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Lot Essay
A practical man of science and a businessman, Charles Carpenter never let his fondness for art separate him from events of history and the demands of the everyday working world. Perhaps this is why he responded so strongly to the early works of Andy Warhol. Carpenter sensed their pinpoint placement in time and their power to convey tragedy, crass commercialism, high humor and intellectual gamesmanship.
On a visit to the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1964, Carpenter purchased the elegiac portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning. It is a history painting of the highest order. It has the ability to return anyone then alive to the place and time of our national tragedy. The photographs of that week burned themselves into our consciousness and traveled the world over. Amidst mourning and shock, Warhol focused upon Jacqueline Kennedy's glamour underscored and intensified by a nation's pain. Choosing such a painting, just months after the tragedy, reveals Charles Carpenter's deeply serious nature and his sense of history.
-Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D.
On a visit to the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1964, Carpenter purchased the elegiac portrait of Jacqueline Kennedy in mourning. It is a history painting of the highest order. It has the ability to return anyone then alive to the place and time of our national tragedy. The photographs of that week burned themselves into our consciousness and traveled the world over. Amidst mourning and shock, Warhol focused upon Jacqueline Kennedy's glamour underscored and intensified by a nation's pain. Choosing such a painting, just months after the tragedy, reveals Charles Carpenter's deeply serious nature and his sense of history.
-Susan C. Larsen, Ph.D.