- 46
Ged Quinn
Estimate
60,000 - 80,000 GBP
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Description
- Ged Quinn
- The Night They Burned Down the Old Magritte Place
- oil on linen
- 185 by 244cm.
- 72 7/8 by 96in.
- Executed in 2005.
Provenance
Wilkinson Gallery, London
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Acquired directly from the above by the present owner
Exhibited
London, Wilkinson Art Gallery, Ged Quinn, 2005 (incorrectly titled)
London, Wilkinson Art Gallery, Ged Quinn: My Great Happiness Gives Me a Right to Your Benevolence, 2007-08, p. 26 and p. 89, no. 14, llustrated in colour (incorrectly titled)
London, Wilkinson Art Gallery, Ged Quinn: My Great Happiness Gives Me a Right to Your Benevolence, 2007-08, p. 26 and p. 89, no. 14, llustrated in colour (incorrectly titled)
Condition
Colour:
The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although the overall tonality is slightly warmer in the original.
Condition:
This work is in very good condition. Close inspection reveals there is a very small spot of wear to the extreme bottom right corner tip. No restoration is apparent under ultraviolet light.
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
"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. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."
Catalogue Note
Based on the Classical landscape, Hagar and Ishmael in The Desert painted by Claude Lorrain in 1668, Ged Quinn’s pseudo Romantic The Night They Burned Down The Old Magritte Place delivers an uncanny distortion and manipulation of the sublime trope of natural beauty. Claude’s biblical landscape is here reversed, and the highly romanticised depiction of abject despair met by the promise of salvation is made strange by omission and intervention. Articulated with a bravura painterly technique, the present work deceptively conjures a reading of visual luxuriance and idyllic arcadia only to unsettle and forsake superficial analysis with insidious disquietude.
In the foreground, an uninhabited, tattered domain replaces the figures of Hagar and Ishmael: Claude’s biblical narrative has been omitted in favour of death, deceit and decay. The tattered tepee occupying this space contains an image of the mundane furnishings based on a police photograph of the American criminal, Jeffery Dahmer’s infamous living room at apartment 213, 924 North 25th Street, Milwaukee. Here invoking the work of surrealist painter Rene Magritte, Quinn’s painting depicts an image of an image: the sterile police photograph contains no memory of what occurred in the ‘real’ place that was Dahmer’s abode. Quinn’s utilisation of this image and its spectacular insertion into a seventeenth-century trope of ideal landscape, sophisticatedly mediates slippage between readings, images, and lived experience within the contingent nature of history.
In the foreground, an uninhabited, tattered domain replaces the figures of Hagar and Ishmael: Claude’s biblical narrative has been omitted in favour of death, deceit and decay. The tattered tepee occupying this space contains an image of the mundane furnishings based on a police photograph of the American criminal, Jeffery Dahmer’s infamous living room at apartment 213, 924 North 25th Street, Milwaukee. Here invoking the work of surrealist painter Rene Magritte, Quinn’s painting depicts an image of an image: the sterile police photograph contains no memory of what occurred in the ‘real’ place that was Dahmer’s abode. Quinn’s utilisation of this image and its spectacular insertion into a seventeenth-century trope of ideal landscape, sophisticatedly mediates slippage between readings, images, and lived experience within the contingent nature of history.