In 1960, Leo Castelli’s gallery director Ivan Karp estimated that there were no more than fifteen people seriously collecting contemporary art. One of them was Al Ordover, who was one of the first people Karp took to Warhol’s studio.
Ordover bought this amazing little 1959 Jasper Johns painting, The Figure 8, from Castelli. One minute it’s obviously an 8, and the next it feels like it barely holds the 8 together.
Its only public exhibition was a December 1959 fundraising exhibition to benefit painter Nell Blaine, who had contracted polio during a summer trip to Mykonos. [Since vaccines are in the news, Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine was introduced in 1955, and was still in early distribution stages in 1959. Blaine’s paralysis left her in a wheelchair for life and unable to paint for several years.]
Why none of the history or context of this painting, as opposed to Johns’ use of numbers as a form/subject generally, is in Sotheby’s lot text, is a mystery to me. But with generalities, unrelated quotes, hyperbole, and a single jpeg are how six-figure paintings are sold these days, I guess. [update: OR NOT.]
20 Nov 2024, Lot 34 : Jasper Johns, The Figure 8, 1959, est. $3-4m [sothebys]