Sensible Ways

Details

James Rielly (B. 1956)
Sensible Ways
signed and dated 'J.M.Rielly 1996' (on the overlap) on four elements
oil on canvas, in sixty parts
each ranging from: 8 x 6in. (20.3 x 15.2cm.) to 20 x 18in. (50.5 x 45.7cm.)
overall installation dimensions: 118 x 393in. (299.7 x 998.2cm.)
Painted in 1996-1997

Provenance

Laurent Delaye Gallery, London.
Saatchi Gallery, London.
Private Collection, London.
Anon. sale, Phillips London, 13 October 2011, lot 336.
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner.

Exhibited

Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, James Rielly: Sensible Ways, 1997, no. 1 (illustrated in colour, unpaged).

Special Notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

Lot Essay

‘The figures, guardians of the secret, seem near in body but light years away in mind. For in their eyes it is often hard to discern any acknowledgement of the existence of other people. Their minds, in particular, seem fixed in two directions at once: on what is exactly before them, or on the eye of the lens. For in its growing entirety, Sensible Ways seems to speak of photography and its uses. Are the pastel colours a kind of emollient, taking our focus off the sadness and uncompromising reality of the image? Is the sense of passing time without thinking a comment on the way tabloid newspapers avoid or simply embroider the truth in order to purvey low entertainment to their readers?’
(S. Morgan, ‘Sensible Ways’, in James Rielly: Sensible Ways, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes 1997, unpaged).

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