While speedrunning through Soutines at Christie’s the other day, this popped up, Sherrie Levine’s 1984 watercolor of a Soutine that belonged to Melva Bucksbaum.
Of course, it’s not a watercolor of a Soutine, but a watercolor of a reproduction of a Soutine, yet another flattening step removed from the intense painterly construction of Soutine’s portrait.
The Aspen Museum had a whole show of early Sherrie Levine this past summer, and it’s worth remembering that rephotographing reproductions à la After Walker Evans was just one of Levine’s techniques for exploring the reproduction and circulation of images. Others included buying and framing posters of paintings; framed plates from art books; drew photos of drawings; and painted photos of paintings.
Back in the day, these watercolors were discussed in terms of their declarative absence of the original’s structure and painterly action, and as a thin, even surface on a thick paper ground. But they’re paintings of photos, so whatever flattening is there counts as documentation.
Anyway, I’m not finding a ton of stuff about Levine’s watercolors, nor of her exploration of Soutine. What I do see, though, makes me wonder why Bucksbaum, of all people, matted this picture this way, when it feels like it should be floated on its sheet.