ROBERT LONGO | Study for White Tiger

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate. Condition: This work is in very good condition. The sheet is taped to the backing board in two places on the reverse. Visible only when examined out of the frame, are artist's handling marks to the edges of the paper.
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Robert Longo’s Study for White Tiger is an extraordinary example of the artist’s sublime, all-American charcoal drawings from his iconic Mysteries series. Begun in 2009, this idiosyncratic and acclaimed series features wild animals, waves, atomic bomb explosions amongst other dynamic motifs that are meticulously rendered in charcoal to mesmerising effect. The present work perfectly attests to the artist’s outstanding mastery of the chiaroscuro effect and ingenious draughtsmanship skills, although he had trained as a sculptor. As he expands, “I always think that drawing is a sculptural process. I always feel like I'm carving the image out rather than painting the image. I'm carving it out with erasers and tools like that. I've always had this fondness for sculpture” (Robert Longo in conversation with Keanu Reeves in: Interview magazine, April 2014, online). Growing up in America in the 1950s and 1960s, Longo was captivated by the riveting photo-documentaries published in magazines such as Time, Life, or Newsweek. While the covers were always printed in glossy technicolour, the photographs filling the pages of the magazines displayed the realities of wars and natural disasters in black and white. As a result, Longo came to associate a monochromatic palette with harsh realism and led him to almost completely free his oeuvre of colour.

Study for White Tiger features a detailed view of a majestic white tiger’s head locking its gaze with the viewer’s. Like a moment frozen in time and space, the beautifully rendered charcoal drawing captures the splendour and power of one of the most majestic of animals. However, the power of Longo's tiger's is twofold, representing not only the animal's impressive beauty but also the artist’s deep concern with the deadly consequences of mankind's endangerment of the species. Populated with images that are triumphant yet prophetically sinister, Longo’s universe fascinates and intimidates. Many of his chosen subjects – waves about to break, atomic mushroom clouds rising towards the heavens, flags waving in the wind, sharks going in for the kill and tigers gazing out at the viewer – were coined “frozen moments” by the artist and “moments of climax” by postmodernist critic Hal Foster, but are also equally importantly, universal signifiers of virility and power “that mark the boiling point of the U.S. cultural imperium” (Walter Robinson, “Robert Longo”, Man of the World, November 2012, n.p.). Any peak, or climactic point, implies an inevitable downfall. At once powerful yet also endangered, the tiger perfectly exemplifies the artist’s concern with Man-made natural disasters, the consequence of our patriarchal imperialism and interference with nature.