1949-A-No. 1

1949-A-No. 1 (PH 89) is a picture by the American painter Clyfford Still . The painting, which is one of the masterpieces of Abstract Expressionism , was auctioned at Sotheby’s on November 9, 2011 for 61,682,500 dollars .

1949-A-No. 1
Clyfford Still , 1949
Oil on canvas
236.2 x 200.7 cm
Unknown owner Link to the picture (please note copyrights )

Clyfford Still did not give his pictures any names; in exhibitions they are usually listed as Untitled . From 1938 he began to number the pictures: he marked them with the year in which they were taken; early pictures were also given a letter. The addition PH NN denotes a serial number in a list that Patricia Still created and in which the photographs of his works are entered. Science today uses this numbering as a basis for precise identification of the individual images.

history

In his will of May 2, 1978, Still bequeathed his entire artistic estate, consisting of 825 paintings on canvas, 1,575 works on paper and 3 sculptures, to the American city that would build a museum exclusively for his works. His wife Patricia Still and his two daughters were appointed executors. Negotiations with American museums after Still's death turned out to be tough and Patricia Still was reluctant to pursue them. After her death, the mostly large-format pictures were rolled up and stored in an old warehouse in Denver. Eventually, Still's nephew, Curt Freed, contacted the Lord Mayor of Denver, John Hickenlooper . Denver County and City of Denver accepted the donation and built a museum that opened on November 8, 2011.

At the auction on November 9, 2011, which was unanimously decided by the Denver City Council, although according to the wording of the will no pictures from the donation could be sold, four pictures were auctioned to cover the costs. The auction at Sotheby's raised the city for $ 114.1 million.

In addition to PH 89 (1949-A.No.1) (1949), the pictures PH-351 (1940), PH-584 (1947) and PH-1033 (1976) were auctioned on this day .

On the day of Sotheby's Contemporary Art Auction , when Sotheby's had total sales of $ 315.8 million, loud protests broke out in front of the auction building from banking critics who had been demonstrating in the financial district of Manhattan for weeks, as well as from unionized members of auction houses who were in felt ignored the previous wage negotiations.

description

The colors chestnut brown and black dominate the high-format and large-scale picture, in addition there is a light gray, creamy white, a few white dots of color scattered over the canvas in the lower left-hand third of the picture and a long, irregular and narrow white color strip that determines the picture effect and runs vertically and the picture in the right third seems to break open like a crack or a chasm. As with many of his pictures, the pure colors are applied pastose with a painting knife , which gives the picture surface a rough, almost three-dimensional effect.

The picture is signed Clyfford 4 on the front and the title 1949-A on the back.

Clyfford Still in the art market

Works of Abstract Expressionism fetch top prices at auctions today, as this is a delimited, manageable market segment, works are rarely offered and prices have risen steeply since the middle of the 20th century.

Pictures by Clyfford Still, who sold only a few pictures during his lifetime, appear relatively rarely on the art market, especially since around 94% of his oeuvre was in his house or in a warehouse after his death and is now part of the Clyfford-Still Museum in Denver are.

There are only a few private collectors and museums in the United States and in Europe who even own pictures by Clyfford Still, most notably the San Francisco Museum of Art , which received a foundation of 21 pictures in 1975, the New York Museum of Modern Art , the shows 10 pictures in a separate room that it has had as a donation since 1986 and the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, which with 33 works created between 1937 and 1963 housed the largest Clyfford still collection in the USA to date.

literature

• Clifford Still . The Buffalo and San Francisco Collections. Ed. By Thomas Kellein . Munich, Prestel, 1988. ISBN 3-7913-1187-5

Web links

• Bloomberg. "'1949-A-No. 1"
• Still Painting Fetches $ 61.7 Million as Protesters Cry 'Shame'
• David Colosi: Fighting Still, Still Fighting. Clyfford Still vs. The Clyfford Still Museum and The City of Denver . 2011.
• The Reintroduction of Clyfford Still

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hilarie M. Sheets: Clyfford Still, Unpacked. In: Kind in America. November 6, 2011.
2. ↑ Quotation: “I give and bequeath all the remaining works of art executed by me in my collection to an American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works of art and assure their physical survival with the explicit requirement that none of these works of art will be sold, given, or exchanged but are to be retained in the place described above exclusively assigned to them in perpetuity for exhibition and study. " Geoff van Dyke. Clifford Still's Unyielding Will. Accessed May 5, 2015 in 2011
3. ↑ artinfo24.com , accessed May 5, 2015.
4. ^ Clyfford Still Museum , accessed May 3, 2015.
5. ↑ artinfo24.com , accessed June 23, 2020
6. ↑ David Colosi: Fighting Still; Still fighting. October 4, 2011 , accessed May 5, 2015.
7. ↑ Clyfford Still picture auctioned for record price RP.online , accessed on May 6, 2015.
8. ↑ Auction results 2008 - 2014. accessed on May 5, 2015
9. ↑ Allbright Knox Gallery, Buffalo. Clyfford Still. Retrieved May 5, 2015

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