80th Anniversary Charity Art Auction to Benefit the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
80th Anniversary Charity Art Auction to Benefit the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
River
Lot Closed
February 8, 09:22 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Laddie John Dill
b. 1943 Long Beach, CA
River
Executed in 2020.
Argon gas, glass tubing with color inside
84 x 3/4 in (213.36 x 1.9 cm)
Please note that while this auction is hosted on Sothebys.com, it is being administered by the Norton Museum of Art (the “Norton”), and all post-sale matters (inclusive of invoicing and property pickup/shipment) will be handled by the Norton. As such, Sotheby’s will share the contact details for the winning bidders with the Norton so that they may be in touch directly post-sale.
Courtesy of the artist
A central figure in the California Light and Space movement, Laddie John Dill has been crafting light and earthy materials like concrete, glass, sand, and metal into luminous sculptures, wall pieces, and installations since the 1970s. Referring to his choice of materials, Dill explains: “I was influenced by Rauschenberg, Keith Sonnier, Robert Smithson, Dennis Oppenheim, and Robert Irwin, who were working with earth materials, light, and space as an alternative to easel painting.” Among his most celebrated works is an untitled installation from 1971, for which Dill filled a gallery with mounds of pale sand, topped with precisely arranged glass panels illuminated by the soft, green glow of argon lighting set just beneath the surface.
Dill was one of the first Los Angeles artists to exhibit “light and space” work in New York. He has exhibited the “Light Sentences” and “Light Plains” in institutions across the United States and globally, and enjoyed a resurgence of interest in these pieces in the last decade, including a recent acquisition of a “Light Plains” sculpture by the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
