William Nelson Copley Lot n° 3

William Nelson Copley Untitled 1994 Acrylic on canvas 81,5 x 102 cm. Framed. Signed and dated 'cply'94'. - With studio and slight signs of age. The present work is registered in the Estate of William N. Copley, New York. Provenance Galerie Lelong, Zurich (with label on the reverse); Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia Literature Brigitte Reinhardt (ed.), William N. Copley, True Confession, exhibition cat. Ulmer Museum, Ostfildern 1997, p. 24 with ill. The seemingly naive pictorial worlds of William N. Copley are filled with erotic fantasies in which the artist himself often appears alongside female nudes and fetish-like objects. Colorful, irreverent, and full of self-deprecating humor, he draws on various art and cultural historical models. A joie de vivre and enigmatic wit give his oeuvre an unmistakable cheerfulness and reflect the artist's carefree lifestyle. "Just look at the duets that are sung in these paintings - the dances that are done here show everything and cover nothing. It is perfectly clear: here it is not a victim acting in agony who would have entered the arena of the battle of the sexes; here the perpetrator speaks out of passion, the pleasure in the erotic act determines life as well as art." (Carl Haenlein, in: William N. Copley, Works 1948-1983, A German Collection, Ausst.Kat. Galerie von Braunbehrens, Munich 2012, p. 11) With a twinkle in his eye, Copley analyzes his particular preferences in this untitled work from 1994. As a small man in a suit and bowler hat, he portrays himself in the role of Sigmund Freud in a conversation session with a "patient" on the couch. The reclining unclothed woman, the dog and the accentuated ornamentation of spatial details are fixed components of his characteristic pictorial program. The paintings, which hang in large format in lush gold frames on the walls, are also frequently encountered in Copley's interiors. They form independent spheres in which he continues his erotic fantasies or satirizes world-class works of art - here da Vinci's Last Supper, in which Jesus and some of the disciples are replaced by female figures.