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Lot Essay
Charles Bell's Pinball paintings are his most renowned series. Bell completed his first painting of the subject in 1977 and it would be the subject he returned to time and again until his death in 1995. Gin is the second painting Bell completed in this seminal series.
Writing about the Pinball paintings, Louis Meisel said, "Bell presents the various and complex contraptions that make up the playing surfaces of pinball machines. Bell might be likened to a precisionist in his affinity for basic architectural forms which these close-ups resemble, but what he chronicles is post-industrial leisure. If it is like architecture, Bell's subject matter is futuristic or crazily eclectic like Venturi and Rauch" (L. Meisel, "Charles Bell," Arts Magazine, January 1978, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 24).
Writing about the Pinball paintings, Louis Meisel said, "Bell presents the various and complex contraptions that make up the playing surfaces of pinball machines. Bell might be likened to a precisionist in his affinity for basic architectural forms which these close-ups resemble, but what he chronicles is post-industrial leisure. If it is like architecture, Bell's subject matter is futuristic or crazily eclectic like Venturi and Rauch" (L. Meisel, "Charles Bell," Arts Magazine, January 1978, vol. 52, no. 5, pp. 24).