Dad insisted he had a Picasso drawing. “Le Coq” he said it was called, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. We had our doubts. He was a collector, but he was also meticulous in keeping track of things. In his last years, Dad was almost fixated on “Le Coq”. “It’s in a book,” he’d say, “I know I have it here somewhere”. It exasperated him that he couldn’t find it.

Dad died at 98 years old in 2018. With Mother still alive (she would live two more years), clearing out and closing up the large apartment where they lived was almost impossible. Confined to bed, Mother was isolated in the master bedroom in the company of her helpers and her memories. The rest of the grand apartment remained in suspended animation — the beautiful trappings of their large and vibrant life gathering dust. After Mother passed, the task of unraveling their life began.

We found rows of books behind books, enough art books to fill a small shop — high art mixed in with low art, antique furniture from the 1700s (now derisively referred to as ‘brown furniture” ), and reproductions. There was set upon set of “fine china”, as it used to be called, and flatware and serving pieces in silver and porcelain appropriate to another time and another world. There were over one hundred teapots! We were overwhelmed as the beautiful things that had been given meaning by my parents during their life and as seen and used by them in that life, became transformed into just so much “stuff”. We were desperate to be done with it all.

And then, almost overlooked on the floor of a closet in the study and buried under empty cartons and miscellany, we found a large beat-up grey book sleeve and decided to have a look. The sleeve was stamped “BUFFON” in gold. The title page told us that the book was: PICASSO Eaux-Fortes Originales Pour Des Textes De Buffon. The date of publication 1942. This copy, no. 172 of 226. We pulled the book from the sleeve.

The delicate pages of the large book were hard to turn. Every few pages there was a page covered in fraying tissue protecting an exquisite print, (thirty-one in all), of birds and animals described in Buffon’s writings. There was a print titled: “le Coq”, but this squat rooster was among the least impressive of all the birds and animals depicted. We were disappointed but thought this must be the Picasso sketch that Dad had gone on and on about all those years. It certainly matched what had come up when we had googled “Picasso” and “le Coq”. We started to close the book. But when we flipped back through to the front (we had missed the title page because the pages were hard to separate), there it was, a glorious and exuberant ink and wash drawing of a proud rooster, “Le Coq”. We’d found it.

Filling the title page and flowing onto the adjoining page, this rooster did not disappoint. There is a handwritten dedication by Picasso: “Pour Jean-Louis Barrault” signed “Picasso” and dated by him, “Paris 30 Decembre 1942”.

What a strange time to be drawing whimsical animals and who was Jean-Louis Barrault?

In December 1942, Picasso was holed up in his studio on the rue des Grands Augustins. He had chosen to stay in occupied Paris when others had fled abroad. He remained at some risk. As a foreigner (a Spaniard), he could have been deported at any time. His work was considered “degenerate” by the Nazis and his “Guernica”, was already a famous indictment of fascism. Perhaps, he counted on the fact that he was too famous to harm. He was productive, but could not sell anything and he crafted a quiet existence as neither hero nor collaborator. Picasso’s presence reassured others and the Nazis tolerated him as a way of suggesting that a brutal occupation was in fact benign. He was doing what everyone else was doing that December, trying to stay warm and queuing for food.

It was a grim winter. The Nazi's grip on Paris was tightening. For artists and writers who had chosen to stay or not fled in time, the German occupation was a daily humiliation. It was a soul-destroying time. How to work, cope, and stay true to themselves were the central questions.

The artist had moved into the Hotel de Savoie in 1936. It was only a year later in this studio, which came to be known as the “Grenier Picasso” or “Picasso’s Attic”, that Picasso had painted his searing, monumental, anti-fascist, Guernica. The previous tenant, Jean-Louis Barrault, theatre director and friend of the photographer (and Picasso muse) Dora Maar, had used the studio for theater rehearsals. He recommended the place to his friend Picasso. Barrault and Picasso not only traveled in the same intellectual circles, they were Communist “fellow travelers”. They stayed friends their whole lives and in the darkest days of the war, as we shall come to see, that friendship helped sustain them.

The building where the studio was located had a storied if fictional past. In The Unknown Masterpiece published in 1847, Balzac had set the action in the rooms of this vast studio. In Balzac’s novella, an impoverished, aspiring artist named, “Poussin” (a small chicken is a literal translation, but historically the name of a real 17th-century French painter) visits the great artist “Master Probus” (the French version of the name of the 17th-century Flemish painter Pourbus) in the artist’s grand studio. Another painter, a rival to Probus, by the name “Frenhofer”, also figures prominently. In 1936, when he moved into the studio, whether Picasso saw himself as the impoverished artist or the master artist (most likely the latter), we will never know, but Picasso undoubtedly knew the story well.

In 1931, art dealer Ambroise Vollard had suggested to Picasso that he illustrate “Histoire Naturelle” by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88), a vast, if dated, treatise on the animal world. The lively style of Buffon’s writing delighted readers and Picasso, who adored drawing animals, agreed. The project stalled until 1936 when Picasso started to spend a lot of time at the print studio of Roger Lacouriere, turning his attention to prints and animals as a relief perhaps from his many emotional upheavals. Picasso worked away, on and off, on his animal drawings; however, when Vollard died in 1939, the Buffon book with illustrations was still not published.

Martin Fabiani, another dealer, took over the book project and asked Lacouriere to print the book in 1942. A benign natural history text would be of no interest to the German censors. And so, the project was revived. The images of the thirty-two animals depicted are considered to be “among the highest level of achievement in sugar-lift aquatint technique in the history of printmaking”. The depictions of animals delighted many looking for a diversion from the grim reality of that winter. The print run was small, just 226 books. A few went as gifts to friends, each of these with a different and unique drawing.

This drawing of “Le Coq” and the dedication by Picasso hadn’t been seen since the 1990s when Dad purchased the book. In 1942, this particular drawing dedicated to this particular man was likely no accident. It was not strange that in occupied Paris of 1942, Picasso was choosing to do illustrations for a historic natural history book from the 1700s. He couldn’t very well paint another anti-fascist Guernica. But were these illustrations or this ancient text somehow subversive? Somewhere in Buffon’s dense natural history text had Picasso found words that gave him comfort or perhaps had he inserted words of his own into the elaborate text? Maybe simply depicting the natural world in his drawings allowed him to transcend the moment and find solace in those dark days.

But it was the drawing of this “Le Coq” and the dedication of this sketch and book to his friend Jean-Louis Barrault that was the defiant act. This “Le Coq” is not an illustration of a simple rooster which the reader can find later in the Buffon book. This “Le Coq” is the proud Chantecler of ancient France, the symbol of perseverance and tenacity revived in the French Revolution. The dedication was not just to the friend who had found Picasso his beloved studio. This friend was a Communist, at a time when that was a dangerous political affiliation. The Germans were stalled in Russia and Stalingrad was going through the worst. Picasso drew this for his “comrade” (they would later both be prominent in the post-war French Communist movement) as if to say: “We must be brave my friend. France will rise again”. They were and it did.

Picasso died in 1973. His friend, Jean-Louis Barrault had an illustrious career after the War as an actor and theatre director. He died in 1994.

Picasso’s drawing of Le Coq will be sold at auction on October 1st in Wright’s 20th Century Art auction featuring Selections from the Campbell Family Collection. For more information, visit wright20.com.

Resources

Benkemoun, Brigitte. Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2020.

Friga, Ben. Galleri K. Oslo

Poirier, Agnès. Left Bank: Art, Passion and the Rebirth of Paris. New York: Henfy Holt & Co., 2018.

Rosbottom, Ronald. When Paris Went Dark: The City of Light Under German Occupation, 1940–1944. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2014.

Spotts, Frederic. The Shameful Peace: How French Artists and Intellectuals Survived The Nazi Occupation. New Haven; Yale University Press, 2008.

Szoke, John. Faux-Fortes Originals Pour Les Texts De Buffon. www.johnszoke.com/news/16-eaux-fortes-originals-pour-les-texts-de-buffon-bloch

Szylinger, Irene. Art Strategies Inc., Toronto.

The Lost Picasso Drawing: Tenacity, Hope and Subversive Art was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Martin Brothers bird-form vessels (oft referred to as “Wally Birds”) are, for most, aspirational items. Largely made to resemble leading political and industrial figures of their time and rendered in the manner of caricature pioneered by the 19th-century English satirical magazine Punch, these whimsical works were eagerly sought-after by London’s “chattering classes,” with commissions for their production coming from aristocrats including Lord Faringdon and Sir William Drake.

Robert Wallace Martin, the inspired artist behind the sculpting of the birds, began his career apprenticing with Charles Barry on the redesign of the Palace of Westminster, where he was known to have modeled grotesques. Thereafter, he rose to some acclaim while attending the Royal Academy, which led to such notable commissions as the Diamond Jubilee portrait medallion of Queen Victoria (intended for the entrance to London’s V&A Museum, Robert’s design was, to his immense dismay, never used).

The work of the Martin Brothers is as diverse as it is accomplished. From the formal sculpture present in their early plaques and busts to the grotesque and bizarrely expressive features of their Wally Birds and other creatures, their talent is unquestionable. Then as now, the Birds win the principal appeal. The first Wally Birds, crafted between the 1870s and 1880s, were immediately celebrated.

Robert Wallace’s mastery over the modeling of anthropomorphic features in caricature caught the imagination of audiences and media of the day. Charles Martin, who oversaw retail premises, was quick to encourage his brother to step up production of the birds to keep up with the demand.

Creative and commercial tensions often arose between the siblings. Robert Wallace, dedicated primarily to his artistry, continued to push Victorian boundaries with Birds increasingly fanciful and grotesque — which Charles repeatedly cautioned against. Robert Wallace also regularly abandoned profitable commercial production for extended periods to focus on the making of a massive ceramic fountain, a personal indulgence and private passion which ultimately never sold.

It is the passion that links the artist and the collector. It is found in the creative drive, in the visions and fantasies that inspire the creation of objects, and in the compulsion to acquire and the restless pursuit of more. It is no simple thing to define the motivation that drives the collector, but for collectors of Robert Wallace Martin’s works, the need for insight into the inspiration of this prodigy sculptor and the ability to feel the imprint of the potter’s hands are among the prime components.

A world-class selection of Martin Brothers pottery from the collection of Andrew Furer and Elle Douglas will be sold at auction by Rago on September 21st. The special sale, comprised of more than 20 Wally Birds and an assortment of other rare works, is a near-encyclopedic exploration of the artist’s oeuvre.

View the complete catalog and sale

Birds of a Feather was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

maquette for the Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture

In 1963, Pablo Picasso was approached by architect William Hartmann of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to create a public work of art for Chicago’s new civic center. Picasso accepted, and Hartmann, acting on behalf of the city and then Mayor Richard J. Daley, presented him with a check for $100,000 which the artist promptly refused, stating, “This is my gift to the people of Chicago.”

Picasso created two steel maquettes of his design for the city. He kept one for himself and the other was sent to the architects for planning purposes. Engineers created exact technical drawings of the maquette to use in fabrication, but ultimately the design had to be altered slightly to support the fifty-foot tall corten steel structure. Picasso later gifted his maquette to the Art Institute of Chicago where it resides today.

In 1967, using the technical drawings as a blueprint, a replica of the maquette was crafted in corten steel (Picasso’s material of choice for this project) with the exact proportions of Art Institute example. This replica, the present lot, closely resembles the full-scale sculpture in Daley Plaza as both examples have been enjoyed outdoors for over 50 years.

Originally published at wright20.com

AFTER PABLO PICASSO, maquette for the Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture | Wright20.com was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Allan Stone, of the highly regarded, eponymous gallery, was the first person to show Wayne Thiebaud’s work in New York in 1962. The two would become life-long friends and business partners, with Allan Stone being the sole representative of Thiebaud’s work in New York until Stone’s death in 2006. The same year as Thiebaud’s New York debut, curator Walter Hopps had put together the groundbreaking exhibition New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum, which is considered the first survey of Pop Art and included works by Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Ed Ruscha, and Thiebaud. For a short time in the mid-1950s, Thiebaud lived in New York but found the atmosphere alienating and did not connect with the brooding anxiety that drove the Abstract Expressionist movement. He returned to California to teach and began painting his colorful, deadpan still lifes of pastries, candy, shoes and everyday objects he would become best known for.

While Thiebaud is often associated with Pop Art, his approach has a distinctly West Coast spirit, at times nostalgic and optimistic, and a concern with the formal properties of light and color that align him with Modernist painters such as Pierre Bonnard, Maurice de Vlaminck, and Giorgio Morandi. This is especially prevalent in his landscape paintings, which he began creating in the 1950s and revisited again, in various ways, throughout his career; these blithe and vibrant depictions of his native California serve as an important compendium to his iconic still lifes. Just as with painting a bakery case or a shoe display, Thiebaud was “not just interested in the pictorial aspects…but in some way to manage it, manipulate it, or see what [he] can turn it into.” Allan Stone was an important figure throughout Thiebaud’s career, passionately representing his work in its diversity, richness, and persistence.

I have had the pleasure of friendship with a complex and talented man, a terrific teacher and cook, the best raconteur in the west with a spin serve, and a great painter whose magical touch is exceeded only by his genuine modesty and humility. Thiebaud’s dedication to painting and his pursuit of excellence inspire all who are lucky enough to come in contact with him. He is a very special man. — Allan Stone

Wright celebrates the Visionary Eye of Allan Stone

Founded in 1960 by art dealer Allan Stone (1932–2006), the New York gallery known today as Allan Stone Projects has been admired for over half a century. Celebrated for its eclectic approach and early advocacy of pivotal artists of the 20th century, Allan Stone Gallery was a leading authority on Abstract Expressionism, the New York dealer for Wayne Thiebaud for over forty years, and showed the works of Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Joseph Cornell, John Graham and John Chamberlain. Stone also promoted and collected the work of a younger generation of artists whose aesthetic tendencies were in conversation with the historical holdings in his collection. In addition to modern masterworks and contemporary art, Allan Stone also collected and exhibited international folk art, Americana and important decorative arts, and industrial design.

A Shared Dedication to Seeing was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I am excited and a bit nervous as we begin a new chapter. As independent owners of small companies, we have created our own cultures from scratch. Rago and Wright are companies with long back stories. Our companies can feel like family, Wright literally began that way. I began this adventure over 30 years ago, starting out in a flea market in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. I took every step in-between working my way up through the ranks as a dealer. In 1993 I became an auction specialist at Treadway and in 2000 opened Wright. My new partners, David Rago and Suzanne Perrault share a similar self-made backstory. We began when the market was smaller and we both learned along the way. Our career journeys have been one of continual growth, both professionally and personally.

Over the coming months, together we will be better prepared to build on the great work we each do. Our goals are to serve our buyers and sellers by bringing an innovate mix of design, art and the unexpected to the market. Consignors trust us with precious goods that they have often cared for and lived with for years. We tell their stories and the stories of the designers, the makers and artists that make our world so special.

Innovation in this increasingly competitive and digital world takes a great team; together we will have that team. In the auction world you are only as good as your next sale. Our journey continues based on the same love, care and passion which brought us into this industry.

I hope you will share the journey with us.

Wright + Rago was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed many radical buildings that changed the course of architectural history, and the Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, one of only three skyscrapers completed by Wright, remains one his greatest masterworks. The organic references in the bold angular geometry and the dialogue of the materials of the Price Tower, re-interpret the earlier principles of Wright’s Arts and Crafts structures.

Designed to “transcend function and be touched with poetic imagination,” Price Tower stands as Wright’s unique answer to tall building architecture and interior design.

Revolutionary moments in the history of architecture are often credited to artistic partnerships between forward-thinking clients and architects. As the Price family begun to envision a modern corporate headquarters, Harold Price, Sr. first contacted Cliff May, the California based architect of his residence in Bartlesville. The family also reached out to noted modernist architect Bruce Goff, who recommended “if you really wanted the best architect, get Frank Lloyd Wright.” Goff knew the family and their modern spirit would find a kinship in Wright’s designs.

As early as 1912, the concept of the skyscrapers emerged in Wright’s sketches, and Price Tower gave the architect the opportunity to revisit the Utopian designs begun for the towers at St. Mark’s-in-the-Bouwerie in 1927. Completed in 1956, the Price Tower epitomizes Frank Lloyd Wright’s deconstructed Prairie aesthetic and the stylized organic elements he championed. The floor plates are rotated on axis to provide the building with strict geometric structure, yet unexpected foundation. In writing about the tower in its planning stages, Wright states,” its upper floors will command an unbroken view of all directions over eight hundred square miles of prairie and foothills.” Not only the sighting, but the richly patinated copper panels that dominate the exterior construction, synthesize the built environment with the natural surroundings.

Designed to “transcend function and be touched with poetic imagination,” Price Tower stands as Wright’s unique answer to tall building architecture and interior design. The radical rhythmic linear motifs in the paneling and dramatic exterior louvers were further reflected in the bespoke furniture designed for the interior and, in typical Wright fashion, transcend any particular style. They are purely the unique artistic vision of their maker.

On June 5th, 2019, Wright sold a selection of rare works and related ephemera directly from the Price family collection alongside original architectural renderings of the Price Tower from the collection of architect, Roy K. Varenhorst who apprenticed with Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin Studios in the 1950s. View the collection.

Revolutionary Design was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Throughout his fifty years as a designer, Robert Vogele founded two of Chicago’s most significant design consultancies and one of the largest firms in the nation. Born in 1928, Vogele exhibited a natural talent for drawing early on. At the University of Illinois, he flourished, securing degrees in communications, fine art and business while working as assistant art director for the press department. Upon completing his military service in 1956, Vogele accepted a position as the director of graphics, packaging and corporate identity at Lathan, Tyler and Jensen — a firm that grew out of Raymond Loewey’s Chicago office when it closed in 1954. Dick Lathan, Vogele’s mentor at LTJ, stressed innovation and taught the importance of a unified visual identity, a concept that would become the cornerstone of Vogele’s burgeoning career.

“To design a life is to find what you believe in, what you aspire to be and what you want your legacy to be…a life in design.” — Robert Vogele

In 1958, Vogele opened Robert Vogele Designs. Founded squarely on the belief that good design was good for business, the firm offered a multitude of services including advertising, packaging, branding and industrial design all under one roof. Unlike his contemporaries, the firm was a one-stop-shop for developing corporate identity with an emphasis on business marketing. Creativity flourished in the years that followed, and in 1967, embracing a business-forward approach, the firm officially changed its name to Robert Vogele Incorporated. In 1969, IBM hired RVI to develop the marketing plan for leasing their new (and struggling) building at One IBM Plaza. Instead, Vogele presented a business plan, a risky proposal suggesting that IBM cover design and furnishing costs for tenants, which paid off tenfold and resulted in a lasting partnership.

In 1982, ready to embark on a new adventure, Vogele laid the foundation for what was to become VSA partners with his son Bruce, Ted Stoik and later Dana Arnet. VSA garnered national attention for their award winning designs and Vogele’s unique management style. Taking a behind-the-scenes approach, Vogele challenged his designers to think creatively and was quick to recognize and nurture talent in his employees. He emphasized working collectively and taking risks, and when a challenge presented itself, he would say “Let’s try it. It may be out on a limb, but we may grow from here.” Vogele retired in 2002, but his impact on design is still felt to this day. Challenging the traditional definition of a designer, Vogele lived by the following adage, “To design a life is to find what you believe in, what you aspire to be and what you want your legacy to be…a life in design.”

Robert Vogele and his wife Ruth were avid collectors of fine art, folk art, and modern design and they amassed an impressive collection in their 60+ years together. More than patrons, the Vogeles believed in establishing personal relationships with artist to better understand the artwork and inform their collecting. On April 25th, 2019, Wright presented works from their collection at auction. View The Robert and Ruth Vogele Collection.

Robert Vogele was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2012, the Basquiat Foundation issued their last certificate of authenticity. Jean-Michel Basquiat, the genius artist of the last quarter of the 20th century, created works for just 10 years, tragically dying at age 27 from a drug overdose. In that decade, Basquiat created hundreds of paintings on canvas and an untold number of works on paper. Anyone would regard the cataloging and authentication of the artist’s prodigious output a herculean task, but for a time, the Basquiat Foundation took this on. The process of authentication is especially complicated when the market starts to play a role. In the time since Basquiat’s death, the value of his art has skyrocketed and the artist has shattered his own records at auction in recent years.

As happens when values rise, so does the legal exposure involved in passing judgement on works of art. Millions of dollars hang in the balance. To avoid the risk of potential lawsuits and disputes the Basquiat Foundation made the decision to cease authenticating works. They were not alone in the decision to end the authentication process. The foundations for Warhol, Lichtenstein and Haring likewise ended the practice and as such, works that were not submitted by the closing dates of each remain in limbo — a gray zone where their value and status are undetermined.

Glenn Williams met Jean-Michel Basquiat in the late 1970s. Approximately the same age and part of the fashion world of New York and Los Angeles, their paths crossed in the clubs and bars and art galleries where the creative world mixed. The scene was smaller then and the commercial rise of the art market had yet to begin. Larry Gagosian had one gallery (he now has 16) and he was the first to show Basquiat’s work on the West Coast.

It was at that time, as Basquiat was preparing for his show at Gagosian, that he and Glenn became close. Glenn would share his latest clothing designs; there are pictures of Jean-Michel wearing his fashions, notably in a portrait by Sylvia Plachy. One night in late 1982 or early 1983, Basquiat gave Glenn and his girlfriend two works. The first was a conceptual drawing of the word DRAWINGS. Devoid of any image, save his characteristic block letters, the work is like a title still for a film or book, the word centered on an oversize sheet of paper. Copyright marks and notations for “pat. pending” and random Roman numerals span the lower edge. The back of the drawing contains a surprise miniature skull drawing, quickly and confidently rendered in ink. Also on the verso, is the Gagosian Gallery inventory code (LGG — JMB #13) written in pencil to the corner.

The second drawing (image at the top of the article) is an iconic piece, an outrageous and comical head with a long red nose and hollow, round eyes, and radiates with the intensity of Basquiat’s most prized work. Rendered on a heavy, toothy paper, in oil stick and pastel, the drawing is aggressively worked in some areas and quickly rendered in others. The face floats above mysterious intersecting lines, dots and symbols, possibly from the Hobo Code lexicon that fascinated Basquiat.

Glenn kept the works for all these years, having them framed and displayed in his home in the 90s. The pieces were never submitted for authentication, as is typical of people who receive work directly from artists they know, who are in their lives and social circles. He never explored selling the pieces and didn’t even know of the Foundation’s work (until they were no longer in the business of authentication).

What now becomes of works of art such as these? There is no recourse, no process by which to obtain the certificate that some could argue is now more valuable than the art itself. Yes, there is a significant amount of money at stake but there is also the historical record of this extremely important artist. These drawings are not doodles or minor efforts; they are significant works that deserve to be part of the dialogue, part of the story of Basquiat’s art.

Gray was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rei Kawakubo’s furniture designs were first made in 1984 “to create a complete environmental setting for [her] clothes” in the Comme des Garçons stores. Her first designs were chairs made of steel and granite, made as unique examples or in limited quantities. A small number of collections were created up until 1990, when a now very rare catalog of her furniture designs was released. Around 1987, when the present lot was produced, Kawakubo had opened up a short-lived Comme des Garçons furniture store in Paris that was later made into the brand’s perfume store.

In 1988, Kawakubo debuted the designs in the United States for the first time at City, an avant-garde store in Chicago, as well as at the only Comme des Garçons location in the states, in San Francisco. Barry Bursak, the owner of City, remarked that “to say these chairs aren’t comfortable isn’t accurate…they are exquisite. When you sit in a chair and it makes you sit a certain way, it gives you a certain elegance. In that sense, these chairs are extraordinary.” Kawakubo recommends, of the chairs, that they “can come to [their] true essence when placed in an environment that is not too pretentious.” She insisted that for the opening, the chairs at City be displayed in a big pile.

It is an undeniable fact that design is reflective of the designer`s personality. Though I do not view myself as harsh and stark. If I must characterize the essence of my furniture design, it is: simplicity. — Rei Kawakubo

Her chair designs echo many aesthetic and conceptual touchstones of the Comme des Garçons brand in the 1980s; while day-glo, spandex and “power dressing” dominated mainstream fashion, Kawakubo opted for a nearly all-black palette, austere and industrial textures, and forms that reconfigured the body. Kawakubo has said of her designs for Comme des Garçons: “If we say these are clothes, it’s all very usual, so we said, these are not clothes. It sounds like a Zen dialogue but it is very simple.” The same can be said of her chairs, which can neither be categorized as simply sculpture or furniture; these works engage with the themes Kawakubo has been working through her entire career — construction and deconstruction, the transgression of shape and material, and mu, or, “no thing,” where boundaries on what something is do not exist.

On March 21st, 2019 Wright presents two rare chair designs by Rei Kawakubo at auction.

Chairs / Not Chairs was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Semina was an experimental journal comprised of only nine issues, self-published by Wallace Berman from 1955 to 1964. Berman was a poet and artist who worked outside of the mainstream art world and was part of the counterculture milieu of musicians, writers and artists in and around Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s. He was inspired by jazz, drug and hippie culture (even appearing in Easy Rider), Romanticism, European avant-garde art movements, pornography and beat writers, and his output reflects the interdisciplinary, “art-as-life and life-as-art” spirit of the era. His visual work includes collage, photography, printmaking, film, early mail art and site-specific works and he also ran a small, shambling open-air gallery called Semina.

In his small part in Easy Rider, Berman is in a commune, sowing seeds. This portrayal reflects how he approached art making, language, imagery, and his role in the artistic community: that of a disseminator, gathering packets of provocations, symbols and words to send to others. Semina was never sold, but simply mailed to friends and artists, dispersed like seeds, spreading the anti-art, romantic notions of this bohemian arts community in the secluded Topanga Canyon. This collection is a rare insight into the many scattered, oft-overlooked and vanguard movements that were happening adjacent to the dominant narratives of American art in the middle of the 20th century.

Semina was a cult magazine. It meant to reveal the possibility of the emergence of a new way of feeling. Cult means the cultivation of something…Wallace Berman gathered writers and artists he knew that gave him a sense of his own personal identity. — Robert Duncan, poet

On March 14th, Wright presents three original issues from Wallace Berman’s Semina magazine at auction.

This special collection comes from Louis Danziger, a graphic designer who became friends with Berman at the short-lived California School of Art around 1950, where they were both students. Danziger remembers Berman as initially, not that serious about art and would often find him making “fine pen line drawings of superhero types like Spiderman or jazz musicians. I don’t think I ever saw him in any classes.” They bonded over their mutual interest in jazz and Danziger credits their friend, Beat filmmaker Dion Vigne, with getting Berman more committed to creating art.

After school, Berman became known for his Verifax collages, the famous company he kept, his first and only ever exhibition at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles, where he was arrested for showing works deemed pornographic, and Semina, a radical progenitor to mail art. Danziger and Berman remained close for years, even after Berman and his family relocated to the Bay Area, living on a houseboat in Larkspur, and would visit each other regularly, up until Berman’s death in 1976. Berman rarely sold his work, opting instead to disperse it among his friends and collaborators, keeping with the spirit of the Beat era and his anti-market, “life as art” attitude. Danziger received these copies of Semina in the mail from Berman, with one issue bearing the inscription “Lou — See you sometime soon. W.B.”

Art is Love is God was originally published in Wright on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.