Lot 452
  • 452

JULIAN SCHNABEL | Large Rose Painting (Near Van Gogh's Grave)

Estimate
1,000,000 - 1,500,000 USD
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Description

  • Julian Schnabel
  • Large Rose Painting (Near Van Gogh's Grave)
  • oil, plates and bondo on wood
  • 84 by 120 by 9 3/4 in. 213.4 by 304.8 by 24.8 cm.
  • Executed in 2015.

Provenance

The Pace Gallery, New York
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Exhibited

New York, Pace Gallery, Julian Schnabel: New Plate Paintings, February - March 2017

Condition

This work is in excellent condition overall. The broken plates and inconsistent surface texture throughout the composition are inherent to the artist's chosen medium and working method. There is evidence of faint scattered surface dust accumulated within the crevices. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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.

Catalogue Note

Julian Schnabel’s monumental Large Rose Painting (Near Van Gogh’s Grave) is the artist’s prodigal return to the medium that established him in the artworld, belonging to an esteemed series of twenty-one plate paintings inspired by the roses that grow alongside Van Gogh’s grave in Auvers-sur-Oise, France. The present work is rife with texture owing to its rich composition created from broken plates and fragment of wood, which are then painted over with hues of vivid evergreen and luscious quartz pink. Schnabel first came across this unlikely composite source material in 1978 inside Park Güell, Barcelona while studying Gaudí’s spectacular mosaics and searching for a new way to paint. As expressed in Schnabel’s own words, “My interest, unlike Gaudi’s, was not in the patterning or the design of the glazed tiles, it was in the reflective property of white plates to disturb the picture plane. The disparity between reflectiveness of the plates and the paint were in disagreement with each other and the concept of mosaic, because they fractured its homogeneity.” As seen in this painting, Schnabel employs his trademark plates in a new fashion; by submerging the collage-mosaic in paint, the plates becomes merely the undergrowth and resign their identity as they become absorbed in the totality of nature. If Van Gogh’s final painting, Wheatfield with Crows, functioned as a suicide note, the present work is Schnabel’s elegiac ode to the post-Impressionist master, masterfully communicating a grand, homeric sense of pathos. “What the surface of a painting can be is an obsession of mine...If you see how the plate paintings function, it’s very three-dimensional, both physically and spatially. I like dealing with physical problems and rudimentary concerns about trying to stick things to a surface.” Julian Schnabel