Private Collection (gifted by the artist)
Thence by descent to the present owner
Long Beach, The Art Galleries, California State University; Athens, Trisolini Gallery of Ohio University; Kansas City, Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, Tom Wesselmann: The Early Years, Collages 1959-1962, November 10, 1974–March 10, 1975
New York, Pavel Zoubok Fine Art, The Tiny Picture Show, December 10, 2015–January 23, 2016
New York, Maxwell Davidson Gallery, Tom Wesselmann Perfecting the Process, September 12–October 26, 2019
Melissa Stern, “The Vast Possibilities of Tiny Collage and Assemblage,” Hyperallergic, January 15, 2016, online
American • 1931 - 2004
As a former cartoonist and leading figure of the Pop Art movement, Tom Wesselmann spent many years of his life repurposing popular imagery to produce small to large-scale works that burst with color. Active at a time when artists were moving away from the realism of figurative painting and growing increasingly interested in abstraction, Wesselmann opted for an antithetical approach: He took elements of city life that were both sensual and practical and represented them in a way that mirrored Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol's own methodologies.
Wesselmann considered pop culture objects as exclusively visual elements and incorporated them in his works as pure containers of bold color. This color palette became the foundation for his now-iconic suggestive figurative canvases, often depicting reclining nudes or women's lips balancing a cigarette.
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