George Condo

Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2017

“I see today’s world as it is! Absurd and exaggerated—and I need to turn it into something truthful. As an artist you are a mirror, but simply reflecting today’s culture is not enough, it has to come through as a visual correction” — George Condo

Through his experiences in New York and Paris, and his previous academic endeavors, Condo maintains a deep interest in art history, and drew much of his inspiration from historical antecedents. Since the beginning of his career as a painter in the late 1980s, he draws from a wealth of sources spanning the Renaissance and Baroque periods, to the Surrealist and Cubist movements, through to the influence of contemporary comics and cartoons. Assimilating these various influences to form a totally unique and psychological form of portraiture, which he calls psychological cubism, Condo produces works that simultaneously allude to and evade categorization. 

As seen in this drawing, Condo both uses the formal possibilities of art historical tropes and also pushes the boundaries of drawing and figuration reflective of our contemporary period. Untitled,  through the imagery of the two women’s bodies interlaced with the monstrous-looking central figure, displays the artist’s style of creating pieces in which unique cartoonish characters fill the page. This work exemplifies how Condo plays with his creative process to produce stylized and enigmatic images.