Joe Tilson

Marlborough Fine Art, London
Dame Miriam
Thence by family descent

Venice, British Council, XXXII Esposizione Biennale D'Arte, 1964, cat. no.35.

Pop Art in England, (exh. cat.), Kunstverein in Hamburg, 7th February - 21st March 1976, p.122, illustrated fig.124;
Michael Compton and Marco Livingstone, Tilson, L'Agrifoglio Editions, Milan, 1993, illustrated p.41.

The original wooden construction appears to be stable. There are visible nail heads and holes around the edges of the composition, which appear to be consistent with the artist's working method. There are some fine lines of cracking to the pigment in places, most apparent to the finger, which are in line with the grain of the wood. There are two small scuffs, with some associated paint loss, to the left side of the lips, and there is a very small knock to the lower right of the fingernail, with some further small areas of rubbing and scuffs in places. There is some light surface dirt in places. Subject to the above, the work appears to be in very good overall condition. Ultraviolet light reveals a small spot of retouching near the lower edge of the finger, and a further spot of retouching on the fingernail. Please contact the department on +44 (0) 207 293 6424 if you have any questions regarding the present work.
"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."

Attesting to her pioneering patronage of the artistic avant-garde, the works from the collection of Dr The Hon. Dame Miriam Rothschild offered in this sale (lots 127 and 185) and in our forthcoming sale of Contemporary Art (by Gunther Uecker and Heinz Mack) provide both a masterclass in the art of collecting and also express the visionary discernment of their first owner as embodied by their quality and their innate charisma.

Born in 1908 in Ashton, Northamptonshire, the Hon. Dame Miriam’s life was profoundly influenced by the entomological and conservation work of her father, the Hon. Charles Rothschild, as well as by the zoological pursuits of her uncle Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild. Despite (compared to her peers), a relative lack of formal education, she was an intellectual gadfly and polymath, becoming a leading authority on parasitism and gaining several honorary doctorates and degrees from universities including both Cambridge and Oxford, where she was, during the 1960s, a member of the genetics school. Dr Rothschild was also interested in the links between art and science, promoting art’s therapeutic capacities for the treatment of mental illnesses. From 1983-1987 she placed The Adamson Collection of artworks by patients living with major mental health issues such as schizophrenia (another issue she had put her considerable energies towards from the 1960s) on public display at the family estate at Ashton.

The Hon. Dame Miriam was part of a small band of British collectors who supported the new wave of young artists emerging in the early 1960s, artists such as Joe Tilson, who had recently graduated from the Royal College of Art alongside Peter Blake, R.B. Kitaj, Allen Jones, David Hockney and Patrick Caulfield. Drawing on influences from popular culture, this young cohort produced art which was exciting, challenging and unprecedented, forging a new aesthetic language that eschewed traditional art historical precedent, creating an art which was both for and of its time.

Secret is an early example of Tilson's first experimental forays into Pop Art. It displays the humorous wit so typical of British Pop, presenting in exaggerated scale a supposed 'secret', with lips shushed into silence, yet so large that their presence is anything but subtle. Its title, stamped tabloid-style along the base as if captioning a headline story, shouts instead of whispers. It takes inspiration from the mass media, the explosion of advertising and magazines and newspapers which heralded the new freedoms of the post-war era, of an increasingly visual and commodified culture in which societal boundaries were being redrawn. Yet whilst many artists sought to decrease the 'artistic' touch of their work, seeking uniformity and the shiny allure of the mass-produced (for example replacing the expressionist brushstroke with the newsprint-mimicking, uniformly painted Ben-Day dots), Tilson's Secret retains a distinctly handmade feel, its wooden construction a reminder of his training as a carpenter. For all its boldness, it also retains an enigmatic quality: its disembodied features are isolated, with no clue to whom they belong, whilst the text of 'SECRET' is partially obscured by two shutter-like edges, poised to conceal their message at any moment.

In 1964, Pop Art exploded onto the international art scene at the Venice Biennale: the prize for a foreign artist was awarded to Robert Rauschenberg, who exhibited alongside Jasper Johns, Jim Dine and Claes Oldenburg, whilst in the British Pavilion, Joe Tilson's uniquely British take on Pop took centre stage. Secret was exhibited alongside eleven other works by Tilson, including Vox-box, Key-box, 21st, Look! and Lucky-six, providing an international platform for the artist’s quirky, witty constructions. Created amidst the first flush of enthusiasm and excitement about popular culture and mass communication, Secret and its contemporary works display Tilson's youthful, unjaded response to everything that the 1960s had to offer; as Alan Bowness commented in the Pavilion catalogue, the present work demonstrated that he was 'one of those rare modern artists whose work exudes positive good humour' (Alan Bowness, 'Introduction', British Pavilion: Roger Hilton, Gwyther Irwin, Joe Tilson, Bernard Meadows: XXXII Venice Biennale, (exh. cat.), British Council, London, 1964).