Norton Museum of Art 2025 Gala Auction | Hosted by Sotheby’s
Norton Museum of Art 2025 Gala Auction | Hosted by Sotheby’s
John Walker
Untitled, from MassArt Print Series
Estimate
5,000 - 7,500 USD
Lot Details
Description
John Walker
b. 1939
Untitled, from MassArt Print Series
Executed in 1994
Monotype
Framed: 30 x 24 in. (76.2 x 61 cm)
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This online benefit auction has a 10% buyer’s premium, which will be added to the final hammer price of each sold work. The premium allows the Norton Museum or Art to retain more of the proceeds of the sale and offset administrative costs. Auction proceeds benefit the Norton's curatorial, learning, and community engagement programs.
Courtesy of Adelson Galleries
1994 Acquired from Artist by a private collection in Boston, MA 2015 Acquired from Above by Adelson Galleries
John Walker’s (American, b. England 1939) oeuvre, spanning across over sixty years, has included a variety of abstract approaches bound together by a careful balance between raw and spontaneous movement, and mindfully structured space. Originally from Birmingham, England, Walker attended the Mosely School of Art and later the Birmingham School of Art and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Walker has been inspired at different times by the art of Oceania, European masters Goya, Manet, and Matisse, and the work of American Abstract Expressionists. Throughout his career he has utilized different shape and pattern motifs: in the 1980s, a time when his work was heavily influenced by the art of Oceania, his “Alba” shape (a loose reference to Goya) was a focus of most paintings; in the ’90s, polka-dots and egg-like orbs prevailed; and his 21st century work has included a variety of repeating amorphous shapes and zig-zag lines.
Much of Walker’s work of the last 20 years is based on the coast of Maine, where the artist lives. These abstract landscapes oscillate between spontaneity, and a decidedly conscientious approach to shaping the architecture of the canvas. In a palette which ranges from crisp whites and primary and secondary colors to muddied, rusty browns, greys, and black, alongside gritty surfaces and carefully manipulated linear movement, Walker evokes the character of the New England coastal landscape.
The artist’s many teaching appointments throughout his lengthy career have included Cooper Union, Yale University, the Victoria College of the Arts in Melbourne, and the Royal College in London. He retired in 2015 from his position as the head of the graduate department in painting at Boston University.
A unique monotype by John Walker, made during the annual Master Print Series at MassArt in 1994. John Walker was selected to produce of a series of prints with the help of three master printers and 20 volunteer students. In the course of one week, Walker produced five color etching (editions of 25), as well as a handful of one-of-a-kind Monotypes - including this one. The piece was given to one of the master printers, Dean Nimmer, at the end of the week.