$22,000
Estimate: $25,000 - $40,000
Auction: November 17, 2020 12:00:00 PM EDT
Signed, titled and dated 1969 on stretcher, synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas, in artist's frame.
overall: 8 x 5 1/4 x 1/2 in. (20.3 x 13.3 x 1.3cm)
Provenance: Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Gates Lloyd Sr. and Eleanor "Lallie" Biddle Lloyd.
H. Gates Lloyd III (by family descent in 1993).
The Estate of H. Gates Lloyd.
NOTE:
Richard Pettibone gained fame in the 1960s for creating miniature versions of larger works by major contemporary artists, including Frank Stella, Ed Ruscha, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol and, as in the present work, Roy Lichtenstein. At this time, Pettibone focused particularly on artists who worked in series or reproduction themselves, offering a fresh perspective and element of humor to familiar images.
Claude Monet painted thirty views of Rouen Cathedral between 1892 and 1894, capturing its façade from different angles in varying weather and light, creating a series of portraits of the cathedral as a study of color and shape. Roy Lichtenstein saw Monet's series in an exhibition in Pasadena in 1968 and was inspired to create his own "manufactured Monets," Pop Art variants on the artist's theme that mechanized and commodified his process. In turn, Pettibone recreated the work of his contemporary Lichtenstein to the scale of the Art Forum magazine reproductions he had available. Often referred to as an antecedent to 1980s Appropriation Art, Pettibone signs his work with both his name as well as the name of the original artist. Insightfully, Roberta Smith has described the artist's process as having "formal rigor, the personalizing effects of scale and touch, faith in materials as carriers of artistic meaning and, above all, hard-nosed, even hypercritical reverence." [1]
[1] Roberta Smith, "Imitations That Transcend Flattery," New York Times, July 15, 2005.