16 Property of an Important American Collector Roy Lichtenstein Landscape With Grass 《中式山水系列:山水與草》 1996 signed and dated 'rF Lichtenstein 96' on the reverse oil and Magna on canvas 279.9 x 96.9 cm. (110 1/4 x 38 1/8 in.) Painted in 1996.
Provenance Estate of Roy Lichtenstein Gagosian Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibited New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Landscapes in the Chinese Style, 26 September - 26 October 1996 Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Landscapes in Chinese Style, 19 May - 19 July 1998, n.p. (illustrated) Florida, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roy Lichtenstein Inside/ Outside, 11 December 2001 – 24 February 2002 New York, Marlborough Gallery, Landscape • Cityscape, 5 - 30 April 2005 Hong Kong, Gagosian Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Chinese Landscapes, 12 November - 22 December 2011, p. 37, 109, 124 (illustrated) New York, Gagosian Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Chinese Landscapes, 1 March - 7 April 2012 Video Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Landscape With Grass’: A Homecoming We're excited to have Roy Lichtenstein's 'Landscape With Grass' from 1996 as a centerpiece of our inaugural Hong Kong sales: With its distinctive allusions to Chinese landscapes, it is the perfect metaphor for East meets West. It was also first exhibited in Hong Kong a year after the artist's death. Deputy Chairman and Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Asia Jonathan Crockett discusses this monumental work, and the significance of it's Hong Kong homecoming. Catalogue Essay ‘That’s what I’m getting into. I’m thinking about something like Chinese landscapes with mountains a million miles high, and a tiny fishing boat – something scroll like, and horizontal with graduated dots making these mountains, and dissolving into mist and haze. It will look like Chinese scroll paintings, but all mechanical.’ (Roy Lichtenstein cited in Jo Ann Lewis, 'Lichtenstein’s Eastern Sunset,' Washington Post, November 13, 1998.) Standing before Roy Lichtenstein’s Landscape with Grass, the viewer is absorbed within a monumental landscape. The picture, towering almost three metres tall, engulfs us. The zig-zagging strands of grass in the foreground lead us in, while the hazy blue forms that ascend the canvas indicate a mountainous landscape that plunges into the distance, gradually dissolving. Down one side of the picture, a light yellow band echoes the mounting techniques used in hanging scrolls in classical China and Japan traditions, although Lichtenstein has playfully allowed one of the blades of grass to trespass onto it, breaching the supposed frame. Painted in 1996, Landscape with Grass, is an outstanding example from Lichtenstein’s series ‘Landscapes in the Chinese Style.’ This was a sequence of large-scale works created in the mid-1990s of which is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while another is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is highly appropriate: it was at an exhibition there that Lichtenstein was initially inspired to explore Chinese landscape painting as a source for this series. The exhibition was actually of Edgar Degas’ landscapes, yet looking at that artist’s pastels and monotypes, which often made use of evocatively minimal marks to convey their views, Lichtenstein was inspired to explore the eloquent restraint of Chinese landscapes as material for his own unique take on art. Lichtenstein had a deep interest in Chinese landscape painting, and the wider sphere of Oriental art. As early as 1944—half a century before he painted Landscape with Grass—he wrote to his parents after buying a book on the subject for too much money, betraying his enthusiasm (see Karen Bandlow-Bata, ‘Roy Lichtenstein-Landscapes in the Chinese Style’, trans. Ishbel Flett and Catherine Schelbert, pp. 6-16, Landscapes in the Chinese Style, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, 2011, p. 7). Over the years, he acquired a number of similar books, and viewed works extensively in museum and private collections. The erudition he gained filtered into Landscape with Grass, which was inspired by pictures from, and influenced by, the Song Dynasty. Lichtenstein’s ability to filter this knowledge through his own unique aesthetic is evident in Landscape w
16 Property of an Important American Collector Roy Lichtenstein Landscape With Grass 《中式山水系列:山水與草》 1996 signed and dated 'rF Lichtenstein 96' on the reverse oil and Magna on canvas 279.9 x 96.9 cm. (110 1/4 x 38 1/8 in.) Painted in 1996.
Provenance Estate of Roy Lichtenstein Gagosian Gallery, New York Acquired from the above by the present owner Exhibited New York, Leo Castelli Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Landscapes in the Chinese Style, 26 September - 26 October 1996 Hong Kong, Hong Kong Museum of Art, Landscapes in Chinese Style, 19 May - 19 July 1998, n.p. (illustrated) Florida, Museum of Contemporary Art, Roy Lichtenstein Inside/ Outside, 11 December 2001 – 24 February 2002 New York, Marlborough Gallery, Landscape • Cityscape, 5 - 30 April 2005 Hong Kong, Gagosian Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Chinese Landscapes, 12 November - 22 December 2011, p. 37, 109, 124 (illustrated) New York, Gagosian Gallery, Roy Lichtenstein Chinese Landscapes, 1 March - 7 April 2012 Video Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Landscape With Grass’: A Homecoming We're excited to have Roy Lichtenstein's 'Landscape With Grass' from 1996 as a centerpiece of our inaugural Hong Kong sales: With its distinctive allusions to Chinese landscapes, it is the perfect metaphor for East meets West. It was also first exhibited in Hong Kong a year after the artist's death. Deputy Chairman and Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Asia Jonathan Crockett discusses this monumental work, and the significance of it's Hong Kong homecoming. Catalogue Essay ‘That’s what I’m getting into. I’m thinking about something like Chinese landscapes with mountains a million miles high, and a tiny fishing boat – something scroll like, and horizontal with graduated dots making these mountains, and dissolving into mist and haze. It will look like Chinese scroll paintings, but all mechanical.’ (Roy Lichtenstein cited in Jo Ann Lewis, 'Lichtenstein’s Eastern Sunset,' Washington Post, November 13, 1998.) Standing before Roy Lichtenstein’s Landscape with Grass, the viewer is absorbed within a monumental landscape. The picture, towering almost three metres tall, engulfs us. The zig-zagging strands of grass in the foreground lead us in, while the hazy blue forms that ascend the canvas indicate a mountainous landscape that plunges into the distance, gradually dissolving. Down one side of the picture, a light yellow band echoes the mounting techniques used in hanging scrolls in classical China and Japan traditions, although Lichtenstein has playfully allowed one of the blades of grass to trespass onto it, breaching the supposed frame. Painted in 1996, Landscape with Grass, is an outstanding example from Lichtenstein’s series ‘Landscapes in the Chinese Style.’ This was a sequence of large-scale works created in the mid-1990s of which is owned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, while another is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. This is highly appropriate: it was at an exhibition there that Lichtenstein was initially inspired to explore Chinese landscape painting as a source for this series. The exhibition was actually of Edgar Degas’ landscapes, yet looking at that artist’s pastels and monotypes, which often made use of evocatively minimal marks to convey their views, Lichtenstein was inspired to explore the eloquent restraint of Chinese landscapes as material for his own unique take on art. Lichtenstein had a deep interest in Chinese landscape painting, and the wider sphere of Oriental art. As early as 1944—half a century before he painted Landscape with Grass—he wrote to his parents after buying a book on the subject for too much money, betraying his enthusiasm (see Karen Bandlow-Bata, ‘Roy Lichtenstein-Landscapes in the Chinese Style’, trans. Ishbel Flett and Catherine Schelbert, pp. 6-16, Landscapes in the Chinese Style, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, Hong Kong, 2011, p. 7). Over the years, he acquired a number of similar books, and viewed works extensively in museum and private collections. The erudition he gained filtered into Landscape with Grass, which was inspired by pictures from, and influenced by, the Song Dynasty. Lichtenstein’s ability to filter this knowledge through his own unique aesthetic is evident in Landscape w
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