Tom Wesselmann

Sidney Janis Gallery, New York
Private Collection, Los Angeles (acquired from the above in 1978)
By descent to the present owner from the above in 2011

This work is in very good condition overall. The shaped canvas is unlined. Upon very close inspection there is unobtrusive, very light wear and a few areas of hairline cracking to the pigment along the turning edges. Under Ultraviolet light inspection, there is no evidence of restoration. Unframed.
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Tom Wesselmann’s Great American Nude Series exploited the female figure as a vehicle for new approaches to representational abstraction, while firmly establishing the artist within the Pop lexicon.

The 1960s were a time of formal exploration and shift for the artist, “Wesselmann now became more interested in narrowing the context and isolating them. This led to what he viewed as an image concept rather than a painting concept, and inevitably he became less interested in maintaining the integrity of the painting and more interested in the integrity of the image.  Rather than making the whole painting as physically intense as possible, it was more a question of making the image as intense as possible.” (Slim Stealingworth, Tom Wesselmann, New York, 1980, p. 40)  In recognizing that an image did not rely on an explicatory composition to communicate meaning, the artist identified and isolated fragments of the nude, leading to his sultry Mouth series of 1965. In a fateful moment two years later, Wesselmann’s model and friend Peggy Sarno lit her cigarette mid-way through a sketching session, and the compositional perfection of Sarno’s mouth, partially concealed by her hand, the cigarette and, of course, the smoke, inspired Wesselmann to create his celebrated Smoker Series.

Big Study for Smoker #26 is at once evocative, sensual, alluring, sleek, luscious, and sinister. By the 1940s nearly 90% of American women were wearing red lipstick; a bold red lip was the mark of a glamorous modern woman.  As the 50s and 60s came about, smoking epitomized cool and chic, as Hollywood starlets flaunted the cigarette as a seductive accessory.  Surprisingly, the explicit sensuality of the works was a fortuitous byproduct of a simple interest in the formal qualities of the imagery.  Wesselmann admits that the series was born out of an intrigue “with smoke and coming in close on the mouth.  I didn’t start the mouth paintings to be erotic. I started them to be just a mouth, that’s all.” (Tom Wesselmann as quoted in Oral History interview with Tom Wesselmann, January 3 - February 8, 1984, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution) The lacquered nails seem to hold up the open mouth, enveloped in a hazy smoke that is pierced by red lips and a burning cigarette.  Obsessed by the allure of the smoke concealed lips, Wesselmann took great pains to accurately depict the hazy substance, taking photographs in order to study its formal elements.

Unlike works from earlier decades, Big Study for Smoker #26 and other works from the 1970s are distinguishable from Wesselmann’s earlier studies because of the addition of the hand. Like an advertisement or film still, the hand, with its bright red nails and fashionable cigarette, adds a layer of sultry dynamism to the composition. Formally, the disembodiment amplifies the scale and emphasis on the image while the sculptural quality of the shaped canvas pushes the cigarette into the viewer’s realm, as if the ash at the end of the cigarette is about to fall at the viewer’s feet. 

Big Study for Smoker #26 is an outstanding example of the artist’s celebrated Smoker Series, in terms of clarity, size, color and form. There is no doubt that Tom Wesselmann realized in the present work the winning combination of graphic supremacy and potent realism with a hint of sex appeal.