$2,963
Robert Beauchamp (American, 1923-1995) Self-Portrait with Red Eyes Signature and date incised "Beauchamp 78" l. r. Oil on canvas, 26 x 19 in. (66.0 x 48.3 cm), framed. Condition: Minor craquelure. Provenance: Through the artist's estate. N. B. Robert Beauchamp studied under Hans Hofmann in Provincetown and New York in the 1950s where he was encouraged to explore pure relationships of color, space and form. In the 1960s, however, he began to move toward figuration and away from abstraction as subject matter, believing that pure abstraction could not adequately represent the impoverished modern human condition. (1) His works from this period are characterized by a vivid, gestural, and congested picture plane which has been referred to an "all-over phantasmagoria."(2) By the 1970s, Beauchamp was fully committed to conveying the psychological reality of the subject through formal means, and often worked in portraiture. His expressive portraits and self-portraits, such as the present work, are described as "wildly scumbled…thick with highly keyed colors" which show human beings "…resounding with their scrambled features" as "emblems of the human condition." (3) (1) Henry, Gerrit. "Robert Beauchamp: An Appreciation." Robert Beauchamp: Paintings and Drawings, Monique Knowlton Gallery, 1996. Pg. 3 (2) Ibid., 3. (3) Ibid., 4.
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2008-05-16
