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Sale IT192 Lot 2 ALFONSO YANGCO OSSORIO (AMERICAN/FILIPINO, 1916–1990)
ROUNDS - RECOVERY SERIES F, 1989
Watercolor crayon on paper: 9 x 12 in.(full sheet), 19 1/4 x 21 1/4 in. (framed)
Framed; lower center dated and signed: 14.II.89 / Ossorio y Yangco; verso label: The Creeks / Alfonso Ossorio / "Rounds" (Recovery Series, F) 1989 / watercolor crayon on paper / 9" x 11" / Benton #1
Note:
Ossorio was born in the Philippines in 1916. He studied in England from the age of ten to thirteen and then moved to the United States in 1930 to continue his studies at Portsmouth Priory. In 1934, Ossorio attended Harvard. In 1949, Ossorio met Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner, and in the fall he went to Paris and met Jean and Lili Dubuffet. He forged important friendships with both men. Ossorio said "(Pollock) was carrying on exactly in the tradition that I was interested in and in a way had bypassed the Renaissance and had gone back to a much earlier tradition of art in terms of dealing with forms and shapes dictated by the ideas rather than by appearance." Jean Dubuffet "showed him the value of reaching inward for inspiration rather than starting with an object or world external to himself." Just a few years later, in 1952, upon the suggestion of the Pollocks, Ossorio buys his home "The Creeks" in East Hampton, a sixty acre peninsula on Georgica Pond with a mile of waterfront. "The Creeks" would become a hive of activity to the artists in the area - Pollock, Krasner, de Kooning, Newman, Motherwell and Rothko amongst others.
Ossorio was hospitalized from November 5th, 1988 to February 8th, 1989. He would do a series of works on paper, during his recovery, of which this is one. This particular work harks back to his Surrealist period of the late 30s and 40s.
Done on Valentine's Day, it was described in an exhibition as "The figures .. are particularly powerful, with a specificity both nightmarish and outlandish...rendered (here) as a demonic purple hermaphrodite with a hollow-eyed broken-toothed profile and a hand exploding with floral gore." (Robert Long, Benton Gallery, Southampton, New York, III Generations - THREE GENERATIONS, August 18-September, 1990, illustrated)
Ossorio's works can be found in Museums and Collections around the world from The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York to Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid in Europe.
Provenance: Purchased in the 1990s and by descent to the present owner
Exhibitions: Benton Gallery, Southampton, New York, III Generations - THREE GENERATIONS, August 18-September, 1990, illustrated
Estimate $8,000-12,000
Sold for $45,000.00
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