary talk, and in ordinary<br />
entertainment—he wants to stay close to home. He says a Nurse sometimes<br />
emerges fully formed, more or less without struggle. Other times it might be the<br />
end of the day, the kids have had their dinner, he’s had some wine, he goes in the<br />
studio, puts on Cream or the Velvet Underground, looks at what he did earlier,<br />
feels good, gets painting again and then completely mucks it up.<br />
Nurse in Hollywood #4, is not only the most important painting from this<br />
series but is also one of Prince’s most glamorous, direct and stunning ones.<br />
<strong>The</strong> viewer experiences sheer pleasure in looking at it. <strong>The</strong> work is based<br />
on the 1965 Jane Converse novel whose spoiler reads: “When a Hollywood<br />
producer ‘discovers’ nursing student Kitty Walters he asks her to choose:<br />
her dream of becoming a R.N. or every girl’s dream of becoming a star.” In<br />
Prince’s painting she does not have to choose: she embodies both the pure<br />
and wholesome nurse ready to fill her professional role and the undone vamp<br />
with come-hither eyes ready to fill her fantasized role.<br />
Is she a muffled virgin or a brazen vixen? Both. Prince’s nurses are<br />
anonymous amalgams of female typecasts from the sexy pinup girl to the<br />
pure Florence Nightingale, from virgins to nymphomaniacs, from angels of<br />
mercy to angels of death and from Hollywood to Washington. <strong>The</strong>y emerge<br />
from the canvas as both predator and prey, all players in the game of sexual<br />
desire. <strong>The</strong> story of Converse’s nurse continues on the back cover of her<br />
book, “Her ash-blond hair. Her big brown eyes. Her pert figure. <strong>The</strong>se<br />
were only frosting to her personality – personality that was pure whistle<br />
bait. So what if Kitty Walters was a nursing student just three months short<br />
of graduating? So what if her idea of heaven was the symbol R.N. pinned<br />
on a starched white uniform? Phil Harlan wasn’t called “Boy Wonder” for<br />
nothing. He was dynamic, magnetic, charming, a glib Svengali whose record<br />
of convincing was 100 percent. Phil Harlan would have no trouble turning<br />
a dedicated would-be nurse into a determined Hollywood starlet. At least<br />
that’s what Phil Harlan thought…”<br />
Andy Warhol, Self-Portrait, 1986 © 2010 <strong>The</strong> Andy Warhol Foundation for<br />
the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Ed Ruscha Hollywood, 1982. Collection of Laurence Graff, Gstaad<br />
Converse’s Hollywood Nurse must decide between following her passion<br />
of becoming a nurse or falling into the temptations and peril of Hollywood<br />
glamour. Of course she must also choose between lovers along the way.<br />
Richard Prince’s nurse is a bit bolder than her namesake and the story<br />
becomes all about the nurse, our main character, without the distraction of<br />
her male suitor leering over her shoulder on the original cover. By obscuring<br />
the man with heavy swaths of paint, Prince leaves the viewer alone with our<br />
nurse. His brush transforms the original cover (which has been scanned,<br />
printed and enlarged onto canvas) with layer upon layer of rich pigment until<br />
all that remains are the nurse and the moniker. He uses lush strokes and<br />
drips of paint ranging in color from hot bright hues of magenta and turquoise<br />
reminiscent of the 1960s to, in this case, darkly mysterious deeper tones of<br />
plums, navy blues and chocolate browns. <strong>The</strong> present work very much pays<br />
homage to the canvases of Mark Rothko in both treatment and color. This<br />
painterly, layered background creates a potent shadowed stage set from<br />
which the now displaced nurse emerges.<br />
Glowing above her, like the Hollywood sign, the title of this work beckons the<br />
viewer in—with just one word, evoking a place of seduction and glamour<br />
where anything is possible. This symbolism of Hollywood also makes a<br />
heady statement to the power and seductiveness of fame and how far people<br />
are willing to go to achieve it. This very subject has captured the imagination<br />
of some of the most famous artists of the last thirty years including Andy<br />
Warhol and Ed Ruscha. Like Ruscha, Prince has always been interested in<br />
the correlation between image and text. He began incorporating words into<br />
his photographs in the mid-1970s and then devoted entire canvases to his<br />
Joke paintings. It is no surprise then that the title of the book plays such an<br />
integral role in his nurse paintings. Without them, she would have no context<br />
other than being a beautiful (or in some cases, sinister), floating figure. <strong>The</strong><br />
words build a framework around her and create a story and association that<br />
continues to unfold every time the viewer looks at the canvas.<br />
Nurse in Hollywood’s striking resemblance to Grace Kelly, a Hollywood icon<br />
and beacon of elegance, femininity and beauty is unmistakable. Captured<br />
by Warhol in one of his famous pieces, the likeness becomes even more<br />
apparent. Grace Kelly is a woman beyond compare and so is this nurse.<br />
Prince has given her the liberty of eye contact, something not garnered<br />
upon his other nurses whose eyes are generally either averted or covered<br />
by a diaphanous veil of white paint. Her brilliant blue eyes and penetrating,<br />
direct gaze is confident and overt yet not aggressive, much like the actress<br />
herself. <strong>The</strong> glimmer of seduction hinted at by her eyes is metered by the<br />
fact that her eyes are her only means of expression. <strong>The</strong> mask protects her<br />
anonymity but also defaces and silences her. <strong>The</strong> viewer longs to see what<br />
expression she is hiding beneath it and this only heightens the innuendo<br />
and drama of the canvas. <strong>The</strong> darker side of Hollywood, fame and beauty are<br />
hinted at by the blood-like drips of burgundy and purple paint that trickle off<br />
of her mask and down her shoulders evoking the much gorier side of nursing.<br />
Her glowing presence on the canvas stands in high contrast to the shadowy<br />
background. She emerges from this rich dark brown set in vibrant strokes<br />
of icy lavender and juicy reds. She stops at the front of the picture plane,<br />
addressing the viewer with a smoldering stare, her startling blue eyes and<br />
white face possessing both an ephemeral beauty and a sinister ghostliness.<br />
What is perhaps most striking about the Nurse in Hollywood #4 is that she<br />
is cast to appear more like a doctor, further questioning the gender roles<br />
made so poignant by this series. Scrubs have replaced her starched white<br />
uniform and her nursing cap is replaced by a surgical cap which covers her<br />
hair. All vestiges of femininity, lust and sex are seemingly covered in this<br />
painting (except for her eyes) yet instead of dampening the seductive<br />
appeal of the work, it heightens it. She is a glamorous Hollywood character,<br />
a nurse in disguise.<br />
Always the provocateur, Prince’s art is all about desire. It represents<br />
covetousness, of a beautiful woman or of an alpha male, of a luxury watch<br />
or a perfectly appointed living room, of sex or of words. <strong>The</strong> desire is never<br />
left unadulterated however – there is always an element of subversion or of<br />
something ever-so-slightly out of reach that brings such power to his work.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is always a hint of irony and a sense of humor in Prince’s paintings. A<br />
somewhat mysterious figure himself, we can never be quite sure of exactly<br />
how ironic Prince is trying to be and this leaves the viewer even more<br />
absorbed by his art.<br />
<strong>The</strong> nurse is a beautiful representation of a fantasy based in reality—a<br />
composite embodiment of our culture’s overactive imaginations and cravings.<br />
It is an outdated perception yet still holds weight in today’s culture. <strong>The</strong>rein<br />
lays Prince’s strength—his ability to timelessly capture these flash moments<br />
in the American cultural vernacular and make them modern. Prince has<br />
doctored his nurses so they seem both delicate and glamorous yet still<br />
portray an element of delicious vice. And this is exactly what he is so known<br />
for—he takes the seemingly banal and elevates it to cult status, creating<br />
aesthetically stunning pieces that address the divergence between what is<br />
real and what is created. Layered with this depth, Nurse in Hollywood #4 is a<br />
seminal piece—Prince has created art for art’s sake and just as he intended,<br />
this painting is a provocatively brilliant piece that you just love to look at.
RICHARD PRINCE by Karen Wright<br />
In the summer of 2002 I conducted an email interview with Richard Prince.<br />
I hadn’t met him at this time, but I was not surprised when our conversation<br />
turned out to be filled with wild flights of fancy. Prince’s works, not just his<br />
joke paintings, illustrate a dry humor. When I had asked him the obvious<br />
question, ‘What paintings – as well as jokes – was he working on?’ his<br />
emailed response was, ‘I’m painting nurses. I like their hats. <strong>The</strong>ir aprons.<br />
<strong>The</strong>ir shoes. My mother was a nurse. My grandmother and two cousins were<br />
nurses. I collect nurse books. Paperback books you can’t miss them. <strong>The</strong>y’re<br />
all over the airport. I like the words “nurse”, “nurses”, “nursing”.’<br />
I admit in some way I took him at face value at the time, even though Richard<br />
is famous for never telling the truth – at least in biographies. I was surprised<br />
when, in the spring of 2003, I received a phone call from gallerist Sadie Coles<br />
to tell me he had dedicated this series to Modern Painters (the magazine<br />
I was editing at the time). <strong>The</strong> actual dedication is ‘and thanks to Modern<br />
Painters, who last summer asked in an interview “What are you doing next?”<br />
And I thought for a moment, “Well, I’m doing Nurse paintings”. And of course<br />
to tell the truth I made it all up….’<br />
Back in the main house signs of Richard’s collecting fervor are everywhere.<br />
We sit in chairs in front of an Andy Warhol car crash painting that is<br />
surrounded by part of his extensive book collection, many with luridly<br />
colorful covers. I point at the Warhol and say he had an obvious influence on<br />
you, didn’t he? Prince adroitly deflects the question. ‘[Willem] de Kooning<br />
was the guy,’ he says. ‘When I was really young, the real influences on me<br />
were land artist [Robert] Smithson, [Donald] Judd and [Carl] Andre who<br />
influenced how I thought when I was introduced to their work when I was 19<br />
or 20.” He shrugs. “Cézanne or Picasso, they’re all working for me as well,’ he<br />
concludes.<br />
Prince’s first act of thieving or ‘appropriation’ was photographic. In 1977<br />
he took the then radical step of photographing an existing photograph and<br />
calling it his own. <strong>The</strong> images, advertisements for watches, handbags and,<br />
most dramatically, for cigarettes had their logos and strap lines removed and<br />
were presented as original works of art. <strong>The</strong>se works are now an iconic part<br />
of the canon, one recently on a stand in Art Basel 2009 had the impressive<br />
price tag of $2 million.<br />
Several years later I am invited to the Prince studio. Prince lives in upstate<br />
New York near the town of Rensselaerville where he moved to in 1996 after<br />
leaving New York City. Finding the studio is not easy as I juggle complicated<br />
written directions on ever-narrowing and unmarked roads. I get confirmation<br />
that I am on the right road when a large aluminum building resembling<br />
an airplane hanger looms up, flanked by imposing sculptures. I seek<br />
reassurance from some affable-looking men wielding noisy power tools. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
point, ‘Down the road’, ‘the brown building is the studio’.<br />
Eventually I come to the complex, which contains not only the brown studio,<br />
which looks like an outsized toy wood cabin but also the modest white ranch<br />
house where Richard lives with his wife and two children. <strong>The</strong> dead giveaway<br />
that I am in the right place lolls on the step, a stone painted with the words,<br />
‘Help! I’m a rock’.<br />
Prince is summoned and takes me back up the road to the automobile shop,<br />
instantly becoming absorbed into a discussion with his two assistants while<br />
huddled around a shiny black hood sculpture leaving me alone to wander<br />
around the large double height space. In one corner is a drum set, in another<br />
a large totem-style sculpture, comprised entirely of empty beer tins. (<strong>The</strong><br />
latter I later see in the Chocolate Factory in Moscow at Larry Gagosian’s<br />
opening). On the floor lies a large plastic bubble enclosing an improbably<br />
fluorescent pink naked lady.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re are also several cars thickly clothed in cement, as well as a jaunty red<br />
sports car. I overhear Prince saying to his team, ‘more distressed around the<br />
edges’ before he rejoins me. Around the back of the space is a large gallery<br />
which features the works which have made him an easily recognizable artist<br />
– a joke work, a luminous photograph of a cowboy, a nurse and a car work<br />
and also part of his personal collection, a Damien Hirst vitrine of cigarette<br />
butts, a Christopher Wool black-and-white painting, a group of Fishli & Weiss<br />
figurative sculptures and a David Hammond installation of dog food cans on<br />
the floor. <strong>The</strong>re is also a collection of iconic design, including a Jean Prouvé<br />
sideboard that Richard has transformed into his own work by screwing a<br />
double-sided frame onto the side of it.<br />
‘I am using the furniture as a pedestal,’ Richard explains. He gestures<br />
towards another piece. ‘I started showing the books on top of the desks and<br />
now I am screwing them down onto the tops. <strong>The</strong> collector gets the entire<br />
thing including the furniture.’ I ask him about collecting. ‘Collecting enriches<br />
my life and feeds into the art. I never really trust artists who don’t collect. It<br />
says something about their intellect, Clyfford Still was the only artist I know<br />
who only collected his own works’. He continues, ‘It’s important to have other<br />
artists around’. He says sternly, ‘If an artist doesn’t read, he’s stupid. If he<br />
can’t write a paragraph it shows up in the work.’<br />
I stand before a new collage work of Sid Vicious made entirely of images of<br />
the punk singer printed on the check slips that Prince has been using in his<br />
joke paintings for the last few years. He has been experimenting, he says.<br />
‘When you apply paint to the checks, it is uncontrollable and messy and you<br />
don’t know what will happen.’ It leads to the ‘uncontrollable incident’ that<br />
Prince likes. I ask why he has used this technique for the subject, and he says<br />
curtly, ‘Sid didn’t need a joke!’<br />
Richard says his next big idea after the photograph was the joke. “My first<br />
joke was in 1986,” he recounts. ‘I went to a psychiatrist. He said, “Tell me<br />
everything.” I did and now he’s doing my act. It’s still funny! It was a handwritten<br />
joke and it was just opened things up. It was a way of stepping off the<br />
art train. It was ego, chutzpah, and confidence.” He smiles. ‘If I had seen it in<br />
a gallery by another artist, I would have been jealous!’<br />
Recently, Richard designed a successful series of handbags for Marc Jacobs<br />
for Louis Vuitton. Some are displayed in the studio on the bookshelves<br />
containing his book collection. I ask about them and he says somewhat<br />
morosely, ‘I didn’t know anything about handbags, but now I do.’<br />
He perks up. ‘Let me show you the ones I ripped off!’<br />
I laugh, genuinely shocked. ‘You ripped off your own handbags?’<br />
‘Yes, of course!’ he says, surprised by the question. ‘I have been<br />
appropriating for 30 year.’ Richard’s originals are more raw and beautiful to<br />
me than the Vuitton ones; I covet one but they are quickly returned out of<br />
view.<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is a nurse painting on the back gallery of the studio. We pause in front<br />
of it and Richard muses: ‘I had to buy it back from Christie’s auction house in<br />
London for a lot of money. I never thought I would have to buy a painting back<br />
for a fortune.’ He continues acknowledging their importance. ‘<strong>The</strong> nurse<br />
replaced the cowboy. I started doing them by collecting the books. <strong>The</strong>re are<br />
so many different ways to paint them. <strong>The</strong> mask was the contribution, the<br />
common feature. You can paint them bleeding through them!’<br />
Richard has moved on from nurses, focusing for the moment on series of<br />
the de Kooning works that first appeared in the Guggenheim retrospective<br />
in 2007. <strong>The</strong>re is one in progress on the wall behind me and Richard keeps<br />
looking at it. ‘It’s not right yet,’ he says. <strong>The</strong> girls – ‘cut-out Prince girls’ – that<br />
are hung on it are not the right proportion. ‘Her leg is too long,’ he says and<br />
in a showmanship move, jumps up, and brandishing a large pair of scissors,<br />
cuts off half of a leg. ‘<strong>The</strong>y are works in progress,’ he says. ‘<strong>The</strong>y will be<br />
glued down and given de Kooning mouths and eyes.’ It reminds me of what<br />
he has said to me before: ‘<strong>The</strong> subject matter is important, the medium is<br />
just a skill.’<br />
It is the mantra of the conceptual artist and suits Prince’s canon well.<br />
As I leave to travel back to New York City, Richard is already totally engaged<br />
with the painting on the wall. I wonder how much of the answers to the<br />
questions have been honest this time. Prince is famous for never answering a<br />
question in the way you expect. <strong>The</strong> only part of his biography that is thought<br />
to be correct is that he was born in the Panama Canal Zone in 1949. His most<br />
touching words of the afternoon resonate in my ears validating this history<br />
as I retrace my way down the bumpy roads to increasingly wider smoother<br />
roads. ‘I am almost 60’ and ‘I want to have a conversation with de Kooning,<br />
someone I really respect.’
9 CHARLOTTE PERRIAND 1903-1999<br />
Important “Bibliothèque Murale,” ca. 1958<br />
Oak, bent aluminum. 52 1/4 x 126 x 12 1/2 in. (132.7 x 320 x 31.8 cm). Produced by Les Ateliers<br />
Jean Prouvé for Galerie Steph Simon, France.<br />
Estimate $10 0,0 0 0 -15 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Prouvé Family, Nancy, France; Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris; Steven<br />
Volpe Design, San Francisco, California<br />
literature Charlotte Perriand and Fernand Leger, Charlotte Perriand, Fernand Leger, une<br />
connivence, Biot, 1999, pg. 59; Jacques Barsac, Charlotte Perriand-Un Art d’Habiter, Paris,<br />
2005, pp. 420-425 for similar examples<br />
Although never a couple, Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé stood handin-hand<br />
at midcentury, the pragmatic parents of postwar modernism in<br />
France. Together they devised economic solutions to the problems of daily<br />
life in everyday places: dormitories, locker rooms, apartments, offices. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
unadorned furniture, built from wood, aluminum, and bent sheet steel, never<br />
sacrificed clarity for decoration, “but its construction is so powerful that it<br />
imposes itself in space like sculpture,” as fashion designer Azzedine Alaïa<br />
observed of Prouvé’s work. (Laurence Bergerot, Patrick Seguin, Jean Prouvé,<br />
Paris, 2007, vol. 1, p. 23)<br />
Longtime friends, the two designers formalized their relationship in 1952 at<br />
the behest of gallerist Steph Simon. That year and the next, they collaborated<br />
on furniture—bookshelves, tables, beds—for the student bedrooms of the<br />
Maison de la Tunisie and Maison du Mexique at Cité Universitaire, Paris. In<br />
both residences, each room was dominated by a large bookcase whose wide<br />
plank shelves were joined by staggered aluminum casiers, or ‘pigeonholes,’<br />
fashioned from bent aluminum.<br />
<strong>The</strong> present “Bibliothèque Murale,” a special commission produced by<br />
Perriand for the Prouvé Family in Nancy, owes its design to those previous<br />
examples and to an earlier bookcase, with wood blocks in place of aluminum<br />
ones, designed by Perriand in 1940 and later produced for L’Équipment<br />
de la Maison. “Are we going to have mass or void?” asked Perriand in her<br />
autobiography Une Vie de Création (<strong>The</strong> Monacelli Press, New York, 2003).<br />
With its energetic interplay of forms in space, “Bibliothèque Murale”<br />
achieves both.
10 MARK GROTJAHN b. 1968<br />
Untitled (White Butterfly MG01), 2001<br />
Oil on canvas in two parts. Left panel: 72 x 22 in. (182.9 x 55.9 cm); right panel: 72 x 18 in.<br />
(182.9 x 45.7 cm). Initialed and dated “MG 01” along lower edge.<br />
Estimate $8 0 0,0 0 0 -1, 2 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Blum & Poe, Los Angeles<br />
It takes but the gentlest beating of their wings for the Butterflies<br />
to pull us into perspectival depths. A sharp cut down the middle<br />
reminds us that even this painted or drawn illusion of space<br />
unfolds on a plane, radiating from a center, line by line. Mark<br />
Grotjahn’s metaphoric butterflies in his subtitles describe not<br />
only a filigree, near-symmetrically constructed shape, but also<br />
the movement of flight: fitfully fluttering at abruptly changing<br />
altitudes, taking off in different directions, and coming to a sudden<br />
halt. In Grotjahn’s drawing and paintings this unmistakable rhythm<br />
continues across several works.<br />
H. Rudolf Reust, ”Splitting Impacts the Eye,” Parkett 80, 2007, p. 144
Sol LeWitt, Wall Drawing #41, 1970 © <strong>The</strong> LeWitt Estate / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<br />
Dating back to the one-point perspective paintings of the 1500’s, Grotjahn<br />
takes this development in art from the Renaissance steps further into the<br />
Now. In the present lot, Grotjahn fosters a minimalist style. Like the work of<br />
Agnes Martin, this particular painting shows extreme peaceful, subtle colors<br />
in a geometric composition of lines and grids which allows for an automatic<br />
connection to the natural world. <strong>The</strong> present lot evokes rays of white light<br />
and the title alone alludes wings of a butterfly which according to the chaotic<br />
theory of the Butterfly Effect, the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in<br />
one part of the world may cause a hurricane or a tornado in another part of<br />
the world.<br />
Through the reference of nature as seen in White Butterfly the artist<br />
connects to abstraction with echoes of the simplicity of an Agnes Martin<br />
and the precision of a Sol LeWitt Wall Drawing. Grotjahn questions the<br />
nature of art through his paintings and drawings. Grotjahn illustrates a<br />
metamorphosis in his ongoing series of butterfly paintings by bridging<br />
origins of Renaissance Art through specific movements in art history such as<br />
Russian Constructivism to Minimalism to Abstraction to Conceptualism, and<br />
alas the present moment. As the term “butterfly” used in ancient Greece<br />
meaning soul or mind, Grotjahn digs into both in White Butterfly by revealing<br />
an intimate yet nostalgic, classic example of his oeuvre of work.<br />
In a palette of creams and whites Grotjahn paints purity in a complex,<br />
monochrome layered form in what appears to be quick luminous “zip”<br />
strokes. Through what seems to be seamless, easily facilitated brushstrokes,<br />
the artist simultaneously merges with the same ease geometric abstraction<br />
to conceptualism. Similar to a beautifully composed Sol LeWitt wall drawing,<br />
Grotjahn’s paintings follow a rhythm which is constant, linear and traditional.<br />
His perspective paintings create illusions of depth by including multiple<br />
vanishing points and adding building blocks of abstraction through the<br />
choice of a monotone palette. Grotjahn purposely engraves his initials into<br />
the diptych playfully adding to the simple, yet complex, layers of paint to give<br />
the illusion of what appears to be a two- dimensional perspective plane is in<br />
fact three-dimensional.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se paintings are elegant, sumptuous and glamorous; they hold the wall boldly<br />
with assuredness…. Voluptuous, but at ease, each painting did not relinquish<br />
its overall sense of being a seamless whole, a thing, in other words, greater than<br />
the sum of its parts, even as careful inspection began to parse each painting’s<br />
complex structure and reveal smaller nuances and details.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se works awaken an awareness of the obdurate, incommensurate, and, finally,<br />
inexplicable experience of abstract painting, a form forged a hundred years ago,<br />
which, while given up for dead at many points along the way has remained.<br />
Yet, as Robert Ryman once remarked in a talk at the Danheiser Foundation in<br />
downtown Manhattan in the late 1980s: abstract painting is still a young form,<br />
which is only beginning to be discovered and developed.<br />
G. Garrels, “Within Blue,” Parkett 80, 2007, p. 127<br />
Agnes Martin, Untitled #4, 1992 © Agnes Martin / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
11 GEORGE NAKASHIMA 1905-1990<br />
Exceptional free-form “Minguren I” coffee table, 1964<br />
Japanese burl, oak. 15 1/4 x 42 1/4 x 29 in. (38.7 x 107.3 x 73.7 cm). Together with a copy of the<br />
original order card from the George Nakashima Studio.<br />
Estimate $8 0,0 0 0 -12 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance G. David Thompson, Seal Harbor, Maine; Delorenzo 1950, New York; Phillips<br />
de Pury & Luxembourg, 20-21st Century Design Art, December 8, 2003, Lot 150; Geoffrey Diner<br />
Gallery, Washington D.C.; Sebastian + Barquet, New York<br />
literature George Nakashima, <strong>The</strong> Soul of a Tree, A Woodworker’s Reflections, Tokyo, 1981,<br />
p. 173 for a similar example; Derek E. Ostergard, George Nakashima, Full Circle, exh. cat.,<br />
American Craft Museum, New York, 1989, p. 133 for a similar example; Mira Nakashima,<br />
Nature, Form & Spirit: <strong>The</strong> Life and Legacy of George Nakashima, New York, 2003, p. 200 for a<br />
similar example; Todd Merrill and Julie V. Iovine, Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from<br />
High Craft to High Glam, New York, 2008, pp. 130-131 for a similar example<br />
<strong>The</strong> present table is listed on a customer order card, dated May 23, 1964, on<br />
file at the George Nakashima Studio in New Hope, Pennsylvania. <strong>The</strong> table<br />
was among a series of works commissioned at that time by Mr. Thompson.<br />
Although his address is listed as Pittsburgh, the card indicates the works<br />
were shipped to him in Seal Harbor, Maine.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company would like to thank Mira Nakashima, Soomi Amagasu<br />
and the George Nakashima Studio for their assistance in cataloging this lot.<br />
Burls (burrs in Britain) protrude from trees like blisters, rough and irregular.<br />
Rounded outgrowths, burls result from injuries to trunk or infections below<br />
the bark. Wood fibers, traumatized, contort—the more intense the infection,<br />
the more explosive and erratic the burl. In World Woods in Color, William<br />
Lincoln writes: “Burrs have the appearance of tightly clustered dormant<br />
buds, with darker pith forming tiny knot formations like a mass of small<br />
eyes…” (Fresno, 1996, n.p.)<br />
Despite their abnormalities (or rather because of them), burl woods have<br />
been highly prized by cabinetmakers for centuries. Burls “…have a joy<br />
and exuberance that greatly enhances the tree’s charm,” wrote Japanese-<br />
American woodworker George Nakashima (<strong>The</strong> Soul of a Tree, Tokyo, 1981,<br />
p. 94). Buckeye, walnut, oak—his rare burl table tops, reserved for private<br />
commissions, are among Nakashima’s most elaborate and expressive<br />
designs and are a demonstration of his virtuosic abilities. <strong>The</strong> misshapen<br />
burl, like a knot, renders it difficult to cut and form with traditional<br />
woodworking tools. “Sawing this ‘treasure’ calls for the precision of a<br />
diamond cutter,” he wrote (Tokyo, 1981, p. 91).<br />
Nakashima’s devotion to timber spanned five decades, an extended<br />
meditation on man’s kinship with nature. Most of that time was spent at his<br />
studio in the woods outside New Hope, Pennsylvania—“Penn’s woods,” as<br />
he called it, in reference to the Duke of York’s land grant to William Penn in<br />
1682. Acutely aware of the hidden history of trees, Nakashima believed them<br />
to be witnesses to, and participants in, the long march of time—an ongoing<br />
journey. Nakashima considered his own furniture to be a second life for the<br />
trees he felled. “When trees mature, it is fair and moral that they are cut<br />
for man’s use, as they would soon decay and return to earth. Trees have a<br />
yearning to live again…” (Tokyo, 1981, p. 93).
12 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk, 1965<br />
Oil on canvas. 55 x 48 in. (139.7 x 121.9 cm). Signed and dated “E Ruscha 1965” on the<br />
reverse; titled and dated “Angry Because It Is Plaster, Not Milk’ 1965” on the stretcher.<br />
Estimate $2,0 0 0,0 0 0 - 3,0 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Collection of the artist; Gagosian Gallery, London<br />
exhibited Los Angeles, Ferus Gallery, 1965; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, March<br />
25 – May 30, 1982; New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, July 7 – September 5, 1982;<br />
British Columbia, Vancouver Art Gallery, October 4 – November 28, 1982; <strong>The</strong> San Antonio<br />
Museum of Art, December 27, 1982 – February 20, 1983; and Los Angeles County Museum<br />
of Art, March 17 – May 15, 1983, <strong>The</strong> Works of Edward Ruscha; Santa Monica, James Corcoran<br />
Gallery, Animal Farm, January 15-February 26, 1994; New York, C&M Arts, Birds, Fish and<br />
Offspring, April 25- June 8, 2002; Paris, Centre Pompidou, Los Angeles 1955 – 1985: Birth of<br />
an Art Capital, March 8 – July 17, 2006; London, Gagosian Gallery, Pop Art Is..., September<br />
27-Ocotober 2, 2007<br />
literature J. Krementz, “Happening: Photographed in Los Angeles,” Status/Diplomat,<br />
New York, 1967, p. 66 (illustrated); San Francisco Museum of Art, ed., <strong>The</strong> Works of Edward<br />
Ruscha, New York, 1982, p. 68 (illustrated); C. Rickey, “Ed Ruscha, Geographer,” Art in<br />
America, New York, 1982, p. 84 (illustrated); S. Kalil, “<strong>The</strong> Works of Edward Ruscha,” Houston<br />
Post, 1983, p. 23F; J. Fiskin, “Trompe l’Oeil for Our Time,” Art Issues, Los Angeles, 1995, p. 28<br />
(illustrated); G. Gordon, “Wallwashers for Warhol,” Lighting Design and Application, December<br />
2001, p. 29 (illustrated); “Goings on About Town,” <strong>The</strong> New Yorker, New York, May 13, 2002, p.<br />
18; R. Smith, “Art Review: A Painter Who Reads, A Reader Who Paints,” <strong>The</strong> New York Times,<br />
May 24, 2002, p. B33; C&M Arts, ed., Ed Ruscha: Birds, Fish and Offspring, New York, 2002,<br />
pl. 3 (illustrated); T. McDonough, “Ed Ruscha at C & M Arts and Gagosian, “ Art in America,<br />
September 2002; P. Poncy, Edward Ruscha : Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings : Volume One,<br />
1958-1970, New York, 2003, p. 179 (illustrated); C. Grenier, ed., Los Angeles 1955-1985: Birth<br />
of an Art Capital, Paris, 2006, p. 149 (illustrated); Gagosian Gallery, ed., Pop Art Is..., London,<br />
2007, pl 59 (illustrated)
Marcel Duchamp Hat Rack, 1917-1964 © Artists Rights Society (ARS),<br />
New York / ADAGP, Paris / Succession Marcel Duchamp<br />
René Magritte <strong>The</strong> Treachery of Images, 1928-1929 © 2010 C. Herscovici, London<br />
/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York<br />
A loosely painted bird, hovering in an indeterminate space, is crying over<br />
unspilled milk in a painting which contains a representation of a sculptural<br />
trompe l’oeil. If not for the title, we, two, might be fooled into thinking that the<br />
glass contains milk, but not necessarily because it looks like milk. Even Ruscha,<br />
who is a master of the most sophisticated trompe l’ouiel effects (which he has<br />
chosen not to deploy here) could not have painted the difference between plaster<br />
and milk. He has relied on us to make the same assumptions as the bird, and he<br />
has relied on our ability to read and reveal to us the content of our assumptions.<br />
Unlike the bird, we exit laughing. Ruscha has painted an updated version of the<br />
story of a painting contest which took place in Greece during the fifth-century<br />
B.C.E. <strong>The</strong> painter Zeuxis showed a still life of such realism that birds flew down<br />
to eat the grapes from the painting. Ruscha has moved that scene to America<br />
(note that he portrays a glass of milk instead of grapes) and painted it from the<br />
point of view of one of the deceived birds. Unlike the Greeks, he does not believe<br />
that the best paintings are the most realistic.<br />
J. Fiskin, “Trompe l’Oeil for Our Time,” Art Issues, November/December 1995<br />
<strong>The</strong> present lot Angry Because It’s Plaster, Not Milk, 1965 is an exemplary<br />
work from Ed Ruscha’s group of paintings from the mid-1960s that take the<br />
strict idea of literal representation into the realm of the absurd. This body of<br />
work is characterized by what the artist termed “bouncing objects, floating<br />
things,” such as the radically oversized red bird and glass hovering in front<br />
of a simple background in the present work and have a strong affinity to<br />
Surrealism, a recurring theme in the artist’s long career.<br />
<strong>The</strong> artist’s fascination with Dada and Surrealism began in his school days:<br />
I looked at a lot of pictures in books on Dada in the library. It wasn’t because I<br />
was interested in developing scholarly appreciation –I was more attracted by the<br />
titillation I got from the works I saw in the books. I was inspired by this sort of<br />
lunatic group of people who made art that ran against prevailing ideas. <strong>The</strong>ir<br />
nonsense was synonymous with seriousness, and I’ve always been dead serious<br />
about being nonsensical.<br />
Ed Ruscha in R.D. Marshall, Ed Ruscha, London, 2003, p. 131<br />
With its clear composition containing just two things : bird and glass,<br />
Ed Ruscha’s work calls to mind Magritte’s <strong>The</strong> Treachery of Objects, 1928-<br />
1929 both compositionally and conceptually. Both artists have such clear<br />
renderings of their objects presented in a straightforward manner on their<br />
canvases. However, there is something of a mystery behind their choice<br />
of subjects. <strong>The</strong>re is humor in their play between image and text with<br />
Magritte’s insistence that it is not a pipe, but a depiction of a pipe, while<br />
Ruscha puts us in the frustrated position of the bird by declaring in the title<br />
that we are not looking at a glass of milk, but plaster.<br />
Statements made by the two artists decades apart are strikingly sympathetic:<br />
Magritte explained, “My painting is visible images that conceal nothing. <strong>The</strong>y<br />
evoke mystery and, indeed, when one sees one of my picturesone asks oneself<br />
this simple question, ‘What does that mean?’ It does not mean anything because<br />
mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable.” Ruscha expands on the same<br />
theme: “I’ve always had a deep respect for things that are odd, for things which<br />
cannot be explained. Explanations seem to me to sort of finish things off.”<br />
R.D. Marshall, Ed Ruscha, London, 2003, p. 134<br />
Unlike Magritte, Ruscha completely leaves the words out of his canvas, a<br />
particularly pointed decision in Ruscha’s body of work. <strong>The</strong> bird and the<br />
glass are so iconic and symbolic that they almost read like his text paintings.<br />
In these paintings we are given images of birds, not real birds but generic birds,<br />
like Audobon’s floating on a flat ground. In other words, rather than the word<br />
“cardinal,” we are given the image cardinal, or more generally, we are being<br />
presented with birds as words. <strong>The</strong> transformation in the bird paintings is based<br />
upon a rhyme at the first level of generalization. Thus, even at this early date,<br />
Ruscha is playfully exploiting in an imaginary was the relationship between words<br />
and images and the instruments which create them. <strong>The</strong> transformation of words<br />
–birds into words –is rendered imagistically.<br />
A. Livet, <strong>The</strong> Works of Edward Ruscha, Hudson Hills, 1982<br />
Dennis Hopper Ed Ruscha, 1964
13 JOHN BALDESSARI b. 1931<br />
Two Cars, One Red, in Different Environments, 1990<br />
Color photograph with acrylic and vinyl paint artist’s frames in two parts. 69 1/2 x 87 in.<br />
(176.5 x 221 cm).<br />
Estimate $3 0 0,0 0 0 - 4 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Sonnabend Gallery, New York<br />
literature G. Belli, John Baldessari, Milan, 2000, p. 88 (illustrated)<br />
What I leave out is more important. I want that absence, which creates a<br />
kind of anxiety.<br />
John Baldessari in Artforum, New York, March 2004<br />
In an interview in 2004 Nicole Davis asked Baldessari for his reason to<br />
become an artist. Baldessari responded that he ‘always had this idea that<br />
doing art was just a masturbatory activity and didn’t really help anybody’.<br />
However, while working as a young man with kids in an honor camp in<br />
California the kids made him realize that “…art has some function in<br />
society…” In fact he explained that his understanding of art had not changed<br />
since then and that ‘it was enough to convince [him] that art did some<br />
good somehow,’ concluding he just needed a reason ‘that wasn’t all about<br />
myself.’ Until now Baldessari has remained faithful to this understanding.<br />
His arrangements of photographic montages, appropriations of cinematic<br />
images and painterly units describe mental, cultural and demographic<br />
identities through his visual landscape. However they remain playful and<br />
romantic and allow us to move within our own fantasies and associations.<br />
I think it’s true that if we look side by side at a painting and a photograph, we tend<br />
to right away see the painting as somebody’s version of the real world, and with<br />
a photograph we tend to suspend disbelief and think it refers in a tangible way<br />
to the real world. I think that’s one of the reasons why I use it, because I already<br />
have people suspending their disbelief. I’m very much attracted to photographs<br />
that realtors take of houses for sale, or that insurance adjusters take for accident<br />
reports on cars; in other words, where there is no idea to make an artful<br />
photograph, just collected information. That attracts me a lot—art as information.<br />
I guess after you spend our lifetime thinking about what’s beautiful, you get<br />
distrustful. You get into this rarefied atmosphere where you want no beauty and<br />
no beauty is beautiful! After a while, you learn all the tricks of how to make things<br />
beautiful and you get really suspicious. You look at art like a professional gambler<br />
looks at a card table, for all the tricks.<br />
John Baldessari in interview with Christian Boltanski, “What is Erased”, John<br />
Baldessari From Life, Nîmes, 2005, pp. 72-75.
14 MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Orgone Stretch Lounge,” 1993<br />
Polished aluminum, enameled aluminum. 24 3/8 x 70 1/2 x 32 5/8 in. (61.9 x 179.1 x 82.9 cm).<br />
Produced by POD Edition, UK. Artist’s proof number one of two for the edition of six.<br />
Underside impressed with Pod logo and “MARC NEWSON/POD EDITION/AP 1.” This is<br />
the only example produced with a black interior.<br />
Estimate $40 0,0 0 0 - 6 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance <strong>The</strong> Gallery Mourmans, <strong>The</strong> Netherlands; Private Collection<br />
literature Phil Starling, “An Australian in Paris,” Blueprint, February 1994, front cover<br />
and p. 29; Volker Albus and Volker Fischer, 13 Nach Memphis: Design Zwichen Askese und<br />
Sinnlichkeit, Munich, 1995, p. 127; Alexander von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces<br />
from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein,<br />
1996, p. 172; Alice Rawsthorn, “Marc Newson,” I.D. Magazine, January/February 1996, p. 70;<br />
Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, pp. 90-93; Museu do Design: Luxo, Pop, Cool,<br />
De 1937 Até Hoje, exh. cat., Museu do Design, Lisbon, 1999, fig. 224; Conway Lloyd Morgan,<br />
Marc Newson, London, 2002, pp. 144-145; Louise Neri, ed., Marc Newson, exh. cat., Gagosian<br />
Gallery, New York, 2007, p. 64<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Orgone Stretch Lounge” will be included as “MN - 8OSL-1993” in the<br />
forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited editions by Marc Newson being<br />
prepared by Didier Krzentowski of Galerie kreo, Paris.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company would like to thank Marc Newson and Didier<br />
Krzentowski for their assistance in cataloging this lot.
15 RICHARD PRINCE b. 1949<br />
<strong>The</strong> Chatterbox Hotel, 1990<br />
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas. 56 x 48 1/4 in. (142.2 x 122.6 cm). Signed, titled and<br />
dated “R. Prince ’<strong>The</strong> Chatterbox Hotel’ 1990” on the overlap.<br />
Estimate $8 0 0,0 0 0 -1, 2 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Gagosian Gallery, New York<br />
A lot of great art makes people angry at first.<br />
Richard never made me angry. But he did shock, and<br />
he did startle me and he did make me laugh, which<br />
are my favorite three things about art.<br />
John Waters in G.O’Brien, “All I’ve Heard,” Richard Prince, New York, 2007,<br />
p. 321
Is a Joke a material? To a Comedian it is. <strong>The</strong>re is the material and then there is<br />
the timing and the delivery of the material, which makes it an act. He says “my<br />
act” or “my material” but he also has a way of disappearing behind these things,<br />
almost to the point where there is no more me, only material, like that joke about<br />
the psychiatrist doing my act now. Every comedian, every artist, is constantly<br />
scandalized about being robbed, and they’re right because material has a way of<br />
getting away from us, like language. It’s what it does, and maybe it never really<br />
belonged to us in the first place. For example, the neurotic on the couch who<br />
repeats himself (his life) not the crowd of the analysts ear, who’s already heard it<br />
all before. <strong>The</strong> Joke is about not being able to hang onto yourself, about not being<br />
able to tell your own story, and also about transference.<br />
Richard Prince, “Canaries in the Goldmine,” Astrup Fearnley Museum of<br />
Modern Art, Oslo, 2006 p. 123<br />
Throughout his career Richard Prince has explored, examined and<br />
experimented with the concepts of appropriation. Beginning in the late<br />
1980’s (1985-1987) he began to create what he referred to as Joke Paintings.<br />
He created his first monochromatic Joke paintings between 1987 and 1989.<br />
<strong>The</strong> monochromatic Joke paintings continued Prince’s foray into creating a<br />
comedic dialogue with high art and culture.<br />
In a Joke painting, Prince both spaces and times the material across the canvas,<br />
sometimes making it repeat and stutter in that tough, blank space, until it begins<br />
to do the painting’s act too. It’s working the room, the canvas. It’s hard to say if<br />
the painting is ripping off the material or if it’s the other way around. And what<br />
we are tempted to call the comic timing of the painting has to do with the way the<br />
material takes over its surface, sometimes bombing and sometimes knocking it<br />
dead. (Ibid)<br />
From the 1920’s through the late 1960’s the Catskill Mountains in Sullivan,<br />
Orange and Ulster Counties in upstate New York were the sites of many<br />
summer resorts frequented by Families from New York City and the<br />
surrounding region. It was in these—mostly now defunct—summer resorts<br />
that a specific form of comedy strengthened and grew. <strong>The</strong> impact of the<br />
comedians performing at these resorts during this time has resonated<br />
throughout the decades pervading more than the contemporary comedic<br />
landscape but extending and breaking through the boundaries of the realm<br />
of fine art.<br />
It was these “Borscht Belt” comedians such as Jack Benny, Milton Berle,<br />
Henny Youngman, Phyllis Diller, Rodney Dangerfield, Sid Caesar and Don<br />
Rickles (to name just a few) with their rapid-fire often self deprecating humor<br />
that set the pace for future generations of comedians. Phrases such as<br />
“Take my Wife Please”, “I get no respect”, “Now Cut that out!”, along others<br />
helped define an era of Comedy that to this day remains unrivaled. Many<br />
of the Jokes that Prince has looked to were told by or inspired by these<br />
comedians.<br />
When interviewed by Glenn O’Brien, Phyllis Diller remarked about<br />
Comedians who tell “Jokes” as they were told in the heyday of the Borscht<br />
Belt :<br />
I tell Jokes. But they are one-liners. Like: set-up payoff. Set-up payoff. Something<br />
that I invented—a manner of delivery—got me into the Guiness Book of World<br />
Records. I learned to use the set-up payoff thing in a different way. You know<br />
like: ‘She’s so fat that when she wears a white dress, we show movies on her.’” …<br />
<strong>The</strong> Jokes don’t change—[the] people die… you just change the name<br />
N. Spector, Richard Prince, New York, 2007, p. 273<br />
<strong>The</strong> statement in itself has the ring of a Prince painting. <strong>The</strong> Joke in the<br />
present lot Chatterbox Hotel, 1990, has countless incarnations however<br />
the present incarnation that Prince has chosen has a certain resonance<br />
that stays with the viewer long after they have stopped viewing the work.<br />
Outside of the obvious level of humor associated with the joke itself. Prince<br />
has succeeded in transcending the comedic aspect of the work creating<br />
something entirely new and different.<br />
…With his Monochrome Jokes Prince achieved the anti-masterpiece… If<br />
anything Prince’s Monochrome Jokes represent a skillfully calculated inversion<br />
of the artist’s essential value system. <strong>The</strong> seeming equivalency of the works is<br />
part of a deliberate conceptual strategy , one that emulates, in the most Warholian<br />
fashion, how mass culture operates.<br />
Spector, p. 39
16 FLORIAN MAIER-AICHEN b. 1973<br />
Above June Lake, 2005<br />
C-print in artist’s frame. 86 x 72 1/4 in. (218.4 x 183.5 cm). This work is from an edition of six<br />
plus two artist’s proofs.<br />
Estimate $10 0,0 0 0 -15 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Blum & Poe, Los Angeles<br />
exhibited New York, 303 Gallery, Florian Maier-Aichen, January 14 – February 25, 2006<br />
(another example exhibited); Los Angeles, Blum & Poe, Florian Maier-Aichen, January<br />
21 – February 25, 2006 (another example exhibited); London, Royal Academy of Arts, USA<br />
Today, October 6 – November 4, 2006 (another example exhibited); St. Petersburg, <strong>The</strong> State<br />
Hermitage Museum, USA Today, October 24, 2007 – January 13, 2008 (another example<br />
exhibited)<br />
literature P. Eleey, “Florian Maier-Aichen,” Frieze, Milan, May 2006; Royal Academy of<br />
Arts, ed., USA Today, London, 2006, p. 234 (illustrated); <strong>The</strong> State Hermitage Museum, ed.,<br />
USA Today, St Petersburg, 2007, p. 90 (illustrated); J. Tumler, “Outside the Frame: Florian<br />
Maier-Aichen,” Aperture, New York, Summer 2007, p. 50<br />
I have always been interested in the making of things. Most products and<br />
materials conceal their process of manufacture. It’s the same with photography,<br />
which turned from a discipline that was subject to the mastery of the few<br />
(alchemists) into a readily available industrial mass product, too transparent and<br />
too technical.<br />
Florian Maier-Aichen in Gagosian Gallery Press Release<br />
Based in both Germany and California, Florian Maier-Aichen reinvents<br />
the tradition of landscape photography. Demonstrated in Above June Lake,<br />
Maier–Aichen chooses to shoot the aerial view of the historical village and<br />
resort town in the Eastern Mountains of Mono County, CA, which surrounds<br />
itself by national forests, ski slopes and lakes. <strong>The</strong> famous looped valley was<br />
formed by glacial actions which ran in two directions; one creating the rush<br />
creek canyon and the other into the volcanic area of the Mono Craters. In this<br />
work Maier–Aichen takes landscape as a subject matter further by using a<br />
unique type of infrared film which saturates what would be normally seen<br />
as greens in the landscape to a color of blood red appearing similar to the<br />
organic insides of a human body. Maier-Aichen’s use of manipulation in this<br />
landscape brings out the rawness of the natural landscape emphasizing the<br />
spots of lakes, glaciers, rocks and snowy ski slopes. <strong>The</strong> viewer gains a new<br />
understanding of the organic forms with thoughts of what this particular<br />
landscape may have been 5 million years ago before the glacial actions took<br />
to forming it to what it is today. Through conceptualism and creative process<br />
of pictorial manipulation, Maier- Aichen combines the past and present into<br />
his own rendition of this unique topographical landscape.
17 MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Event Horizon Table,” 1992<br />
Polished aluminum, enameled aluminum. 31 1/2 x 70 5/8 x 38 in. (80 x 179.4 x 96.5 cm).<br />
Produced by POD Edition, UK. Artist’s proof number two of three for the edition of ten.<br />
Edge of top impressed with “MARC NEWSON EDITION EVENT HORIZON 1992” and Pod<br />
logo. This is the only example produced with a blue interior.<br />
Estimate $250,0 0 0 - 3 5 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Galerie kreo, Paris<br />
literature Domus, September 1992, pp. 67-69; Yvònne G.J.M. Joris, ed., Ron Arad, Gijs<br />
Bakker, Jasper Morrison, Marc Newson, Bruno Ninaber van Eyben, Benno Premsela: Design<br />
for Cor Unum Ceramics, exh. cat., Museum het Kruithuis, 1993, p. 41; Phil Starling, “An<br />
Australian in Paris,” Blueprint, February 1994, front cover and p. 31; Jean Bond Rafferty,<br />
”Making Waves,” Harper’s Bazaar, April 1994, p. 140; Volker Albus and Volker Fischer, 13 Nach<br />
Memphis: Design Zwichen Askese und Sinnlichkeit, Munich, 1995, p. 127; Alice Rawsthorn,<br />
“Marc Newson,” <strong>The</strong> International Design Magazine, January/February 1996, p. 70; Akiko<br />
Bush, “George Nelson Design Awards 1999,” Interiors, May 1999, p. 95; Alice Rawsthorn,<br />
Marc Newson, London, 1999, pp. 64-69 and 213; Claire Fayolle, “Marc Newson: Á Fond La<br />
Forme,” Beaux Arts Magazine, June 2000, p. 55; Anne Watson, “Marc Newson: Design Works,”<br />
Powerline, Spring 2001, p. 5; Conway Lloyd Morgan, Marc Newson, London, 2002, pp. 150, 157<br />
and 170-171; Louise Neri, ed., Marc Newson, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2007, p. 64<br />
<strong>The</strong> “Event Horizon” table will be included as “MN - 13EHTR-1992” in the<br />
forthcoming catalogue raisonné of limited editions by Marc Newson being<br />
prepared by Didier Krzentowski of Galerie kreo, Paris.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company would like to thank Marc Newson and Didier<br />
Krzentowski for their assistance in cataloging this lot.
An event horizon is the verge of a black hole, a point of no return from which<br />
light, matter, and radiation cannot escape. But approach is also impossible,<br />
for the horizon recedes, always out of reach. Two of Marc Newson’s early<br />
tables, “Black Hole” (1988) and “Event Horizon” (1992), directly address the<br />
designer’s abiding interest in outer space, and inner space too. <strong>The</strong> partially<br />
hollow legs of each table, like funnels, are conceptual renderings of black<br />
holes. “Both my sculptural work and the production furniture have always had<br />
as much to do with what is not there as what is there—the voids, the interior<br />
spaces, the things that you don’t see.” Newson manifests the conundrums<br />
of the universe through earthly materials, carbon fiber and aluminum in the<br />
case of those early tables. He renders the remote vagaries of the cosmos as<br />
accessible local objects and platforms for daily life.<br />
In the catalog accompanying Newson’s 2007 solo show at Gagosian Gallery,<br />
curator Louise Neri wrote: “Across his protean output, Newson has been<br />
preoccupied with how to achieve a maximum sense of volume with the least<br />
amount of material (or mass) possible, thereby creating space as a grand<br />
illusion of that volume.” Compact and dense, a black hole’s extreme mass<br />
creates a gravitational pull from which even light can’t escape—a heavy<br />
notion. Newson molded his table from aluminum, an everyday material whose<br />
lightness adds unexpected contradiction. “Event Horizon” is distinct and<br />
viewable, not vast and unknowable like the wooly idea it represents. Newson<br />
doesn’t conjecture, he builds.
18 TAKASHI MURAKAMI b. 1963<br />
PO + KU Surrealism Mr. DOB –Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple, Pink, 1998<br />
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board in five parts. 25 1/2 x 19 5/8 in. (64.8 x 49.8 cm) each.<br />
Signed and dated “Takashi ‘98” on the reverse of each panel.<br />
Estimate $70 0,0 0 0 -1,0 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo; MB Financial Bank, Chicago; Marianne<br />
Boesky Gallery, New York; Private Collection, Miami<br />
exhibited Warsaw, Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, GENDAI Japanese<br />
Contemporary Art, Between the Body and Space, October – December 2000; Tokyo, Museum<br />
of Contemporary Art, Summon monsters? Open the door? heal? or die?, August - November<br />
2001; Budapest, Ludwig Museum and Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Kokoro no Arika,<br />
Location of the Spirit: Contemporary Japanese Art, December 2003 – March 2004; Los<br />
Angeles, <strong>The</strong> Museum of Contemporary Art at <strong>The</strong> Geffen Contemporary, October 29, 2007<br />
– February 11, 2008; Brooklyn Museum of Art, April 4 – July 13, 2008; Frankfurt, Museum für<br />
Moderne Kunst, September – December 2008; and Bilbao, Guggenheim Museum, February –<br />
May 2009, ©Murakami<br />
literature P. Schimmel, © Murakami, New York, 2007, pp. 212-213, 302 (illustrated)<br />
©1998 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved<br />
Since the beginning, DOB has been a unique alibi for Murakami and his talent for<br />
branding. <strong>The</strong> dada-like phrase “dobozite dobozite oshamanbe,” from silly gags<br />
found in early 1970s Japanese manga combined with the famous gag by comedian<br />
Toru Yuri, was conceived as a signboard and then condensed into the three-letter<br />
DOB to form a trademark pop character. With a large round O-shape face and<br />
ears bearing the Letters D or B, DOB straddles two sources of inspiration – the<br />
Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog and Doraemon, the intelligent and endearing<br />
Japanese cat-like robot from the future – yet its identity remains as evasive as the<br />
nonsensical phrase from which it was conceived. While DOB’s origins as a product<br />
of language rather than commodity imagery has been a site of investigation more<br />
recently, what is also at stake is how DOB symbolically operates as an agent<br />
of consumption in Murakami’s lexicon: [1] an anonymous and malleable icon<br />
produced as a marketable brand, and [2] and abstract and fleeting morphing<br />
like-form representative of our endless desire to consume.<br />
M. Yoshitake, “<strong>The</strong> Meaning of the Nonsense of Excess,” ©Murakami,<br />
Los Angeles and New York, 2007, p.123-124<br />
As Amada Cruz notes in her essay, DOB in the Land of Otaku, “DOB does<br />
not promote any product, except perhaps Murakami. DOB is a disengaged<br />
signifier, an ever changing symbol of all the other artificially constructed<br />
characters that sell merchandise.”(A. Cruz, “DOB in the Land of Otaku,”<br />
Takashi Murakami: <strong>The</strong> Meaning of the Nonsense of the Meaning, New York,<br />
1999, p.17)<br />
Broken into five chromatic canvases the present lot resembles the stylistic,<br />
dramatic and often fragmented paneling found in manga comic books. Each<br />
canvas features a series of fragmented and distorted Mr. DOB’s transformed<br />
from his usual cute, saccharine smiley and wholly innocent self into an<br />
unsettling, crazy multi-eyed character full of razor sharp teeth. This surrealist<br />
transformation highlights Mr. DOB’s, and ultimately Murakami’s often<br />
confounding, and sometimes ironic, antagonist/protagonist relationship<br />
with commercialized characters and consumer consumption. Mr. DOB’s<br />
monstrous transformation becomes a direct correlation to one’s own impulse<br />
towards excessive consumption and the resultant frenzy thereof when left<br />
unchecked and unrestrained.<br />
Akin to the Cheshire cat in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland Mr. DOB is<br />
an intrinsically vexing character of youthful innocence confronted with<br />
malignant, cunning mischievousness. “It is this ‘cuteness’ as a panacea –<br />
or is it a placebo? – that Murakami plays with in his characters inspired by<br />
Japanese animation, comic, books and toy models, sometimes in a friendly<br />
way, sometimes in a smirking bully. With DOB…he feeds then subverts our<br />
expectations for their established identities through unconventional pairings,<br />
contortions of their form, or sinister mood shifts, reminding us that, in reality<br />
as well as fantasy, cute, sentimental playfulness can easily be turned into<br />
something quite different.”(D. Friis-Hansen, “About “Japan” Itself,” Takashi<br />
Murakami: <strong>The</strong> Meaning of the Nonsense of the Meaning, New York, 1999, p. 35)
19 JOHN BALDESSARI b. 1931<br />
Pink Pig, 2305 Highland Ave., National City, Calif., 1996<br />
Acrylic and ink-jet on canvas. 58 3/4 x 44 5/8 in. (149.2 x 113.3 cm).<br />
Estimate $40 0,0 0 0 - 6 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Galerie Philomene Magers, Munich; Private collection, London; Private<br />
collection, New York<br />
exhibited San Diego, Museum of Contemporary Art, John Baldessari: National City,<br />
March 10 – June 30, 1996; New York, Sonnabend Gallery, John Baldessari: National City Part<br />
Two—1996, 1997; Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Palazzo<br />
delle Albere, John Baldessari, December 15, 2000 – March 11, 2001<br />
literature H. M. Davies and A. Hales, eds., John Baldessari: National City, New York,<br />
1996, p. 72 (illustrated); G. Belli, M. Cranston, D. Diederichsen, and T. Weski, John Baldessari,<br />
Milan, 2000, no. 24, p. 104 (illustrated)<br />
From 1966-1969 John Baldessari created the series of photo-text works<br />
which catapulted him into the international art rostrum. <strong>The</strong>se works<br />
portrayed images of National City, California whilst driving, an oblique<br />
reference to America’s time-honored favorite pastime—taken from askew<br />
and often blurred by the movement of the car, the photographs become<br />
opaque renderings of American culture and commerce. Baldessari used<br />
photo emulsion to transfer the images onto canvas and the text then was<br />
painted on by professional sign painters he hired. In the entire process, the<br />
artist obliterated his own hand, creating along the way a unique conceptual<br />
approach that combines photography, art, and the Southern California<br />
culture he witnessed.<br />
Thirty years after this series originated, the Museum of Contemporary Art<br />
in San Diego invited the artist to revisit these seminal works. Baldessari<br />
accepted and Pink Pig, 2305 Highland Ave., National City, Calif., 1996 derives<br />
from his reinvestigation. In all, eleven more works were created including<br />
the present lot in a fashion updated to reflect contemporary standards and<br />
changes in perception. According to the artist, color was necessary as our<br />
society would not accept the black and white images as critical reflections,<br />
thus ink-jet prints replaced the earlier method.<br />
For Baldessari, this series is more than just homage to the Southern<br />
California landscape and his approach to Conceptual art. Born in National<br />
City in 1931, the photo-texts reference the locales he knew and loved, but<br />
above that Baldessari, in his well-documented Cremation Project on July 24,<br />
1970, destroyed all work prior to beginning the 1966 National City pieces. For<br />
him, all work began with this series, and Pink Pig, 2305 Highland Ave., National<br />
City, Calif. represents his highest achievements to this end.
20 WALTON FORD b. 1960<br />
Loss of the Lisbon Rhinoceros, 2008<br />
Watercolor, gouache, ink and pencil on paper in three parts. Left panel: 95 3/8 x 39 3/4 in.<br />
(242.3 x 101 cm); center panel: 95 3/8 x 60 in. (242.3 x 152.4 cm); right panel: 95 3/8 x 40 in.<br />
(242.3 x 101.6 cm). Initialed “W.F.” lower right.<br />
Estimate $550,0 0 0 -75 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Paul Kasmin Gallery, New York<br />
exhibited New York, Paul Kasmin Gallery, Walton Ford, May 8 – July 3, 2008<br />
literature D. Cohen, “Back to Basics,” <strong>The</strong> New York Sun, May 22, 2008; D. Colman,<br />
“Jokers from the Family Album,” <strong>The</strong> New York Times, New York, June 8, 2008; J. Panero,<br />
”Gallery Chronicle,” <strong>The</strong> New Criterion, London, June 2008, p. 53; A. Kurian, “Interview<br />
with Walton Ford,” Whitehot Magazine, July 2008 (illustrated);W. Ford, “Loss of the Lisbon<br />
Rhinoceros,” Harper’s Magazine, New York, August 2008, p. 57 (illustrated); H. Werner Holzwarth,<br />
“Walton Ford,” Art Now Vol. 3, Cologne, 2008, p. 171 (illustrated); C. Tomkins, “Man and Beast:<br />
Interview with American painter Walton Ford,” <strong>The</strong> New Yorker, New York, January 26, 2009; B.<br />
Taschen, ed., Walton Ford: Pancha Tantra, Cologne, 2009, pp.294-295 (illustrated)
times of the Romans. Such an exotic and rare gift would certainly have<br />
curried the favor of the Pope, however the gift would unfortunately never<br />
reach its destination. <strong>The</strong> ship with the rhinoceros was caught in a storm and<br />
sank off the coast of Genoa. <strong>The</strong> rhinoceros, by accounts of survivors, was<br />
chained to the deck of the ship and drowned when the vessel sank.<br />
Accounts of the exotic creature in the Portuguese Royal Court and its story<br />
made their way to Nuremburg where Albrecht Dürer used the descriptions<br />
of the beast to create his famous woodcut of the rhinoceros in 1515.<br />
Dürer’s rendering was anatomically incorrect with plates or “armor” more<br />
indicative of a crustacean than a mammal. Dürer’s Rhinoceros, although<br />
completely incorrect in its depiction, would go on to become the accepted<br />
representation of the animal until the mid 1700’s.<br />
Albrecht Durer Rhinoceros, 1515<br />
Carving out a truly unique niche within the Contemporary Art World, Walton<br />
Ford has forged a path of the entrepreneur artist that is markedly different<br />
from that of other Contemporary Artists such as Jeff Koons and Damien<br />
Hirst. All three men are creating works that are informed by the world around<br />
them however Walton Ford has found his inspiration not in what one can<br />
considered to be popular culture but an inspiration drawn from natural world<br />
around us and how we perceive it.<br />
…what I’m doing is a sort of cultural history of the way animals live in the<br />
human imagination.<br />
Walton Ford in C. Tomkins “Man as Beast,” <strong>The</strong> New Yorker, New York,<br />
January 26, 2009<br />
What Ford has done with his Loss of the Lisbon Rhino is combine the story<br />
of the ill-fated voyage of the rhino with Dürer’s account, creating a visual<br />
reference that had not yet been explored in history. He describes the<br />
experience with this painting as:<br />
It’s quite beautifully imagined—there are particulars that are real to a rhino,<br />
but it also looks kind of like a crustacean or a crab, which is really apt since this<br />
thing drowned. So the moment of transformation, where this animal goes from<br />
an actual animal to being transformed into an icon that for 300 years people drew<br />
and believed to be a rhino, is the moment I painted. So here he’s dying, but he’ll<br />
be reborn from the ocean as this armored crustacean, and really live for another<br />
thousand years as this transmogrified creature.<br />
Walton Ford in A. Kurian Whitehot Magazine, July 2008.<br />
It is with his own visual investigation and interpretation of the Natural world<br />
and our “cultural history of our relationship with animals” that Ford<br />
continues to challenge what we – the viewer- have come to accept as<br />
Contemporary Art.<br />
Rendered nearly life-sized with meticulous realism in watercolor and<br />
outshining the early 19th Century naturalists that Ford has drawn inspiration<br />
from, Loss of the Lisbon Rhino, 2008, perfectly embodies this statement. <strong>The</strong><br />
painting captures a moment in time that had not been visually recorded to<br />
date. It becomes as Ford states “… a comment on the way we impose our<br />
culture on the natural world, but without it being dogmatic in message.”<br />
(Walton Ford in A Kurian Whitehot Magazine, July 2008.)<br />
In 1515 King Manuel I of Portugal had made the decision to send an Indian<br />
Rhinoceros to Rome to win the favor of the Medici Pope, Leo X. <strong>The</strong><br />
Rhinoceros had originally been a diplomatic gift from a sultan to King<br />
Manuel I. A the time a Rhinoceros had not been seen in Europe since the<br />
Giovanni Giacomo Penni, <strong>The</strong> form, nature and customs of the<br />
rhinoceros taken to Portugal by the captain of the King’s fleet, 1515
21 DIEGO GIACOMETTI 1902-1985<br />
“Hommage à Böcklin” console, ca. 1978<br />
Patinated bronze, glass, gilt bronze.<br />
35 1/2 x 47 7/8 x 13 1/4 in. (90.2 x 121.6 x 33.7 cm).<br />
Estimate $15 0,0 0 0 -2 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Acquired directly from the artist; Christie’s, Art Impressionniste et Moderne,<br />
Paris, May 23, 2007, Lot 128; L’Arc en Seine, Paris<br />
literature Michel Butor, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1985, p. 33 for similar decorative tree<br />
motifs; Daniel Marchesseau, Diego Giacometti, Paris, 1986, p. 92<br />
Is that the sun setting below trees or the moon rising through them?<br />
Regardless, it’s a crepuscular scene: the transition to dusk. Four cypresses<br />
catch the eye, but an owl enlivens at left, subverting their certainty—and<br />
ours. Although fixed in bronze, the bronze furniture of Swiss sculptor Diego<br />
Giacometti is never fixed; it moves from the memory of his hand, always<br />
evident along his trembling silhouettes and in the molded ornaments<br />
animating them: birds in flight; mice nibbling cheese; horses stretching<br />
necks; budding leaves.<br />
“<strong>The</strong> mournful cypress rises round / Tapering from the burial-ground,” wrote<br />
the Roman poet Lucan two thousand years ago (Frances Osgood ed., <strong>The</strong><br />
Poetry of Flowers, New York, 1848, p. 161). Around 1978, as he approached<br />
his own twilight, Giacometti cast “Hommage à Böcklin” in tribute to Swiss<br />
symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901), whose dreamlike landscapes<br />
and voluptuous allegories seethe with mystery and dread. In Böcklin’s<br />
famous “Island of the Dead (Die Toteninsel),” painted in five versions<br />
between 1880 and 1886, a shrouded widow in a boat bears her husband’s<br />
coffin across a dark strait; his tomb yawns on a distant outcrop sheltered<br />
by cypresses.<br />
As Frances Osgood reminds us, “<strong>The</strong> cypress is the universal emblem of<br />
mourning…” (New York, 1848, p. 161). Cypress and owl herald the night—<br />
but it’s not yet dark. <strong>The</strong> carcass of Giacometti’s table, like an austere rock<br />
formation, holds in its precincts irrepressible life: a bower of trees, the heart<br />
of the sun, and everywhere the warbling hand of the artist.<br />
Arnold Böcklin, Island of the Dead, 1883. Oil on wood. 31 1/2 x 59 in (80 x 150 cm). Courtesy Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
22 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Long, Stormy, 1995<br />
Acrylic on canvas. 20 x 159 in. (50.8 x 403.9 cm). Signed and dated “Ed Ruscha 1995” on the<br />
reverse. This work will be included in Edward Ruscha: Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings,<br />
Volume 5: 1993-1997, edited by Robert Dean and Lisa Turvey (forthcoming, 2010)<br />
Estimate $8 0 0,0 0 0 -1, 2 0 0,0 0 0<br />
provenance Leo Castelli, New York; Gagosian Gallery, New York; Private collection,<br />
Brookline, Massachusetts; Gagosian Gallery, New York<br />
EXHIBITED New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Anamorphic Paintings, 1995; Denver Art Museum,<br />
Ed Ruscha: <strong>The</strong> End, 1995; Milwaukee Art Museum, Ed Ruscha: Spaghetti Westerns, 1997;<br />
Cambridge, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Landmark Pictures: Ed<br />
Ruscha/Andreas Gursky, 2000<br />
LITERATURE L. Wei, “Ed Ruscha at Castelli,” Art in America, 1995, p. 120; Milwaukee Art<br />
Museum, ed., Ed Ruscha: Spaghetti Westerns, Milwaukee, 1997, p. 5 (illustrated)<br />
Ed Ruscha delineates the norm in the present lot, a tantalizing 1995 painting<br />
entitled Long, Stormy. Upon first view, the text underlying the title is hidden<br />
from first appearance. What presents itself first and foremost instead is<br />
Ruscha’s dignified landscape, creating a surreal and tantalizing hybrid of<br />
signage and the American west. Ruscha subterfuges the final score of an old<br />
Hollywood movie, the words “<strong>The</strong> End” within his version of the American<br />
landscape: “<strong>The</strong> horizontality is even more extreme in Ruscha’s 1995 ‘Long,<br />
Stormy,’ an image of the words ‘<strong>The</strong> End’ stretched to the breaking point<br />
and set against a sullen gray ground, like the finale of a Hollywood film<br />
completely distorted,” (C. Temin, “At Harvard, it’s about space carpenter<br />
center returns to its purpose- with a twist”, <strong>The</strong> Boston Globe, July 12, 2000).<br />
Within Long, Stormy, Ruscha references the apogee of old-school Hollywood<br />
and therefore American film, all within his alluring and text referential<br />
manner made famous through his long career of painting words, phrases,<br />
and nuances. <strong>The</strong> English language becomes for him the very material he<br />
chooses to use in the form of paint, brush and canvas. Long, Stormy captures<br />
Ruscha at his finest: altering the reality with finesse and clever panache.<br />
Notorious, 1946, Alfred Hitchcock
INDEX<br />
Baldessari, J. 13, 19<br />
Ford, W. 20<br />
Giacometti, D. 21<br />
Grotjahn, M. 2, 10<br />
Maier-Aichen, F. 3, 16<br />
Murakami, T. 5, 18<br />
Nakashima, G. 11<br />
Newson, M. 4, 6, 14, 17<br />
Perriand, C. 9<br />
Prince, R. 1, 8, 15<br />
Ruscha, E. 7, 12, 22
PART II CONTEMPORARY ART<br />
<strong>THE</strong> HAL SEY <strong>MINOR</strong> <strong>COLLECTION</strong><br />
13 MAY 2 010 10 am NEW YORK
201 202<br />
201 MARK GROTJAHN b. 1968<br />
Untitled, 2004<br />
Colored pencil and graphite on paper mounted to panel.<br />
30 x 22 in. (76.2 x 55.9 cm).<br />
Estimate $60,000-80,000<br />
202 FLORIAN MAIER-AICHEN b. 1973<br />
<strong>The</strong> Best General View, 2007<br />
C-print in the artist’s frame. 84 x 70 1/2 in. (213.4 x 179.1 cm). Signed, dated “Florian Maier-<br />
Aichen 2007” and numbered of six on a label adhered to the reverse. This work is from an<br />
edition of six plus two artist’s proofs.<br />
Estimate $80,000-120,000<br />
203<br />
203 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Pools, 1968/1997<br />
Color coupler prints in nine parts. Each 16 x 16 in. (40.6 x 40.6 cm) image size. Each signed,<br />
dated “Ed Ruscha 1968 - 1997” and numbered of 10 on the reverse. This work is an artist’s<br />
proof from an edition of 30 plus 10 artist’s proofs.<br />
Estimate $80,000-120,000<br />
Please note: Refer to the Contemporary Art Part II catalogue for complete catalogue<br />
entry information. This is a supplement index to the formal catalogue.
204<br />
205<br />
204 TODD EBERLE b. 1963<br />
“<strong>The</strong> Red Rooster” Brewster, New York, August, 2006, 2006<br />
Digital c-print. 49 x 59 1/2 in. (124.5 x 151.1 cm). This work is from an edition of three.<br />
Estimate $8,000-12,000<br />
205 TODD EBERLE b. 1963<br />
American Flag Millerton, New York, August 2006, 2006<br />
Digital c-print. 59 5/8 x 48 3/4 in. (151.4 x 123.8 cm). This work is from an edition of three.<br />
Estimate $8,000-12,000<br />
206<br />
206 DAVID HOCKNEY b. 1937<br />
Gregory in the Pool 1 (Paper Pool 4), 1978<br />
Hand-colored pressed paper pulp. 32 1/4 x 50 1/4 in. (81.9 x 127.6 cm). Initialed and dated<br />
“D.H. 78.” lower right; signed “David Hockney” and numbered and lettered “4-N” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $250,000-350,000
207<br />
207 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Three O’Clock, 1975<br />
Gunpowder and pastel on paper. 22 3/4 x 28 3/4 in. (57.8 x 73 cm). Signed and dated “Edward<br />
Ruscha 1975” lower right and again on the reverse. This work will be included in the<br />
forthcoming volume of Edward Ruscha Catalogue Raisonné of the Works on Paper.<br />
Estimate $150,000-250,000<br />
209<br />
208<br />
208 DAVID SMITH 1906 - 1965<br />
Untitled, 1962<br />
Spray enamel on paper. 15 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (39.4 x 52.1 cm). Stamped with the artist’s estate<br />
seal and numbered 73.62.181 on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000<br />
209 DAVID SMITH 1906 - 1965<br />
Untitled, 1962<br />
Spray enamel on paper. 15 1/2 x 20 1/2 in. (39.4 x 52.1 cm). Stamped with the artist’s<br />
estate seal and numbered 73.62.181 on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000
210<br />
210 Yoshitomo Nara b. 1959<br />
Untitled, 2004<br />
Acrylic and pastel on paper. 53 1/4 x 47 in. (135.3 x 119.4 cm).<br />
Estimate $150,000-250,000<br />
211<br />
(c) 2004 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved.<br />
211 TAKASHI MURAKAMI b. 1963<br />
Jellyfish Eyes—MAX & Shimon in the Strange Forest, 2004<br />
Acrylic on canvas mounted on board. 59 x 59 in. (150 x 150 cm). Signed and dated<br />
“Takashi 04” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $400,000-600,000
212<br />
213<br />
212 GAJIN FUJITA b. 1972<br />
Tail Whip, 2007<br />
Spray-paint, acrylic, felt-tip pen, gold and silver leaf and Mean Streak on six panels.<br />
48 x 96 in. (121.9 x 243.8 cm) overall. Signed, titled and dated “Gajin Fujita Tail Whip<br />
2007” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $30,000-40,000<br />
213 GAJIN FUJITA b. 1972<br />
Gold State Warriors, 2002<br />
Spray paint, acrylic, and gold and white gold leaf on 12 wood panels. 60 x 192 in. (152.4 x 487.7 cm)<br />
overall. Signed, titled and dated “Gajin Fujita Gold State Warriors 2002” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000<br />
214<br />
214 RYAN MCGINNESS b. 1971<br />
Sexes (Factum II), 2006<br />
Acrylic on wooden panel. 48 x 48 in. (121.9 x 121.9 cm). Signed, titled and dated<br />
“’Sexes Factum II’ Ryan McGinness 2006” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $20,000-30,000
215<br />
215 MIKE KELLEY b. 1954<br />
Garbage Drawing #37, 1988<br />
Ink and acrylic on paper. 24 x 32 in. (61 x 81.3 cm). Titled “37” on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $20,000-30,000<br />
216<br />
216 DIRK SKREBER b. 1961<br />
Untitled, 2000<br />
Oil on canvas. 110 1/4 x 165 3/8 in. (280 x 420.1 cm).<br />
Estimate $200,000-300,000
217<br />
218<br />
217 FLORIAN MAIER-AICHEN b. 1973<br />
Untitled, 2007<br />
C-print. 43 1/4 x 31 in. (109.9 x 78.7 cm) image size. Signed, dated “Florian Maier-Aichen<br />
2007” and numbered of six on the reverse. This work is from an edition of six.<br />
Estimate $30,000-40,000<br />
218 FLORIAN MAIER-AICHEN b. 1973<br />
Rügenlandschaft (Complaints landscape), 2007<br />
C-print. 31 x 64 1/2 in. (78.7 x 163.8 cm). Signed, dated “Florian Maier-Aichen 2007” and<br />
numbered of six on the reverse. This work is from an edition of six.<br />
Estimate $40,000-60,000<br />
219<br />
219 WALTON FORD b. 1960<br />
La Fontaine, 2006<br />
Watercolor, gouache, graphite, and ink on paper. 60 x 120 in. (152.4 x 304.8 cm). Titled<br />
“La Fontaine” upper left; initialed “W.F.” lower right.<br />
Estimate $250,000-350,000
220<br />
220 LEON KOSSOFF b. 1926<br />
<strong>The</strong> Judgment of Solomon #1, 1999<br />
Hand colored etching and drypoint. 22 1/4 x 30 in. (56.5 x 76.2 cm) paper size. Initialed and<br />
dated “LK 99” on the reverse. This work is from an edition of 20.<br />
Estimate $20,000-30,000<br />
221 DAVID SMITH 1906 - 1965<br />
Untitled, 1962<br />
Spray enamel on paper. 18 x 22 5/8 in. (45.7 x 57.5 cm). Stamped with the artist’s estate seal<br />
and numbered 73.62.204 on the reverse.<br />
Estimate $60,000-80,000<br />
221<br />
222<br />
222 DIRK SKREBER b. 1961<br />
Untitled (Compound), 1999<br />
Oil and weather stripping tape on canvas. 63 1/4 x 157 1/2 in. (160.7 x 400.1 cm).<br />
Estimate $120,000-180,000
223<br />
223 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Busted Glass #8, 2007<br />
Acrylic on museum board paper. 12 1/4 x 9 1/4 in. (31.1 x 23.5 cm). Signed and dated “Ed<br />
Ruscha 2007” lower right. This work is registered under the artist’s studio number D.2007.82.<br />
Estimate $30,000-50,000<br />
224<br />
224 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
Busted Glass #10, 2007<br />
Acrylic on museum board paper. 12 1/8 x 9 1/4 in. (30.8 x 23.5 cm). Signed and dated “Ed<br />
Ruscha 2007” lower right. This work is registered under the artist’s studio number D.2007.84.<br />
Estimate $30,000-50,000<br />
225<br />
225 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1936<br />
Ed Ruscha, 1964<br />
Gelatin silver print. 15 3/4 x 24 in. (40 x 61 cm). Signed, dated “D. Hopper 1964” and<br />
numbered on the reverse. This work is an artist’s proof from an edition of 15.<br />
Estimate $7,000-9,000
226<br />
226 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1936<br />
Double Standards, 1961<br />
Gelatin silver print. 30 x 44 1/2 in. (76.2 x 113 cm) paper size. Signed, dated “D. Hopper 1961”<br />
and numbered of five on the reverse. This work is from an edition of five.<br />
Estimate $20,000-30,000<br />
227 ED RUSCHA b. 1937<br />
10 Works: Gasoline Stations from Twenty Six Gasoline Stations, 1962/1989<br />
10 gelatin silver prints laid down on board. Each 19 1/2 x 23 in. (49.5 x 58.4 cm) paper size.<br />
Each stamped with individual location and numbered of 25 on the reverse. This work is from<br />
an edition of 25.<br />
Estimate $80,000-120,000<br />
227
228<br />
229<br />
230<br />
228 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1963<br />
Bruce Conner’s Physical Services, 1964<br />
Gelatin silver print. 16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm). Signed, dated “Dennis Hopper 1964” and<br />
numbered of 15 on the reverse. This work is from an edition of 15.<br />
Estimate $7,000-9,000<br />
229 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1963<br />
Andy Warhol and Members of the Factory, 1964<br />
Gelatin silver print. 16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm). Signed, dated “Dennis Hopper 1964” and<br />
numbered of 15 on the reverse. This work is from an edition of 15.<br />
Estimate $7,000-9,000<br />
230 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1936<br />
Dennis Hopper, 1962<br />
Gelatin silver print. 15 3/4 x 24 in. (40 x 61 cm). Signed, dated “Dennis Hopper 1962” and<br />
numbered of 15 on the reverse. This work is from an edition of 15.<br />
Estimate $7,000-9,000
231<br />
231 DENNIS HOPPER b. 1936<br />
John Wayne and Dean Martin, 1962<br />
Gelatin silver print. 16 x 24 in. (40.6 x 61 cm). Signed, dated “D. Hopper 1962” and numbered<br />
of 15 on the reverse. This work is from an edition of 15.<br />
Estimate $7,000-9,000<br />
232 Michael Eastman b. 1947<br />
Horse #115, 2000<br />
Inkjet print on paper. 24 1/4 x 44 in. (61.6 x 111.8 cm). Signed, titled “Michael Eastman Horse<br />
#115” and numbered of 25 along lower edge; blindstamped “ME 00” in margin. This work is<br />
from an edition of 25.<br />
Estimate $5,000-7,000<br />
232<br />
233<br />
233 WALTON FORD b. 1960<br />
Dying Words, 2005<br />
Six copper plates, hardground etching, aquatint, spit-bite aquatint, drypoint, scraping and<br />
burnishing on paper. 14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm) image size. Signed and dated “Walton Ford<br />
05” lower right; titled “Dying Words” upper left. This work is from an edition of 75.<br />
Estimate $4,000-6,000
<strong>THE</strong> HAL SE Y <strong>MINOR</strong> <strong>COLLECTION</strong><br />
DESIGN<br />
9 JUNE 2 010 NEW YORK
RONAN AND ERWAN BOUROULLEC b. 1971, b. 1976<br />
Prototype “Icefield” low table, 2007<br />
Gel-coated resin, painted plywood.<br />
7 x 111 x 40 1/2 in. (17.8 x 281.9 x 102.9 cm).<br />
Estimate $20,000-30,000<br />
MARTIN SZEKELY b. 1956<br />
Prototype “SiC” mirror, 2006<br />
Silicon carbide, brushed steel.<br />
19 3/4 x 10 1/4 x 3/4 in. (50.2 x 26 x 1.9 cm).<br />
Estimate $12,000-18,000<br />
JASPER MORRISON b. 1959<br />
“Carrara Tables, Variation N° 16 + 1,” 2005<br />
Carrara marble-covered aluminum honeycomb, brushed metal (4).<br />
Largest table: 11 x 65 3/4 x 15 1/4 in. (27.9 x 167 x 38.7 cm).<br />
Estimate $30,000-40,000<br />
Please note: Refer to the forthcoming 9 June 2010 Design catalogue for complete<br />
catalogue entry information. This index is a supplement to the formal catalogue.
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Pod of Drawers,” 1987<br />
Fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin core, blind-riveted sheet aluminum, rubber coating.<br />
50 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 17 1/4 in. (128 x 69.9 x 43.8 cm).<br />
Estimate $300,000-500,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Prototype “Voronoi” shelf, 2006<br />
Bardiglio marble.<br />
70 1/4 x 108 3/4 x 14 3/4 in. (178.4 x 276.2 x 37.5 cm).<br />
Estimate $100,000-150,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Dark Star” table, 1986<br />
Welded aluminum tread sheet, glass, tubular aluminum, rubber-covered wood.<br />
30 in. (76.2 cm) high, 39 1/4 in. (99.7 cm) diameter.<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000
©Morgane Le Gall Courtesy of Galerie Kreo<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Conference table and eight “Komed” chairs, 1990s<br />
Table: coated fiberglass, painted tubular steel; each chair: vinyl, painted tubular steel (9).<br />
Table: 33 x 152 1/2 x 45 1/4 in. (83.8 x 387.4 x 114.9 cm); each chair: 34 1/4 in. (87 cm) high.<br />
Estimate $60,000-80,000<br />
JASPER MORRISON b. 1959<br />
“Museum Pieces, Cabinet A,” 2006<br />
Resin, oak, Securit glass.<br />
73 1/8 x 36 5/8 x 15 3/4 in. (185.7 x 93 x 40 cm).<br />
Estimate $40,000-60,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Rare and early “Insect” adjustable armchair, ca. 1986<br />
Vinyl, painted tubular metal, plastic, steel.<br />
30 in. (76.2 cm) high.<br />
Estimate $30,000-50,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Gello” table, ca. 1994<br />
Colored plastic, Perspex.<br />
19 in. (48.3 cm) high; 23 1/2 in. (59.7 cm) diameter.<br />
Estimate $2,000-3,000
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Embryo” chair, ca. 1999<br />
Neoprene, brushed tubular aluminum.<br />
31 1/2 in. (80 cm) high.<br />
Estimate $3,000-5,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Super Guppy” floor lamp, ca. 1987<br />
Tubular aluminum, aluminum, molded glass.<br />
72 in. (182.9 cm) high.<br />
Estimate $10,000-15,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Event Horizon Table,” 1992<br />
Enameled aluminum, polished aluminum.<br />
31 1/2 x 70 5/8 x 38 in. (80 x 179.4 x 96.5 cm).<br />
Estimate $250,000-350,000
CHARLOTTE PERRIAND 1903-1999<br />
“Bibliothèque Asymetrique,” ca. 1958<br />
Ash-veneered wood, painted bent aluminum.<br />
48 x 126 x 13 in. (121.9 x 320 x 33 cm).<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000<br />
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
“Black Hole” table, ca. 2006<br />
Carbon fiber.<br />
28 1/4 x 97 7/8 x 40 in. (71.8 x 248.6 x 101.6 cm).<br />
Estimate $80,000-120,000
MARC NEWSON b. 1963<br />
Prototype “Micarta” desk, 2006<br />
Linen phenolic composite.<br />
29 3/8 x 101 x 37 5/8 in. (74.6 x 256.5 x 95.6 cm).<br />
Estimate $150,000-200,000<br />
ISAMU NOGUCHI 1904-1988<br />
“Pierced Table,” 1982<br />
Hot-dipped galvanized steel.<br />
21 7/8 x 36 3/4 x 36 1/4 in. (55.6 x 93.3 x 92.1 cm).<br />
Estimate $50,000-70,000<br />
JASPER MORRISON b. 1959<br />
“Handlebar” table, 1983<br />
Beech, bicycle handlebars, glass.<br />
25 3/8 in. (64.5 cm) high, 23 in. (58.4 cm) diameter<br />
Estimate $12,000-18,000
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Writing cabinet, ca. 1940<br />
Leather-covered wood, macassar ebony-veneered wood, wood, gilt bronze.<br />
30 1/2 x 43 x 20 1/4 in. (77.5 x 109.2 x 51.4 cm).<br />
Estimate $100,000-150,000<br />
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Pair of side tables, ca. 1935<br />
Wrought iron, leather, macassar ebony (2).<br />
Each: 21 x 20 3/4 x 20 3/4 in. (53.3 x 52.7 x 52.7 cm).<br />
Estimate $30,000-40,000
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Large four-seater sofa, ca. 1929<br />
Leather, fabric, nickel-plated metal-covered wood.<br />
29 1/2 x 119 1/2 x 42 1/4 in. (74.9 x 303.5 x 107.3 cm).<br />
Estimate $70,000-90,000<br />
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Low table, ca. 1940<br />
Patinated iron, cork, limed oak. 14 1/4 x 47 1/2 x 41 1/2 in. (36.2 x 120.7 x 105.4 cm).<br />
Estimate $150,000-200,000
JEAN ROYÈRE 1902-1981<br />
Mirror, ca. 1955<br />
Gilt iron, mirrored glass.<br />
37 1/2 x 25 1/2 x 5 1/4 in. (95.3 x 64.8 x 13.3 cm).<br />
Estimate $10,000-15,000<br />
DIEGO GIACOMETTI 1902-1985<br />
“Coupelle à L’Oiseau,” ca. 1978<br />
Patinated bronze.<br />
3 3/4 x 6 3/4 x 5 in. (9.5 x 17.1 x 12.7 cm).<br />
Estimate $12,000-18,000<br />
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Pair of armchairs, ca. 1929<br />
Fabric, nickel-plated metal-covered wood (2).<br />
Each: 22 in. (55.9 cm) high<br />
Estimate $35,000-45,000
JEAN ROYÈRE 1902-1981<br />
Low side table, ca. 1950<br />
Gilt iron, glass.<br />
11 1/2 x 24 x 12 in. (29.2 x 61 x 30.5 cm).<br />
Estimate $15,000-20,000<br />
PAUL DUPRÉ-LAFON 1900-1971<br />
Valet, ca. 1935<br />
Painted mahogany, leather-covered wood, bronze.<br />
54 1/4 x 22 x 17 1/2 in. (137.8 x 55.9 x 44.5 cm).<br />
Estimate $10,000-15,000
DESIGN<br />
INCLUDING <strong>THE</strong> <strong>HALSEY</strong> <strong>MINOR</strong> <strong>COLLECTION</strong><br />
AUCTION 9 JUNE 2010 NEW YORK<br />
Viewing 1 – 9 JUNE<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company 450 West 15 Street New York 10011<br />
Enquiries +1 212 940 1268 Catalogues +1 212 940 1240 / +44 20 7318 4039<br />
www.phillipsdepury.com<br />
JEAN ROYÈRE Rare and important “Salon Sculpture” sofa and pair of chairs, ca. 1955 Estimate $180,000-200,000
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O Guaranteed Property<br />
<strong>The</strong> seller of lots with this symbol has been guaranteed a minimum price. <strong>The</strong> guarantee may<br />
be provided by Phillips de Pury & Company, by a third party or jointly by us and a third party.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company and third parties providing or participating in a guarantee may<br />
benefit financially if a guaranteed lot is sold successfully and may incur a loss if the sale is not<br />
successful. A third party guarantor may also bid for the guaranteed lot and may be allowed to<br />
net the financial remuneration against the final purchase price if such party is the successful<br />
bidder.<br />
∆ Property in Which Phillips de Pury & Company Has an Ownership Interest<br />
Lots with this symbol indicate that Phillips de Pury & Company owns the lot in whole or in part<br />
or has an economic interest in the lot equivalent to an ownership interest.<br />
No Reserve<br />
•<br />
Unless indicated by a , all lots in this catalogue are offered subject to a reserve. A reserve<br />
•<br />
is the confidential value established between Phillips de Pury & Company and the seller and<br />
below which a lot may not be sold. <strong>The</strong> reserve for each lot is generally set at a percentage of<br />
the low estimate and will not exceed the low pre-sale estimate.<br />
2 BIDDING IN <strong>THE</strong> SALE<br />
Bidding at Auction<br />
Bids may be executed during the auction in person by paddle or by telephone or prior to the<br />
sale in writing by absentee bid.<br />
Bidding in Person<br />
To bid in person, you will need to register for and collect a paddle before the auction begins.<br />
Proof of identity in the form of government issued identification will be required, as will an<br />
original signature. We may also require that you furnish us with a bank reference. New clients<br />
are encouraged to register at least 48 hours in advance of a sale to allow sufficient time for us<br />
to process your information. All lots sold will be invoiced to the name and address to which the<br />
paddle has been registered and invoices cannot be transferred to other names and addresses.<br />
Please do not misplace your paddle. In the event you lose it, inform a Phillips de Pury &<br />
Company staff member immediately. At the end of the auction, please return your paddle to the<br />
registration desk.<br />
Bidding by Telephone<br />
If you cannot attend the auction, you may bid live on the telephone with one of our multilingual<br />
staff members. This service must be arranged at least 24 hours in advance of the sale<br />
and is available for lots whose low pre-sale estimate is at least $1000. Telephone bids may<br />
be recorded. By bidding on the telephone, you consent to the recording of your conversation.<br />
We suggest that you leave a maximum bid, excluding the buyer’s premium and any applicable<br />
taxes, which we can execute on your behalf in the event we are unable to reach you by<br />
telephone.<br />
Absentee Bids<br />
If you are unable to attend the auction and cannot participate by telephone, Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company will be happy to execute written bids on your behalf. A bidding form can be found<br />
at the back of this catalogue. This service is free and confidential. Bids must be placed in the<br />
currency of the sale. Our staff will attempt to execute an absentee bid at the lowest possible<br />
price taking into account the reserve and other bidders. Always indicate a maximum bid,<br />
excluding the buyer’s premium and any applicable taxes. Unlimited bids will not be accepted.<br />
Any absentee bid must be received at least 24 hours in advance of the sale. In the event of<br />
identical bids, the earliest bid received will take precedence.<br />
Employee Bidding<br />
Employees of Phillips de Pury & Company and our affiliated companies, including the<br />
auctioneer, may bid at the auction by placing absentee bids so long as they do not know the<br />
reserve when submitting their absentee bids and otherwise comply with our employee bidding<br />
procedures.<br />
Bidding Increments<br />
Bidding generally opens below the low estimate and advances in increments of up to 10%,<br />
subject to the auctioneer’s discretion. Absentee bids that do not conform to the increments<br />
set below may be lowered to the next bidding increment.<br />
$50 to $1,000 by $50s<br />
$1,000 to $2,000 by $100s<br />
$2,000 to $3,000 by $200s<br />
$3,000 to $5,000 by $200s, 500, 800<br />
(i.e. $4,200, 4,500, 4,800)<br />
$5,000 to $10,000 by $500s<br />
$10,000 to $20,000 by $1,000s<br />
$20,000 to $30,000 by $2,000s<br />
$30,000 to $50,000 by $2,000s, 5,000, 8,000<br />
$50,000 to $100,000 by $5,000s<br />
$100,000 to $200,000 by $10,000s<br />
above $200,000<br />
auctioneer’s discretion<br />
<strong>The</strong> auctioneer may vary the increments during the course of the auction at his or her own<br />
discretion.<br />
3 <strong>THE</strong> AUCTION<br />
Conditions of Sale<br />
As noted above, the auction is governed by the Conditions of Sale and Authorship Warranty.<br />
All prospective bidders should read them carefully. <strong>The</strong>y may be amended by saleroom<br />
addendum or auctioneer’s announcement.<br />
Interested Parties Announcement<br />
In situations where a person allowed to bid on a lot has a direct or indirect interest in such lot,<br />
such as the beneficiary or executor of an estate selling the lot, a joint owner of the lot or a party
providing or participating in a guarantee on the lot, Phillips de Pury & Company will make<br />
an announcement in the saleroom that interested parties may bid on the lot.<br />
Consecutive and Responsive Bidding<br />
<strong>The</strong> auctioneer may open the bidding on any lot by placing a bid on behalf of the seller. <strong>The</strong><br />
auctioneer may further bid on behalf of the seller up to the amount of the reserve by placing<br />
consecutive bids or bids in response to other bidders.<br />
4 AFTER <strong>THE</strong> AUCTION<br />
Payment<br />
Buyers are required to pay for purchases immediately following the auction unless other<br />
arrangements are agreed with Phillips de Pury & Company in writing in advance of the<br />
sale. Payments must be made in US dollars either by cash, check drawn on a US bank or<br />
wire transfer, as noted in Paragraph 6 of the Conditions of Sale. It is our corporate policy<br />
not to make or accept single or multiple payments in cash or cash equivalents in excess of<br />
US$10,000.<br />
Credit Cards<br />
As a courtesy to clients, Phillips de Pury & Company will accept American Express, Visa and<br />
Mastercard to pay for invoices of $10,000 or less.<br />
Collection<br />
It is our policy to request proof of identity on collection of a lot. A lot will be released to the<br />
buyer or the buyer’s authorized representative when Phillips de Pury & Company has received<br />
full and cleared payment and we are not owed any other amount by the buyer. Promptly after<br />
the auction, we will transfer all lots to our warehouse located at 29-09 37th Avenue in Long<br />
Island City, Queens, New York. All purchased lots should be collected at this location during<br />
our regular weekday business hours. As a courtesy to clients, we will upon request transfer<br />
purchased lots suitable for hand carry back to our premises at 450 West 15th Street, New York,<br />
New York for collection within 30 days following the date of the auction. For each purchased lot<br />
not collected from us at either our warehouse or our auction galleries by such date, Phillips<br />
de Pury & Company will levy an administrative fee of $35, a storage fee of $5 per day and a pro<br />
rated Insurance charge of 0.1% of the purchase price per month.<br />
Loss or Damage<br />
Buyers are reminded that Phillips de Pury & Company accepts liability for loss or damage to<br />
lots for a maximum of five days following the auction.<br />
Transport and Shipping<br />
As a free service for buyers, Phillips de Pury & Company will wrap purchased lots for hand<br />
carry only. We will, at the buyer’s expense, either provide packing, handling and shipping<br />
services or coordinate with shipping agents instructed by the buyer in order to facilitate such<br />
services for property purchased at Phillips de Pury & Company. Please refer to Paragraph 7 of<br />
the Conditions of Sale for more information.<br />
Export and Import Licenses<br />
Before bidding for any property, prospective bidders are advised to make independent inquiries<br />
as to whether a license is required to export the property from the United States or to import<br />
it into another country. It is the buyer’s sole responsibility to comply with all import and export<br />
laws and to obtain any necessary licenses or permits. <strong>The</strong> denial of any required license or<br />
permit or any delay in obtaining such documentation will not justify the cancellation of the sale<br />
or any delay in making full payment for the lot.<br />
Endangered Species<br />
Items made of or incorporating plant or animal material, such as coral, crocodile, ivory,<br />
whalebone, rhinoceros horn or tortoiseshell, irrespective of age, percentage or value, may<br />
require a license or certificate prior to exportation and additional licenses or certificates upon<br />
importation to any foreign country. Please note that the ability to obtain an export license<br />
or certificate does not ensure the ability to obtain an import license or certificate in another<br />
country, and vice versa. We suggest that prospective bidders check with their own government<br />
regarding wildlife import requirements prior to placing a bid. It is the buyer’s sole responsibility<br />
to obtain any necessary export or import licenses or certificates as well as any other required<br />
documentation. <strong>The</strong> denial of any required license or certificate or any delay in obtaining such<br />
documentation will not justify the cancellation of the sale or any delay in making full payment<br />
for the lot.
CONDITIONS OF SALE<br />
<strong>The</strong> Conditions of Sale and Authorship Warranty set forth below govern the relationship<br />
between bidders and buyers, on the one hand, and Phillips de Pury & Company and sellers,<br />
on the other hand. All prospective buyers should read these Conditions of Sale and Authorship<br />
Warranty carefully before bidding.<br />
1 INTRODUCTION<br />
Each lot in this catalogue is offered for sale and sold subject to: (a) the Conditions of Sale<br />
and Authorship Warranty; (b) additional notices and terms printed in other places in this<br />
catalogue, including the Guide for Prospective Buyers, and (c) supplements to this catalogue<br />
or other written material posted by Phillips de Pury & Company in the saleroom, in each case<br />
as amended by any addendum or announcement by the auctioneer prior to the auction.<br />
By bidding at the auction, whether in person, through an agent, by written bid, by telephone<br />
bid or other means, bidders and buyers agree to be bound by these Conditions of Sale, as so<br />
changed or supplemented, and Authorship Warranty.<br />
<strong>The</strong>se Conditions of Sale, as so changed or supplemented, and Authorship Warranty contain<br />
all the terms on which Phillips de Pury & Company and the seller contract with the buyer.<br />
2 PHILLIPS de PURY & COMPANY AS AGENT<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company acts as an agent for the seller, unless otherwise indicated in this<br />
catalogue or at the time of auction. On occasion, Phillips de Pury & Company may own a lot, in<br />
which case we will act in a principal capacity as a consignor, or may have a legal, beneficial or<br />
financial interest in a lot as a secured creditor or otherwise.<br />
(c) Telephone bidders are required to submit bids on the “Telephone Bid Form,” a copy of which<br />
is printed in this catalogue or otherwise available from Phillips de Pury & Company. Telephone<br />
bidding is available for lots whose low pre-sale estimate is at least $1,000. Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company reserves the right to require written confirmation of a successful bid from a<br />
telephone bidder by fax or otherwise immediately after such bid is accepted by the auctioneer.<br />
Telephone bids may be recorded and, by bidding on the telephone, a bidder consents to the<br />
recording of the conversation.<br />
(d) When making a bid, whether in person, by absentee bid or on the telephone, a bidder<br />
accepts personal liability to pay the purchase price, as described more fully in Paragraph 6<br />
(a) below, plus all other applicable charges unless it has been explicitly agreed in writing with<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company before the commencement of the auction that the bidder is acting<br />
as agent on behalf of an identified third party acceptable to Phillips de Pury & Company and<br />
that we will only look to the principal for such payment.<br />
(e) Arranging absentee and telephone bids is a free service provided by Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company to prospective buyers. While we undertake to exercise reasonable care in<br />
undertaking such activity, we cannot accept liability for failure to execute such bids except<br />
where such failure is caused by our willful misconduct.<br />
(f) Employees of Phillips de Pury & Company and our affiliated companies, including the<br />
auctioneer, may bid at the auction by placing absentee bids so long as they do not know the<br />
reserve when submitting their absentee bids and otherwise comply with our employee bidding<br />
procedures.<br />
3 CATALOGUE DESCRIPTIONS AND CONDITION OF PROPERTY<br />
Lots are sold subject to the Authorship Warranty, as described in the catalogue (unless<br />
such description is changed or supplemented, as provided in Paragraph 1 above) and in the<br />
condition that they are in at the time of the sale on the following basis.<br />
5 CONDUCT OF <strong>THE</strong> AUCTION<br />
(a) Unless otherwise indicated by the symbol each lot is offered subject to a reserve, which<br />
•<br />
is the confidential minimum selling price agreed by Phillips de Pury & Company with the seller.<br />
<strong>The</strong> reserve will not exceed the low pre-sale estimate at the time of the auction.<br />
(a) <strong>The</strong> knowledge of Phillips de Pury & Company in relation to each lot is partially dependent<br />
on information provided to us by the seller, and Phillips de Pury & Company is not able to<br />
and does not carry out exhaustive due diligence on each lot. Prospective buyers acknowledge<br />
this fact and accept responsibility for carrying out inspections and investigations to satisfy<br />
themselves as to the lots in which they may be interested. Notwithstanding the foregoing,<br />
we shall exercise such reasonable care when making express statements in catalogue<br />
descriptions or condition reports as is consistent with our role as auctioneer of lots in this sale<br />
and in light of (i) the information provided to us by the seller, (ii) scholarship and technical<br />
knowledge and (iii) the generally accepted opinions of relevant experts, in each case at the<br />
time any such express statement is made.<br />
(b) Each lot offered for sale at Phillips de Pury & Company is available for inspection by<br />
prospective buyers prior to the auction. Phillips de Pury & Company accepts bids on lots on<br />
the basis that bidders (and independent experts on their behalf, to the extent appropriate given<br />
the nature and value of the lot and the bidder’s own expertise) have fully inspected the lot prior<br />
to bidding and have satisfied themselves as to both the condition of the lot and the accuracy<br />
of its description.<br />
(c) Prospective buyers acknowledge that many lots are of an age and type which means that<br />
they are not in perfect condition. As a courtesy to clients, Phillips de Pury & Company may<br />
prepare and provide condition reports to assist prospective buyers when they are inspecting<br />
lots. Catalogue descriptions and condition reports may make reference to particular<br />
imperfections of a lot, but bidders should note that lots may have other faults not expressly<br />
referred to in the catalogue or condition report. All dimensions are approximate. Illustrations<br />
are for identification purposes only and cannot be used as precise indications of size or to<br />
convey full information as to the actual condition of lots.<br />
(d) Information provided to prospective buyers in respect of any lot, including any pre-sale<br />
estimate, whether written or oral, and information in any catalogue, condition or other report,<br />
commentary or valuation, is not a representation of fact but rather a statement of opinion held<br />
by Phillips de Pury & Company. Any pre-sale estimate may not be relied on as a prediction of<br />
the selling price or value of the lot and may be revised from time to time by Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company in our absolute discretion. Neither Phillips de Pury & Company nor any of our<br />
affiliated companies shall be liable for any difference between the pre-sale estimates for any<br />
lot and the actual price achieved at auction or upon resale.<br />
4 BIDDING AT AUCTION<br />
(a) Phillips de Pury & Company has absolute discretion to refuse admission to the auction or<br />
participation in the sale. All bidders must register for a paddle prior to bidding, supplying such<br />
information and references as required by Phillips de Pury & Company.<br />
(b) As a convenience to bidders who cannot attend the auction in person, Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company may, if so instructed by the bidder, execute written absentee bids on a bidder’s<br />
behalf. Absentee bidders are required to submit bids on the “Absentee Bid Form,” a copy of<br />
which is printed in this catalogue or otherwise available from Phillips de Pury & Company.<br />
Bids must be placed in the currency of the sale. <strong>The</strong> bidder must clearly indicate the maximum<br />
amount he or she intends to bid, excluding the buyer’s premium and any applicable sales or<br />
use taxes. <strong>The</strong> auctioneer will not accept an instruction to execute an absentee bid which does<br />
not indicate such maximum bid. Our staff will attempt to execute an absentee bid at the lowest<br />
possible price taking into account the reserve and other bidders. Any absentee bid must be<br />
received at least 24 hours in advance of the sale. In the event of identical bids, the earliest bid<br />
received will take precedence.<br />
(b)<strong>The</strong> auctioneer has discretion at any time to refuse any bid, withdraw any lot, re-offer a<br />
lot for sale (including after the fall of the hammer) if he or she believes there may be error or<br />
dispute and take such other action as he or she deems reasonably appropriate.<br />
(c) <strong>The</strong> auctioneer will commence and advance the bidding at levels and in increments he or<br />
she considers appropriate. In order to protect the reserve on any lot, the auctioneer may place<br />
one or more bids on behalf of the seller up to the reserve without indicating he or she is doing<br />
so, either by placing consecutive bids or bids in response to other bidders.<br />
(d) <strong>The</strong> sale will be conducted in US dollars and payment is due in US dollars. For the<br />
benefit of international clients, pre-sale estimates in the auction catalogue may be shown in<br />
pounds sterling and/or euros and, if so, will reflect approximate exchange rates. Accordingly,<br />
estimates in pounds sterling or euros should be treated only as a guide.<br />
(e) Subject to the auctioneer’s reasonable discretion, the highest bidder accepted by the<br />
auctioneer will be the buyer and the striking of the hammer marks the acceptance of the<br />
highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the seller and the buyer. Risk and<br />
responsibility for the lot passes to the buyer as set forth in Paragraph 7 below.<br />
(f) If a lot is not sold, the auctioneer will announce that it has been “passed,” “withdrawn,”<br />
“returned to owner” or “bought-in.”<br />
(g) Any post-auction sale of lots offered at auction shall incorporate these Conditions of Sale<br />
and Authorship Warranty as if sold in the auction.<br />
6 PURCHASE PRICE AND PAYMENT<br />
(a) <strong>The</strong> buyer agrees to pay us, in addition to the hammer price of the lot, the buyer’s premium<br />
and any applicable sales tax (the “Purchase Price”). <strong>The</strong> buyer’s premium is 25% of the hammer<br />
price up to and including $50,000, 20% of the portion of the hammer price above $50,000 up to<br />
and including $1,000,000 and 12% of the portion of the hammer price above $1,000,000.<br />
(b) Sales tax, use tax and excise and other taxes are payable in accordance with applicable law.<br />
All prices, fees, charges and expenses set out in these Conditions of Sale are quoted exclusive<br />
of applicable taxes. Phillips de Pury & Company will only accept valid resale certificates from<br />
US dealers as proof of exemption from sales tax. All foreign buyers should contact the Client<br />
Accounting Department about tax matters.<br />
(c) Unless otherwise agreed, a buyer is required to pay for a purchased lot immediately<br />
following the auction regardless of any intention to obtain an export or import license or other<br />
permit for such lot. Payments must be made by the invoiced party in US dollars either by cash,<br />
check drawn on a US bank or wire transfer, as follows:<br />
(i) Phillips de Pury & Company will accept payment in cash provided that the total amount paid<br />
in cash or cash equivalents does not exceed US$10,000. Buyers paying in cash should do so<br />
in person at our Client Accounting Desk at 450 West 15th Street, Third Floor, during regular<br />
weekday business hours.<br />
(ii) Personal checks and banker’s drafts are accepted if drawn on a US bank and the buyer<br />
provides to us acceptable government issued identification. Checks and banker’s drafts<br />
should be made payable to “Phillips de Pury & Company LLC.” If payment is sent by mail,<br />
please send the check or banker’s draft to the attention of the Client Accounting Department<br />
at 450 West 15th Street, New York, NY 10011 and make sure that the sale and lot number is<br />
written on the check. Checks or banker’s drafts drawn by third parties will not be accepted.
(iii) Payment by wire transfer may be sent directly to Phillips de Pury & Company. Bank<br />
transfer details:<br />
Citibank<br />
322 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10011<br />
SWIFT Code: CITIUS33<br />
ABA Routing: 021 000 089<br />
For the account of Phillips de Pury & Company LLC<br />
Account no.: 58347736<br />
Please reference the relevant sale and lot number.<br />
(d) Title in a purchased lot will not pass until Phillips de Pury & Company has received the<br />
Purchase Price for that lot in cleared funds. Phillips de Pury & Company is not obliged to<br />
release a lot to the buyer until title in the lot has passed and appropriate identification has<br />
been provided, and any earlier release does not affect the passing of title or the buyer’s<br />
unconditional obligation to pay the Purchase Price.<br />
7 <strong>COLLECTION</strong> OF PROPERTY<br />
(a) Phillips de Pury & Company will not release a lot to the buyer until we have received<br />
payment of its Purchase Price in full in cleared funds, the buyer has paid all outstanding<br />
amounts due to Phillips de Pury & Company or any of our affiliated companies, including<br />
any charges payable pursuant to Paragraph 8 (a) below, and the buyer has satisfied such<br />
other terms as we in our sole discretion shall require, including completing any anti-money<br />
laundering or anti-terrorism financing checks. As soon as a buyer has satisfied all of the<br />
foregoing conditions, and no later than five days after the conclusion of the auction, he or she<br />
should contact our Shipping Department at +1 212 940 1372 or +1 212 940 1373 to arrange for<br />
collection of purchased property.<br />
(b) Promptly after the auction, we will transfer all lots to our warehouse located at 29-09 37th<br />
Avenue in Long Island City, Queens, New York. All purchased lots should be collected at this<br />
location during our regular weekday business hours. As a courtesy to clients, Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company will upon request transfer on a bi-weekly basis purchased lots suitable for hand<br />
carry back to our premises at 450 West 15th Street, New York, New York for collection within<br />
30 days following the date of the auction. Purchased lots are at the buyer’s risk, including the<br />
responsibility for insurance, from the earlier to occur of (i) the date of collection or (ii) five<br />
days after the auction. Until risk passes, Phillips de Pury & Company will compensate the<br />
buyer for any loss or damage to a purchased lot up to a maximum of the Purchase Price paid,<br />
subject to our usual exclusions for loss or damage to property.<br />
(c) As a courtesy to clients, Phillips de Pury & Company will, without charge, wrap purchased<br />
lots for hand carry only. We will, at the buyer’s expense, either provide packing, handling,<br />
insurance and shipping services or coordinate with shipping agents instructed by the buyer in<br />
order to facilitate such services for property bought at Phillips de Pury & Company. Any such<br />
instruction, whether or not made at our recommendation, is entirely at the buyer’s risk and<br />
responsibility, and we will not be liable for acts or omissions of third party packers or shippers.<br />
Third party shippers should contact us by telephone at +1 212 940 1376 or by fax at +1 212 924<br />
6477 at least 24 hours in advance of collection in order to schedule pickup.<br />
(d) Phillips de Pury & Company will require presentation of government issued identification<br />
prior to release of a lot to the buyer or the buyer’s authorized representative.<br />
8 FAILURE TO COLLECT PURCHASES<br />
(a) If the buyer pays the Purchase Price but fails to collect a purchased lot within 30 days of the<br />
auction, the buyer will incur a late collection fee of $35, storage charges of $5 per day and pro<br />
rated insurance charges of .1% of the Purchase Price per month on each uncollected lot.<br />
(b) If a purchased lot is paid for but not collected within six months of the auction, the buyer<br />
authorizes Phillips de Pury & Company, upon notice, to arrange a resale of the item by auction<br />
or private sale, with estimates and a reserve set at Phillips de Pury & Company’s reasonable<br />
discretion. <strong>The</strong> proceeds of such sale will be applied to pay for storage charges and any other<br />
outstanding costs and expenses owed by the buyer to Phillips de Pury & Company or our<br />
affiliated companies and the remainder will be forfeited unless collected by the buyer within<br />
two years of the original auction.<br />
9 REMEDIES FOR NON-PAYMENT<br />
(a) Without prejudice to any rights the seller may have, if the buyer without prior agreement<br />
fails to make payment of the Purchase Price for a lot in cleared funds within five days of the<br />
auction, Phillips de Pury & Company may in our sole discretion exercise one or more of the<br />
following remedies: (i) store the lot at Phillips de Pury & Company’s premises or elsewhere at<br />
the buyer’s sole risk and expense at the same rates as set forth in Paragraph 8 (a) above; (ii)<br />
cancel the sale of the lot, retaining any partial payment of the Purchase Price as liquidated<br />
damages; (iii) reject future bids from the buyer or render such bids subject to payment of a<br />
deposit; (iv) charge interest at 12% per annum from the date payment became due until the<br />
date the Purchase Price is received in cleared funds; (v) subject to notification of the buyer,<br />
exercise a lien over any of the buyer’s property which is in the possession of Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company and instruct our affiliated companies to exercise a lien over any of the buyer’s<br />
property which is in their possession and, in each case, no earlier than 30 days from the date<br />
of such notice, arrange the sale of such property and apply the proceeds to the amount owed<br />
to Phillips de Pury & Company or any of our affiliated companies after the deduction from sale<br />
proceeds of our standard vendor’s commission and all sale-related expenses; (vi) resell the lot<br />
by auction or private sale, with estimates and a reserve set at Phillips de Pury & Company’s<br />
reasonable discretion, it being understood that in the event such resale is for less than the<br />
original hammer price and buyer’s premium for that lot, the buyer will remain liable for the<br />
shortfall together with all costs incurred in such resale; (vii) commence legal proceedings to<br />
recover the hammer price and buyer’s premium for that lot, together with interest and the costs<br />
of such proceedings; or (viii) release the name and address of the buyer to the seller to enable<br />
the seller to commence legal proceedings to recover the amounts due and legal costs.<br />
(b) As security to us for full payment by the buyer of all outstanding amounts due to Phillips<br />
de Pury & Company and our affiliated companies, Phillips de Pury & Company retains, and<br />
the buyer grants to us, a security interest in each lot purchased at auction by the buyer and in<br />
any other property or money of the buyer in, or coming into, our possession or the possession<br />
of one of our affiliated companies. We may apply such money or deal with such property as<br />
the Uniform Commercial Code or other applicable law permits a secured creditor to do. In the<br />
event that we exercise a lien over property in our possession because the buyer is in default<br />
to one of our affiliated companies, we will so notify the buyer. Our security interest in any<br />
individual lot will terminate upon actual delivery of the lot to the buyer or the buyer’s agent.<br />
(c) In the event the buyer is in default of payment to any of our affiliated companies, the buyer<br />
also irrevocably authorizes Phillips de Pury & Company to pledge the buyer’s property in our<br />
possession by actual or constructive delivery to our affiliated company as security for the<br />
payment of any outstanding amount due. Phillips de Pury & Company will notify the buyer if the<br />
buyer’s property has been delivered to an affiliated company by way of pledge.<br />
10 Rescission by Phillips de Pury & Company<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company shall have the right, but not the obligation, to rescind a sale<br />
without notice to the buyer if we reasonably believe that there is a material breach of the<br />
seller’s representations and warranties or the Authorship Warranty or an adverse claim is<br />
made by a third party. Upon notice of Phillips de Pury & Company’s election to rescind the<br />
sale, the buyer will promptly return the lot to Phillips de Pury & Company, and we will then<br />
refund the Purchase Price paid to us. As described more fully in Paragraph 13 below, the<br />
refund shall constitute the sole remedy and recourse of the buyer against Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company and the seller with respect to such rescinded sale..<br />
11 Export, Import and Endangered Species Licenses and Permits<br />
Before bidding for any property, prospective buyers are advised to make their own inquiries<br />
as to whether a license is required to export a lot from the United States or to import it into<br />
another country. Prospective buyers are advised that some countries prohibit the import<br />
of property made of or incorporating plant or animal material, such as coral, crocodile,<br />
ivory, whalebone, rhinoceros horn or tortoiseshell, irrespective of age, percentage or value.<br />
Accordingly, prior to bidding, prospective buyers considering export of purchased lots should<br />
familiarize themselves with relevant export and import regulations of the countries concerned.<br />
It is solely the buyer’s responsibility to comply with these laws and to obtain any necessary<br />
export, import and endangered species licenses or permits. Failure to obtain a license or<br />
permit or delay in so doing will not justify the cancellation of the sale or any delay in making<br />
full payment for the lot.<br />
12 Client Information<br />
In connection with the management and operation of our business and the marketing and<br />
supply of auction related services, or as required by law, we may ask clients to provide<br />
personal information about themselves or obtain information about clients from third parties<br />
(e.g., credit information). If clients provide us with information that is defined by law as<br />
“sensitive,” they agree that Phillips de Pury & Company and our affiliated companies may use<br />
it for the above purposes. Phillips de Pury & Company and our affiliated companies will not use<br />
or process sensitive information for any other purpose without the client’s express consent. If<br />
you would like further information on our policies on personal data or wish to make corrections<br />
to your information, please contact us at +1 212 940 1228. If you would prefer not to receive<br />
details of future events please call the above number.<br />
13 Limitation of Liability<br />
(a) Subject to subparagraph (e) below, the total liability of Phillips de Pury & Company, our<br />
affiliated companies and the seller to the buyer in connection with the sale of a lot shall be<br />
limited to the Purchase Price actually paid by the buyer for the lot.<br />
(b) Except as otherwise provided in this Paragraph 13, none of Phillips de Pury & Company, any<br />
of our affiliated companies or the seller (i) is liable for any errors or omissions, whether orally<br />
or in writing, in information provided to prospective buyers by Phillips de Pury & Company or<br />
any of our affiliated companies or (ii) accepts responsibility to any bidder in respect of acts<br />
or omissions, whether negligent or otherwise, by Phillips de Pury & Company or any of our<br />
affiliated companies in connection with the conduct of the auction or for any other matter<br />
relating to the sale of any lot.<br />
(c) All warranties other than the Authorship Warranty, express or implied, including any<br />
warranty of satisfactory quality and fitness for purpose, are specifically excluded by Phillips de<br />
Pury & Company, our affiliated companies and the seller to the fullest extent permitted by law.<br />
(d) Subject to subparagraph (e) below, none of Phillips de Pury & Company, any of our<br />
affiliated companies or the seller shall be liable to the buyer for any loss or damage beyond<br />
the refund of the Purchase Price referred to in subparagraph (a) above, whether such loss<br />
or damage is characterized as direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, or for the<br />
payment of interest on the Purchase Price to the fullest extent permitted by law.<br />
(e) No provision in these Conditions of Sale shall be deemed to exclude or limit the liability of<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company or any of our affiliated companies to the buyer in respect of any<br />
fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation made by any of us or in respect of death or personal<br />
injury caused by our negligent acts or omissions.
AUTHORSHIP WARRANTY<br />
14 Copyright<br />
<strong>The</strong> copyright in all images, illustrations and written materials produced by or for Phillips de<br />
Pury & Company relating to a lot, including the contents of this catalogue, is and shall remain<br />
at all times the property of Phillips de Pury & Company and such images and materials may<br />
not be used by the buyer or any other party without our prior written consent. Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company and the seller make no representations or warranties that the buyer of a lot will<br />
acquire any copyright or other reproduction rights in it.<br />
15 General<br />
(a) <strong>The</strong>se Conditions of Sale, as changed or supplemented as provided in Paragraph 1 above,<br />
and Authorship Warranty set out the entire agreement between the parties with respect to the<br />
transactions contemplated herein and supersede all prior and contemporaneous written, oral<br />
or implied understandings, representations and agreements.<br />
(b) Notices to Phillips de Pury & Company shall be in writing and addressed to the department<br />
in charge of the sale, quoting the reference number specified at the beginning of the sale<br />
catalogue. Notices to clients shall be addressed to the last address notified by them in writing<br />
to Phillips de Pury & Company.<br />
(c) <strong>The</strong>se Conditions of Sale are not assignable by any buyer without our prior written consent<br />
but are binding on the buyer’s successors, assigns and representatives.<br />
(d) Should any provision of these Conditions of Sale be held void, invalid or unenforceable<br />
for any reason, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect. No failure by any<br />
party to exercise, nor any delay in exercising, any right or remedy under these Conditions of<br />
Sale shall act as a waiver or release thereof in whole or in part.<br />
Phillips de Pury & Company warrants the authorship of property in this auction catalogue for a<br />
period of five years from date of sale by Phillips de Pury & Company, subject to the exclusions<br />
and limitations set forth below.<br />
(a) Phillips de Pury & Company gives this Authorship Warranty only to the original buyer of<br />
record (i.e., the registered successful bidder) of any lot. This Authorship Warranty does not<br />
extend to (i) subsequent owners of the property, including purchasers or recipients by way of<br />
gift from the original buyer, heirs, successors, beneficiaries and assigns; (ii) property created<br />
prior to 1870, unless the property is determined to be counterfeit (defined as a forgery made<br />
less than 50 years ago with an intent to deceive) and has a value at the date of the claim under<br />
this warranty which is materially less than the Purchase Price paid; (iii) property where the<br />
description in the catalogue states that there is a conflict of opinion on the authorship of the<br />
property; (iv) property where our attribution of authorship was on the date of sale consistent<br />
with the generally accepted opinions of specialists, scholars or other experts; or (v) property<br />
whose description or dating is proved inaccurate by means of scientific methods or tests not<br />
generally accepted for use at the time of the publication of the catalogue or which were at such<br />
time deemed unreasonably expensive or impractical to use.<br />
(b) In any claim for breach of the Authorship Warranty, Phillips de Pury & Company reserves<br />
the right, as a condition to rescinding any sale under this warranty, to require the buyer to<br />
provide to us at the buyer’s expense the written opinions of two recognized experts approved in<br />
advance by Phillips de Pury & Company. We shall not be bound by any expert report produced<br />
by the buyer and reserve the right to consult our own experts at our expense. If Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company agrees to rescind a sale under the Authorship Warranty, we shall refund to the<br />
buyer the reasonable costs charged by the experts commissioned by the buyer and approved in<br />
advance by us.<br />
16 Law and Jurisdiction<br />
(a) <strong>The</strong> rights and obligations of the parties with respect to these Conditions of Sale and<br />
Authorship Warranty, the conduct of the auction and any matters related to any of the<br />
foregoing shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with laws of the State of New<br />
York, excluding its conflicts of law rules.<br />
(b) Phillips de Pury & Company, all bidders and all sellers agree to the exclusive jurisdiction<br />
of the (i) state courts of the State of New York located in New York City and (ii) the federal<br />
courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York to settle all disputes arising in<br />
connection with all aspects of all matters or transactions to which these Conditions of Sale<br />
and Authorship Warranty relate or apply.<br />
(c) All bidders and sellers irrevocably consent to service of process or any other documents in<br />
connection with proceedings in any court by facsimile transmission, personal service, delivery<br />
by mail or in any other manner permitted by New York law or the law of the place of service, at<br />
the last address of the bidder or seller known to Phillips de Pury & Company.<br />
(c) Subject to the exclusions set forth in subparagraph (a) above, the buyer may bring a claim<br />
for breach of the Authorship Warranty provided that (i) he or she has notified Phillips de Pury<br />
& Company in writing within three months of receiving any information which causes the<br />
buyer to question the authorship of the lot, specifying the auction in which the property was<br />
included, the lot number in the auction catalogue and the reasons why the authorship of the<br />
lot is being questioned and (ii) the buyer returns the lot to Phillips de Pury & Company in the<br />
same condition as at the time of its auction and is able to transfer good and marketable title in<br />
the lot free from any third party claim arising after the date of the auction.<br />
(d) <strong>The</strong> buyer understands and agrees that the exclusive remedy for any breach of the<br />
Authorship Warranty shall be rescission of the sale and refund of the original Purchase Price<br />
paid. This remedy shall constitute the sole remedy and recourse of the buyer against Phillips<br />
de Pury & Company, any of our affiliated companies and the seller and is in lieu of any other<br />
remedy available as a matter of law. This means that none of Phillips de Pury & Company, any<br />
of our affiliated companies or the seller shall be liable for loss or damage beyond the remedy<br />
expressly provided in this Authorship Warranty, whether such loss or damage is characterized<br />
as direct, indirect, special, incidental or consequential, or for the payment of interest on the<br />
original Purchase Price.
phillips de pury & company<br />
Chairman<br />
Simon de Pury<br />
Chief Executive Officer<br />
Bernd Runge<br />
Senior Directors<br />
Michael McGinnis<br />
Dr. Michaela de Pury<br />
Directors<br />
Aileen Agopian<br />
Sean Cleary<br />
Finn Dombernowsky<br />
Patty Hambrecht<br />
Alexander Payne<br />
Rodman Primack<br />
Olivier Vrankenne<br />
Advisory Board<br />
Maria Bell<br />
Janna Bullock<br />
Lisa Eisner<br />
Lapo Elkann<br />
Ben Elliot<br />
Lady Elena Foster<br />
H.I.H. Francesca von Habsburg<br />
Marc Jacobs<br />
Ernest Mourmans<br />
Aby Rosen<br />
Christiane zu Salm<br />
Juergen Teller<br />
Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis<br />
Jean Michel Wilmotte<br />
Anita Zabludowicz<br />
International Specialists<br />
Berlin Shirin Kranz, Specialist, Contemporary Art +49 30 880 018 42<br />
Brussels Olivier Vrankenne, International Senior Specialist +32 486 43 43 44<br />
Buenos Aires Brooke de Ocampo, International Specialist, Contemporary Art +44 777 551 7060<br />
Geneva Katie Kennedy Perez, Specialist, Contemporary Art +41 22 906 8000<br />
London Dr. Michaela de Pury, International Senior Director, Contemporary Art +49 17 289 73611<br />
Los Angeles Maya McLaughlin, Specialist, Contemporary Art +1 323 791 1771<br />
Milan Laura Garbarino, International Specialist, Contemporary Art +39 339 478 9671<br />
Moscow Svetlana Marich, Specialist, Contemporary Art +7 495 225 88 22<br />
Shanghai/Beijing Jeremy Wingfield, International Specialist, Contemporary Art +852 6895 1805<br />
Singapore Chin-Chin Yap, Specialist, Contemporary Art +1 347 784 6916<br />
Zurich/Israel Fiona Biberstein, International Specialist, Contemporary Art +41 43 344 86 32<br />
General Counsel<br />
Patricia G. Hambrecht<br />
Managing Directors<br />
Finn Dombernowsky, London/Europe<br />
Sean Cleary, New York (Interim)<br />
WORLDWIDE OFFICES<br />
NEW YORK<br />
450 West 15 Street, New York, NY 10011, USA<br />
tel +1 212 940 1200 fax +1 212 924 5403<br />
PARIS<br />
15 rue de la Paix, 75002 Paris, France<br />
tel +33 1 42 78 67 77 fax +33 1 42 78 23 07<br />
GENEVA<br />
23 quai des Bergues, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland<br />
tel +41 22 906 80 00 fax +41 22 906 80 01<br />
LONDON<br />
Howick Place, London SW1P 1BB, United Kingdom<br />
tel +44 20 7318 4010 fax +44 20 7318 4011<br />
BERLIN<br />
Auguststrasse 19, 10117 Berlin, Germany<br />
tel +49 30 8800 1842 fax +49 30 8800 1843
SPECIALISTs AND DEPARTMENTS<br />
CONTEMPORARY ART<br />
Michael McGinnis, Senior Director +1 212 940 1254<br />
and Worldwide Head, Contemporary Art<br />
New York<br />
Aileen Agopian, New York Director +1 212 940 1255<br />
Roxana Bruno +1 212 940 1229<br />
Sarah Mudge, Head of Part II +1 212 940 1259<br />
Rodman Primack +1 212 940 1256<br />
Jean-Michel Placent +1 212 940 1263<br />
Timothy Malyk +1 212 940 1258<br />
Jeremy Goldsmith +1 212 940 1253<br />
Sara Davidson +1 212 940 1262<br />
Maria Bueno +1 212 940 1261<br />
Alexandra Leive +1 212 940 1252<br />
Peter Flores +1 212 940 1223<br />
(Uli) Zhiheng Huang +1 212 940 1288<br />
Sarah Stein-Sapir +1 212 940 1303<br />
(Administrative Assistant to Michael McGinnis)<br />
LONdON<br />
Peter Sumner, Head of Sales, London +44 20 7318 4063<br />
Henry Allsopp +44 20 7318 4060<br />
Laetitia Catoir +44 20 7318 4064<br />
Judith Hess +44 20 7318 4075<br />
Leonie Moschner +44 20 7318 4074<br />
Ivgenia Naiman +44 20 7318 4071<br />
Sarah Buchwald +44 20 7318 4085<br />
Catherine Higgs +44 20 7318 4089<br />
George O’Dell +44 20 7318 4093<br />
Raphael Lepine +44 20 7318 4078<br />
Tanya Tikhnenko +44 20 7318 4065<br />
Phillippa Willison +44 20 7318 4070<br />
PARIS<br />
Edouard de Moussac + 33 1 42 78 67 77<br />
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY EDITIONS<br />
New York<br />
Cary Leibowitz, Worldwide Co-Director +1 212 940 1222<br />
Kelly Troester, Worldwide Co-Director +1 212 940 1221<br />
Jannah Greenblatt +1 212 940 1332<br />
Joy Deibert +1 212 940 1333<br />
PHOTOGRAPHS<br />
New York<br />
Vanessa Kramer, New York Director +1 212 940 1243<br />
Shlomi Rabi +1 212 940 1246<br />
Caroline Shea +1 212 940 1247<br />
Carol Ehlers, Consultant +1 212 940 1245<br />
Sarah Krueger +1 212 940 1245<br />
LONDON<br />
Lou Proud +44 20 7318 4018<br />
Sebastien Montabonel +44 20 7318 4025<br />
Alexandra Bibby +44 20 7318 4087<br />
Rita Almeida Freitas +44 20 7318 4087<br />
Helen Hayman +44 20 7318 4092<br />
Emma Lewis +44 20 7318 4092<br />
JEWELRY<br />
Nazgol Jahan, Worldwide Director +1 212 940 1283<br />
New York<br />
Carmela Manoli +1 212 940 1302<br />
Emily Bangert +1 212 940 1365<br />
Heather Zises +1 212 940 1290<br />
GENEVA<br />
Carolin Bulgari +41 22 906 80 00<br />
Veronica Lota +41 22 906 80 00<br />
DESIGN<br />
Alexander Payne, Worldwide Director +44 20 7318 4052<br />
LONDON<br />
Lane McLean +44 20 7318 4032<br />
New York<br />
Alex Heminway, New York Director +1 212 940 1269<br />
Tara DeWitt +1 212 940 1265<br />
Meaghan Roddy +1 212 940 1266<br />
Marcus Tremonto +1 212 940 1268<br />
Alexandra Gilbert +1 212 940 1268<br />
LONDON<br />
Domenico Raimondo +44 20 7318 4016<br />
Ellen Stelter +44 20 7318 4021<br />
Ben Williams +44 20 7318 4027<br />
Marcus McDonald +44 20 7318 4014<br />
Marine Hartogs +44 20 7318 4021<br />
PARIS<br />
Johanna Frydman +33 1 42 78 67 77<br />
<strong>THE</strong>ME SALES<br />
New York<br />
Corey Barr, New York Manager +1 212 940 1234<br />
Steve Agin, Consultant +1 908 475 1796<br />
Anne Huntington +1 212 940 1210<br />
Stephanie Max +1 212 940 1301<br />
LONDON<br />
Tobias Sirtl, London Manager +44 20 7318 4095<br />
Henry Highley +44 20 7318 4061<br />
Arianna Jacobs +44 20 7318 4054<br />
Siobhan O’Connor +44 20 7318 4040<br />
Private sales<br />
New York<br />
Andrea Hill +1 212 940 1238<br />
editorial<br />
Karen Wright, Senior Editor<br />
Iggy Cortez, Assistant to the Editor<br />
art and production<br />
Fiona Hayes, Art Director<br />
NEW YORK<br />
Andrea Koronkiewicz, Studio Manager<br />
Kelly Sohngen, Graphic Designer<br />
Orlann Capazorio, US Production Manager<br />
Marketing<br />
NEW YORK<br />
Trish Walsh, Marketing Manager<br />
London<br />
Mark Hudson, Senior Designer<br />
Andrew Lindesay, Sub-Editor<br />
Tom Radcliffe, UK Production Manager
SALE INFORMATION<br />
Contemporary art<br />
senior director and Worldwide head<br />
Michael McGinnis +1 212 940 1254<br />
new york Director<br />
Aileen Agopian +1 212 940 1255<br />
Specialists<br />
Roxana Bruno +1 212 940 1229<br />
Sarah Mudge Head of Part II +1 212 940 1259<br />
Rodman Primack +1 212 940 1256<br />
Jean-Michel Placent +1 212 940 1263<br />
Timothy Malyk +1 212 940 1258<br />
Jeremy Goldsmith +1 212 940 1253<br />
Dr. Michaela de Pury Berlin +49 17 289 73611<br />
Olivier Vrankenne Brussels & Paris +32 486 43 43 44<br />
Peter Sumner Head of Day Sales London +44 20 7318 4063<br />
Henry Allsopp London +44 20 7318 4060<br />
Laetitia Catoir London +44 20 7318 4064<br />
Judith Hess London +44 20 7318 4705<br />
Leonie Moschner London +44 7815 050 461<br />
Ivgenia Naiman London +44 20 7318 4071<br />
Brooke de Ocampo London +44 777 551 7060<br />
Fiona Biberstein Zurich +41 43 344 86 32<br />
Katie Kennedy Perez Geneva +41 22 906 8000<br />
Svetlana Marich Moscow +7 495 225 88 22<br />
Maya McLaughlin Los Angeles +1 323 791 1771<br />
Chin-Chin Yap Hong Kong/Singapore +1 212 940 1250<br />
Jeremy Wingfield Shanghai/Beijing +86 135 0118 2804<br />
Cataloguer Part I<br />
Sara Davidson +1 212 940 1262<br />
Cataloguer Part II<br />
Alexandra Leive +1 212 940 1252<br />
Auction<br />
<strong>The</strong> Halsey Minor Collection, Thursday 13 May 2010 at 7pm<br />
and Friday 14 May 2010 at 10am<br />
Viewing<br />
Saturday 1 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Sunday 2 May, 12pm – 6pm<br />
Monday 3 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Tuesday 4 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Wednesday 5 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Thursday 6 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Friday 7 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Saturday 8 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Sunday 9 May, 12pm – 6pm<br />
Monday 10 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Tuesday 11 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Wednesday 12 May, 10am – 6pm<br />
Thursday 13 May, 10am – 12pm<br />
Viewing & Auction Location<br />
450 West 15 Street New York NY 10011<br />
Sale Designation<br />
In sending written bids or making enquiries please refer to this<br />
sale as NY010410 or <strong>The</strong> Halsey Minor Collection.<br />
Photography<br />
Morten Smidt, Kent Pell, Clint Blowers<br />
select design essays<br />
Alex Heminway<br />
Catalogues<br />
Leslie Pitts +1 212 940 1240<br />
$60/£30 at the Gallery<br />
catalogues@phillipsdepury.com<br />
Administrator Part I<br />
Peter Flores +1 212 940 1223<br />
Administrator Part II<br />
(Uli) Zhiheng Huang +1 212 940 1288<br />
Administrative assistant to michael mcginnis<br />
Sarah Stein-Sapir +1 212 940 1303<br />
Property Managers<br />
Jeffrey Rausch +1 212 940 1367<br />
Barrett Langlinais +1 212 940 1362<br />
Absentee and Telephone Bids<br />
Rebecca Lynn, Manager +1 212 940 1228 +1 212 924 1749 fax<br />
Maureen Morrison, Bid Clerk +1 212 940 1228<br />
bids@phillipsdepury.com<br />
client accounting<br />
Sylvia Leitao +1 212 940 1231<br />
Buyers Accounts<br />
Nicole Rodriguez +1 212 940 1235<br />
Seller Accounts<br />
Barbara Doupal +1 212 940 1232<br />
Nadia Somwaru +1 212 940 1280<br />
DESIGN<br />
Client Services<br />
+1 212 940 1200<br />
Worldwide Director<br />
Alexander Payne London +44 20 7318 4052<br />
international CONSULTANT<br />
Marcus Tremonto +1 212 940 1268<br />
Shipping<br />
Beth Petriello +1 212 940 1373<br />
Jennifer Brennan +1 212 940 1372<br />
new york Director<br />
Alex Heminway +1 212 940 1269<br />
Specialists<br />
Tara DeWitt +1 212 940 1265<br />
Meaghan Roddy +1 212 940 1266<br />
Ben Williams London +44 20 7318 4027<br />
Domenico Raimondo London +44 20 7318 4026<br />
Ellen Stelter London +44 20 7318 4021<br />
Johanna Frydman Paris +33 1 42 78 67 77<br />
cataloguer<br />
Marcus McDonald London +44 20 7318 4014<br />
Administrators<br />
Alexandra Gilbert +1 212 940 1268<br />
Marine Hartogs London +44 20 7318 4021<br />
Property Managers<br />
Ferran Martin +1 212 940 1364<br />
Oliver Gottschalk London +44 20 7318 4038<br />
Front Cover Richard Prince, Nurse in Hollywood #4, 2004, Lot 8 (detail)<br />
Back Cover Marc Newson, Prototype “Lockheed Lounge,” 1988, Lot 4
w w w.phillipsdepu ry.co m