Stanley Whitney - Editions & Works on Paper New York Friday, July 24, 2020 | Phillips

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 23 - 24 July 2020

  • Catalogue Essay

    “I don’t force the work. The work doesn’t follow me; I’m following the work. It has to be a slow mental and physical process. And that is where printmaking and drawing come in … I’m only rethinking the drawings, loosening up, not thinking about the paintings, and just seeing how that goes.” - Stanley Whitney

  • Artist Biography

    Stanley Whitney

    American • 1946

    Inspired by Renaissance painting, Minimalist sculpture and jazz music, Stanley Whitney’s oeuvre has become central to the current discourse of abstract painting in the contemporary era. Following recent solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum, Fort Worth and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, the 72-year-old artist has only just received the critical acclaim he deserves. After moving to New York from Philadelphia at the age of 22, Whitney aligned himself with the Color Field painters, often working in the shadows of his contemporaries including Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland. Throughout the decades that followed, however, the artist soon established himself as a key player in 20th century abstraction, traveling the world and gaining recognition not only in the studio, but also in the classroom, where he has taught Painting and Drawing at the Tyler School of Art for over 30 years. As such, Whitney’s influence extends to a generation of new artists exploring the formal tenants of painting today.

    As Lauren Haynes, curator of Whitney’s solo show at the Studio Museum in 2015, aptly wrote, “Whitney’s work interrogates the connections among colors, how they lead to and away from one another, what memories they are associated with…Whitney’s colors take on lives of their own. They evoke memory and nostalgia. This orange takes you back to your favorite childhood t-shirt; that blue reminds you of your grandmother’s kitchen. Whitney’s paintings remind us, on a universal scale, of the ability of color to trigger feelings and sensations.”

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122

Stanley Whitney

Black and White Series I-III

2012
The complete set of three etchings and aquatint, on Magnani Incisioni paper, with full margins.
all I. 15 3/4 x 20 in. (40 x 50.8 cm)
all S. 22 1/4 x 26 1/2 in. (56.5 x 67.3 cm)
All signed, dated and numbered 7/15 in pencil, published by Harlan and Weaver, New York, all unframed.

Estimate
$6,000 - 9,000 

Sold for $8,750

Contact Specialist
Kelly Troester
Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Modern
+1 212 940 1221
ktroester@phillips.com

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Worldwide Co-Head of Editions, Contemporary
1 212 940 1222
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Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 23 - 24 July 2020