IMPORTANT INTERNATIONAL ART: THE DAY AUCTION
ONLINE AUCTION
November 17–28
THE DAY AUCTION
ONLINE AUCTION
November 17–28
PREVIEW
326 Dundas Street West
November 14-28
Monday to Friday: 9 am - 5 pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11 am - 5 pm
ONLINE BIDDING
Available exclusively via LiveAuctioneers.com and Auction Mobility at live.CowleyAbbott.ca
BUYER’S PREMIUM
In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium of 21% plus applicable sales tax is payable.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE
The provisions of these Terms and Conditions of Sale shall govern any proposed or actual transaction between Cowley Abbott (aka Consignor Auctions Limited) (“CAL”) and the prospective buyer/ bidder (“Bidder”). CAL is acting as agent for the person who has consigned the property to CAL for sale, whether as principal, owner or agent (“Consignor”).
1. The descriptions of items offered by CAL (“Property”), including artist, title, medium, size, date of execution, provenance, exhibition history, inclusion/reproduction within literature sources, attribution and genuineness, are subject to change leading to the final sale of said Property (including the process during which bidding is active for the Property during CAL online auctions). Descriptions of Property provided by CAL are not meant to stand as a representation to Bidders and no guarantee or warranty of complete accuracy of the provided descriptions is intended or should be assumed. Bidders are provided the opportunity to view and inspect all Property offered for sale by CAL through public and/or pre-arranged private viewings prior to a sale’s completion. No sale shall be rescinded due to a lack of correspondence between the provided description of the Property by CAL and the Property itself, including the illustration of the Property provided by CAL. It is the sole responsibility of a Bidder to make arrangements for the inspection of the Property of interest (by the Bidder itself and/ or by the Bidder’s advisers) prior to sale, and to bid in accordance to this actual inspection and/or reliance upon their advisers’ guidance.
2. The Bidder who has successfully bid on Property (the “Successful Bidder”) confirms that any claims relating thereto shall be claims against Consignor, without recourse to CAL. CAL represents the Consignor exclusively and makes no representation or warranty, express or implied, regarding legal title or ownership of the Property offered by CAL and has relied upon the Consignor confirming same to CAL, without further independent investigation. The Bidder shall be solely responsible for satisfying itself of the legal title or ownership of the Property and liens or encumbrances affecting same and the capacity of the Consignor to sell the Property offered.
However, notwithstanding the stipulations listed above, the Successful Bidder may make arrangements for a recognized and fully-qualified authority, who is accepted by CAL, to inspect the Property prior to collection by the Successful Bidder from CAL’s premises. Should this authority submit in writing to CAL a statement regarding the challenge of genuineness and/or authenticity of the lot in question, the sale can be rescinded by CAL and a full refund will be provided to the Successful Bidder. The above process must take place within seven days of the final sale of the Property.
3. CAL is pleased to offer a service of providing condition reports on the lots which are offered through its auctions.
Please note that these reports are matters of opinion and are prepared by CAL specialists and are not a substitute for a physical inspection of the artwork by the Bidder or their advisors. CAL specialists are not trained restorers and the provided condition reports are not meant to equal a comprehensive report created by a professional restorer. The reports provided by CAL are meant to provide assistance to the Bidder through observations of the artwork and the report will not disclose any imperfections which might be revealed through the process of subsequent restoration. In all cases, the Bidder is advised to consult their own conservator for a complete report with regard to condition (CAL is happy to provide access to the artwork by conservators through public previews and private pre-arranged appointments). Bidders should be aware that CAL’s warranties with regard to the Property offered through their auctions are limited to the terms listed in the Terms and Conditions of Sale and in no case extend to the condition of the artwork.
4. A buyer’s premium of 21% of the successful bid price is to be paid by the Successful Bidder to CAL as part of the purchase price where the Auction Mobility and LiveAuctioneers technology is used to bid successfully during the auction).
In addition, 13% HST (Harmonized Sales Tax) is applied to the successful bid (hammer) price and buyer’s premium. However, HST will not be charged on purchased Property which is shipped outside of Canada. Where purchased Property is shipped outside of the Province of Ontario but within Canada, the applicable HST or GST will be charged based on the tax applications within the province or territory of destination. In both cases, the Property must be collected from the offices of CAL with a waybill provided indicating the destination. It is the sole responsibility of the Purchaser to provide acceptable details and make the necessary arrangements to meet the requirements for altered tax responsibilities based on the destination of the shipped Property. Alterations of invoices and/or crediting of tax payments will not be completed once CAL has released the Property.
5. The Bidder acknowledges that CAL may collect a commission and associated fees through its agreement with the Consignor of a lot included in a CAL auction.
6. Purchases completed through CAL auctions are not represented to necessarily include copyright allowances to the Successful Bidder for the purchased Property.
7. CAL reserves the right to withdraw any Property from sale for any reason whatsoever and without liability. This withdrawal may occur up to the close of bidding for the Property. CAL also reserves the right to divide lots of Property into smaller lots or to combine individual lots of Property into larger lots. The above can be carried out at the sole discretion of CAL and can occur without notice.
8. Each Bidder must register with CAL, agreeing to the Terms and Conditions of Sale. Registered Bidders represent that they are bidding on their own behalf and are responsible for those lots in which they are the successful high bidder (becoming the Purchaser or Successful Bidder). In the event that a registered Bidder is representing another party, CAL must be contacted regarding this arrangement at least twenty-four hours prior to the opening of bidding for a particular auction and CAL reserves the right to refuse this arrangement for any reason whatsoever. Failure to abide by this provision shall entitle CAL to deem the Bidder as bidding on its own behalf. Splitting of and/or transferring of an invoice to an individual and/or organization other than the registered Bidder can only be completed at the discretion of CAL and must meet the requirements of such an amendment, including written authorization from both the registered Bidder and its beneficial buyer and the individual or representative of the individual who will become the new invoiced client in such an arrangement.
9. CAL reserves the right to refuse any bid and/or bidding registration application at their absolute discretion. Further, CAL also reserves the right to suspend or cancel any account used for bidding at their sole and absolute discretion. CAL also reserves the right to refuse any bid which is not in relation to the provided pre-sale auction estimate provided by CAL and also reserves the right to not accept a bid recognized to not fall within the set bidding increments during sale. Additionally, CAL reserves the right to accept any bid which does not meet any pre-established reserve. In no instance may a Bidder withdraw or alter their submitted bid.
10. CAL reserves the right to accept and execute absentee or telephone bids on behalf of prospective purchasers, unable to directly participate in the particular auction. In such a case, CAL provides the service of absentee or telephone bidding as a privilege and shall not be responsible for failure to execute the absentee bid(s) for any reason whatsoever and shall also not be responsible for errors and/or omissions related to the process. Bidders who wish to employ CAL in the process of absentee or telephone bidding must complete and sign the required documentation (absentee/ telephone bidding form) prior to the start of bidding for the particular auction. In the event that two identical absentee bids are submitted to CAL, the bid which is received earlier (and which has been submitted through a completed and signed absentee bidding form) will take precedence over the later bid(s), allowing the earlier submitted bid(s) to potentially purchase the lot(s) at bid level submitted.
CAL reserves the right to request and charge a deposit to a Bidder submitting an absentee or telephone bid, in relation to the value of the artwork, to a maximum of $10,000 CAD. CAL reserves the right to hold and apply
this Deposit to the invoice, should the Bidder become the Successful Bidder. In the event that final payment and invoice settlement is not made within 30 days following the completion of the live auction, then CAL shall have the right to rescind the purchase and the Deposit shall be retained by CAL as liquidated damages. In the event that the Bidder is not successful, the Deposit will be refunded within 10 business days following the completion of the auction.
11. CAL is pleased to provide the opportunity for bidders to participate through online bidding during auctions via Auction Mobility and LiveAuctioneers, a third-party provider of these services. Please be aware that CAL is not responsible for errors or issues associated with this service which may have an adverse effect on the Client’s ability to bid. A buyer’s premium of 21% of the successful bid price is to be paid by the Successful Bidder to CAL as part of the purchase price where the Auction Mobility and LiveAuctioneers technology is used to bid successfully during a live/catalogue auction.
12. At the completion of the sale, the Successful Bidder shall be recognized as the Purchaser and shall then take on complete responsibility and risk for the purchased Property, adhering to all of the Terms and Conditions of Sale. In the event of a dispute between the Successful Bidder and any other Bidder regarding the result of the auction, CAL will have absolute discretion to rescind any transaction with the Successful Bidder and designate a new winning buyer or to withdraw the Property from the auction. In such a case, CAL may choose to re-offer the Property in a future auction or private sale. In all such cases, final decision shall be made solely by CAL.
13. The Successful Bidder shall make arrangements with CAL for the payment of the whole invoiced amount following the immediate close of the auction, unless alternate arrangements are agreed by CAL for payment of a portion of the invoiced amount. Until full and final settlement of the invoice is completed by the Successful Bidder, the purchased Property will not be released to the Successful Bidder. Failure to pay for purchases may lead to the cancellation of the sale with no promise of re-offering in a future auction. In the event of failure of payment by the Successful Bidder, CAL reserves the right to suspend and/or delete the bidding account of the Bidder and/or their representatives, all at the sole discretion of CAL. The artwork must be collected by the Successful Bidder or his/ her representative or delivered to the shipping destination within 14 days of the invoice date.
14. Immediately following the completion of a CAL online auction, the Successful Bidder shall be charged 10% up to a maximum of $10,000 of the hammer price (the “Deposit”), which amount will be held as a deposit against payment for the Property purchased. The Successful Bidder hereby authorizes CAL to charge the Successful Bidder’s registered
TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE
credit card with the Deposit. The Successful Bidder shall settle final payment and collect their purchase(s) from CAL within five business days following the completion of any CAL auction. Failure to settle payment and/ or collect the property from CAL within five business days may lead to monthly interest charges of 1.5% in addition to the invoice amount and/or storage charges for the Property being held on the premises of CAL. Property being held by CAL is being stored at the sole risk of the Successful Bidder and may be stored either on the premises of CAL or at a secondary storage location. In the event that final payment is not made within 30 days following the completion of the auction, then CAL shall have the right to rescind the purchase and, if it is in an online CAL auction, the Deposit shall be retained by CAL as liquidated damages.
If payment arrangements have not been initiated by the Successful Bidder five business days following a live auction, the Successful Bidder shall be charged 10% up to a maximum of $10,000 of the invoice total (the “Deposit”), which will be held as a deposit against payment for the Property purchased. The Successful Bidder hereby authorizes CAL to charge the Successful Bidder’s registered credit card with the Deposit in this case. In the event that final payment is not made within 30 days following the the live auction then CAL shall have the right to rescind the purchase and the Deposit shall be retained by CAL as liquidated damages.
15. CAL, its employees or agents, shall not be liable for the loss or damage of any Property purchased through a CAL auction (through negligence or otherwise) while the Property remains in the possession of CAL and once the allowed five business days following an auction closure or completion of a private sale has passed.
16. In any event resulting in failure by the Successful Bidder (Purchaser) to pay for Property purchased either through the defined auction process or a private sale within the five day period following the sale, CAL, in its sole discretion, may re-offer the Property in question without limiting the terms in place with the Consignor of the Property. Should CAL reoffer the Property, the original Successful Bidder (Purchaser) shall be responsible to CAL and the Consignor for the following: any difference marked as a deficiency between the price achieved and amount invoiced upon the re-sale of the Property versus the price achieved and amount invoiced to the Purchaser upon the original sale of the Property; any storage charges to CAL for the holding of the Property between its original offering and the reoffering; and the total in sales commissions which CAL would have collected had the original sale of the Property been completed.
17. CAL accepts payment by cash, certified cheque, wire transfer, VISA, Mastercard and/or American Express (AMEX) for the settlement of invoices. Credit card purchases are limited to a maximum of $25,000 CAD
and the credit card holder must be present at the time of payment. Artwork purchased with a certified cheque will not be released by CAL until the clearance of the cheque has been confirmed by CAL’s bank. Payments arranged by wire transfer may be subject to administrative charges related to the transfer and banking processes.
18. CAL is pleased to assist clients in arranging for the shipment of their artwork from our Toronto premises. However, it is the responsibility of the Successful Bidder to make these arrangements in full, including the packing, insuring and actual shipment of the Property. Assistance provided by CAL in this regard is provided as a service and CAL carries absolutely no liability through this courtesy. CAL carries absolutely no liability to possible damage of framing (including glass) during shipment arranged by CAL or otherwise.
19. Without limitation, the Purchaser accepts that any lot (Property) purchased through CAL may be subject to provisions of the Cultural Property Export and Import Act (Canada).
20. The import and export of species protected under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) are subject to strict regulations. This includes, but is not limited to, items made from or containing materials such as bone (including whalebone), ivory, tortoiseshell, seal skin, rhinoceros horn, or any other protected animal part. Many countries either strictly control or prohibit the trade of such materials. Before placing a bid on any piece that may contain restricted materials, please review your country’s import and export laws. It is the buyer’s sole responsibility to determine and obtain any required permits for artworks containing such materials, where possible. For further guidance, please contact the department.
21. CAL reserves the right to refuse admission, enrolment and/or participation in any of their events and/or auctions. Further, CAL reserves the right to refuse admission to their premises to any individual or group of individuals.
22. These Terms and Conditions of Sale and all agreements related to the business of CAL shall be construed under the laws of Ontario and the parties hereby attorn to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Ontario Courts.
23. This agreement may be executed and delivered in a number of counterparts, each of which when executed and delivered is an original but all of which taken together constitute, as applicable, one and the same instrument.
MEET OUR SPECIALISTS
INQUIRIES
Pre-Sale Inquiries
Catherine Lacroix catherine@cowleyabbott.ca
Post-Sale Services
Nicole Plaskett nicole@cowleyabbott.ca
Shipping & Delivery
Sydney Rodrigues sydney@cowleyabbott.ca
Perry Tung Senior Specialist International Art Department perry@cowleyabbott.ca
Catherine Lacroix Specialist and Appraiser International Art Department catherine@cowleyabbott.ca
Katherine Meredith
Montreal Representative International & Canadian Art Specialist katherine@cowleyabbott.ca
1
ANDY WARHOL
Mother and Child from Cowboys and Indians (F&S IIB.383), 1986
colour screenprint on Lenox Museum Board signed and numbered TP 27/36 lower left; titled and numbered on a label on the reverse. Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York; published by Gaultney, Klineman Art, Inc., New York 36 x 36 ins; 91.4 x 91.4 cms
PROVENANCE
Martin Lawrence Galleries, New York Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Andy Warhol, America, New York, 1985, page 8
Heather Ahtone, “The American Indian and Warhol’s Fantasy of an Indigenous Presence” in Heather Ahtone, Faith Brower and Seth Hopkins, Warhol and the West, Tacoma, 2019, page 35
Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987, 4th edition, Milan, 2003, catalogue no. IIB.383
The year before he died, in 1987, Andy Warhol produced his Cowboys and Indians series, consisting of fourteen screenprints of iconic Western American figures and subjects, such as John Wayne, Teddy Roosevelt, Geronimo, and Annie Oakley. The portfolio garnered little public or critical attention upon its release, remaining one of the most overlooked creations of the artist’s career.
His series is paradoxical, celebrating while simultaneously appropriating and commodifying Indigenous culture through kaleidoscopic prints. Warhol’s lifelong fascination with the West follows in the footsteps of a long tradition of mythical representations of Native Americans, including the project by artist Edward S. Curtis, The North American Indian, which documented a “vanishing race” in a twenty-volume ethnographic campaign published between 1907 and 1930.
Growing up in the 1930s and early 1940s, Warhol was heavily influenced by the myths of the American West as depicted in film and television. Although he later travelled there a few dozen times, he primarily imagined Western people and places from his studio in New York. In his 1985 book America, the Pop artist wrote, “When I was little, I never left Pennsylvania, and I used to have fantasies about things that I thought were happening in the Midwest, or down South, or in Texas, that I felt I was missing out on.”
This image presents the only Native woman and child portrayed in the series, adapted from a photographic postcard published by the E. C. Kropp Company of Milwaukee. The woman’s identity and story are unknown. Warhol focuses instead on depicting her role as a child bearer and glamorizing an otherwise intimate and private image of everyday American Indians. With a peaceful expression, she is shown wearing a vibrant green shirt and a yellow blanket, recalling southwestern culture, while carrying a sleepless child on her back. Set against a simple background, the figures and the colourful references to southwestern cultures and arts are visually striking. Both mother and child have an idealized pink skin tone, which is characteristic of the facial tint Warhol applied to many of his portraits of Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe. As Heather Ahtone, a senior curator at First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, explains: “The portraits function within the triangle of desire that Warhol’s genius intuits from a society that wants a credible history that it can own, even at the expense of those whose bodies are now fodder for visual commodification.”
$40,000-60,000
2
ANDY WARHOL
Wayne Gretzky #99 (F&S II.306), 1984 colour screenprint on Lenox Museum Board signed by the artist and numbered 179/300 lower left, signed by Wayne Gretzky and inscribed “99” lower right; titled and numbered on a gallery label on the reverse. Printed by Rupert Jasen Smith, New York; published by Frans Wynans, Vancouver 40 x 32 ins; 101.6 x 81.3 cms
PROVENANCE
Pace Editions Inc., New York Private Collection, British Columbia
LITERATURE
Frayda Feldman and Jörg Schellmann, Andy Warhol Prints: A Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1987, 4th edition, Milan, 2003, reproduced page 133, catalogue no. II.306 “When Andy Warhol and Wayne Gretzky Teamed Up for a Portrait”, CBC Archives [online publication], 12 December 2019, accessed 2 April 2025
In 1977, collector Richard L. Weisman, a friend of Andy Warhol, asked him to create a set of silkscreens paying tribute to contemporary sports stars, which are now considered some of the most notable works of Warhol’s later years. Weisman believed that merging art and sports would bring a new audience of collectors into art galleries. While Weisman knew and loved sports, Warhol did not. Weisman chose the most prominent athletes of the time, and together they visited them or arranged for them to come to Warhol’s studio in New York to have multiple Polaroid portraits taken with his Big Shot camera. The sitters posed alongside the tools of their trade, from tennis rackets, hockey sticks and golf clubs to baseball mitts.
The series features Pelé, Muhammad Ali, O.J. Simpson and Wayne Gretzky, who was the first Canadian sports icon to become a North American superstar and is today credited for the growing popularity of hockey in the United States. Warhol and Gretzky were first introduced by Vancouver dealer Frans Wynans. The original paintings Warhol created from the sitting originally sold for $35,000, while the screenprints sold for $2,000. Gretzky kept one of the portraits for himself, choosing the one he described as featuring “the Oiler colours, if you can see the blue with the orange and white. They all look the same, but the colour in that one was the one that I seemed to like the most.”
In this work, Warhol focuses on “The Great One’s” boyish blond hair and intense gaze, which he emphasized using neon colours set against a large white square that contrasts with an intense blue background. Additionally, a large neon pink square highlights Gretzky’s famous number ninetynine, with stylistic coloured outlines drawing attention to the hockey stick he holds. The last few letters of the hockey logo Titan are barely visible, a brand which Gretzky would be associated with throughout his career. Warhol intended for Gretzky’s portraits to highlight Canadian art and artists. As a renowned hockey player, Gretzky was viewed by Warhol as an entertainer and goodwill ambassador for Canadian culture.
$20,000-30,000
3
FRIEDEL DZUBAS
Afterglow, 1976
Magna (acrylic) on canvas signed, titled, dated 1976 and inscribed “#274+F” on the reverse 40 x 40 ins; 101.6 x 101.6 cms
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Friedel Dzubas, video-recorded slide lecture, Emma Lake Artist’s Workshops, 1979
Friedel Dzubas’s pictures during the 1970s mixed and diluted colours, shifted saturations to create restless colour fields, and juxtaposed light or dark tonal effects, all of which encouraged the perception that colour opened the surface of his work outward, extending its effects to the viewer. This approach to colour and motif revived Dzubas’s pictorial arrangement by thrusting colour forward and driving it back into recessive space. As the curator E. A. Carmean Jr. described in a retrospective of his works in 1974, Dzubas’s “melting” edges are associated with Paul Cézanne while his articulation of the painted surface recalls the Old Masters. The Canadian master Jack Bush—in his high-keyed and crisp-edged ribbons—can even be deciphered in his compositions, suggesting the notion that artists exchanged ideas while applying them in their own individual way.
Dzubas alternated between the tondo and the square or rectangular canvas, since he wanted to loosen his design by liberating it from a central focus due to its framing edges. By finding a way out of the centre through several points in the field, the artist created nearly allover colour surrounds, which defeated the rigid geometry of his formats. Dzubas returned to the square format in 1972, choosing to return to a simpler field, which felt more normal and organic to him after adopting the long, narrow fields during the 1960s. With the square, he felt he could enter the picture more easily: “I also was comfortable standing into [the surface] and painting around it, which I did in the beginning, and by lying down. I built all kinds of construction to not let it touch the surface, but in the beginning I walked into my square and I painted in a certain logistical, with a certain strategy, painted whatever imagery I wanted to paint.”
Against a vaporous haze of pale orange, the large, amorphous overlay of white, red-orange, magenta, and brown highlights how Dzubas decentralized his images at this time. The warmth and richness are attributed to this painting’s dominant earth tones: the parallel bands of magenta and brown in the centre, which are juxtaposed with the white and orange merging together in the upper register. While the brushstrokes are more densely packed along the left edge, the colours are softened by “fade-outs” and dissolve on the opposite side through the scumbled tangerine background. A group of tilted colour bands balances the composition, with hues of amber, soft brown, aquamarine and turquoise rising upward and evenly at the bottom. This work exemplifies Dzubas’s commitment to exploiting pigment, image, and brushstroke to activate the surface of his paintings.
$40,000-60,000
YVONNE THOMAS
Sunsphere, 1966 oil on linen
signed, titled and dated 1966 on the reverse 31 x 26 ins; 78.7 x 66 cms
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Ontario
Thence by descent to the present Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Vittorio Colaizzi, “Yvonne Thomas: The ‘Singleness of the Poetry’”, Woman’s Art Journal (Spring/Summer 2020, Vol. 41, No. 1), pages 7 and 9
The bright colours of Sunsphere interact on the surface of the canvas, drifting and overlapping as they create an organic flow of movement. This dynamism is further enhanced by the areas of raw linen the artist has chosen to leave untouched, inviting viewers to engage more deeply with the materiality of the work.
In describing Yvonne Thomas’s sensitivity to touch, colour and scale, Vittorio Colaizzi writes: “She makes Abstract Expressionism into a traditional art that convinces with its constructive abruptness, demanding a re-evaluation of the tenacious criteria of innovation.” She felt the influence of the Abstract Expressionist movement that was gaining popularity in New York.
Interestingly, Donald Judd also championed Thomas’s painting of the late 1950s and early 1960s, as Colaizzi highlights her minimalist approach: “Wide brush-strokes and sweeps of color glissade to the plane of the bare canvas. The paint and canvas are identified with one another, continued into each other, and the consequent speed and thinness of the surface engender the clarity and singleness of the poetry.”
In her early works, we can see her experimenting with quick, broad brushstrokes and the interplay of specific colours. During the 1960s, she continued to refine her style, eliminating the aggressive application of paint favoured by other Ab-Ex artists and focusing more on the interaction of colours in compositions featuring hard-edge geometric shapes and forms.
In the same article, Colaizzi relates what the artist told a reporter in 1962, “My statement is getting simpler. I am narrowing, simplifying. Color is turning from sober, controlled tones to more exuberant ones. The inner symbols and ideas are becoming the subject. I am discovering, as I go along, interest in the periphery of the painting space rather than in the center.”
$40,000-60,000
5
HELEN FRANKENTHALER
Painted Book Cover, 1971
acrylic on canvas bound monograph of the artist, with text by Barbara Rose, designed by Robert Motherwell signed in black ink on the spine of the book, additionally signed and numbered “29” in black ink on the title page (from a series of 62 unique paintings), published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York. Enclosed in an acrylic case 11 x 11.5 x 1.5 ins; 27.9 x 29.2 x 3.8 cms (overall)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
EXHIBITED
Helen Frankenthaler: Sixty-Two Painted Book Covers, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, May-October 1973
LITERATURE
Helen Frankenthaler: Sixty-Two Painted Book Covers
Exhibition brochure with introduction by John J. McKendry, New York, 1973, unpaginated
Books are objects that resist simple definition, with their cover serving as a visual representation of their contents, either directly or more elusively. Covers are meant to appeal to the senses—with delightful illustrations or rich decorations—that reveal, amuse or turn away potential readers. As threedimensional objects, books serve multiple purposes by existing at the intersection of physicality and visuality.
This work is part of a series of sixty-two books hand-painted by the artist to coincide with the publication in 1972 of Barbara Rose’s monograph, titled Frankenthaler, in collaboration with her then husband, Robert Motherwell. Once completed, Frankenthaler and the publisher decided to create a special edition. While it is common in book publishing to produce a limited edition of a print, Frankenthaler was not particularly excited about adding a premium to a completed book. Instead, she decided to paint different clothbound covers on weekends, blending spontaneity and restraint through her dashes and stain-like application of paint. This book would have been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973. As the curator John J. McKendry describes in the exhibition catalogue, “Frankenthaler, like a true artistmagician, has transformed this book. She has made a book on art into a work of art.”
Broad diagonals of soft beige, bright yellow, and light blue fill the surface of the cover as Frankenthaler experiments with the perimeters of areas of colour while simultaneously pushing the physical boundaries of the book. Here, the shades blend at the edges, with the dried blue pigment pooling in a darker wash in the upper right corner alongside a smaller, amorphous green section. As in her large horizontal canvases of 1973, such as Off White Square and Moveable Blue, she is “colonizing emptiness” as Dore Ashton once commented. Frankenthaler expertly translated her embrace of painterly possibilities into a book cover, pushing herself to find continuity in change.
$10,000-15,000
ROBERT NATKIN
Untitled (679), 1979 acrylic on canvas stamp dated 1979 and “679” three times on the reverse 78 x 84 ins; 198.1 x 213.4 cms
PROVENANCE
Private Collection
Robert Natkin was an American abstract painter known for creating atmospheric canvases that bridge Abstract Expressionism and Color Field painting, infused with a strong sense of lyricism and structure. Natkin’s paintings are recognizable for their soft, shimmering colour fields, layered textures, and subtle geometric frameworks. He often built up the surface with thin veils of paint to create depth and luminosity, resulting in a tactile, textile-like quality. Critics have described his paintings as “visual poetry,” balancing spontaneity and careful composition.
This 1979 painting exemplifies the luminous, layered abstraction that defined his mature period. By the late 1970s, Natkin had firmly established himself as one of the leading figures in post-painterly abstraction. His works from this era are characterized by radiant colour fields built through delicate layers of stippled paint and mesh-like textures, creating a sense of depth and vibration.
In this composition, Natkin’s use of warm, atmospheric hues—coral, yellow, pink, and violet—conveys a meditative energy, while floating geometric and gestural forms bring rhythm and movement to the surface. Painted during a period when he was exhibiting widely across the United States and Europe, this work reflects Natkin’s ongoing exploration of light, space, and harmony. It reveals his belief that abstraction could evoke emotional and even musical resonance.
$15,000-20,000
KAREL APPEL
Untitled mixed media on paper signed lower left 11 x 14 ins; 27.9 x 35.6 cms (sight)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Toronto
A prominent member of the CoBrA group, Karel Appel approached art making with a childlike innocence. Using bright colours, the act of creating becomes as important as the finished product. His works are whimsical, created using a gestural application of pigment, deriving from a combination of children’s art, primitive art and folk art. Ultimately, Appel in his practice sought to present art making in its purest form.
In this mixed media drawing, blue, red, and yellow hues fight against the aggressive black brushstrokes dominating the composition. This work, characteristic of the artist’s later pieces, draws the viewer in with its simple composition, inviting our eyes to follow the brushstrokes across the surface of the canvas. The CoBrA group, known for its use of primary colours, consistently focused on abstract subject matter. In this sketch, Appel has employed a spontaneous, automatic approach to rapidly create a composition that is both simple and complex, reinforcing the mark of the artist.
$5,000-7,000
BENGT LINDSTRÖM
Portrait of Michèle Lindström acrylic on canvas signed lower right 51.25 x 38 ins; 130.2 x 96.5 cms
PROVENANCE
Galerie D’art, Paris Private Collection, Toronto
Three elements instantly capture our attention upon viewing Portrait of Michèle Lindström: thick impasto, heavy brushstrokes and vibrant colours applied in an all-over manner. The artist has expertly captured the lively personality of the sitter, depicting her with a wry smile. When they met, she was running a gallery in Paris that regularly showed Lindström’s art. After his first wife passed away, he married Michèle in the mid-1990s.
The Swedish artist was significantly influenced by the CoBrA group, specifically by Karel Appel and Asger Jorn, both of whom were based in Copenhagen during his studies. Lindström was also drawn to the art of the traditional Nordic and Sámi cultures, which he incorporated into a new mode of visual representation.
Known for using large buckets of raw paint, he would apply it to the canvas by alternating between oversized brushes and his fingers. In this work, he uniquely elongates and abstracts the sitter’s face while still respecting the proportions of the human form. His bold exploration of the medium also extended to large-format sculptures, murals and performance art.
We would like to thank the Comité Bengt Lindström for confirming the authenticity of this work. A letter from the Comité is included with this lot.
$10,000-15,000
SIR ANTHONY CARO
Table Piece CCXL, 1975 steel, rusted and varnished catalogue no. B0238
27.25 x 64 x 26.5 ins; 69.2 x 162.6 x 67.3 cms (overall)
PROVENANCE
Michael Steiner, New York Elca London Gallery, Montreal Private Collection, Toronto
EXHIBITED
Table Sculptures 1966-1977, Tel Aviv Museum of Art; travelling to Auckland Art Gallery; National Gallery, Wellington; Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; Newcastle Region Art Gallery; Victorian College Art Gallery, Melbourne; Tasmanian Museum & Art Gallery, Tasmania; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Undercroft Gallery, Perth; Städtische Kunsthalle, Mannheim; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt am Main; Kunstverein Braunschweig, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich, 12 April 1977-26 August 1979
LITERATURE
Jürgen Schilling, “Anthony Caro - Versuch Einer Bestimmung” in Anthony Caro: Table and Related Sculptures 1966-1978, Braunschweig, 1979, pages 11-18, 97, 210
Dieter Blume, “Table and Related Sculptures 1966-1978” in Anthony Caro, Catalogue Raisonné, Vol. I, Cologne, 1979
Peter Sparks, “Shapes that climb and slide”, Newcastle Morning Herald, 1978
Michael Fried, “Anthony Caro’s Table Sculptures” in Art and Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago and London, 1977, pages 202-209
Michael Fried, Anthony Caro: Table Sculptures 1966-1977, Germany, 1977, pages 5-14, 15, ill. 14
Julius Bryant, Anthony Caro: A Life in Sculpture, London, 2004, page 53
Sir Anthony Caro creates a sense of weightlessness in his sculptures by welding cut steel pieces, making the forms appear to float above the ground and defy gravity. His works are not merely static; they also engage dynamically with their environment, particularly evident in his piece, Table Piece CCXL
In 1966, Caro began creating table sculptures—not in his studio in Camden, where he was working on large-scale pieces, but in his garage. By eliminating the base and placing his sculptures on the ground, as Alberto Giacometti had done in 1932 with his Woman with Her Throat Cut, he made the ground plane play a more active role in his works while inviting a deeper connection between their enlarged scale and the viewer. Importantly, these sculptures are not maquettes or models for larger works; they stand alone as individual pieces, collaged together from various shapes and lines of cut steel.
In an interview with Julius Bryant, the artist describes his spontaneous approach to art making for a work he undertook in Canada, which involved working with a crane: “I’d say, ‘let’s have that side off’ or ‘turn that over’: often big changes. That was a good lesson for me, and I brought that lesson back to England. By making things rapidly, such as small sculptures in my garage, tacking them together and then not seeing them for six months, I could make spontaneous decisions. You look at the work afresh each time.”
Table Piece CCXL exemplifies this central theme, in which the English abstract sculptor has created a wave-like undulation in the large form to anchor the work, wrapping around the edges with longer sections of steel tacked and bent at intervals. Caro’s arrangement of planes and lines ultimately serves to create this notion of spontaneity, drawing his sculpture into steel.
We would like to thank The Anthony Caro Centre for their assistance in cataloguing this work.
$30,000-40,000
SIR JACOB EPSTEIN
Lovers on Eagle’s Back (Bird in Flight), circa 1946 bronze with a light brown patina incised signature on the underside of the tail. From an edition of 6
7 x 8.5 x 6.75 ins; 17.8 x 21.6 x 17.1 cms (including the base)
PROVENANCE
Acquired directly from the Artist Private Collection, Toronto
During the twentieth century, British sculptors emerged as leading figures on the international stage, promoting the range and versatility of mediums, such as stone, metal, wood, and glass. Remarkable works from this period include Sir Jacob Epstein’s controversial Tomb for Oscar Wilde, unveiled in 1914 at Père Lachaise Cemetery, and the modernist sculptures by Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth in the 1930s.
Birds and other winged creatures were a common theme for Post-War British sculptors. Artists like Epstein, Elisabeth Frink, Lynn Chadwick and Michael Ayrton often used avian imagery to reflect on their experiences during the Second World War. This theme encompassed the trauma of witnessing air crashes and the powerful new technologies that sparked a desire for escape and transformation. Through these visual metaphors, artists were able to express intense emotions and contemplate the fragility of human life.
This work is a cast of his maquette by the same name, dating to circa 1946, when it was exhibited at the Leicester Galleries in London. It depicts a couple embracing on the back of an eagle, their arms wrapped around each other and heads resting closely together. Positioned in flight, the eagle has its wings spread out and appears to be soaring upward, symbolizing dynamism and vitality. This bronze sculpture exemplifies Epstein’s enduring exploration of movement and form in three-dimensionality.
$5,000-7,000
ROBERT MAPPLETHORPE
Apples and Urn, 1987
gelatin silver print titled, dated 1987 and numbered 6/10, stamped with the artist’s estate stamp, signed by Michael Ward Stout, Executor of the estate and titled, dated and numbered on a gallery label on the reverse. This photograph was taken in 1987 and printed in 1989 24 x 20 ins; 61 x 50.8 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
Olga Korper Gallery, Toronto Corporate Collection, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto
“My whole point is to transcend the subject... go beyond the subject somehow, so that the composition, the lighting, all around, reaches a certain point of perfection”
— Robert Mapplethorpe
A perfectly arranged group of apples, in and around a sculptural urn, evokes the still life paintings of the Old Masters. Mapplethorpe’s photograph emphasizes the textures and shadows of the objects in the composition. In the 1980s, he turned to studio photography, executing formal portraits of nudes, still life compositions, and domestic scenes of flowers. Based on a negative taken in 1987, this work showcases the tonal contrasts made possible by Mapplethorpe’s distinct photographic technique.
The apples have a lush surface adorned with small droplets of condensation, which are accentuated by his method of photography. In the bottom right corner, folds of fabric interrupt the arrangement, surrounding a single apple leaning against the urn. The pattern on the draped textile further contrasts with the smooth surfaces of both the fruit and the urn. Through Mapplethorpe’s lens, everyday objects are elevated to the extraordinary, challenging conventional perceptions of beauty and inviting viewers to explore the complexities and nuances of artistry.
$15,000-20,000
WALASSE TING
Untitled acrylic on paper mounted on canvas signed with the artist’s stamp lower right 36 x 36.75 ins; 91.4 x 93.3 cms
PROVENANCE
Private Collection
In the early 1950s, Walasse Ting moved to Paris after spending a couple of years at the Shanghai College of Fine Arts. Ting always regarded himself as “self-taught”. Shortly after arriving in Paris, he befriended artists from the CoBrA group—Karel Appel, Asger Jorn, and Pierre Alechinsky— who had a significant influence on his work. After some time in Paris, Ting travelled to New York, where Abstract Expressionism was gaining prominence in the mid-1950s. There, he formed friendships with Sam Francis, Claes Oldenburg, and Joan Mitchell.
Ting was known for combining various techniques in his paintings, including traditional Chinese brush painting, which he blended with the vibrant colours of the Abstract Expressionists. In this work, he portrayed one of his highly stylized women as the central figure, depicted with a relaxed expression and pose. Her long, curving arms and fingers are accentuated as she leans on two sliced watermelons.
While his main influences were rooted in Abstract Expressionism, from the mid-1970s onward, Ting’s work evolved to become predominantly figurative. He approached his subjects, primarily women, by integrating elements of both Eastern and Western cultures in his artwork.
Proceeds from the sale of this lot will benefit The Chabad Lubavitch Organization of Southern Ontario
$10,000-15,000
Celebrating a German Master:
From the Collection of Julian Dix
Cowley Abbott is proud to present a selection of drawings and watercolours by Otto Dix from the collection of his grandson, Julian Dix. These works pay homage to this revolutionary artist, who reshaped our understanding of the First World War and the complexities of the human condition.
Following an apprenticeship with landscape painter Carl Senff, Dix studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule art school in Dresden, where he began landscape studies of the environs based in the traditional painting style. His early works reveal the influence of late Impressionism and eventually Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism.
As the critic Carl Einstein noted in 1923, Dix was “an essentially reactionary painter of left-wing subject matter”, skillfully adopting art historical traditions to depict contemporary subjects. Like George Grosz and Max Beckmann, Dix volunteered in 1914 and served as a noncommissioned officer with a heavy machine-gun battery on the Western Front for the next four years.
During this time, he kept a diary in which he recorded his experience in the trenches, creating Expressionist drawings in ink, chalk and tempera that reflected the emotional turmoil brought on by the constant presence of danger and death. He later stated, “I didn’t paint war pictures in order to prevent war. I would never have been so presumptuous. I painted them in order to exorcise war. All art is exorcism.”
In August 1918, while serving in Flanders, Dix suffered a life-threatening injury to his neck, leading to his discharge the following month. He returned to Dresden and resumed his studies until 1922 before moving to Düsseldorf. There, he became one of the New Objectivity painters, a movement that emerged as a response to Expressionism, emphasizing a return to reality and a focus on the objective world.
The year 1933 marked the beginning of Dix’s landscape period, following his dismissal from the Academy in Dresden, where he had been teaching since 1927, and the inclusion of his works in one of the first exhibitions deemed “decadent” by the rising National Socialists. He relocated to Randegg, a rural village in southern Swabia, which provided an escape from political events and inspired him to rediscover landscape painting.
These works demonstrate his interest in the Old Masters while paying tribute to Romantic and Old German traditions, similar to those found in the art of Pieter Bruegel. They showcase Dix’s dedication to engaging with his surroundings through figurative representation and by embracing traditional painting styles that had been marginalized by modernism. These idyllic pastoral scenes depict Dix as a realist artist, committed to faithfully representing everything he encountered, from the beautiful to the surprising and even apocalyptic elements of life.
Dix’s grandson, Julian, describes these exceptional works as follows: “These works of my grandfather have been in our family since his passing in 1969, and there is an intimacy about them that reveals the artist’s hand, and offers a rare glimpse into Otto Dix the man. These are what I categorize as the quiet works of my grandfather—no provocation, and away from the spotlight of political scrutiny.”
OTTO
DIX
St. Goar (Sankt Goar, Rhineland), 1933 silverpoint on paper inscribed “St. Goar” and dated 1933 upper right 12.5 x 9.5 ins; 31.8 x 24.1 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
LITERATURE
Frank Whitford, “The Revolutionary Reactionary” in Keith Hartley and Sarah O’Brien Twohig, Otto Dix, 1891-1969, London, 1992, pages 15, 21
While the year 1933 was pivotal in German history, when the Nazis assumed national power, it was also more personal for Dix. He was dismissed from the Academy of Art in Dresden, where he had been teaching since 1927, while many of his works were displayed in one of the first exhibitions the Nazis condemned as “degenerate” art. That summer, Dix left Dresden for the southwest of Germany, near Lake Constance, where he decided to return to landscape painting since, as he explained, “I was condemned to the landscape… I stood in front of the landscape like a cow.”
This work exemplifies Dix’s enduring admiration for the German Renaissance masters, including Lucas Cranach the Elder and Albrecht Dürer, and is evident in his ability as a draughtsman and technician. With short bursts of the silverpoint, Dix has depicted Sankt Goar, featuring a towering fir tree in the foreground that overlooks a rural town and the bank of the Rhine stretching in the distance. Its emphasis on the natural landscape foreshadows Dix’s preoccupation in the late 1930s with romanticized portrayals of nature. This drawing ultimately reveals common German sentiments, as Frank Whitford describes: “there was a longing for peace, and with it a reawakening of interest in what was reassuringly familiar and comfortable.”
$8,000-10,000
OTTO DIX
Two Wolken Studies (Clouds Studies), circa 1917 two colour pastels on paper
- Wolken Study : signed lower left; 7.5 x 21.5 ins (19 x 54.6 cms) [irregular sheet]
- Wolken Study : signed lower left; 7.25 x 21.75 ins (18.4 x 55.2 cms) each signed lower left; unframed (matted together)
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
LITERATURE
Ursula Zeller, “The Reception of Dix’s Work” in Keith Hartley and Sarah O’Brien Twohig, Otto Dix, 1891-1969, London, 1992, page 50
In 1909, Dix arrived in Dresden and would remain there until the beginning of the First World War, during which he led a machine-gun unit, before studying at the Dresden School of Arts and Crafts. Dix was in Dresden on a grant from Prince von Reuss, which he supplemented with commissions while exploring the surroundings. As Ursula Zeller writes, “Dix began with landscape studies of the environs of Dresden in which he came to terms with prevailing styles of painting. His early works show the influences of late Impressionism, van Gogh and, later on even Expressionism, Cubism and Futurism.”
These Clouds Studies are early works that capture the dramatic atmosphere of morning and twilight. Working rapidly in pastel, Dix has taken each composition to the very edge of abstraction, with the cloud formations dissolving on the sheet. These studies illustrate the influence of the late Impressionists and their desire to capture fleeting moments in time. Featuring highly gestural strokes, each work centers around a single focal point: the rising or setting sun. In the upper work, thick black lines define the outer edges, while softer white and yellow hues surround a vibrant vermilion sun. The lower work is much lighter, with a pink colour stretching across the entire expanse of the sky as the sun rises or sets on the horizon.
$10,000-15,000
OTTO DIX
Steckborn, Switzerland from Hemmenhofen, 1949 watercolour on paper dated 1949 and inscribed “Für fröhliche weihnachten” (for a Merry Christmas) on the reverse 15.5 x 22.75 ins; 39.4 x 57.8 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
LITERATURE
“Schloß Waldegg and Hemmenhofen: 1933-1945” in Keith Hartley and Sarah O’Brien Twohig, Otto Dix, 1891-1969, London, 1992, pages 195-196
In this captivating work, Dix depicts the shore of Steckborn as an idealized landscape, offering a refuge from the political climate of the early 1930s in Germany. This small picture is remarkably detailed, from the towering yellow and orange fir trees in the right foreground to the sloping valley leading to houses lining the shore to the small hills rising on the opposite side. The brushstrokes are precise, the washes soft and muted, creating a homely atmosphere. In both subject matter and execution, it is reminiscent of the pastoral scenes of the Danube School and Albrecht Altdorfer’s singular pine trees.
After being dismissed from the Dresden Academy, Dix moved his family to southwest Germany, near Lake Constance. They first stayed at Randegg Castle in Hegau near Singen, then, from 1936 onward, in a house funded by Dix’s wife Martha, in Hemmenhofen on the Höri peninsula. There, they constructed a 390-square-meter villa with a lush garden where Dix remained until the end of his life. His art was now deemed subversive and degenerate (entartet ), so like many of his avant-garde contemporaries, he decided to retreat to a rural area and change his subject matter and style, a phenomenon known as “inner emigration.” Rather than painting from nature like the Impressionists, however, he would sketch first before creating the final composition in his studio located on the main street of Löbtau, a working-class district in Dresden.
As he described in a letter to a painter friend in Dresden: “I mostly do landscapes, a lot of studies of trees and houses, so as to be independent of the ‘motif’ and to be free to invent landscapes. [...] Today I don’t shrink from giving the shores of Lake Constance cliffs and mountains, that aren’t there at all in reality. But in the end the essential thing is the artistic expression, not ‘truth to nature.’”
$7,000-9,000
OTTO DIX
Französisches Dorf (French Village), 1958 colour pastel on paper signed upper right; inscribed “45” on the reverse; unframed 11.5 x 16.25 ins; 29.2 x 41.3 cm
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
LITERATURE
Iain Boyd Whyte, “Otto Dix’s Germany: From Wilhelmine Reich to East/West Divide” in Keith Hartley and Sarah O’Brien Twohig, Otto Dix, 1891-1969, London, 1992, page 26
This work in pastel testifies to Dix’s early influence by the Impressionists and Expressionists, capturing fleeting moments and the naturalistic effects of light and colour in landscapes. Yellow buildings with rusted-coloured roofs are tightly clustered along a curved road, with a small, natural space dominating the foreground. The dwellings stretch towards a distant hill in the background, with the vegetation alternating between shades of yellow, brown and earthy green. This simple rural scene evokes similar idyllic images by artists such as Vincent van Gogh, particularly The Yellow House from 1888, in which he records his immediate surroundings and offers a more subjective interpretation of the world.
This appeal to a simpler lifestyle thus aligns Dix with other German reformers “which sought to invent means of escape from the horrors of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, by reviving visions of community that had been swept aside by the Industrial Revolution.”
$6,000-8,000
Various Studies: Cats on a Roof, Heads with Annotations, circa 1920 pen and sepia ink on paper signed lower centre; unframed (matted) 10 x 8 ins; 25.4 x 20.3 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
After the First World War, Otto Dix returned to Dresden in 1919 and began exploring the social expressionist movement, exhibiting at the First International Dada Fair in 1920. The cultural climate of the war heavily influenced Dix, who also created a woodcut that same year, titled Cats, which he included in his Nine Woodcuts Portfolio. This work was inspired by imagery from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra
This work is a study for the 1920 painting of the same name, dedicated to poet and cultural critic Theodor Däubler. Däubler championed German Expressionism and was associated with many artists in the Berlin Dada and Expressionist scenes, including Dix. Here, the artist is working out the placement of the different elements of his composition. Instead of the three cats shown in the final painting, seven cats appear slinking over the roof of a stylized nineteenth-century building with a central tower and a weathervane in the shape of a woman. While one balances on the weathervane, the other is shown leaping toward the crescent moon. Also present are three mice running around on the rooftop.
Dix was extremely conscious of the human condition during the war years, as evidenced by the Nine Woodcuts Portfolio. Interestingly, Dix has included along the edge of the sheet various profile studies of male and female heads, juxtaposed with random marks made by the artist.
$10,000-15,000
OTTO DIX
Saüling IV, 1927
watercolour
signed and dated 1927 upper left; titled and dated on the reverse
15.5 x 22.5 ins; 39.4 x 57.2 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
The Collection of Julian Dix
In the late 1920s, Dix’s children became prominently featured in his art as he attempted to perfect his painting technique, which was modelled after the Old Masters. Here, a baby is shown lying in a cradle, resting with his eyes half closed and his chest covered by a miniature elephant and a rattle. Rather than focusing on the remarkable moment when a baby takes its first breath—as shown in the paintings of his son, Ursus, lying on a sheet and crying in vain for a loving embrace—here he depicts a more lively scene, capturing the infant in motion, with his right hand lifting as if grasping for purchase. The brushstrokes are softer and longer, stretching to capture, in minute detail, all the rounded edges and folds of the child’s form. This work ultimately highlights the fragility of existence by revealing the treacherous proximity of life and death not only for newborns but for all humankind.
$6,000-8,000
KENNETH NOLAND
Salander O’Reilly Gallery Exhibition Poster, 1992 offset lithograph with acrylic signed and dated “6.16.92” lower centre; unframed 34.5 x 19 ins; 87.6 x 48.3 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, British Columbia
LITERATURE
Diane Waldman, Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective, New York, 1977, page 11
Following his break in the 1950s with Abstract Expressionism, Kenneth Noland began producing paintings with geometric shapes and bold colour combinations, before becoming one of the leading figures of Color Field painting and the Washington Color School. Elements from his Flares series can be gleaned from this work, with the sinuous bands evoking the complex interplay of colour and form also present in the translucent plexiglass strips.
Here, dense bands of yellow and dark navy shoot upward against a neutral background, with brushstrokes of blue and green applied more sparsely along the top and bottom edges to enhance the lithograph. This unique work pays tribute to Noland’s mature works, which follow in the footsteps of Piet Mondrian, “in their classic purity, chromatic breakdown of space and the optical effects of forms which seem to advance and retreat while simultaneously occupying a single plane.”
This poster itself was printed in Calgary in 1991 with the assistance of Andrew Lemessurier.
$5,000-7,000
KENNETH NOLAND
Center Theatre Group 25th Anniversary Season
Poster, circa 1992 offset lithograph with hand embellishment signed and dated “6.10.01” twice and inscribed “For Terry + Sheila with love”; unframed 34 x 19 ins; 86.4 x 48.3 cms (sheet)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, British Columbia
LITERATURE
Kenneth Noland, interview with Avis Berman, 1 July 1987, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington Diane Waldman, Kenneth Noland: A Retrospective, New York, 1977, page 26
Noland first unveiled his new motif of concentric circles in his solo exhibition of 1959 at French and Company in New York, where he began experimenting with double circles and rings of colours. Unlike Josef Albers’s rigid geometry, the circle is more dynamic and symbolizes eternity. Concentric rings convey energy and movement, radiating from the interior to the exterior. Noland’s oeuvre focuses heavily on the centre; his compositions of circles, chevrons, stripes, or plaid are all universally balanced and symmetrical, with a clear focal point.
The original work reproduced on this poster is Back and Front from 1960, which Noland has annotated by hand with scrawlings on the periphery along the outer edge. It presents large rings of deep red and blue alongside thinner bands of green and black on the right-hand side, while the left remains more muted in pastel shades. It recalls the targets of Jasper Johns and the teachings of Ilya Bolotowsky, which he would have encountered at Black Mountain College. Yet, Noland’s approach to colour is primarily influenced by Wassily Kandinsky’s theories from Concerning the Spiritual Art —where he introduced the notion of colours expanding and contracting—which he interpreted in metaphysical terms: “colour has pulses, [and] those pulses can lead you from one dimension to another dimension… so that different colours have an accumulation of these pulses and give you a different kind of general resonance in a painting.”
$3,000-4,000
21
FRANCIS BACON
After Study for Bullfight #1, 1969 (Sabatier 10) colour lithograph on Arches wove paper signed and numbered 120/150 in the lower margin; titled “Untitled” on a gallery label on the reverse. Executed in 1971. Published by Musée du Grand Palais, Paris, on the occasion of the artist’s retrospective exhibition in 1971 63 x 47.25 ins; 160 x 120 cms
PROVENANCE
Marlborough-Godard, Toronto Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Bruno Sabatier, Francis Bacon: The Graphic Work, Paris, 2012, catalogue no. 10
Mark Stevens and Annalyn Swan, Francis Bacon: Revelations, New York, 2020, page 519
This work was inspired by Francis Bacon’s triptych of bullfight paintings from 1969, in which he celebrates this ancient ritual that remains popular in Spain, Portugal, and southern France. This colour lithograph was initially issued as the main image on the poster advertising Bacon’s retrospective of paintings in October 1971 at the Grand Palais in Paris. His close friend, the French author Michel Leiris, also appreciated bullfights and had sent Bacon in 1966 a copy of his novel Miroir de la tauromachie (Mirror of Bullfighting), which would have spurred the artist to return to this motif.
Bacon’s characteristic fusion of figures, amalgamation of colours, and dynamic action are on full display to represent the tussle between a raging bull and a matador. The figure stands upright with one leg held up in triumph above what appears to be a bull’s horn. The man and the animal are nearly indistinguishable: the flesh-coloured tones merging with shades of brown, white, gray and crimson red. Despite the simplicity of the scene in the foreground—to better showcase the fight—a rectangular panel in the background inevitably draws the viewer’s eye. Only upon a closer examination does one realize that the indistinct mass of forms represents a crowd of howling spectators. The large throng ultimately breaks the rhythm of the sandy ground of the outdoor setting as well as the orange backdrop, reminiscent of the corrida Bacon would have encountered in his travels.
His series of bullfight scenes pay homage to Bacon’s enduring interest in exploring the intersection of human and animal, of the wild brutality that animates all of us. By capturing the beauty within the liminal state between life and death, the Irish-born artist offers a poignant meditation on the true nature of mankind.
$20,000-30,000
22
FRANCISCO ZÚÑIGA
Tres Mujeres Platicando, 1980 bronze incised signature, dated 1980 on the lower back of the middle figure and numbered I/VI on the base 9.5 x 15.75 x 12.5 ins; 24.1 x 40 x 31.8 cms
PROVENANCE
Perls Gallery, New York
Elca London Gallery, Montreal Private Collection, Toronto
LITERATURE
Francisco Zúñiga: Sculpture and Drawings [online publication], Jack Rutberg Fine Arts, Los Angeles, 2018, page 8
Francisco Zúñiga: Catalogue Raisonné [online publication], no. 877, accessed 10 April 2025
Francisco Zúñiga is a highly esteemed artist in Latin America, recognized for his monumental public sculptures featuring either individual women or groups of female figures. In both his graphic works and sculptures, his traditionally shawled women convey a sense of calmness, whether posed alone or interacting with one another. Jack Rutberg writes, “The figure-ground relationships in his drawings evoke the same monumental qualities found in his sculptures. What is revealed is that regardless of medium and scale, Zúñiga’s works have an extraordinary capacity to evoke remarkably poignant qualities; at once tender, stoic, and heroically monumental.”
In the smaller format Tres Mujeres Platicando, Zúñiga has created a serene atmosphere as the three women converse in a partial circle. Drawing upon classical and pre-Columbian sources, their faces and draped bodies are sculpted with sensitivity, evoking a calm maternal feeling. The dark monochrome patina of the bronze enhances the sense of tranquility among the women as they engage in conversation.
$10,000-15,000
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Our experienced specialists strive to form relationships with clients built on professionalism, transparency and trust. The Cowley Abbott team is keen to facilitate the entire process of selling or purchasing an artwork, from on-site visits and individual consultations to the fall of the gavel and the final delivery of a work of art. We believe that art collecting should be approachable, educational and rewarding for both new and seasoned collectors. Several definitive details set Cowley Abbott apart to our clientele, cementing our presence in the Canadian art auction industry. We look forward to being of service to avid collectors far and wide.
Rob Cowley and Lydia Abbott of Cowley Abbott
