Provenance
Galerie Lelong, Paris; Galerie Jamileh Weber, Zurich
Literature
Exhibition catalogue, Sprengel Museum Hannover and Kunsthaus Bregenz, Donald Judd Colorist, Hannover, 2000, p.63 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
“Johannes Itten wrote in 1916: ‘Form is also colour. Without colour there is no form. Form and colour are one.’ It never occurred to me to make a three dimensional work without colour. I took Itten’s premise, which I had not read, for granted … Colour is like material. It is one way or another, but it obdurately exists. Its existence as it is the main fact and not what it might mean, which may be nothing … Colour, like material, is what art is made from. It alone is not art. Itten confused the components for the whole. Other than the spectrum, there is no pure colour … I like the colour [red] and I like the quality of Cadmium Red Light. [It has] the right value for a three-dimensional object. If you paint something black or any dark colour, you can’t tell what its edges are like. If you paint it white, it seems small and purist. And the red, other than a gray of that value, seems to be the only colour that really makes an object sharp and defines its contours and angles.”

(Donald Judd, ‘Some Aspects of Color in General and Red and Black in Particular’, 1993 and as cited in J. Coplans, Don Judd, Pasadena, 1971, p. 25).

The present lot, Donald Judd’s Untitled (87-29 Studer), is one of his largest and most accomplished wall-mounted sculptures from the critically acclaimed Swiss Box series. Began in 1983, the series allowed Judd, a foremost artist of the Minimalist movement, a new-found exuberance as a colourist. Previously, his palette had been largely restricted to the colours of raw metals and Plexiglas, but with such works as Untitled (87-29 Studer) Judd started incorporating the brilliant hues of industrial paints in his sculptures treating colour formally as an object.

In a manner reminiscent of his German peer Gerhard Richter, Judd chose his bright paint colours from the RAL Colour Chart, a standard industrial chart of commercial paint colours, and then applied the paint to his sculptures directly from its tin unaltered. While some modules of Untitled (87-29 Studer) are left as raw unpainted aluminium and others painted plain white or black, several interspersed modules are covered in Capri blue, golden yellow and traffic orange, lending the overall composition a certain poetic flow. The composition’s rhythmic beat is further enhanced by the alternating sizes of the open boxes screwed to one another recalling the classic grids of abstract colourist painter Piet Mondrian.

“Judd’s interest in color is closely connected with his mention of ‘beauty’ as an attribute that could be used as a criterion in viewing his art. With the group of horizontal, sheet-aluminum wall pieces begun in 1983, where he uses a whole number of colors, this interest took on greater importance. Here color takes on a leading role, creative role. Judd used open aluminum boxes in different formats and screwed them together to create objects up to 450 cm in length. In addition he made a number of wall pieces – some high, some two-part. For this group, Judd chose exclusively boldly colored gloss paints, which were enameled into the material by means of a relatively complicated process. Where he had previously concentrated on a maximum of two colors, now he put together complex, strongly contrasting color combinations, generally in multiples of two (4, 6, 8 etc.). In doing so, he was careful to distribute the colors so that no adjacent units were in the same shade.”

(D. Elger, ed., Donald Judd: Colorist, Ostfildern, 2000, p. 27).
Artist Biography
Donald Judd
American • 1928 - 1994
Donald Judd came to critical acclaim in the 1960s with his simple, yet revolutionary, three-dimensional floor and wall objects made from new industrial materials, such as anodized aluminum, plywood and Plexiglas, which had no precedent in the visual arts. His oeuvre is characterized by the central constitutive elements of color, material and space. Rejecting the illusionism of painting and seeking an aesthetic freed from metaphorical associations, Judd sought to explore the relationship between art object, viewer and surrounding space with his so-called "specific objects." From the outset of his three-decade-long career, Judd delegated the fabrication to specialized technicians. Though associated with the minimalist movement, Judd did not wish to confine his practice to this categorization.

Inspired by architecture, the artist also designed and produced his own furniture, predominantly in wood, and eventually hired a diverse team of carpenters late in his career.
View More Works

30

Donald Judd

Untitled (87-29 Studer)

1987
Painted and unpainted aluminium in two parts.
Each: 30 x 360 x 30 cm. (11 13/16 x 141 3/4 x 11 13/16 in).
Stamped with signature, inscription, number and date ‘AG Donald Judd 87-29 A und B STUDER’ on the reverse of each unit.

Estimate
£600,000 - 800,000 ‡

Sold for £735,650

Contemporary Art Evening

12 Feb 2010
London

1
Gregor Hildebrandt
Faith
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ♠
Sold for £49,250
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2
Leandro Erlich
Rain
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 Ω
Sold for £32,450
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3
Doug Aitken
2 disappearing points to 1
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ‡
Sold for £49,250
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4
Ugo Rondinone
Dritteraprilzweitausendundsieben
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000
Sold for £277,250
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5
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Green Butterfly)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 †
Sold for £229,250
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6
John Baldessari
Puzzle (Two Views)
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £193,250
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7
Banks Violette
No Title (Throne)
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ‡
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8
Jannis Kounellis
Untitled
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000 ‡♠
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9
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡♠
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10
Elmgreen & Dragset
Powerless Structures, Fig. 255
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 Ω♠
Sold for £31,250
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11
Margherita Manzelli
Diencephale
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £97,250
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12
Cindy Sherman
Untitled (#196)
Estimate £180,000 - 250,000 ‡
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13
Andy Warhol
Knives
Estimate £150,000 - 250,000 ‡
Sold for £145,250
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £600,000 - 900,000 ‡
Sold for £713,250
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15
Martin Kippenberger
Antikriegsmuseum – Befehl im Museum für unnötige Kriegsforschung
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £241,250
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16
Dan Colen
Untitled
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000
Sold for £49,250
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17
George Condo
Father and Son
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000 ‡
Sold for £541,250
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18
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Cash Crop
Estimate £600,000 - 900,000 ‡
Sold for £713,250
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19
Banksy
Vandalised oil # 001
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £121,250
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20
Piero Manzoni
Achrome
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ‡
Sold for £121,250
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21
Ai Weiwei
Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡
Sold for £115,250
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22
Gavin Turk
Oi!
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠†
Sold for £34,850
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23
Grayson Perry
Transvestite Brides of Christ
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠†
Sold for £25,000
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24
Philippe Pasqua
Marie
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡♠
Sold for £85,250
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25
Wim Delvoye
Untitled (Pierre)
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ♠
Sold for £49,250
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26
Jonathan Meese
PSSST, diese geile BIENENKÖNIGINNIN schenkt sich den Melonenfischi zum Geburtstag, DU LECKERMÄULCHEN "Rendamez"
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £52,850
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27
Anselm Reyle
Untitled (für Otto Freundlich)
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £70,850
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28
Peter Halley
Soul control
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000
Sold for £51,650
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29
Gerhard Richter
Abstraktes Bild (707-1)
Estimate £350,000 - 550,000 ‡♠
Sold for £634,850
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30
Donald Judd
Untitled (87-29 Studer)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £735,650
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31
Kenneth Noland
Mysteries, Amidst
Estimate £50,000 - 70,000
Sold for £97,250
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32
Franz Ackermann
Epicentre 1
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ♠
Sold for £75,650
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33
Gary Hume
Garden Painting #2
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡♠
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34
Hermann Nitsch
Golden Love
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ♠†
Sold for £37,250
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35
Albert Oehlen and Jonathan Meese
The Greeting
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ♠†
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36
Franz West
Untitled (Bench)
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ♠
Sold for £61,250
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37
Sergej Jensen
Untitled
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠
Sold for £21,250
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38
Terence Koh
Gone, Yet Still (Untitled 2)
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000
Sold for £67,250
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39
Wolfgang Tillmans
(Untitled) Las Vegas
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡♠
Sold for £46,850
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40
Monica Bonvicini
Caged tool #2 (stone saw)
Estimate £25,000 - 35,000 ‡♠
Sold for £31,250
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41
Thomas Ruff
Nudes dg06
Estimate £30,000 - 40,000 ‡♠
Sold for £56,450
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42
Tobias Rehberger
Reus
Estimate £45,000 - 55,000 Ω♠
Sold for £55,250
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43
Tracey Emin
I promise to love you
Estimate £40,000 - 60,000 ♠
Sold for £85,250
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Contemporary Art Evening

12 Feb 2010 London

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Provenance

Literature

Catalogue Essay

Artist Biography

Donald Judd

30

Donald Judd

Untitled (87-29 Studer)

Contemporary Art Evening

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12 Feb 2010
London