WILLIAM NELSON COPLEY (1919-1996) - photo 1
WILLIAM NELSON COPLEY (1919-1996) - photo 2

WILLIAM NELSON COPLEY (1919-1996)

Lot 175
29.06.2023 13:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 81 900
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 990158
Lot 175 | WILLIAM NELSON COPLEY (1919-1996)
Estimate value
£ 60 000 – 80 000
WILLIAM NELSON COPLEY (1919-1996)

Tomb of the Unknown Whore

signed and dated 'CPLY 65' (lower right)

acrylic on canvas

44 3/4 x 63 5/8in. (113.7 x 161.7cm.)

Painted in 1965





Provenance

Galerie Renata Fassbender, Munich.

Anon. sale, Sotheby’s New York, 11 November 1988, lot 191.

Galerie Schönewald Fine Arts, Düsseldorf.

Galerie Manus Presse, Stuttgart.

Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2007.



Exhibited

New York, Alexander Iolas Gallery, CPLY: Projects for Monuments to the Unknown Whore, 1966 (illustrated, unpaged).

Amsterdam, Stedelijk Museum, Copley, 1966, no. 45.

New York, Onnasch Galerie, William Copley: CPLY, 1974, no. 25 (illustrated, unpaged). This exhibition later travelled to Philadelphia, Moore College of Art.

Bern, Kunsthalle Bern, William Copley, 1980-1981, p 98, no. 60 (illustrated, p. 76). This exhibition later travelled to Paris, Musée National D’Art Moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou; Eindhoven, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum and Badischer Kunstverein, Germany.

Vienna, BAWAG Foundation, CPLY: Easy to Read Story Book, 2003, no. 13.

Stuttgart, Galerie Manus Presse, William N. Copley, 2006 (illustrated in color, p. 13).

Stuttgart, Galerie Klaus Gerrit Friese, William N. Copley: Among Ourselves, 2009, p. 143 (illustrated in colour, p. 25).

Baden-Baden, Museum Frieder Burda, Copley, 2012, p. 241 (illustrated pp. 78-79). This exhibition later travelled to Bruehl, Max Ernst Museum des LVR and Herford, Stiftung Ahlers Pro Arte.



Special Notice

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.



Post Lot Text

“The Unknown Whore is certainly as important as the Unknown Soldier: they’ve both been had. Everybody forgets that a prostitute is a woman before she is a prostitute. We have a way of putting people in categories and keeping them there." - William Nelson Copley
Artist:William Nelson Copley (1919 - 1996)
Applied technique:Acrylic, Painted
Art style:Post War Art
Auction house category:Paintings
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
29.06.2023 – 29.06.2023
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
Buyer Premium see on Website
Conditions of purchaseConditions of purchase

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