
Morisa Rosenberg
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Sold for US$2,816 inc. premium
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Lot Essay
While Mark Spencer's work is largely categorized as Post-Surrealist, his training at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston reveals a reverence for Old Masters. During his studies, Spencer began to employ a technique of underpainting that combined egg emulsion and varnish - a practice used by Venetian Renaissance master Titian that rose to prominence in the 16th century. The highly labor-intensive nature of this underpainting technique allows Spencer to finish no more than a handful of major canvases in any given year. While the present lot does not use this technique, there is a subtle compositional comparison to Titian's The Rape of Europa in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Both compositions feature a female figure in a strong diagonal against a barren landscape. Together, Spencer's unique style combination of classically inspired realist technique with surrealist vision addresses the contradictions and conundrums of the modern world.
Today, Spencer's works are included in such prominent collections as: Museum of Fine Arts, Santa Fe, the Albuquerque Museum of Arts, and the Frye Museum of Art in Seattle, among others.