


James Rosenquist(American , 1933-2017)Untitled (Study for Nails)
1973
1973
Sold for US$112,812.50 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 (New York)

Client Services (Los Angeles)
James Rosenquist (American , 1933-2017)
1973
oil screenprinted and painted on unstretched canvas
53 1/2 by 95 1/2 in.
135.9 by 242.6 cm.
This work was executed in 1973.
Footnotes
This work is registered with the James Rosenquist Studio under registration number 73.28.
Provenance
A gift from the artist to the present owner in 1973
One of the main exponents of American Pop Art, alongside Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist independently brought his experience as a commercial artist painting billboards, into the fine art sphere. Rosenquist's representation of consumerist imagery brought him tremendous acclaim in the 1960s. His work in the 1970s continued in the same vein, though with additional focus on graphic works due to his injury in a car accident.
Untitled (Study for Nails) dating from 1973, relates to a series of paintings including Snow Fence I (1973), and Snow Fence II (1973). Both were shown at the Leo Castelli gallery in the same year alongside some of Rosenquist's most celebrated paintings, including Paper Clip (1974), now in the collection of the Dallas Art Museum. The present work shows the artist in a period of experimentation, mixing painting and printmaking to produce a meditative monochromatic work. The end result is an exaltation of the common nail, generic imagery the viewer is familiar with, but not nostalgic for. As an artist who captured mid-century American consumer culture, Rosenquist's canvases can be found in major museum collections around the world including the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.