01 Work, The Art of War, George Tooker’s Landscape with Figures II, with footnotes
Landscape with Figures II, c. 1985
Tempera on panel
20 ½ by 30 ½ in., 52.1 by 77.5 cm.
Private collection
Estimated for 80,000–120,000 USD in Nov 2023
Tooker’s figures are gaunt but muscled, delicately balancing the fragility of age with a sense of inner strength; the leftmost appears to be modeled directly after Domenichino’s St. Jerome . Their expressions are enigmatic, reflecting a groggy surprise as they turn to the light, resurrected from the eternal stillness that characterizes much of Tooker’s work. Landscape with Figures II is a retrospective in a single painting, at once vulnerable, surreal, and immensely hopeful. More on this painting
Having completed his English degree at Harvard, George Tooker, born New York City 1920-died Hartland, VT in 2011, went to New York in 1943 to study at the Art Students League, where he worked for two years with Reginald Marsh. Like his friends Jared French and Paul Cadmus, Tooker paints in egg tempera and borrows compositional arrangements from the Renaissance Italians, but his thematic ties are with the existential ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Samuel Beckett. Many of Tooker’s paintings contain a strong element of implicit social comment, and he creates silent theaters in which reality is transformed into deadeningly repetitive drama. He uses precise, geometric architectural structures as backdrops for his protagonists, who often appear as shrouded, shapeless masses contained within boxes or cubicles. Human isolation, self-alienation, and spiritually void rituals are recurring themes in his work.
George Tooker learned to paint from a local Long Island artist when he was just seven years old. He studied English literature, then joined the Marine Corps, but after an illness forced him to leave the service he decided to enter the Art Students League in New York. He befriended the painter Paul Cadmus, who encouraged him to use the classical medium of egg tempera. In 1950, Tooker and his lover, fellow artist William Christopher, rented an illegal loft in an unfashionable area of town, painting and making furniture in order to survive. After a few years, they moved to Vermont and spent their summers in Malaga, Spain. Tooker creates detailed paintings based on his own experiences that often evoke erotic, nightmarish worlds. More on George Tooker
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