Lot Essay
With Winds is a poignant and intimate example from Lee Ufan's major series of paintings of the same title. Following From Line and From Winds, the series confirms the artist's status within the Post-Minimalist movement, in particular as a painter. Begun in 1986, the series explores the artist's further development of painting as a physical manifestation of the intangible gesture. The presence of paint and unpainted areas defined a new form of space, as Ufan explains, "the living composition of the empty spaces" (L. Ufan quoted in, Lee Ufan: With Winds-Bilder 1986-88, Düsseldorf, 1989, p. 4). The present work is dedicated to Martine Matyas, a Far East correspondent on the Tokyo desk for Le Figaro in Paris who was a friend of the artist and translated Ufan's exhibition catalogues.