Beschreibung:

TOM WESSELMANN (1931-2004)Still Life with Blue Jar and Smoking Cigarette (flat) 1980-1982 titled, dated 1981 and stamped with the artist's name on the stretcher; titled, dated 1981 and inscribed by Claire Wesselmann The Estate of Tom Wesselmann Claire Wesselmann, Executor on the overlap; titled, dated 1981 and stamped with the artist's name on the backing board oil on canvas 145 by 275.6 cm. 57 1/16 by 108 1/2 in. FootnotesProvenance The Tom Wesselmann Estate, New York Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York Private Collection, US Private Collection, Japan Sale: Phillips, New York, Contemporary Art Day Sale, 14 May 2015, Lot 56 Private Collection, Turkey Acquired directly from the above by the present owner Exhibited New York, Sidney Janis Gallery, Recent Work by Tom Wesselmann 1982, no. 4 Tokyo, Odakyu Grand Gallery; Osaka, Daimaru Museum; Funabashi, Funabashi Seibu Museum of Art; Yokohama, Sogo Museum of Art, Pop Art USA - UK: American and British artists of the 60s in the 80s, 1987, p. 79, no. 32, illustrated in colour Literature Ara H. Merjian Ed., Tom Wesselmann Standing Still Lifes, New York 2018, p. 123, illustrated in colour Pop Art represents the zenith of Modernist ambition. It was perhaps the pièce de resistance that captured the swan song of canonical art practice, refracting the cultural mores of its day and challenging the legacy of its artistic forebears. It called upon the masses as the arbiters of art and projected a vision of post-war life that was polished, sexy, and desirable. Tom Wesselmann rebuffed his being labelled a Pop artist. He regarded his work as being one-step removed from cultural criticism that he viewed as Pop's principal objective, taking a more historical approach that situated him as the heir apparent to the likes of Edouard Manet and Henri Matisse And yet, amongst those who pioneered this revolutionary movement, Andy Warhol Roy Lichtenstein and James Rosenquist included, Wesselmann arguably left the most profound and complete legacy that brought timeless, exotic visions of twentieth century Americana to life in the most lavish and monumental canvases. The painting presented here is no exception: Wesselmann's Still Life with Blue Jar and Smoking Cigarette (flat) from 1981. Capturing a fleeting mise-en-scène – possibly atop a bedside or vanity table – there is a serenity and seductive charm to the folded whisp of cigarette smoke that burns unattended. It is a work that is quietly romantic, yet grand in scale, and a masterpiece of Wesselmann's mature paintings that ooze confidence across shaped canvases that are amongst his most collectible and beloved works. For Wesselmann, the notion of the 'still life' summarised his artistic undertaking since the earliest days of his practice: to compose an image that was literally and figuratively real, that captured the intensity and impact of a lived experience. A native of Cincinnati, drafted into the army during the Korean War as an aerial photography interpreter, he knew little of art and its formalities until moving to New York in 1956 to study at Cooper Union School of the Arts under the G.I. Bill. As a keen cartoonist and draughtsman, he supported himself selling cartoons to newspapers and magazines at first. Yet Wesselmann could not shake a compulsion that drew him to the contemporary painting of his day, spurned by a formative meeting with a Robert Motherwell canvas, an Elegy to the Spanish Republic, at the Museum of Modern Art in 1958. The titans of Abstract Expressionism struck a nerve with Wesselmann. To him, the brazen painterly horizons of De Kooning's women were the most vivid, corporeal depictions of a subject that were truly affecting. Wesselmann, as astute as he was, could see the retreating influence of medium specificity and planar painting typified by Barnett Newman and Jackson Pollock From within the reactionary milieu of New York City, he sided with the ascendent sway of artists including Robert Rauschenberg and Alex Katz – whom he s