Willem de Kooning toilet seat
By the mid-1980s, works by Willem de Kooning were fetching over a million dollars. So when James Garcia and Joseph Lada found a three-hole outhouse seat stored in their basement that apparently had been painted by de Kooning, they figured they had a potential masterpiece on their hands. De Kooning's wife confirmed he had painted the toilet seat "very fast" for a croquet party in 1954. He had been trying to make the wood look like marble.
The sale raised the question: was this really art? Some said no. Others, such as de Kooning's friend John MacWhinnie, argued that, "It's a youthful, exuberant example of the painter at the height of his abstract expressionism... In spite of itself, it became art, simply out of a choice the de Kooning made."
It ended up selling for $50.
More info: Baltimore Sun
The sale raised the question: was this really art? Some said no. Others, such as de Kooning's friend John MacWhinnie, argued that, "It's a youthful, exuberant example of the painter at the height of his abstract expressionism... In spite of itself, it became art, simply out of a choice the de Kooning made."
It ended up selling for $50.
More info: Baltimore Sun
Tampa Bay Times - Feb 3, 1985
Comments
Ya know, it's not often Khrushchev was right, but sometimes he was.
Posted by Richard Bos on 08/29/20 at 07:57 AM
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Category: Art | 1980s