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Descriptif du lot
Alive with luminous colour and brushwork, untitled (jade in white) is a tender portrait of Henry Taylor’s daughter. Seated with her arms folded, she emerges from mottled swathes of green, white, ruby and cerulean, surrounded by a halo of pale gold. Her eyes, sparkling with life, meet the viewer’s gaze; light dances across her skin and clothes. Her name, ‘Jade Alexis Taylor’, is inscribed on the reverse. The work was painted at Taylor’s breakthrough solo exhibition at MoMA PS1 in 2012. Affixed to the canvas above Jade’s head is a plexiglass plaque for another painting, Portrait of My Brother Robert Randy Taylor (2010), which featured in the show. Taylor’s works are celebrated for their rich social commentary and subtle narrative power. His paintings of family members are among his most arresting, coloured with stories and emotions. Here, in a double portrait of sorts, the artist depicts two of his closest relatives, present—in very different ways—at a moment of personal triumph.
Born and based in Los Angeles, Taylor has risen to critical acclaim over the past two decades. He is currently the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée Picasso, Paris, following the success of his landmark 2022-2023 retrospective B Side at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His early oeuvre was partly inspired by a period spent working as a psychiatric assistant at the Camarillo State Hospital, during his student days at California Institute of the Arts. From there sprung a practice that looked deep into the soul of Black America, depicting strangers, celebrities and passers-by with the same empathy and attentiveness as friends and relations. Picasso became a key influence: Taylor particularly admires ‘the way [he] draws eyes’ (H. Taylor, quoted in P. Eleey, ‘I Could Do This’, in Henry Taylor, exh. cat. MoMA PS1, New York 2012, p. 63). His interest in the work of Max Beckmann and Philip Guston shines through in the present painting’s emotive depths, while its jewel-toned palette sings with the influence of Henri Matisse.
Taylor has returned time and again to his family, painting his siblings, his children, his parents and grandfather, as well as cousins, nieces and uncles. Some are studied from photographs, others from live sittings. Jade featured alongside her father and brother Noah in the 2015 triple portrait i’m yours (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston), and is referenced in the title of the 2020 work Man, I’m so full of doubt, but I must Hustle Forward, as my daughter Jade would say (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Randy, too, has been an important figure in his work. The youngest of eight children, Taylor greatly looked up to his older brother: a straight-A student and political activist who was one of the founding members of the Black Panther chapter in Ventura. He was, notes Taylor, ‘never the same’ after his girlfriend died in a car accident, dropping out of college to live off-grid in Texas. In untitled (jade in white), his presence is conspicuous by his absence, his image hovering beyond the frame.
Born and based in Los Angeles, Taylor has risen to critical acclaim over the past two decades. He is currently the subject of a major exhibition at the Musée Picasso, Paris, following the success of his landmark 2022-2023 retrospective B Side at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. His early oeuvre was partly inspired by a period spent working as a psychiatric assistant at the Camarillo State Hospital, during his student days at California Institute of the Arts. From there sprung a practice that looked deep into the soul of Black America, depicting strangers, celebrities and passers-by with the same empathy and attentiveness as friends and relations. Picasso became a key influence: Taylor particularly admires ‘the way [he] draws eyes’ (H. Taylor, quoted in P. Eleey, ‘I Could Do This’, in Henry Taylor, exh. cat. MoMA PS1, New York 2012, p. 63). His interest in the work of Max Beckmann and Philip Guston shines through in the present painting’s emotive depths, while its jewel-toned palette sings with the influence of Henri Matisse.
Taylor has returned time and again to his family, painting his siblings, his children, his parents and grandfather, as well as cousins, nieces and uncles. Some are studied from photographs, others from live sittings. Jade featured alongside her father and brother Noah in the 2015 triple portrait i’m yours (Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston), and is referenced in the title of the 2020 work Man, I’m so full of doubt, but I must Hustle Forward, as my daughter Jade would say (Museum of Fine Arts, Houston). Randy, too, has been an important figure in his work. The youngest of eight children, Taylor greatly looked up to his older brother: a straight-A student and political activist who was one of the founding members of the Black Panther chapter in Ventura. He was, notes Taylor, ‘never the same’ after his girlfriend died in a car accident, dropping out of college to live off-grid in Texas. In untitled (jade in white), his presence is conspicuous by his absence, his image hovering beyond the frame.