Thomas Struth - New Now London Wednesday, December 6, 2023 | Phillips
  • Featuring Diego Velázquez's Las Hilanderas, Thomas Struth's Museo del Prado 3  belongs to the artist's series of photographs taken in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Belonging to the artist's wider series of museum photographs where he captured tourists and members of the public interacting with some of the most well-known and renowned works of Western art, Museo del Prado 3 exemplifies Struth's innovative and thought-provoking approach. 

     

    In the photograph, the group of standing viewers seem to echo the framing of the painting without imitating it. In the painting, the layout is tightly constructed, a stage-like composition with a group of women weaving in the foreground. In the background are women in beautifully rendered gowns, viewing the woven tapestries. The painting is carefully arranged so that all the figures are visible, and no areas are overcrowded – the foreground and the background are also carefully balanced so that the viewer is directed from one section to the next in a natural progression. Struth’s photograph echoes this grouping of figures, although his looser, less formal approach results in a more spontaneous and, perhaps, more 'human' composition. The photograph is structured so that the painting in the background can easily be seen, although certain elements are interrupted by the figures grouped in front of it. Counteracting the rigidity of the pictorial arrangement of the painting, these subtle intrusions recenter the viewer and their interaction toVelázquez's work as the focus of Struth's composition. The standing group is ordered; however the figures are grouped close together and seem to be relaxed rather than posed – they all stand at different angles and four of the six figures are turned away from the camera. The result is a photograph which relays a real and relatable museum experience, and places the act of looking itself at the center of Struth's pictorial project here. 

    • Provenance

      Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin
      Monica De Cardenas, Zuoz
      Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2013

    • Exhibited

      Madrid, Museo Nacional Del Prado, Thomas Struth: Making Time, 6 February - 25 March 2007, pp. 19, 108 (another example exhibited and illustrated, p. 19)
      Berlin, Galerie Max Hetzler, Thomas Struth: Making Time, 24 March - 21 April 2007 (another example exhibited)
      New York, Marian Goodman Gallery, Thomas Struth: Making Time, 4 - 28 April 2007 (another example exhibited)
      Milan, Monica de Cardenas, Thomas Struth, 10 May - 27 July 2007 (another example exhibited)
      Museo de Arte Contemporánea de Vigo; San Sebastián, Koldo Mitxelena Kulturgunea, The Museum as Medium, 20 June 2008 - 3 January 2009 (another example exhibited)
      Brescia, Pinacoteca Tosio Martinengo, Capolavori in corso, 30 November 2008 - 1 February 2009 (another example exhibited)

    • Literature

      Thomas Struth: Photographs 1978-2010, exh. cat., Whitechapel Gallery, London, 2010, p. 221 (another example illustrated)

    • Artist Biography

      Thomas Struth

      Thomas Struth is a German photographer best known for his large-scale, classically composed photos of museum, cityscapes, and family portraits. Struth is a prominent member of the Düsseldorf School of Photography, the group of artists who studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in the mid-1970s under influential photographers Bernd and Hilla Becher. Struth’s highly centralized, balanced photos incorporate cutting-edge photographic techniques and the tenets of classical composition to develop the documentarian aims of the Bechers.

      Struth’s work has been widely celebrated by the international art community. He represented Germany at the 44th Venice Biennale in 1990 and has been the subject of major retrospectives including those at the Dallas Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Haus der Kunst, Munich. He lives and works in Berlin and New York.

       
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Museo del Prado 3

signed, titled, numbered, inscribed and dated 'Museo del Prado 3 Madrid 2005 2/10 Thomas Struth Print: 2006' on the backboard
chromogenic print, in artist's frame
204.9 x 248 cm (80 5/8 x 97 5/8 in.)
Executed in 2005 and printed in 2006, this work is number 2 from an edition of 10.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 ‡♠

Sold for £50,800

Contact Specialist

Charlotte Gibbs
Associate Specialist, Head of New Now
+44 20 7901 7993
CGibbs@phillips.com
 

New Now

London Auction 6 December 2023