Judit Reigl

Galerie de France, Paris
Purchased from the above by the present owner 

Paris, Galerie de France; Budapest, Erdész & Makláry Fine Arts, Plug, Műcsarnok, Judit Reigl, Tension 1956-2006, 2006
Debrecen, MODEM Centre for Modern and Contemporary Arts, Judit Reigl, 2010, illustrated in the catalogue
Budapest, Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art, Judit Reigl: Emptiness and Ecstasy, 2014, illustrated in the catalogue

The following condition report has been prepared by Hamish Dewar Ltd., 13 and 14 Mason's Yard, St James', London, SW1Y 6BU: UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas is unlined and is securely attached to what certainly appears to be the artist's original keyed wooden stretcher. The canvas is inscribed on the reverse and there are traces of the artist's paint on the reverse of the canvas and the stretcher. Paint Surface The paint surface appears unvarnished. There is evidence of ingrained dirt and handling marks within the white background. The paint surface has an extensive pattern of raised craquelure and scattered areas of extremely fragile and lifting paint with associated paint losses throughout the heavily impastoed parts of the composition. There are also scattered areas of fine lines of craquelure within the white background including corresponding to the stretcher members. These appear stable. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows lines of retouching on the extreme edges of the composition, most notably on the upper edge, a vertical line of retouching with an associated diagonal line of retouching towards the lower right corner of the composition, and a further fine, linear retouching towards the upper right corner. No retouchings are visible within the heavily impastoed parts of the composition. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in relatively good condition and would benefit from the localised consolidation of any areas of fragile and lifting paint and from infilling, texturing and retouching of any associated paint losses.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Rarely – very rarely, though it can happen when painting – the body becomes an accurate, perfect tool. The conscious and unconscious merge, becoming a mere witness watching with surprise, even awe, as the Universal, the Extra-temporal – the Timeless, as I am – breaks into the Here and Now.

Judit Reigl 

 

When Judit Reigl first settled in France in 1950, André Breton was so taken by her work, he immediately offered her a solo exhibition at the Surrealists’ gallery. Reigl had embraced Surrealism when coming to France, but began painting in styles annihilating gesture starting with her series Outburst as early as the mid-fifties.

Painted in 1957 the present work dates to Judit Reigl’s Outburst series of paintings and precedes by two years her series Écriture en masse (Mass Writing), created between 1959 and 1965. The essence of the Mass Writing works was thick black paint on white ground, sometimes with the addition of one or two colours. Titled Mass Writing the present work can therefore be considered to be the link between these two important series and possibly even the inspiration behind the Mass writing series.

In Mass Writing an uneven spread of black and red paint expands over the white primed canvas. In some areas it is extremely thick and heavy, in others very subtle and weightless. The space surrounding the paint is just as much part of the picture as the colour struggling to spread further. The artist described her technique in detail: 'I bought some material used by masons: a black substance that dries slowly, from within, over years; so this way I could work on six to eight canvases at a time. Starting with a white background, I applied globs of paint to the canvas with a rounded flexible blade or at times with a plain wooden rod, and I spread it upwards from the bottom to the top, using this black material to cover the lighter colours laid underneath'. (Unfolding: A Conversation Between Jean-Paul Ameline and Judit Reigl, Sarah Hromack, Art in America International Review, 4 February 2009)

There is a sense of immediacy as one perceives the speed and force with which the colour has been applied. Reigl’s unrestrained method of painting has often been characterised as an abrasive as well as erotic confrontation of the canvas, a truly physical approach to painting.

This bodily way of expressing emotions and the unconscious links her to some post-war New York Abstract Expressionists. They, too, had appropriated the Surrealist practice of freeing the mind through psychic automatism creating art through improvisation, compulsive repetitions and automatic gesture. Reigl had overcome surrealist aesthetics by extending their principle of automatism through her bodily method into total automatic writing. The indirectness of expressing yourself through painting or writing is turned into a very direct experience of the subconscious.