Bukowskis presents a work by Jim Nutt at Contemporary Art & Design
Jim Nutt
”Huge”
Bukowskis is proud to present an important portrait, “Huge”, by the American artist Jim Nutt at the upcoming Contemporary Art & Design auction on October 25. In 2022 Bukowskis achieved the highest ever hammer price at auction for the artist with the sale of “Tooth”, a refined portrait by Nutt, evident of his singular style.
Jim Nutt was born in Massachusetts, USA, in 1938. After graduating from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1965, he co-founded the artist group "Hairy Who?" along with fellow artists Gladys Nilsson, Art Green, Suellen Rocca, Jim Falconer, and Karl Wirsum. The group was active from 1966 to 1969 and is also considered part of "The Chicago Imagists." Emerging during a time of student protests, reactions against the Vietnam War, political assassinations, and consumer culture in the USA, "Hairy Who?" gained recognition in Chicago and exhibited throughout the United States.
In 1972, Nutt was chosen to represent the USA at the Venice Biennale. The following year, he participated in the Whitney Biennial and the exhibition "Made in Chicago," showcased at the Sao Paulo Biennale before touring South America, Washington, and Chicago. These exhibitions solidified Jim Nutt's status as a globally significant artist.
By the early 1980s, his painting took a new turn – he reduced his scale and limited his colour palette and number of figures in each of his compositions. Around 1987 he found the style of painting that he devoted the next thirty-five years to, with paintings that consisted only of a single motif – portraits of imagined women. Nutt has a very small production, only painting one portrait a year. The portraits reference renaissance painting, and Nutt’s work is distinctive of his figures' very particular noses and exaggerated hairstyles. The piece in the auction, "Huge", from 1992, is a typical Nutt portrait with the hair and the characteristic nose, which in its style alludes to both cubism and renaissance portraiture.
To be sold at Contemporary Art & Design
Viewing October 20st – 24th, Berzelii Park 1, Stockholm
Auction Live October 25th, Arsenalsgatan 2, Stockholm
› Signed Jim Nutt and dated 1992 verso. Acrylic, golden soft gel mixed with water, soluvar varnish on canvas in artist's frame 64.5 x 64.5 cm.
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