May 18th, 2012   Art | Gunter Sachs’ Work & Play

The Gunter Sachs Collection, Evening Auction
Exhibition: 18th – 22 May
Sale: 22nd May, 2012
Sotheby’s, London, UK

At about this time last year Gunter Sachs pointed a gun at his head, shot and killed himself.
‘Farewell, Gunter Sachs,’ wrote Simon Mills in British GQ magazine, ‘You were the last of the true playboys. You slept with Bardot, your white trousers were tight, your hair was fabulous… and you never worked a single day in your life.’ Sachs, born in 1932, was 78 years old and probably had Alzheimer’s. The renowned German playboy who famously courted then married Brigitte Bardot – the 2nd of his three wives – in Las Vegas, contrary to the above, took his work as a photographer, documentary film-maker, author and industrialist seriously. Sachs left behind three sons – one from his first marriage, two from his third – and a sizeable collection of modern art, which will shortly go under the hammer at Sotheby’s, London.

While Sachs’ taste in women was narrow – they had to be glamorous and sexy – he was at various times closely associated with Iranian consort Soraya Esfandiary, as well as model Claudia Schiffer – the art he collected, at least in terms of genre, was catholic. The 300 artworks and objects to be sold span surrealism, nouveau realism, pop art, art deco and graffiti. Andy Warhol, César, Arman, Yves Klein, René Magritte, Salvador Dalí, Giacometti, Roy Lichtenstein, Tom Wesselmann and Allen Jones, are all represented. True to form, however, a good number of the pieces, portray nude or semi-nude women.
The source of Sach’s wealth had been his maternal great-grandfather, Adam Opel, who had founded the German car manufacturing company, but he also inherited money from his father, Willy, when in 1958 Willy, a supplier of parts to the motoring industry – once accused of fraternising closely with senior Nazis, but later redeemed – chose the same method of suicide as his son. That same year, after a car crash, Gunter’s first wife had also died.

Sachs had met Andy Warhol – whose work he introduced to Germany – in the early 60s at St Tropez and the two became life long friends. He opened galleries in Munich and Hamburg in 1971. Referring to his father’s 1972 Warhol show, Sachs’ eldest son Rolf, in an interview with The Guardian, recalled: ‘Nothing sold. My father was highly embarrassed, and he bought most of the exhibition himself – which was of course the best investment he ever made.’

From top
Andy Warhol
Gunter Sachs, 1972
Acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas

Richard Avedon
Brigitte Bardot, Hair by Alexandre, Paris Studio,
Photographed in 1959
Gelatin silver print

Tom  Wesselmann
Great American Nude #51, 1963
Oil and collage on canvas, in three parts

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May 4th, 2012   Furniture Design | Hans (The Chair) Wenger

20th Century Decorative Art & Design Sale
Christie’s, King Street, London, UK
3rd May, 2012

When I first met architect John Pawson around 1987, he had just completed his very memorable Wakaba, Japanese restaurant project, in London. ‘Inside, there is little to detract from the business of eating and conversation’ he wrote later in his eponymously titled monograph, John Pawson, published by Editorial Gustavo Gili in 1992. Except for the extraordinary choice of light, sculptural dining chairs with hand-woven seat, I thought, that were completely unfamiliar to me and which might easily be Japanese. It turned out, however, that the chairs, which feature a steam-bent, gently rounded top-piece that provides freedom of movement and generous comfort, making it suitable for eating as well as for relaxed sitting away from the table, were the Wishbone chair – reportedly, Pawson’s favourite chair – designed by Dane, Hans Wenger in 1949 for Carl Hansen & Son.

‘[Creating] a good chair is a task one is never completely done with,’ Wenger (1914-2007) is quoted as saying and having designed countless chairs in his 60-year career, in which his designs were produced by Fritz Hansen, Johannes Hansen, Carl Hansen & Sons, Getama and PP Møbler – 70-odd designs and variations are currently available at the Danish Design Store – who would have known better.

Son of a shoemaker, Hans Wenger was born in Tønder, Denmark, and finished his apprenticeship as a cabinet-maker at 17. Already experimenting with his own designs, as a twenty-year-old he moved to Copenhagen and studied at the School of Arts and Crafts before starting work as an assistant to architects Erik Møller and Arne Jacobsen, for whose projects he ocassionally designed furniture. Opening his own office in 1943, Wenger brought out his China chair and later Round chair, which the US magazine Interiors featured on its cover, calling it ‘the world’s most beautiful chair’, thus catalpulting the designer to international fame. It became known simply as ‘The Chair’. Still produced by PP Møbler, it was made famous via the Kennedy/Nixon televised debates of 1959 and is one of his most commercially successful chairs for.

‘A chair… should be beautiful from all sides and angles,’ said Wenger and he was absolutely right. Though intended to be functional the best chairs are artworks in themselves and are far more than simply something to sit on. Wenger’s innovation, was to produce free-standing, sculptural chairs that looked good from every point of view and could stand alone without having to be part of a set. The inspiration for some of his designs had come from portraits of Danish merchants sitting in Ming chairs, so my earlier supposition was, geographically at least, not too far out.

Design classics, every one, Wenger’s superbly-crafted chairs have become highly collectable, especially among architects and designers. When I photographed architects Adam and Irenie Cossey and their children a year or so ago, they had just picked up a Wenger chair for ‘a good price’. Adam sat in it for the shot. Similar in feel to his chair, the adjustable chaise (above) in Christie’s 20th Century Decorative Art & Design Sale, yesterday, estimated to sell at £7,000 – 9,000, actually went for a cool £15,000.

Adam, seated on the Hans Wenger purchase, and Irenie Cossey with their children

Hans Wenger chairs from top
CH07 Lounge chair, 1963, produced by Johannes Hansen, laminated wood, with evidence of original orange lacquer beneath later white paint, later leather upholstery applied to the seat pads. Estimate £6,000 – 8,000. Price realised £11,250

JH-540 Valet chair, 1953, produced by Johannes Hansen, carved teak, brass hinges, storage well of oak and with leather trim. Estimate £5,000 – 7,000. Price realised £6,000

JH-524 Adjustable chaise, 1958, produced by Johannes Hansen, carved oak, stainless steel, flagline and canvas applied metal manufacturer’s label Johannes Hansen. Estimate £7,000 – 9,000. Price realised £15,000

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May 1st, 2012   Stop Press! | Kate Moss Joins NSPCC Iconic Images

It was announced this morning that supermodel Kate Moss has donated the above image of herself, photographed by Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø to the sale: Photographs, including the NSPCC Iconic Images, at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, London, UK on 17th May, 2012. Funds raised from the 10 prints on offer will go to the NSPCC’s Rebuilding Childhoods Appeal, which provides therapy for children and young people who have suffered abuse.

See my blog about the sale below

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April 27th, 2012   Photography | NSPCC Iconic Images Charity Auction

Photographs including the NSPCC Iconic Images Sale
Bonhams, Knightsbridge, London, UK
17th May, 2012

This week’s blog post is dedicated to leading charity the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’s sale of 10 iconic photographs, donated by photographers and private collectors. The event is being hosted by international auction house, Bonhams, as part of their Photographs sale on 17th May. Funds raised from the 10 prints on offer will go to the NSPCC’s Rebuilding Childhoods Appeal, which provides therapy for children and young people who have suffered abuse.

Lot 74 Above
Nadav Kander (Israeli, born 1961) Florence Welch I, 2011
Archival pigment print, mounted. Signed, titled, dated and numbered ‘2/5’ in ink on a label on reverse of mount. Number 2 in an edition of 5. Framed. Paper 76 x 61.5cm, image 66 x 51.5cm. £1500-2000

Lot 70
Rankin (John Rankin Waddell) (British, born 1966) Untitled, from ‘Snog’, July 2000
C-type print, flush-mounted to board. Signed, dated and numbered ‘1/3’ in ink on the reverse. Number 1 in an edition of 3.122.3 x 122.3cm. £2,000-3,000

Lot 73
David Bailey (British, born 1938) Damien Hirst, 2006
Inkjet print, the reverse signed, dated and annotated in pencil, and with the photographer’s copyright stamp. Framed. Paper 33 x 48.3cm, image 29.4 x 39.2cm. £1,000-1,500

Lot 65
Alistair Morrison (British, born 1956) Oliver Reed, London, 1985
Silver bromide print, signed in ink in the margin and with the photographer’s blindstamp. Titled, dated and numbered ‘24/25’ on the reverse. Number 24 in an edition of 25. Printed later. Framed. Image 42.5 x 40cm. £2,000-3,000

Lot 72
Patrick Demarchelier (French, born 1943) Christy Turlington, New York, 1986
Digital print, mounted on foam board. Signed on a label on reverse of mount. Also on the mount a copyright label bearing print details and catalogue number 1066, and ‘Exposing Elegance’ exhibition stamp dated December 1997 – March 1998. Framed. Paper 94 x 89cm , image 77 x 76.5cm. £5,000-7,000

Lot 69
Martin Schoeller (German/American, born 1968) Valentino, 2005
C-type print, signed on a label on reverse of mount. Number 4 in an edition of 7. Framed. 109.2 x 88.9cm. £4,000-6,000

Lot 68
Barry Lategan (British, born 1935) Twiggy, 1966
Platinum-palladium print, signed, titled and dated in pencil in the margin and with the photographer’s studio blindstamp. Artist’s proof aside from the edition of 35. Printed later. Framed. Paper 83.2 x 64.1cm, image 60.4 x 50.6cm. £4,000-6,000

Lot 67
Terence Donovan (British, 1936-1996) Celia Hammond, c. 1966
Gelatin silver print, the reverse with the photographer’s copyright stamp and estate stamp signed by Diana Donovan in pencil and bearing print details. Number 6 in an edition of 50. Printed later. Framed. Paper 24 x 20cm , image 18 x 18cm. £1,500-2,000

Lot 66
Terry O’Neill (British, born 1938) Brigitte Bardot and Sean Connery on the set of Shalako, 1968
Gelatin silver print, signed and numbered ‘3/50’ in ink in the margin. Number 3 in an edition of 50. Printed later. Framed. Image 30.5 x 45.3cm. £2,000-3,000

Lot 71
Miles Aldridge (British, born 1964) Extravagant, Sophisticated Lady #12, 2011
Lambda print, mounted on aluminium. Signed in ink on studio label on reverse of mount, which also bears print details. Reverse of mount also with Hamiltons Gallery label bearing print details. Number 2 in an edition of 6. Framed. Sight area 151 x 113.5cm. £3,000-5,000

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April 17th, 2012   There Will be no Blog Post this Week

Look out for the next post around 14.00 GMT on Friday 27th April.
Until then, have fun…

Image
Climbing Frame at Goldhanger, 2012
©Pedro Silmon

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April 13th, 2012   Art | Andrew Wyeth in China

Andrew Wyeth in Beijing & Hong Kong
Yuan Space, Beijing, China
14th April – 12th May, 2012
Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Center
24th – 30th May, 2012
Christie’s, New York, USA
Date to be announced, September, 2012

When Snoopy’s dog house burned down in November 1966, sadly his Van Gogh was destroyed along with it, but the strip’s cartoonist, Charles M Schulz, saw to it that the painting was quickly replaced with one by the artist Andrew Wyeth, of whose work he was a great admirer. In 1977 Wyeth was the first American artist since John Singer Sargent to be elected to the French Académie des Beaux-Arts. A Wyeth retrospective at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 2006, running over 15 weeks, drew more than 175,000 visitors, the museum’s highest-ever attendance for a living artist. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from George W Bush and in the same year, in the Springfield Up episode of The Simpsons, Mr Burns has a painting of Wyeth’s iconic Christina’s World, 1948 – MoMA Collection, bought in 1948 for $1800 – in his den, except that in his version Burns lanky body replaces the more shapely female figure. The entire neighbourhood of Thunder Hill in the village of Oakland Mills, Columbia in Maryland has street names derived from his paintings. But although Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) was one of the most popular and revered artists in the history of American art, perhaps it was for this very popularity that he was also one of its most criticised, especially within the art world. According to Michael Kimmelman, who wrote Wyeth’s obituary in The New York Times: ‘Because of his popularity – a bad sign to many art world insiders – Wyeth came to represent middle-class values and ideals that modernism claimed to reject. ‘Kimmelman went on to say that art critics mostly heaped abuse on Wyeth’s work, saying he gave realism a bad name. Hopper’s realism was okay, apparently, but Wyeth’s wasn’t. Some experts regarded him as a facile realist, not an artist but merely an illustrator. Lashing out in all directions and perhaps further isolating himself, Wyeth expressed general disdain for the abstract expressionists. And so the antagonistic situation festered and boiled throughout the latter part of his life.

Andrew Wyeth was born into an artistic family in Chadds Ford, a small town in Pennsylania, about 30 miles from Philadelphia. His father NC Wyeth was a well-known illustrator, whose fame and talent in the 1920s attracted the attention of celebrities such as F Scott Fitzgerald who would come to visit him. NC drove his frail and ailing son – too feeble to attend school – hard, pushing him to develop drawing skills at an early age with the obsessive goal of making him follow in his father’s footsteps and become an illustrator. But Andrew resisted, preferring to paint the deserted landscapes he discovered on his wanderings. He liked the idea that figures could be implicit in his paintings but nevertheless went on to include in them his friends, a black handyman (A Crow Flew By 1949-50), and neighbours Karl and Anna Kuerner. Although he adapted portraits of others to include details of his father, who died in 1945, Wyatt never painted him. His ‘Helga‘ series of more than 200 paintings and sketches came with a whiff of scandal – he didn’t tell his wife about them until they were finished in 1985 – and received national publicity, travelling to major cities throughout the USA. These intimate studies – many of them full figure nudes – of neighbour Helga Testorf, made him very rich.

In Wyeth’s style of painting, that became known as ‘Magic’ Realism, everyday scenes are imbued with a dream-like air of mystery, coupled with barely concealed melancholy. He recorded the arid Pennsylvania and Maine landscapes, rural houses, and rickety shacks with great detail, painting in each tiny blade of grass, individual strands of hair, and every subtle nuance of light and shadow. The Brandywine River Museum, in Chadds Ford houses much of the Wyeth collection.

Wyeth’s work was as rural as Warhol’s was urban, his nudes as earthy as Warhol’s girls (and boys) were dirty, but while the rural can easily look picturesque to the city dweller, and might appear to pander even unintentionally to wide appeal, urban art is by nature of its situation radical and intended for a strictly limited, edgier audience. Ubiquity and the passage of time can render almost any image passé – The Mona Lisa, The Hay Wain, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, The Scream – and perhaps Andrew Wyeth’s Christina’s World has fallen victim to the same fate. But Warhol’s once iconoclastic Marilyn Diptych has, too – so far to a somewhat lesser extent – and The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living – Damien Hirst’s shark – will not be immune.

It’s not so surprising, then, that Wyeth’s work as opposed to Warhol’s and Pollock’s was deemed acceptable to the powers that be in 1980s China, where it became immensley popular. The press release for the forthcoming Andrew Wyeth in China exhibitions contains the following quote from Li Xian Ting – often called the godfather of Chinese contemporary avant-garde – academic consultant to the exhibition, who on this occasion may well be toeing the party line: ‘When Wyeth’s work first caught the eyes of artists of this generation, we were mainly under the influence of Socialist Realism from the 40s and (Russian) Peredvizhniki art in which the relation [sic] between the narrative and ideology featured heavily. Historically, young Chinese artists’ classical training was figurative and representational. At the time, the only way to rebel against Social Realism was to embrace Modernism, entailing a complete abandon [sic] of representation. This would have implied, starting from zero to reincarnate a new self under the banners of Cubism and Abstract Expressionism. And just as artists found themselves at this impasse, Wyeth’s works appeared. They were melancholic, poetic, but at the same time they developed on the skills and possibilities of representation. This deeply moved the burgeoning Chinese artists and inspired many to ask themselves the question: is it possible for us to hold on to the artistic training we grow up with, and still create something new that is different from Modernist art? And obviously, Wyeth provided them with such a possibility.’ Perhaps Chinese conservatism isn’t so far removed from Middle America’s. Meanwhile, Chinese conceptual artist, architect, designer and activist Ai Weiwei’s first solo exhibition in Italy wow’s the West at the Lisson gallery in Milan until 25th May, 2012.

Paintings from top
Study for ‘Lovers’, 1981
Drybrush and watercolor on paper
© Andrew Wyeth

Citizen Clark, 1957
Drybrush and watercolor on paper laid down on board
©Andrew Wyeth, Private Collection

Faraway, 1952
(Portrait of the artist’s son, Jamie)
Drybrush on paper
© Andrew Wyeth

The Works of Andrew Wyeth is organized by Yuan Space in cooperation with Christie’s and Adelson Galleries

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April 6th, 2012   Photography | Giuseppe Cavalli: Master of Light?

Giuseppe Cavalli: Master of Light
Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, London, UK
18th April to 17th June, 2012

Italy spawned great film directors, the names of whom: Federico Fellini, Michelangelo Antonioni, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luchino Visconti, Roberto Rossellini, Franco Zeffirelli, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Sergio Leone and Roberto Benigni, spring effortlessly to mind. But, try to to conjure up a list of the Italy’s great photographers to put alongside French, American, German and English ones, as well as the odd Brazilian and Japanese and it’s a different story.

Wikipedia lists 92 Italian photographers, the majority of whom I’ve never heard of with the exceptions of Romano Cagnoni, the reportage photographer, still life photographer Piero Gemelli, fashion photographer Marco Glaviano and the only ones I regard as worthy of being called great: Paolo Roversi, Oliviero Toscani and Gian Paolo Barbieri. The Magnum photographer, Ferdinando Scianna, isn’t on the list, nor does it mention the great eccentric architect and furniture designer, Carlo Mollino, who produced some interesting photographic images. For the record: Mario Testino isn’t Italian and was born in Lima, Peru into a family of Irish, Spanish and Italian origins. There’s also the prominent fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti, I suppose, who is based in New York but Italian-born and has certainly produces interesting work for many up-scale clients – but can he be ranked as as great?

In it’s modest way and while the name of the photographer, who is the subject of its current exhibition, Giuseppe Cavalli (1904-1961), is entirely new to me, North London’s Estorick Collection is to be applauded for making a tremendous effort to draw elements of Italian photography out of the darkness and into the light. In this context, who better to choose than Cavalli, evidently one of Italy’s key figures in 20th century photography, who chose light, over content, as the subject of his simple, thoughtful, occasionally almost abstract compositions. Born into a family of artists but opting to study law at Rome University – after which he practised for nine years as a lawyer – from 1935 he worked as a freelance photographer in the pleasant seaside town and port, Senigallia, on Italy’s Adriatic coast, north of Ancona, in the Marche region. Founding member of what are regarded as three of the country’s most influential photographic groups, Giuseppe Cavalli was the recipient of numerous international awards for his work, the constant gentle theme of which developed out of a reaction against the overblown imagery of Fascist era Italy. In the post war years, in marked contrast to the neo-realist aesthetic of directors such as Robert Rossellini that began to dominate Italian cinema and engaged with social and political themes, Cavalli and his companions rejected the perception of photography as a documentary tool in favour of their belief that the medium was an art form. All well and good but when set against those of his international, contemporary and accepted greats, for example: Brassai, Kertész and Man Ray, for me, Cavalli’s pallid prints, pale that little bit further.

Photographs from top
Untitled, undated
Gelatin silver print
35.2 x 28 cm

Composition, undated
Gelatin silver print
20.2 x 17.2 cm

The Little Ball, 1949
Gelatin silver print
30 x 24 cm

Waiting, 1948
Gelatin silver print
17.6 x 28.6 cm

The Black Pipe, 1951
Gelatin silver print
24 x 18 cm

All photographs by Giuseppe Cavalli (1904-1961) from the Prelz Oltramonti Collection, London

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March 30th, 2012   Photography | Photographs, Photographs

Photographs
Sotheby’s, New York, USA
3rd April, 2012
Photographs
Christie’s, New York, USA
5th April, 2012

So, these days you have no money problems.

That’s great to hear.

Sorry, I couldn’t really hear what you said… You want to do what?

To buy some photographs?

To buy a lot of photographs.

You want to create a collection.

But you know nothing about photography.

Oh, I see, that’s why you’re calling.

Uh huh. Yeah.

It’s kind of you to say so but really, I’m no expert.

OK. Perhaps I can help you, there.

Yes, you see, rather conveniently, there are a couple of auctions next week, both in New York, at Christie’s and at Sotheby’s, respectively – somewhat confusingly, each called ‘Photographs’ – in which a large quantity of work from those photographers regarded by the real experts as photography’s all time greats, is on sale.

You like the sound of that? Good.

You’ll be completely spoiled for choice. There are 350 items in the Christie’s sale, 204 at Sotheby’s.

No, no. I know you can. I understand that you can afford it. That’s not the problem. You can’t just buy everything, that’s all. It would just be crazy! Besides, I’m sure you’d prefer to be seen as a discerning sort of person – someone with a bit of taste – who doesn’t just throw their money around but on the contrary, has a keen eye for investment value.

That doesn’t bother you?

But surely, you don’t want to end up with a load of crap that you can’t offload on some other sucker, later.

Well, for one thing, in practical terms, you’ll have a fair number of duplicate prints, albeit each with different attributes: signed/unsigned, number within edition, etc. Then there’s condition to consider: excellent/very good/good/poor.

Yeah, you know some of the stuff is pretty old.

Old, you know, O-L-D. Early stuff…

Well, from my recollection, for instance: there’s a picture in the Sotheby’s sale taken by a guy by the name of Edward S Curtis. It’s called An Oasis in the Badlands. American. It’s of a Native American chief on horseback – very iconic but, in my opinion, his style often verges on the kitsch. It was photographed in 1905.

You didn’t know photography was that old? Well, here’s a surprise: it’s a hell of a lot older! The first permanent photograph was an image produced in France in 1826.

Kodak! Nooohhh! Much earlier than Kodak.

Anyway. Can I suggest you stick to one genre?

You don’t know what a genre is?

Well. Look. Let’s keep it simple. What about just buying landscape pictures? There’s tons of great stuff by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston you might like.

Yes, it’s all black and white.

You think black and white landscapes are boring. OK, there are some in colour by William Eggleston, who’s not really my cup of tea, but perhaps we should forget about landscapes.

Nudes? Yes, there are quite a few nudes. But, wouldn’t portraits be good? There’s a remakable Chuck Close, self-portrait called 5C – made from five unique, large-format, overlapping Polaroid prints – several Richard Avedon’s and some by Irving Penn, and loads of others at both venues.

Yeah, Avedon and Penn do nudes, too. Penn’s still life is amazing! A print of his Still Life with Grape and Moth, being sold by Christie’s is one of my all-time favourites. Then there’s…

Of course! Of course, nudes are certainly worth thinking about. However, how about starting to collect early modernist photography; Lásló Moholy-Nagy’s Alpenveilchen (Photogramm) will be in the Sotheby’s sale and his Scandinavia, shot in 1931 is at Christie’s. Christie’s are also selling Fire Escape, an amazing Alexander Rodchenko, photographed in 1927.

You don’t like ‘funny’ names.

No, no, nudes are certainly a possibility.

Flower pictures might be good, too, though. There’s the the Moholy-Nagy Alpenveilchen, I just mentioned – to you and me that’s a cyclamen – and Alma Levenson’s voluptuous Auratum Lily is at Sotheby’s. But there are a whole group of Robert Mapplethorpe’s flower pictures up for grabs in that sale, too.

Yes, he does do nudes.

So, if I understand you correctly, it’s just nudes, then, that you want to go for?

Er… interesting idea… and I must say, there are some very tastefully shot images of that variety by among others: Ruth Bernhard and Bill Brandt, included in both sales.

OK, yeah, I think I get it. You’d prefer more erotic stuff.

Female, I suppose?

I see. No preference. In their infinite variety, right? Big names as well as less well-known photographers – even a few with ‘funny’ names?

Well, it’s great that you’ve made a decision.

Yes, of course. It’s your money; I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to spend it. Glad I was able to help. Let me know how you get on but… er… could I ask a little favour in return?

I’m sure you’ll understand that… I shouldn’t really be seen… you know, to be associated with that sort of material. So I’d be grateful for your discretion… as a man of the cloth… I…

Photographs, from top
Sotheby’s Lot 192
Daido Moriyama How to Create a Beautiful Picture 6: Tights in Shimotakaido, 1986
Oversized, signed in pencil on the reverse, framed, printed later
Estimate $15/25,000

Christies Lot 105
Robert Mapplethorpe Back, 1986
Gelatin silver print
Signed, title, date, number 2/10 in ink and copyright credit reproduction limitation stamp (on the reverse of the flush-mount)
Image: 23 x 19 1/8in. (58.5 x 48.5cm.)
Sheet/flush-mount: 24 x 20in. (61 x 50.8cm.)
Estimate $10,000 – 15,000

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March 23rd, 2012   mouth2mouth | grundini

mouth2mouth | exclusive interview
grundini | graphic information supremo
Peter Grundy was a founding partner, with Tilly Northedge, of successful UK-based informational graphics design practice, Grundy & Northedge (1980-2006). Soon after he set up on his own. Releasing himself from the thankless task of producing beautiful informational booklets that no-one saw, and making a miraculous transformation into his alter-ego, Grundini, his work has gone global. As Taschen publish their latest design tome: Information Graphics, The Blog posts the first of an occasional series of interviews with prominent figures in the worlds of art, architecture, design, gardens, photography, etc.

Referencing Mies van der Rohe’s famous – and so very often repeated – remark, in terms of information graphics: is it enough for form to follow function?
Much of information design teaching follows the notion that designers should not infect the message with their own ideas. When Tilly Northedge and I started working together in 1980 we went against this theory, believing instead that the designer should function as a journalist and have an opinion on the messages they are asked to convey.

If the subject matter isn’t particularly interesting, is it enough to make your visual interpretation of whatever it is, attractive?
The most important part of any of my solutions is a good idea; that’s the bit most [information graphic] designers miss because they see things in terms of their own style. A good idea can bring uninteresting data to life, style probably not.

Is your preference for creating informational diagrams or poster images?
No preference. The Shell billboard posters I did are, as far as I’m concerned, information pieces, whereas Bodyparts – originally a diagram for Esquire – worked well as a poster.

How much input from an art director is comfortable for you?
They can contribute as little or as much as they like, but ultimately I’ll give them my take. I did a job recently for someone who was very prescriptive; I gave them my idea, they came back saying you didn’t put in what I asked for; you left off this and that, etc. I told them to find someone else.

How difficult is it to get the information you need from clients?
It varies. Mostly I get too much and have to edit it which, after 30 years, I’m quite good at.

In what form do you prefer to receive data from clients?
Simple, short messages. The Guardian’s G2 section were very good; they just provided the info they wanted to be included in the 30 spreads they asked me to produce – just as well, since one spread was required every week.

Albert Einstein said; ‘If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.’ Agree? Disagree?
Simple messages are sometimes communicated by complicated visuals.

What method do you use to extrapolate the information given to you by a client?
What I seek is an overview idea, instantly communicating the message that will take the audience into the piece and invite them to explore. The two main tools I use for this are humour and entertainment.

Milton Glaser has said that computers are to design as microwaves are to cooking – the inference being that aside from using one for defrosting frozen ingredients, the best cooks wouldn’t touch a microwave with a barge-pole. Is this an outmoded remark?
I don’t think MG or anyone else for that matter could have seen in the 1980s, or even the 90s, how new technology would change the world of communication. He was talking about early, crude computer tools failing the requirement of those designers who had made things by hand. Today the internet has created new media environments and design challenges that need to be addressed by evolving design technologies. Having said that creative intelligence prevails now as it did 50 years ago.

When did you start using a computer for design?
Late 80s

How did the change effect your way of working?
Not at all, other than Adobe Illustrator replaced my set of Kern drawing instruments. The way my work looked didn’t change at all. What did change was the way I communicated with clients. When I started business was done by talking to people either in meetings or on the phone – today it’s by email or Skype. Sometimes that’s a shame, but the advantage is that one has a global rather than a local market.

How do you start to develop a visual idea – pencil scribbles or do you go direct to your computer?
I think and scribble in a small book then I do a finished piece on a computer that I show to the client. I don’t show the client a rough anymore – they don’t get it. This is something that surprises people who say to me: ‘That’s a lot of work to have rejected if they don’t like it’. My answer is that the idea is the difficult bit – building the image is often quite quick, and if I’m confident in the solution I can often convince.

Do you ever produce work without the aid of a computer?
No

What computer programmes do you use?
Adobe Illustrator is my tool box.

For an RCA project you produced an alphabet based on sections of the London Underground map, originally designed by Harry Beck in 1931. How important was the tube map to the development of your ideas about graphic communication?
Well, it is one of the seminal influences on any designer. It’s a good idea, it’s a simple expression of a complicated thing and it’s elegant.

At art college, were you any good at life drawing?
 Rubbish at drawing! And because of this, I had to develop an achievable way of communicating visually – and fast. So I turned to a set of drawing instruments and developed a way of representing things simply using simple shapes. If anything my drawing borrows more from typography than the life drawing class.

I sometimes think I detect influences from the great art deco poster designer, Adolphe Mouron Cassandre, in your simplistic style of drawing and the graduation techniques you use, say, in the image for the international section on your website. Is he an influence and from who else do you draw inspiration?
We all benefited greatly from the art history education we received in the 70s.

Some of your bold, simplistic stuff – I’m thinking of the hand image on your 2004 Action Aid International poster and the 2007 Men’s Health magazine, as well as the figure in your Price on your head double-spread diagram for Esquire, is reminiscent of the primitive art of modern-day Central America. Is this accidental or have you studied the art from that region?
Yes, that’s true, my attraction to these ancient ways of drawing is its achievability. But this is the style thing, style is not enough to communicate and, as previously mentioned, the main ingredient is the idea.

You’ve been enormously prolific since the Grundy & Northedge company closed up shop and you became Grundini. Do you miss working within a company or do you prefer to work alone?
When Tilly Northedge retired I had two choices: carry on the company or do something different. I choose the latter. My aim was to get away from projects which were 25% creative and 75% management and to concentrate on work that was all about the creative. I achieved that, the problem was I was working on my own which can get boring. So now I work on my own but within a creative studio, in Holborn, London, where I’m amongst the creative cut and thrust every designer and illustrator need.s

Is the work you do now more, or less, lucrative than that which you did at Grundy & Northedge?
More lucrative. In the days of G&N we used to spend weeks and months producing beautiful informational books that no one saw, with next to no budget. Nowadays I concentrate on just the imagery and I sell these not only to information clients, but to a whole spectrum [of clients], though I doubt I could have achieved this position without my previous experience of working with Tilly Northedge as Grundy & Northedge.

Images from top
Death spread, Men’s Health magazine, 2007
Tree of skills diagram, The Guardian Educational Supplement, 2007
Price on your head diagram, Esquire magazine, 2006
The Age of energy illustration, The Telegraph newspaper, 2011
The Transform Awards imagery, The art of the impossible, 2012
All images ©Grundini

Information Graphics by Sandra Rendgen & Julius Wiedemann with 200 projects and over 400 examples of contemporary information graphics from all over the world – ranging from journalism to art, government, education and business, includes four essays about the development of information graphics since its beginnings, an exclusive poster by Nigel Holmes – who during his 20 years as graphics director for Time revolutionized the way the magazine used information graphics – is published by Taschen

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