巴奈特·紐曼

藝術家
東尼·史密斯伉儷，新澤西（獲贈自藝術家）
紐約佳士得，1982年5月5日，拍品編號15（由上述藏家委託）
雅詩蘭黛集團收藏，紐約
佩斯畫廊，紐約
現藏家1995年1月購自上述畫廊

本寧頓，佛蒙特州，本寧頓學院新美術館，〈巴奈特·紐曼：第一次回顧展〉，1958年5月

紐約，法蘭奇畫廊，〈巴奈特·紐曼：精選作品展1946-1952年〉，1959年3月-4月

紐約，亞倫·斯通畫廊，〈紐曼-德庫寧〉，1962年10月-11月，8頁，品號8，載圖

紐約，現代藝術博物館；阿姆斯特丹，市立博物館；倫敦，泰特藝術館；巴黎，國家當代藝術中心，大皇宮博物館，〈巴奈特·紐曼〉，1971年10月-1972年12月，58頁載圖（紐約展覽）；48頁，品號14，載圖（阿姆斯特丹展覽）；35頁，品號14，載圖（倫敦展覽）；47頁，品號14，載圖（巴黎展覽）

芝加哥，當代藝術博物館，〈談判狂喜：藝術改變人生的力量〉，1996年6月-10月，142頁，品號59，載彩圖

紐約，克雷格·F·斯塔爾畫廊，〈巴奈特·紐曼畫展〉，2011年10月-12月，頁碼不詳（內文），載彩圖，頁碼不詳

芝加哥，當代藝術博物館，〈當代藝術博物館DNA：紐約畫派〉，2012年6月-9月

倫敦，皇家藝術學院；畢爾包，古根海姆美術館，〈抽象表現主義〉，2016年9月-2017年6月，174頁，品號41，載彩圖

勞倫斯·阿洛韋，〈巴奈特·紐曼筆記〉，《國際藝術》，第13期，1969年夏，35頁，品號6

展覽圖錄，奧爾巴尼，紐約州博物館，《紐約－藝術之州：紐約畫派》，1977年10月-1978年1月，35頁

魯洛夫·勞，〈紐曼與藝術主題〉，《國際工作室》，第187期，品號962，1974年1月，31頁

班哲明·加里森·帕斯古斯，〈關於巴奈特·紐曼的理論、創作及評論（Ph.D.學位論文）〉，北卡羅萊納州大學教堂山分校，1974年，93-95、97、98、100及114頁，品號94及155

哈羅德·羅森伯格，《巴奈特·紐曼》，紐約，1978年，98頁，品號58，載彩圖（方向有誤）

馬德萊娜·德尚，〈B. 紐曼：文字和郵編之間〉，《Art Press雜誌》，巴黎，1980年，22頁，品號35

安德魯·班哲明（編），〈紐曼：一瞬〉，《李歐塔讀本》，牛津及劍橋，1989年，101頁

阿邁恩·哈澤，〈馬拉的浴缸〉，《國際藝術論壇》，1992年，136頁，品號119

托馬斯·麥埃維利，《流放者歸來：後現代時期繪畫的再定義》，劍橋，1993年，26、40及41頁

喬納森·法恩伯格，〈巴奈特·紐曼〉，《1940年後的藝術：存在的策略》，鷹木崖，新澤西，1995年，102頁，品號4.14，載圖

莫莉·麥克尼克爾，〈巴奈特·紐曼的內心與藝術（Ph.D.學位論文）〉，賓夕法尼亞大學，1996年，241頁

伊夫·阿蘭·布瓦，〈從此到彼再回來〉，《Artforum雜誌》，2002年3月，108頁（內文）

展覽圖錄，費城，費城藝術博物館（及巡展），《巴奈特·紐曼》，2002年，52頁（內文）；53頁載圖（本寧頓學院展覽現場，1958年）；75頁（內文）

伊夫·阿蘭·布瓦，〈紐曼的偏側〉，Melissa Ho（編），《再看巴奈特·紐曼：費城藝術博物館專題研討會》，費城，2002年，37頁載圖；36、38及39頁（內文）

理查·希夫、卡羅爾·C·曼庫斯·溫加羅、海迪·科爾斯曼·弗賴貝格爾，《巴奈特·紐曼專題目錄》，紐海文及倫敦，2004年，192-193頁，品號24，載彩圖

伊夫·阿蘭·布瓦，〈兩幅巴奈特·紐曼析論〉，《十月》，第108期，2004年春，28頁載圖

This work is in very good condition overall. Please contact the Contemporary Art Department at +1 (212) 606-7254 for the report prepared by Terrence Mahon. The canvas is framed in a wood frame painted white.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Executed at the height of Barnett Newman’s career, Galaxy from 1949 is the very first painting in which the artist featured two of his iconic and revolutionary ‘zips,’ the stylistic element that has defined the artist’s creative output. The significance of the two zips to Newman’s practice cannot be understated; by forcing the viewer to engage his or her peripheral vision in order to see two axes, each of which individually would only necessitate a vertical reading, Newman radically transformed the traditional mode of pictorial perception. Following the execution of this groundbreaking work, Newman would create just ten other oil on canvas paintings in the critical year of 1949 that would feature two or more zips, examples of which are held in renowned institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C., and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. The present work is further distinguished by its impressive provenance, having been gifted from Newman to Tony Smith, a fellow artist who pioneered American Minimalist sculpture. Furthermore, Galaxy was included in the recent exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, Abstract Expressionism, a long-awaited show that celebrated the bold and courageous careers of artists like Newman, Clyfford Still, Willem de Kooning, Mark Rothko, and David Smith, among others. An exceptional and rare masterpiece, Galaxy is among the artist’s earliest paintings and a brilliant exemplar of the burgeoning philosophical and conceptual theories that would come to inform his celebrated output.

In the years that followed the atrocities of World War II and the Holocaust, artists sought ways to break with European conventions and instead engender a new visual culture, one that could exist in the wake of such horror. Alongside his peers, Newman broke with established traditions in art history, challenging the long-established ideals of beauty and subject matter. In the catalogue for Newman’s retrospective in 2002, Ann Temkin writes: “The Greek notion of ideal beauty had opposed the aesthetic of the sublime, Newman explained, and as heir to that tradition of beauty the European artist continues down a blind alley. ‘I believe that here in America,’ he wrote, ‘some of us, free from the weight of European culture, are finding the answer, by completely denying that art has any concern with the problem of beauty and where to find it.’ Newman declared a tabula rasa for his generation: ‘We are freeing ourselves of the impediments of memory, association, nostalgia, legend, myth, or what have you, that have been the devices of Western European painting.’” (Barnett Newman in Exh. Cat., Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art (and travelling), Barnett Newman, 2002, p. 32) Newman’s decisive break with a centuries-old tradition is manifested not only in his avant-garde paintings but also in their evocative and enigmatic titles, which reflect the artist’s commitment to pure painting as a totality of transcendence comparable to spiritual or religious experience. Indeed, Newman’s arrival at the form of the zip in Onement I from 1948 can be considered a visual representation of Genesis itself – an act of dividing light from dark and an echo of God’s primal gesture in creating man, an animal who, like the zip, stands vertically.

Following this epiphanic moment, Newman continued to paint, slightly altering each instance of the vertical line either in thickness, placement on the canvas, size of the painting, or color. Galaxy from 1949 is the very first instance in which Newman introduced two zips, a format he would repeat in later works such as Concord, held in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and The Promise, held in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Whereas a single vertical line draws the eye up and down the painting, the presence of two zips in Galaxy sends the eye horizontally across the composition, the contrasting vertical stripes punctuating the field of rich burgundy. Each zip offsets the other, the thickness of the khaki channel throwing into sharper relief the thinner, yet more built-up stripe of dark bronze on the right, which displays a more prominent brushstroke. The resulting work is austere in its deceptive simplicity and lush in its velvety surface of sensuous and moody hues. Galaxy also marks a moment in Newman’s career when he strayed from the symmetry to which he had previously adhered. Yve-Alain Bois writes that the zip “declar[ed] the surface as a totality. The zip was its measurement. It gave the viewer a yardstick to gauge its width intuitively. It was also a command to the beholder: Stand here, just in front of you, and you will know exactly where you are, for this will be the middle of your visual field, just as it is the middle of this painting. Newman always said that what he wanted most to achieve was to give the beholder a sense of place. In bilateral symmetry, which relates so directly to our body structure and to the way we, as humans, organize our perception of the world, he had found a perfect mode of address.” (Yve-Alain Bois, “Newman’s Laterality,” in Melissa Ho, Ed., Reconsidering Barnett Newman, Philadelphia, 2002, p. 33) Although the composition of the present work is no longer symmetrical, Galaxy nevertheless evokes an unexpected harmony and equilibrium in its crisply demarcated passages of solid color. In its execution and title, Galaxy is a natural extension of the painting Abraham, also from 1949 and housed in the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Although much grander in scale than the present work, Abraham features a zip placed slightly off-center, an exploration into asymmetry that would spur the creation of Galaxy. By shifting the placement of the zips in Galaxy to the periphery of the canvas, Newman tests the viewer’s perceptual capacity, challenging him to regard the subtle inequalities of the zips while simultaneously perceiving the irregular blocks of maroon on either side of the vertical stripes. The title of the present work also logically follows its forebear Abraham, as God promised Abraham that he would have a son whose progeny would be as numerous as “the stars of heaven.” (Genesis 22:17)

Galaxy’s intimate scale affords the viewer a deeply personal viewing experience. Temkin observed of the variously sized canvases in Newman’s oeuvre: “Newman, however, always talked in terms of scale, not size…Newman’s paintings prove that the dynamics on which they depend for success could operate on very little surface. What counted was the emotional resonance – the perfect adjustment of a color and the size and shape of its extent and to what neighbored it.” (Ibid., p. 42) Although Newman’s paintings vary in color palette, number of zips, and size, they share the singular goal of instilling in the viewer a profound sense of the spiritual and provoking an existential sense of awe and wonderment for human existence. Having reduced subject matter to the equivalent of zero – thereby elevating the chromatic intensity of his palette to the highest pitch – Newman articulated a new lexicon for painting, one that defied academic practice and instead privileged a new beginning in the story of modern art.