Occupying a position as preeminent painter and provocateur, George Condo has upheld the torch of American figure painting for nearly three decades. With influences ranging from masters of the renaissance period to Picasso and Willem de Kooning, Condo’s practice has long emphasized the greater tradition of portraiture as much it presents us with the opportunity to glimpse at psychological fragmentation. While one can clearly identify some of Condo’s predecessors, it is imperative to recognize the artist’s contributions in the resurgence of this painterly tradition, exemplified in the reception of contemporary artists like Glenn Brown and John Currin.

The present lot, The Last Days of Enron, 2004, depicts the fall of a business empire, the sudden collapse of a façade that has since become an example of greed and corruption—an era of excess. Never before has Condo’s use of the grotesque seemed as appropriate as in the present context. Indeed, “Condo identifies in paintings’ inherent elasticity and multivalence a locus for the uncertainly that underpins our willfully dumb cultural moment.” (M. Herbert, “George Condo: Simon Lee London,” ArtReview, issue 10, April 2007, pp. 136-137).

Drawing from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, Condo samples from Titian and Sebastiano Ricci’s Bacchanal paintings by taking on a similar composition and loading the scene with psychotic absurdity. With a background reminiscent of Philip Guston’s early abstract paintings, Condo’s debaucherous scene is enraptured with hues of light blue, coral and pink flesh tones. The figures appear transfixed in a momentof depravity, their mask-like faces turned towards the viewer as though they’ve suddenly been interrupted- or caught in the act. Here, Condo’s figures bask in their own self-indulgence, suggesting the timelessness of Bacchanal paintings and the timeliness of Condo’s approach.