Lot 39: Sturtevant (American, 1926-2014) Warhol's Flowers, 1968

Sturtevant (American, 1926-2014)
Warhol's Flowers, 1968

signed, titled, dated and variously dedicated 'Warhol's Flowers E. Sturtevant 1968' (on the reverse)
synthetic polymer and silkscreen ink on canvas

11 x 10 15/16 in.
27.9 x 27.8 cm.
Footnotes

This work will be included in the forthcoming edition of the catalogue raisonné being prepared by The Estate of Elaine Sturtevant, Paris.

Provenance
A gift from the artist to the present owner in 1978


Regarded by many as one of the most important artists of the last fifty years, Elaine Frances Sturtevant, known simply as Sturtevant, was born in Lakewood, Ohio, in 1924. After attending the University of Iowa, she moved to New York in the 1950s to attend Columbia University. She began creating her first works in the later part of the decade, but it was not until the mid-1960s that she truly evolved her pioneering and groundbreaking voice that questioned authorship, appropriation and originality.

Beginning in 1964, Sturtevant started to explore the complex power structures behind a work of art by replicating and repeating examples by other artists. She began creating her own versions of the works from memory, employing the same techniques as the artists who created the original work. Rather than simply creating a copy, she worked by hand to replicate details in the pieces as closely as possible, thereby challenging the viewer's idea of what a work of art should be.

An early work by Sturtevant, Warhol's Flowers, 1968, takes Andy Warhol's iconic Flowers series as a starting point in order to explore the themes that would come to define her entire practice. Warhol's work consistently explored appropriation, reproduction and mass production. His frequent use of appropriated logos, the repetition of motifs and the repetitive nature of printing itself, combined with his employment of numerous studio assistants in his 'Factory', question both the originality of a concept behind a work of art, and the uniqueness of the work itself. Therefore, when Sturtevant approached the Pop artist to use the original silkscreen that he had developed only a few weeks prior for his Flowers show at Leo Castelli Gallery, Warhol immediately agreed, even sharing his specific printing techniques with her. Warhol understood Sturtevant's motives and her concern with authorship and originality, a theme that he was also exploring in his own work. Sturtevant appears to have understood his process to such a degree that when asked about his creative practice in an interview, Warhol went so far as to say "I don't know. Ask Elaine" (the artist quoted in: Bill Arning, 'Sturtevant', Journal of Contemporary Art, 1989, p. 44).

Sturtevant's exploration took Warhol's questions on mass culture and consumerism further however. Coming to the market for the first time, and hailing from the early period of Sturtevant's revolutionary practice, Warhol's Flowers, 1968, both questions and dismantles the mythical status awarded to an artist and the cultural cache that is bestowed upon a work of art. As Sturtevant herself questioned "what is the power, the silent power, of art?" (the artist quoted in: Hans Ulrich Obrist, 'Elaine Sturtevant obituary', The Guardian, 19 May 2014).

Throughout her career, Sturtevant consistently chose to explore works that later became recognized as icons of art history, beginning with Warhol, and expanding to also include Roy Lichtenstein, Jasper Johns, Anselm Kiefer and Keith Haring. Her foresight in predicting the significant works of the period, is dwarfed only by the colossal influence she had on the artists that came after her. Appropriation was a key concept explored by artists in the 1980s and is even more ubiquitous in today's post-internet age. The current questions of online authorship and attribution issues surrounding today's meme culture shed further light on the revolutionary concepts Sturtevant was exploring over half a century ago.

Sturtevant has been the subject of major museum shows in Deichtorhallen Hamburg, the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, the Kunsthalle, Zurich and the Serpentine Galleries, London. Opening only months after her death at age 89, the Museum of Modern Art, New York hosted a career retrospective of her work in 2014-2015. She was awarded the Francis J Greenburger award in 2008 and received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement at the 54th Venice Biennale in 2011.