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Lot Essay
Soaring more than twelve feet high, Tom Wesselmann’s Standing Tulip is an incredibly rare example of the great American Pop artist’s expressive outdoor sculptures. With only a handful of other outdoor Tulip sculptures in existence—including Standing Tulip at the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio and Seattle Tulip, private collection—the present work shows the artist at the height of his creative powers, expanding his iconic Pop aesthetic to a monumental scale. Wesselmann’s boundless creative energies saw the artist constantly reinventing his style, mastering every genre, from nudes to still lifes, in a wide array of media. Deeply mindful of the art historical canon and his place within it, Wesselmann was “constantly absorbed in a tireless quest for the new,” as the art historian Stéphane Aquin describes, leading to his experimentation with three-dimensional, plastic forms in the 1980s and 90s (S. Aquin, “Tom Wesselmann: The World’s Most Famous Unknown Artist,” in Tom Wesselmann, exh. cat., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2012, p. 20). Wesselmann’s radical innovations made him one of the most important artistic innovators of the twentieth century.
Wesselmann and his wife Claire acquired a tract of rural property a two-hour drive from New York City in 1970, using the land, which included the pristine Deer Lake and untouched forest, as a summer retreat away from their small Manhattan apartment. Freedom from his cramped studio, Wesselmann was able to explore novel forms, leading to his engagement with the arcadian motifs which surrounded his summer residence. His immersion with nature altered the course of his art, providing a burst of creative productivity infused with new subject matter. Writing in his journal, the artist exclaimed: “very interested in nature by this time, a real competition for any interest in ptg [painting]” (T. Wesselmann, quoted in J. Wilmerding, Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision, New York, 2008, p. 173). Inspired by Matisse’s still lifes, Wesselmann took to drawing floral arrangements created by Claire using flowers from their garden, leading to works including Sketchbook Page of Tulips (With Solids) and Still Life with Orange and Tulip. The tulip motif began to pervade his oeuvre, seen as well in his Tulip Smoking a Cigarette, melding his floral imagery with another iconic Wesselmann subject.
Wesselmann, reflecting on his sculptural output, noted how “in all of my dimensional work I use the third dimension to intensify the two-dimensional experience. It becomes part of a vivid two-dimensional image. The third dimension, while actually existing, is only an illusion in terms of the painting, which remains by intent in a painting and not a sculptural context” (T. Wesselmann, quoted in D. Buchhart, “Wesselmann and Pop Forever: Dream and Reality in a Theoretically Real World,” in Pop Forever: Tom Wesselmann, exh. cat., Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2024, p. 23). The artist envisioned his three-dimensional works as a natural progression from his drawings and paintings, expanding the same image outward into the space of the viewer. Reimagining his lines and brushstrokes as something solid and tangible, Wesselmann came upon the idea for his Steel Drawings, landscape and floral still life scenes which reimagine the celebration of the beauty and sensuality of the feminine in his previous series, including the Great American Nude and the Seascapes, in more naturalistic subjects.
Standing Tulip incorporates the naturally-inspired floral imagery gleaned from his summer retreat with his increasing interest in sculpture and his Steel Drawings, radically expanding the burgeoning tulip motif into a grand, three-dimensional scale. The present work has six elegantly bound petals painted in a vibrant red ensconced within an outer layer of four green leaves, which dynamically twist and conform around the flower’s petals. Wesselmann navigates the seeming incongruity of portraying natural forms in inert metal by animating his petals and leaves with naturalistic movement, as if the flower is being tugged at by a strong breeze. Incorporating several technological innovations which allowed the nominally rigid aluminum plate to bend and twist, Wesselmann opens up a new frontier for Pop Art.
Discussing Wesselmann’s sculptural works, the imminent art historian and curator John Wilmerding singles out the tulip for praise: “Among still lifes, [Wesselmann] did design his smoking cigarette, looped belt, and dropped bra along with a few others to be realized and viewed as fully dimensional pieces. One of the most breathtaking was an enormous red tulip encased in green leaves... Like Lichtenstein’s and Oldenburg’s great public cast pieces, Wesselmann’s tulip has an exhilarating presence, being metal in nature and organic in form, thus suited to installation in either an urban or landscape setting” (J. Wilmerding, Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision, op. cit., p. 193).
Standing Tulip perfectly encapsulates Wesselmann’s expanding Pop universe, as the artist sought to broaden his subjects while remaining true to his Pop aesthetic. The tulip remains tied to his earlier nudes in its sensuality, and its metal form became essential to its conceptual appreciation. The Pop Art scholar Marco Livingstone notes that, “in Wesselmann’s case, the metallic surfaces to which he was drawn to in the 1960s and again from the 1980s onwards were perfect for him as embodiments of this urge to create objects that tamed or disguised their emotive content” (M. Livingstone, “Tom Wesselmann, Man of Steel,” in Tom Wesselmann, ed. Stéphane Aquin, exh. cat., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2012, p. 46). Metamorphosizing his singular style into new subjects, Wesselmann expanded to reach and remit of Pop to new settings, allowing its installation to be in direct dialogue with nature.
Wesselmann’s use of a metallic medium recalls the consumer products of the 1960s which first inspired the Pop movement. Livingstone argues that “the steel and aluminum used by Wesselmann in his later years make for glamorous, ‘perfect,’ gleaming objects as alluring as the consumer products paraded before us in his work of the 1960s” (M. Livingstone, “Tom Wesselmann, Man of Steel,” op. cit., p. 47). Adapting to his new era, Wesselmann reaches to novel subjects like the Tulip while remaining in deep conversation with the works of his earlier career.
Standing Tulip has sterling provenance, having been acquired by the present owner in 1992, the year of its creation. The present work’s extraordinary rarity and almost legendary status among Wesselmann’s sculptural works culminate in a larger-than-life sculpture which perfectly encapsulates the iconic Pop artist’s singular vision.
Wesselmann and his wife Claire acquired a tract of rural property a two-hour drive from New York City in 1970, using the land, which included the pristine Deer Lake and untouched forest, as a summer retreat away from their small Manhattan apartment. Freedom from his cramped studio, Wesselmann was able to explore novel forms, leading to his engagement with the arcadian motifs which surrounded his summer residence. His immersion with nature altered the course of his art, providing a burst of creative productivity infused with new subject matter. Writing in his journal, the artist exclaimed: “very interested in nature by this time, a real competition for any interest in ptg [painting]” (T. Wesselmann, quoted in J. Wilmerding, Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision, New York, 2008, p. 173). Inspired by Matisse’s still lifes, Wesselmann took to drawing floral arrangements created by Claire using flowers from their garden, leading to works including Sketchbook Page of Tulips (With Solids) and Still Life with Orange and Tulip. The tulip motif began to pervade his oeuvre, seen as well in his Tulip Smoking a Cigarette, melding his floral imagery with another iconic Wesselmann subject.
Wesselmann, reflecting on his sculptural output, noted how “in all of my dimensional work I use the third dimension to intensify the two-dimensional experience. It becomes part of a vivid two-dimensional image. The third dimension, while actually existing, is only an illusion in terms of the painting, which remains by intent in a painting and not a sculptural context” (T. Wesselmann, quoted in D. Buchhart, “Wesselmann and Pop Forever: Dream and Reality in a Theoretically Real World,” in Pop Forever: Tom Wesselmann, exh. cat., Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, 2024, p. 23). The artist envisioned his three-dimensional works as a natural progression from his drawings and paintings, expanding the same image outward into the space of the viewer. Reimagining his lines and brushstrokes as something solid and tangible, Wesselmann came upon the idea for his Steel Drawings, landscape and floral still life scenes which reimagine the celebration of the beauty and sensuality of the feminine in his previous series, including the Great American Nude and the Seascapes, in more naturalistic subjects.
Standing Tulip incorporates the naturally-inspired floral imagery gleaned from his summer retreat with his increasing interest in sculpture and his Steel Drawings, radically expanding the burgeoning tulip motif into a grand, three-dimensional scale. The present work has six elegantly bound petals painted in a vibrant red ensconced within an outer layer of four green leaves, which dynamically twist and conform around the flower’s petals. Wesselmann navigates the seeming incongruity of portraying natural forms in inert metal by animating his petals and leaves with naturalistic movement, as if the flower is being tugged at by a strong breeze. Incorporating several technological innovations which allowed the nominally rigid aluminum plate to bend and twist, Wesselmann opens up a new frontier for Pop Art.
Discussing Wesselmann’s sculptural works, the imminent art historian and curator John Wilmerding singles out the tulip for praise: “Among still lifes, [Wesselmann] did design his smoking cigarette, looped belt, and dropped bra along with a few others to be realized and viewed as fully dimensional pieces. One of the most breathtaking was an enormous red tulip encased in green leaves... Like Lichtenstein’s and Oldenburg’s great public cast pieces, Wesselmann’s tulip has an exhilarating presence, being metal in nature and organic in form, thus suited to installation in either an urban or landscape setting” (J. Wilmerding, Tom Wesselmann: His Voice and Vision, op. cit., p. 193).
Standing Tulip perfectly encapsulates Wesselmann’s expanding Pop universe, as the artist sought to broaden his subjects while remaining true to his Pop aesthetic. The tulip remains tied to his earlier nudes in its sensuality, and its metal form became essential to its conceptual appreciation. The Pop Art scholar Marco Livingstone notes that, “in Wesselmann’s case, the metallic surfaces to which he was drawn to in the 1960s and again from the 1980s onwards were perfect for him as embodiments of this urge to create objects that tamed or disguised their emotive content” (M. Livingstone, “Tom Wesselmann, Man of Steel,” in Tom Wesselmann, ed. Stéphane Aquin, exh. cat., Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 2012, p. 46). Metamorphosizing his singular style into new subjects, Wesselmann expanded to reach and remit of Pop to new settings, allowing its installation to be in direct dialogue with nature.
Wesselmann’s use of a metallic medium recalls the consumer products of the 1960s which first inspired the Pop movement. Livingstone argues that “the steel and aluminum used by Wesselmann in his later years make for glamorous, ‘perfect,’ gleaming objects as alluring as the consumer products paraded before us in his work of the 1960s” (M. Livingstone, “Tom Wesselmann, Man of Steel,” op. cit., p. 47). Adapting to his new era, Wesselmann reaches to novel subjects like the Tulip while remaining in deep conversation with the works of his earlier career.
Standing Tulip has sterling provenance, having been acquired by the present owner in 1992, the year of its creation. The present work’s extraordinary rarity and almost legendary status among Wesselmann’s sculptural works culminate in a larger-than-life sculpture which perfectly encapsulates the iconic Pop artist’s singular vision.