"Standing Nude", 1985/1986

Experimenting with different techniques, dissolving genre boundaries is part of Wesselmann's characteristic working method. While the early works oscillated between collage, assemblage, relief, and room installation, especially the steel cuts that followed in the 1980s are often so delicate that they can hardly be distinguished from a wall drawing. These works, which lie completely flat on the wall, often almost cross the boundaries of the figurative into abstraction. While abstract elements were always evident in his collages in the 1960s and 1970s, stylistic parallels to second-generation abstract American artists such as Ellsworth Kelley, Frank Stella, and Kenneth Noland are now unmistakably apparent.

Provenance available