Danielle Orchard - New Now New York Wednesday, September 28, 2022 | Phillips
  • Danielle Orchard has attracted international attention for her tender depictions of women and contemporary ennui. Orchard’s Seated Woman, 2020 depicts a partially dressed figure sitting at her vanity in a moment of nonchalance. The subject coolly balances a lit cigarette between slackened fingers, a motif that has become signature for the artist, while her indecipherable blue eyes gaze beyond the viewer. With exaggerated, curved features, the subject recalls Henri Matisse’s dancers and blue nudes with her limbs that expressively intertwine. Consciously engaging with the history of painting and representation, Orchard has cited influences ranging from Rogier van der Weyden to Pablo Picasso. Seating her figure within the late-afternoon glow of an open window beside a vanity mirror, Orchard draws influence from the lighting and composition of the Northern Renaissance while engaging skewed, Cubist-like perspectives.

    Henri Matisse, Blue Nude II, 1952. Artwork: © 2022 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. 

      "There's really no delineation for me, between my personal memories and memories of paintings. Sometimes I have a clear sense for a narrative, sometimes I'm guided by a color. Often it's a color." —Danielle Orchard

    Seated Woman is Orchard’s update on the classical subject of a woman at her vanity. In this reinvented form, the amber-haired woman is seen in a moment of intimacy amongst lush pinks, magentas and peaches, seemingly unaffected by the gaze cast upon her by the viewer or by the portrait in her open book. Across from the disrobed figure a chair is draped with a dress tie and shirt, its pocket filled with an open carton of cigarettes. The clothing perhaps belongs to the woman or perhaps someone else, speaking to the ambiguities of gender and dress. Orchard proves here to be an expert in depicting both the complexities of interior life and the human form, conveying the subtleties of feeling through posture and expression.

    • Provenance

      Joe Sheftel, Provincetown
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

11

Seated Woman

signed and dated "Danielle Orchard 2020" on the reverse
oil on canvas
58 7/8 x 47 in. (149.5 x 119.4 cm)
Painted in 2020.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$30,000 - 50,000 

Sold for $176,400

Contact Specialist

Avery Semjen
Head of Sale, New Now
212 940 1207
asemjen@phillips.com

New Now

New York Auction 28 September 2022