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Gagosian and Almine Rech Gallery are pleased to announce two concurrent and related exhibitions of works by Tom Wesselmann in London. Organized in partnership with The Estate of Tom Wesselmann, both exhibitions highlight the bold approach to scale and color, art history and erotic representation that make Wesselmann one of the most inventive Pop artists of his time.
Over the years, I’d gotten excited about scale. . . . I wanted to deal with these big shapes, so I came in closer and closer on the nude. . . . That was really when my work began.
—Tom Wesselmann
Wesselmann first gained critical acclaim in the early 1960s for his Great American Nude series. Many of these lounging female subjects, with pouted lips and tan lines, were painted in patriotic red, white, and blue, combining the prototypes of Western figure painting—from Titian to Matisse—with the high voltage of American advertising. After the Great American Nude paintings, Wesselmann shifted his focus, exploring more intimate, close-up views of the nude in the Bedroom Paintings.
At Gagosian, a selection of Bedroom Paintings made between 1968 and 1983 reveals the full breadth of the series that Wesselmann considered so central to his oeuvre. Fragments of the human body, such as a hand or a breast, are juxtaposed with objects common to the bedroom—a light switch, flowers, the edges of pillows and curtains. These large-scale compositions draw attention to the abstract properties of each depicted form, the interlocking positive and negative shapes evoking the technique of collage in areas of sharp delineation, bold color, and softly rendered detail. In Bedroom Painting #63 (1983), the bedroom is framed by a female nude—her arm, torso, and thigh forming a triangular window. Although she is not at the center of the image, her presence is unmistakable, determining the complex shape of the canvas.
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Reinventing the Nude
Modern master Henri Matisse was a touchstone for American Pop artist Tom Wesselmann throughout his career.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Summer 2023
The Summer 2023 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available, featuring Richard Avedon’s Marilyn Monroe, actor, New York, May 6, 1957 on its cover.
“Tight and Small and Figurative”: Tom Wesselmann’s Early Collages
Susan Davidson, editor of the forthcoming monograph on the Great American Nudes, a series of works by Tom Wesselmann, explores the artist’s early experiments with collage, tracing their development from humble beginnings to the iconic series of paintings.
In Conversation
Susan Davidson and Jeffrey Sturges
On the occasion of the exhibition Tom Wesselmann: Intimate Spaces at Gagosian, Beverly Hills, Susan Davidson sat down with Jeffrey Sturges to discuss the artist’s key works in his Great American Nudes (1961–73) and subsequent series.
The Parameters of Perception
Michael Craig-Martin and Jeffrey Sturges in conversation on Tom Wessselmann’s Standing Still Lifes.
Richard Phillips on Tom Wesselmann
Tom Wesselmann: Standing Still Lifes closes this week at Gagosian New York. In this text, Richard Phillips speaks with Jason Ysenburg about the impact of the exhibition. A video about the exhibition and the artist’s studio practice accompanies the text.