Tom Wesselmann

Mark di Suvero Tower for Peace benefit, Los Angeles, 1966
Private Collection, Pennsylvania (acquired from the above sale)
Sotheby's, New York, October 19, 1979, lot 113
Acquired by the present owner from the above sale

Los Angeles, Artists' Tower of Peace, February - May 1966

This work is in very good condition overall. There is wear to the edges and scattered hairline surface scratches to the Plexiglas face. There are a few scattered pinpoint pigment losses not visible when framed. There is a minor unevenness to the surface and a few associated hairline cracks at the lower center quadrant of the Plexiglas. Framed.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The Artists’ Tower of Peace, also referred to as the Peace Tower, was born out of a desire to spotlight the Vietnam War. Conceived by the Los Angeles Artists’ Protest Committee and designed by sculptor Mark di Suvero, the primary structure was an abstracted peace sign that stood at nearly sixty feet tall and was surrounded by hundreds of unique, 24-inch square artist designed works.

The anti-war structure was unveiled on February 26, 1966 in an open Los Angeles lot to hundreds of attendees including anti-war leaders and inaugurated with a speech by Susan Sontag. Unified by the desire for peace in a politically restless and racially charged climate—the Watts Riots had rocked the city just 6 months earlier—418 artists from across the world participated in the Peace Tower efforts, from Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, and Vija Celmins to Judy Chicago, Robert Motherwell and former Army cartoonist Tom Wesselmann who donated the present lot, Nude for the Peace Tower.

The only requirement for submission was that all donated works should distinctly embody the singular protest of each artist. One might surmise then, that the woman depicted in Wesselmann’s work symbolized the female voice affected by the Vietnam War - whose voice exactly is unclear. The overarching conclusion is that art, as a key cultural element, holds the power to incite social change. In Nude for the Peace Tower, a defiance of conventional American expectations and perceptions concerning war and a female’s freedom towards her own sexuality ensues. Moreover, Nude for the Peace Tower participates in the sexual liberation movement of the 1960s concurrently taking shape at this time.

Bold in color, reductive in form, and explicit in content, Nude for the Peace Tower exhibits the Pop artist’s most iconic subject: the female nude. Following his highly successful Great American Nude series of the early 60s, by the middle of the decade Wesselmann began to concentrate on magnified and isolated fragments of the nude body. Purposefully refuting identifiable attributes, the artist excludes such facial features as the eyes and nose. Formally, the employment of enlarged details produces a compressed, plastic composition without sacrificing the sensuality of the subject.

Forty-nine years later, the historical importance of the present work should not be overlooked. As the largest artist-organized protest against the Vietnam War in the United States, it stands as a pioneering moment in the dialogue of Art Activism, one which still resonates powerfully today: in 2006, di Suvero and Contemporary artist Rirkrit Tiravanija recreated the tower at the Whitney Museum of American Art in protest of the Iraq War.