Avigdor Arikha

Marlborough Fine Art, London
Sale: Sotheby's, London, June 30, 1994, lot 228

London, Marlborough Fine Art, Paintings, Pastels, Drawings, 1990
Jerusalem, Israel Museum, Avigdor Arikha Selected Paintings 1933-1997, 20 November 1998 - 20 February 1999 and then to Edinburgh, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, 13 March - 9 May 1999, p. 71, no. 45, illustrated in color in the Israel Museum exhibition catalogue

Duncan Thomson, Arikha, London, 1994, p. 180, illustrated in color

Original canvas. Overall this work is in very good condition. No retouching is apparent when viewed under ultra violet light.
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André Fermigier considered that Arikha's works of this period are redolent with tradition whilst still describing every-day modern life. "Some are bound to discover an artist in sympathy with Degas: his gods, Ingres and Poussin. Others will find a spirit more restless, more strained, given to the occasional sombre mood and a slight quirk of style that almost approaches expressionism. The two interpretations complement one another and it is perhaps from their very confluence or discord that the rich texture of Arikha's work derives." (Richard Channin, André Fermigier, Robert Hughes, Jane Livingstone, Barbara Rose and Samuel Beckett, Avigdor Arikha, Paris, 1985, p. 198).

This work belongs to a major series of nudes executed by Arikha during the 1980s. Duncan Thomson compares the nudes from this period. As opposed to other works from this series, which exude an everyday tranquility, this painting, in which one wonders if the subject is covering, or uncovering, herself, is amongst those emanating an abstract tension. "The painting called Mademoiselle A.R. (1989) is, however, an expression of horizontal tension, the figure's stiff arms about to extend her own nudity, her heavy, hill-like breasts balanced by the pall of hair that lies on the fulcrum of the red couch. Similar abstract tension seems to be the concern of such other female nudes of recent years..." (Duncan Thomson, Arikha, London, 1994, p. 182).