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Lot Essay
Julian Schnabel’s Portrait of Robert Wilson is an exceptional example of the American artist’s iconic series of “plate paintings” that marked a radical shift in the history of painting. Schnabel rose to prominence in the 1980s with these adventurous surfaces that used cracked earthenware dishes as a new medium to express narrative and figuration. Following two decades dominated by the intellectualism of Minimalism and the outright abstraction of Conceptual Art, Schnabel played a critical role in the emergence of Neo-Expressionist painting in America, which celebrated a return to the traditions of painting and sculpture. These masterful works, of which Portrait of Robert Wilson is paramount, reveal Schnabel’s interest in material experimentation, the physicality of the surface, and the relationship between figuration and abstraction.
Schnabel’s plate paintings mark the 1980s return to figuration in painting. In the series, Schnabel not only portrays legendary figures but also personal references. In Portrait of Robert Wilson, the artist depicts the renowned Houston-based architect, designer and curator, who is an old friend of Schnabel’s from Texas and an important supporter of the artist’s early work in the 1970s. Wilson is an extensive art collector with a wide-ranging private collection built over four decades; his taste spans pre-Columbian and African art to photography, prints and contemporary paintings. Wilson’s early collection championed Schnabel, and their long-lasting friendship saw the artist create a full-body portrait of the collector in 1976, and the architect build an addition to the artist’s home. Dressed in an earthy green jacket and set against a rich yellow ochre background, Schnabel renders Wilson in his signature style, over and in between the broken plates.
With a daring surface composed of broken dishware and shards of crockery, Portrait of Robert Wilson is both a three-dimensional painting and an object itself. In this renowned series, Schnabel broke plates, affixed them to wooden supports, then painted heavy layers of pigment over it with human sentiment, expressivity and exuberance. The style was conceived following a visit to Barcelona in the 1970s, where Schnabel saw the buildings and mosaics of Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí who used colored ceramics in his constructions. Schnabel’s innovative plate paintings transform the mosaics; the traditional ceramic tiles are replaced with broken plates and cups. Abstract painting is also expanded beyond the flat plane, as the tactile gestural brushstrokes of are converted into the flamboyant texture of the jagged plates. The irregular surface of unconventional materials physically eschews flatness and acts as sources of light and shadow within the image. Dynamically pushing into the three-dimension, the painting becomes contingent on the viewer’s perspective – appearing as a uniform surface from afar and becoming increasingly more three-dimensional and fractured with proximity. Playing on Modernist tropes, Schnabel overtly departs from the Minimalist aesthetic of the decade prior, and pays homage to the energetic exuberant gestures of Pollock and distorted figuration of Picasso.
Schnabel’s plate paintings mark the 1980s return to figuration in painting. In the series, Schnabel not only portrays legendary figures but also personal references. In Portrait of Robert Wilson, the artist depicts the renowned Houston-based architect, designer and curator, who is an old friend of Schnabel’s from Texas and an important supporter of the artist’s early work in the 1970s. Wilson is an extensive art collector with a wide-ranging private collection built over four decades; his taste spans pre-Columbian and African art to photography, prints and contemporary paintings. Wilson’s early collection championed Schnabel, and their long-lasting friendship saw the artist create a full-body portrait of the collector in 1976, and the architect build an addition to the artist’s home. Dressed in an earthy green jacket and set against a rich yellow ochre background, Schnabel renders Wilson in his signature style, over and in between the broken plates.
With a daring surface composed of broken dishware and shards of crockery, Portrait of Robert Wilson is both a three-dimensional painting and an object itself. In this renowned series, Schnabel broke plates, affixed them to wooden supports, then painted heavy layers of pigment over it with human sentiment, expressivity and exuberance. The style was conceived following a visit to Barcelona in the 1970s, where Schnabel saw the buildings and mosaics of Catalan architect Antonio Gaudí who used colored ceramics in his constructions. Schnabel’s innovative plate paintings transform the mosaics; the traditional ceramic tiles are replaced with broken plates and cups. Abstract painting is also expanded beyond the flat plane, as the tactile gestural brushstrokes of are converted into the flamboyant texture of the jagged plates. The irregular surface of unconventional materials physically eschews flatness and acts as sources of light and shadow within the image. Dynamically pushing into the three-dimension, the painting becomes contingent on the viewer’s perspective – appearing as a uniform surface from afar and becoming increasingly more three-dimensional and fractured with proximity. Playing on Modernist tropes, Schnabel overtly departs from the Minimalist aesthetic of the decade prior, and pays homage to the energetic exuberant gestures of Pollock and distorted figuration of Picasso.