No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VA… Read more

Clive Barker was born in Luton, the son of Frederick and May. Frederick was a coach painter at Vauxhall Motors. In 1957, Barker enrolled at the Luton College of Technology and Art. However, it was not Barker's two years at Art School that were to prove the most formative but his fifteen months spent working on the assembly line at Vauxhall Motors, Luton. It was here he 'witnessed the precision and beauty of the freshly fabricated automobiles clad in gleaming metal and upholstered in sensuous leather' (see A. Fermon & M. Livingstone, Clive Barker Sculpture Catalogue Raisonné 1958-2000, Milan, 2002, p. 7). His choice of materials and how they were finished was largely inspired by Barker's time spent there. Barker relied (and still does to this day) on specialist fabricators to achieve the optimum final result for his works. Marcel Duchamp's idea of the ready-made was easy for Barker to accept. However, quite differently, Barker does not simply utilize objects as he finds them. Specialist fabricators are either commissioned by him to make objects to his designs or he recasts or resurfaces original objects so they become non-functional successors. Barker is also a highly skilled draughtsman and print-maker. His sketches habitually act as a mode of thought process and concept and he also creates stand alone artist drawings. He rarely undertakes works on paper on an epic size but two fine examples are found at lots 145 & 146, which are both outstanding and excitingly spontaneous in execution.

Clive Barker (b. 1940)

Zip

Details

Clive Barker (b. 1940)
Zip
signed, inscribed and dated 'Clive Barker 1964 ZIP CLIVE BARKER FOR KEITH & KATHY' (on the stretcher)
silk-screen and acrylic on canvas
24 x 20 in. (61 x 50.8 cm.) each (2)

Provenance

Gifted by the artist to Keith Morris in the late 1960s and by descent to the present owner.

Special notice

No VAT will be charged on the hammer price, but VAT at 15% will be added to the buyer's premium which is invoiced on a VAT inclusive basis. Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent.

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

View condition report

Lot Essay

Barker created four monumentally enlarged Zips silk-screened onto canvas between 1962 - 64 (one destroyed, two in the present lot and one orange Zip). His first Zip silk-screen of 1962 pre-dates Andy Warhol's use of silk-screen. Warhol's first silk-screen was created in August 1962. The work was a portrait of the teen idol and American actor - Troy Donahue. This work was followed in rapid succession by silk-screens of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Mona Lisa.
Barker's first silk-screen work entitled Three Zips (now destroyed) was executed earlier in 1962. The present work (1964) portrays two canvases, one blue Zip and one black Zip. The Zips are in silk-screen and the backgrounds are painted in acrylic. Barker and Keith Morris hung the works side by side (with blue Zip on the left) in Morris's house during the late 1960s. Keith Morris was a close friend of Barker, who photographed many images of Barker during his lifetime. Morris gained an apprenticeship under David Bailey, was Marc Bolan's exclusive photographer and captured hundreds of iconic images of legends including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and BB King.

More from Twentieth Century British Art

View All