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• Auction House:
  Mossgreen
• Sale Name:
  Fine Australian Art
• Sale Date:
  28 Oct 2014 ~ 6.30pm
• Lot #:
  15
• Lot Description:
  Ross Bleckner
  (American, born 1949)
  Untitled 1996
  oil on canvas
  76 x 76 cm
  signed and dated 'Ross Bleckner 1996' verso; bears Gagosian Gallery and Martin Browne Fine Art labels verso
• Provenance:
  Gagosian Gallery, New York; Private Collection, Sydney
• Exhibited:
  Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney, Autum Catalogue 2007, 28 March-22 April 2007
• Notes:
  Ross Bleckner is a remarkable international artist, based in New York. His work is represented in significant public and private collections, including that of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art, Norway; and Swiss art dealer, Thomas Ammann. Bleckner currently holds the position of clinical professor of studio art at New York University and was made a Goodwill Ambassador by the United Nations in 2009. The artist studied at New York University followed by the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1970s. He held his first solo exhibition in 1975 at the Cunningham Ward Gallery, New York and first exhibited with Mary Boone Gallery, New York in 1979, maintaining a long and fruitful relationship with Mary Boone Gallery since. Bleckner has held solo exhibitions almost annually since then in America, Europe, Scandinavia, Britain and Asia. His reputation was assured when the prestigious Guggenheim Museum, New York held a mid-career retrospective of his work in 1995. Bleckner has contributed to a multitude of group exhibitions, notably in Australia at the Biennale of Sydney in 1988. Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney held a solo exhibition of his recent paintings in 1999. The Sydney show was then held in Melbourne in association with Gallery Gabrielle Pizzi. Jonathan Turner, in the Martin Browne catalogue, enthused: 'Ross Bleckner thrives on contradiction and contrast. His work oscillates between the universal and microscopic...His work is built up through careful aesthetic consideration, yet with its mix of spiritual, ethical and medical concerns, it transcends being solely elegant or decorative...Bleckner's work purposely forces the viewer...to look beyond the painted surface.'1 Around the time that Untitled, 1996 was painted, Bleckner's subject matter captured the point of transformation of, for example, flowers at a molecular level. He has frequently investigated the subject of AIDS, as well as the concepts of change, loss, and memory. The artist's description of his painting Preparation, 1999 provides a good summation of his work: 'It brings together the asymmetrical, the cellular, the photographic and the atmospheric, as well as a strong sense of abstraction. Like [American colour field painter] Kenneth Noland's target paintings, it's part of the larger vocabulary of art history.'2 Dr Shireen Huda 1 Jonathan Turner, Ross Bleckner - Fusion: The Cell Paintings, Ross Bleckner: paintings 1996-1999, Martin Browne Fine Art, Sydney, 1999, p. 12 2 Martin Browne Fine Art, Ross Bleckner: paintings 1996-1999, Sydney, 1999, p. 8
• Estimate:
  A$25,000 - 35,000
• Realised Price:
  *****
  

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• Category:
  Art

This Sale has been held and this item is no longer available. Details are provided for information purposes only.