Untitled
9 x 12 inchesUntitled, 1973
paper: 9 x 12 inches
Edition of 300
Numbered by the Artist in pencil lower left recto
Signed "Lee Bontecou" in white pencil lower right
Stamped in black on verso "© Copyright 1973 By Lee Bontecou Printed At Styria Studio"
Printer Styria Studio Publisher Experiments in Art & Technology
Provenance
Glenn Horowitz Booksellers, East Hampton, New York
Sotheby’s, New York, October 26, 2019, Lot 253
Private collection, New York (Acquired from the above)
Museum Collections
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
Museum of Modern Art, New York
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Born in 1931, American artist Lee Bontecou created a strikingly original body of work in sculpture and drawing that was critically acclaimed and actively collected during the 1960s and seventies. Her innovative use of unconventional materials including saw blades or metal tubing was never arbitrary; she placed these surprising objects in contrast with scattered soot or organic cloth to juxtapose industrial and natural materials.
LEE BONTECOU SCULPTURE
Born in 1931, American artist Lee Bontecou created a strikingly original body of work in sculpture and drawing that was critically acclaimed and actively collected during the 1960s and seventies. Her innovative use of unconventional materials including saw blades or metal tubing was never arbitrary; she placed these surprising objects in contrast with scattered soot or organic cloth to juxtapose industrial and natural materials. She developed a process in the 1950s of producing carbon spray from an oxy-acetylene torch for a prototypical airbrushed effect which she applied to the surface of her sculptures, producing a glowing, almost living quality to her works. Although not affiliated with any artistic movement, her objects share similarities with Minimalism and Abstract Expressionism and evoke early Cubist sculpture. Her sculptures are typically defined by dark cavernous voids at their centersand posses an industrial, seemingly mechanical aesthetic.
Bontecou exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City during the 1960s alongside Robert Rauschenberg, Frank Stella and Jasper Johns. Her works are now held at the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery, Washington D.C., the Menil Collection, Houston; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Her work is installed in many public spaces of major institutions including the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University and the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center, which was commissioned by Phillip Johnson. Since a 2004 retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Bontecou’s work has had a major resurgence. Untitled sold at Sotheby’s for $1 million in 2017and her smallest works consistently sell for hundreds of thousands. She lives, works and teaches in Orbisonio, Pennsylvania.
Museum of Modern Art, New York
