Mira Dancy - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale London Thursday, March 9, 2017 | Phillips

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 10 March 2017

  • Provenance

    Galerie Éric Hussenot, Paris
    Private Collection, London

  • Exhibited

    Paris, Galerie Éric Hussenot, Mira Dancy, Want Position // Red, 5 September - 14 October 2015

  • Catalogue Essay

    Double Undressed by Mira Dancy portrays a reclining female figure, posing in front of her mirrored reflection. Executed in 2015, the present image exemplifies the artist’s devoted attention to the female nude with an ‘apparent goal in reclaiming the female body by borrowing from male artists - Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Matisse and William N. Copley - is smart and full of possibilities’ (Roberta Smith, ‘Review: Mira Dancy’s ‘Yes’’, New York Times, 25th June, 2015). Albeit evocative of the effortless, sinuous brushstrokes achieved by Edvard Munch a century earlier, Double Undressed is dominated by a firm feminist stance. The work directly defies the traditional portrayal of women by male artists throughout history as described by art historian John Berger. Berger famously explained: ‘The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure’ (John Berger, Ways of Seeing, London, 1972). Dancy successfully regains control of the female nude in contemporary painting, imbuing her figures with an overarching sense of strength, independence and feminine power.

101

Mira Dancy

Double Undressed

signed and dated 'MIRA DANCY 2015' on the overlap
acrylic on canvas
162.5 x 147.5 cm (63 7/8 x 58 1/8 in.)
Painted in 2015.

Estimate
£10,000 - 15,000 

Sold for £17,500

Contact Specialist
Tamila Kerimova
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4065

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Auction 10 March 2017