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拍品專文
Christie’s is pleased to present two works by Manoucher Yektai from the late New Zealanders Mr. and Mrs. Frank Corner collection. They were both acquired while Mr. Corner was the ambassador to the United Nations in New York from 1961 and later as he was the ambassador to the US in Washington, DC from 1967-1972. Hanging in the New Zealand Embassy at the time, these works are a reputed example of the Iranian artist’s ability that resonated with both French and American abstract schools at the time.
Settling in New York in 1948, Yektai’s works during the 1950s and 1960s were characterised by a reinvestigation of the still life while simultaneously highlighting the notion of space within the canvas. Finding himself in New York following the end of the Second World War, he was readily engaged with New York School artists, and in 1952, the artist gained the admiration of the renowned gallerist Leo Castelli who escalated his talent alongside Modernist painters such as Pollock, de Kooning, Newman and Kline.
A modernist painter, Manoucher is unlike any of his peers as his technique and thick yet delicate textures truly create a new painterly language that he achieved by distancing himself from the complete abstraction. It was during the 1960s Cold War Era and its ensuring liberation movements that artists such as Yektai turned to painting everyday things such as the featured two works. Combining elements of the Schools of Paris and New York, he experimented in figuration and abstraction. His works alternated between thick and thin textures, white and colour contrasts, in which he developed a mastery of the subject matter and objecthood. Untitled (Nude with Blue), is a beautiful example of the artist’s nudes that embodies his sense of theatricality, with different subjects existing in three intersecting planes. his action portraits such as this one are noted for the artist’s impulsive painting technique with studied traditions of the portrait.
The reclining nude figure is shown in full view, seated and places within a clearly outlined setting and separated into a singular space. Detached from a spatial or temporal context, the nude is sculpted with thick brushstrokes that depict her luminous pink skin, and entranced eyes that stare at the spectator. Both the sitter’s densely painted features, and thick blue curtain behind her are complemented by the light still life drawings left unpainted and juxtaposed against the heaviness of the blue curtain. The limits between reality and fiction are blurred. The figure seems to know that she will be admired and she proudly exhibits her naked body sculpted with thick and gestural brushstrokes. The painterly dynamics create a sense of immediacy and offer a concrete rendering of the woman’s presence, which establishes an extraordinary relation between the model and the viewer.
In the first work titled Peonies, Yektai perfectly demonstrates his controlled yet sporadic brushstrokes and keen eye for colour and impasto. Pure and simple, and depicted within a purely visual basis, it is delicately balanced with combinations of abstraction and representation. It is indicative of Yektai’s thick, heavy brush strokes, while simultaneously highlighting the spaces within the canvas. The pink, green and yellow colours splash across the canvas in a typical composition of a vase of flowers, Yektai uses dense and heavily textured brushstrokes to add a sense of movement to a simple
still life.
Settling in New York in 1948, Yektai’s works during the 1950s and 1960s were characterised by a reinvestigation of the still life while simultaneously highlighting the notion of space within the canvas. Finding himself in New York following the end of the Second World War, he was readily engaged with New York School artists, and in 1952, the artist gained the admiration of the renowned gallerist Leo Castelli who escalated his talent alongside Modernist painters such as Pollock, de Kooning, Newman and Kline.
A modernist painter, Manoucher is unlike any of his peers as his technique and thick yet delicate textures truly create a new painterly language that he achieved by distancing himself from the complete abstraction. It was during the 1960s Cold War Era and its ensuring liberation movements that artists such as Yektai turned to painting everyday things such as the featured two works. Combining elements of the Schools of Paris and New York, he experimented in figuration and abstraction. His works alternated between thick and thin textures, white and colour contrasts, in which he developed a mastery of the subject matter and objecthood. Untitled (Nude with Blue), is a beautiful example of the artist’s nudes that embodies his sense of theatricality, with different subjects existing in three intersecting planes. his action portraits such as this one are noted for the artist’s impulsive painting technique with studied traditions of the portrait.
The reclining nude figure is shown in full view, seated and places within a clearly outlined setting and separated into a singular space. Detached from a spatial or temporal context, the nude is sculpted with thick brushstrokes that depict her luminous pink skin, and entranced eyes that stare at the spectator. Both the sitter’s densely painted features, and thick blue curtain behind her are complemented by the light still life drawings left unpainted and juxtaposed against the heaviness of the blue curtain. The limits between reality and fiction are blurred. The figure seems to know that she will be admired and she proudly exhibits her naked body sculpted with thick and gestural brushstrokes. The painterly dynamics create a sense of immediacy and offer a concrete rendering of the woman’s presence, which establishes an extraordinary relation between the model and the viewer.
In the first work titled Peonies, Yektai perfectly demonstrates his controlled yet sporadic brushstrokes and keen eye for colour and impasto. Pure and simple, and depicted within a purely visual basis, it is delicately balanced with combinations of abstraction and representation. It is indicative of Yektai’s thick, heavy brush strokes, while simultaneously highlighting the spaces within the canvas. The pink, green and yellow colours splash across the canvas in a typical composition of a vase of flowers, Yektai uses dense and heavily textured brushstrokes to add a sense of movement to a simple
still life.