Elaine Sturtevant, no coa, private collection, medium: oil,measurements: 36"HX24"W framed Biography:Elaine Frances Sturtevant (née Horan; August 23, 1924 – May 7, 2014), also known professionally as Sturtevant, was an American artist. Sturtevant's earliest known paintings were made in New York in the late 1950s. In these works, she sliced tubes of paint open, flattened them, and attached them to canvas. Most of these works contain fragments from tubes of several colors of paint, some have additional pencil scribbles and daubs of paint.Sturtevant was close friends with Robert Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns, both of whom own paintings from this period.
In 1964, by memorization only, she began to manually reproduce (or "repeat")paintings and objects created by her contemporaries with results that can immediately be identified with an original, at a point that turned the concept of originality on its head. She initially focused on works by such American artists as Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist, and Andy Warhol.Warhol gave Sturtevant one of his silkscreens so she could produce her own versions of his Flowers paintings, Warhol Flowers (1969–70).When asked about his own technique, Warhol once said, "I don't know. Ask Elaine."
From the early 1980s she focused on the next generation of artists, including Robert Gober, Anselm Kiefer, Paul McCarthy, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres.[13] She mastered painting, sculpture, photography and film in order to produce a full range of copies of the works of her chosen artists. In most cases, her decision to start copying an artist happened before those artists achieved broader recognition. Nearly all of the artists she chose to copy are today considered iconic for their time or style. This has given rise to discussions among art critics on how it had been possible for Sturtevant to identify those artists at such an early stage.
In 1991, Sturtevant presented an entire show consisting of her repetition of Warhol's Flowers series.
All authorship of items in this catalog are described according to the following terms:
Signed [Artist Name] : In cases in which the signature is legible in the lot, this work is described as-is with no attributions given.
By [Artist Name] : The work is by the artist.
Attributed to [Artist Name] : The work may be ascribed to the artist on the basis of style, but there may be some question as to actual authorship.
In the manner of [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but was designed deliberately to emulate the style of the artist.
After [Artist Name] : The work was executed by an unknown hand, but is a deliberate copy of a known work by the artist.
Circle of [Artist Name] : A work of the period of the artist showing his influence, closely associated with the artist but not necessarily his pupil.
Follower of [Artist Name]: A work by a pupil or a follower of the artist (not necessarily a pupil).
American, 19th century: This work was executed by an unknown hand, and can only be identified by origin (i.e., region, period).
Condition
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