Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg Acquired from the above by the present owner
Catalogue Essay
“Painting has a performative aspect to it – someone has to paint it.” - David Salle, 2011
David Salle remains one of the most prominent painters working today. His style is always enigmatic and idiosyncratic, due in part to his particular use and distortion of found images and cultural references as inspiration for his own unique and evocative visual language.
The present lot, Painting for HCA, from 2007, is an apt representation of Salle’s hybridizing style. The two female figures sit divergent to each other and also to the small wolf figure projecting out from the canvas. Sullen and withdrawn, the monochromatic figure to the right stands in sharp contrast to the whimsical and distortedly pornographic Manga figure on the left. Together, their juxtaposition and opposition creates a new pictorial dynamic that is emblematic of Salle’s art making practice. “It might sound simplistic, but I was really just trying to make what I thought was a new kind of beauty” (David Salle quoted in an interview with Emily Nathan, Don’t Understand me too quickly, Artnet, 2011).
2007 oil on linen, wood shelf, object 44 x 76 x 4 in. (111.8 x 193 x 10.2 cm.) Signed, titled and dated "PAINTING FOR H.C.A. David Salle 2007" on the reverse.
Estimate $60,000 - 80,000
Sold for $75,000
Contact Specialist Benjamin Godsill
Head of Sale
bgodsill@phillips.com +1 212 940 1256