Lot 2
Bernice Bing(Chinese/American, 1936-1998)Big Sur
1967
1967
1 July 2020, 13:00 EDT
New YorkSold for US$43,825 inc. premium
Looking for a similar item?
Our Post-War and Contemporary Art specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.
Find your local specialistAsk about this lot
Client Services (San Francisco)
Client Services (Los Angeles)
Client Services (New York)
Bernice Bing (Chinese/American, 1936-1998)
Big Sur
1967
signed, dated 67 and inscribed SVAAP on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
32 by 32 in.
81 by 81 cm.
1967
signed, dated 67 and inscribed SVAAP on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
32 by 32 in.
81 by 81 cm.
Footnotes
Provenance
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Exhibited
Sonoma, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, Bingo: The Life and Art of Bernice Bing, 2019-2020, p. 1
Literature
Knute Stiles, 'Knute Stiles on Bernice Bing' in Artforum International, March 1971, p. 78
Bernice Bing, primarily known as Bingo, was born in San Francisco's Chinatown neighborhood in 1936. After losing her parents, she grew up through various foster systems and orphanages before securing a full scholarship to the California College of Arts and Crafts (now CCA) in 1957. She would then transfer to the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute) from which she would graduate. Through the course of study, and through The Old Spaghetti Factory which sat below her studio, she became immersed in the Beat movement and San Francisco art scene. She studied with Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and Manuel Neri and exhibited her work alongside her contemporaries Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo and William T. Wiley amongst others.
Her work, including the present work Big Sur (1967), is largely influenced by Zen calligraphy, Taoism and Buddhist philosophy, theories she initially learned from Saburo Haseggawa in her year at CCA. The present work, grew out of a year spent at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California, a New Age center where she studied with Abraham Maslow, Fritz Perls and Alan Watts (a psychologist, psychiatrist and philosopher respectively). In Big Sur, allusions to classical Chinese landscape painting are mixed with brilliant color and energetic brushstrokes whilst a figure hangs amidst the painting, falling through space. Bingo viewed that as being an image of herself as an artist plunging into the abyss of self-reflection.
Though recognized during her lifetime, having been included in several exhibitions at San Francisco's Batman Gallery, her focus was primarily that of an activist and educator. A recent exhibition, Bingo: The Life and Art of Bernice Bing, at the Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and inclusion in Women of Abstract Expressionism at the Denver Art Museum has led to discovery of her work by more recent generations. Her work is included in the collection of the Fine Art Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento. A documentary about her life and work The Worlds of Bernice Bing premiered in 2013.
