Tom Wesselmann - 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session New York Wednesday, November 16, 2022 | Phillips

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  • "For many years, drawing, especially from the nude, was a desperate attempt to capture something significant of the beauty of the women I was confronted with...it was always frustrating because the beauty of the woman was so elusive."
    —Tom Wesselmann  

    • Provenance

      The Estate of Tom Wesselmann
      Private Collection, New York
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

    • Artist Biography

      Tom Wesselmann

      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.

      View More Works

167

Study for Bedroom Nude (folding screen)

signed, titled and inscribed by Claire Wesselmann, the Executor of The Estate of Tom Wesselmann "D8553 STUDY FOR BEDROOM NUDE (FOLDING SCREEN), THE ESTATE OF TOM WESSELMANN, Claire Wesselmann, EXECUTOR" on the reverse
pencil and Liquitex on Bristol board
10 1/4 x 20 1/2 in. (26 x 52.1 cm)
Executed in 1985, this work will be included in the Tom Wesselmann Digital Corpus and the forthcoming Tom Wesselmann Digital Catalogue Raisonné, both published by the Wildenstein Plattner Institute.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$80,000 - 120,000 

Sold for $132,300

Contact Specialist

Annie Dolan
Specialist, Head of Day Sale, Morning Session
+1 212 940 1288
adolan@phillips.com

20th Century & Contemporary Art Day Sale, Morning Session

New York Auction 16 November 2022