Pace Wildenstein, New York ; Private collection, Los Angeles; Caratsch de Pury & Luxembourg, Zurich; Luhring Augustine, New York
Literature
T. Kellein, George Condo: One Hundred Women, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2005, p. 79 (illustrated)
Catalogue Essay
George Condo mines a broad swath of contemporary imagery as well as the rich history of Western art to distill archetypes that are all his own. As a “semi-autodidact,” Condo’s meticulous eye takes in everything from the Old Masters of European painting to the thoroughly modern discipline of psychology to the visual trappings of Saturday morning cartoons. The present lot, Widow’s Watch, exemplifies this interplay. The scene marries the Baroque majesty of a Bronzino portrait to the dreamlike atmosphere of Giorgio di Chirico, without sacrificing the artist’s trademark dark sense of humor or the constant hint of private sadness. Physiognomies, inner emotions and outward appearances coincide time again in surprising ways, all without plan. As is often the case when designing an artistically interesting physis, the beginnings lie in scribbles and crude sketches. Condo searches at the same time for a stylistic framework for his figures, but does not leave it at that. After a succession of variations, his work is only really finished once his deep-seated feeling of grotesqueness has generated instinctive crystalline formations in illusionist spaces. T. Kellein, George Condo: Sculpture, Zurich, 2003, p. 7
Picasso once said, "Good artists borrow, great artists steal." Indeed, American artist George Condo frequently cites Picasso as an explicit source in his contemporary cubist compositions and joyous use of paint. Condo is known for neo-Modernist compositions staked in wit and the grotesque, which draw the eye into a highly imaginary world.
Condo came up in the New York art world at a time when art favored brazen innuendo and shock. Student to Warhol, best friend to Basquiat and collaborator with William S. Burroughs, Condo tracked a different path. He was drawn to the endless inquiries posed by the aesthetics and formal considerations of Caravaggio, Rembrandt and the Old Masters.