Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Mark Spencer (born 1949) Gorilla with Flowers 40 x 42 in. (101.6 x 106.6 cm) image 1
Mark Spencer (born 1949) Gorilla with Flowers 40 x 42 in. (101.6 x 106.6 cm) image 2
Lot 607

Mark Spencer
(born 1949)
Gorilla with Flowers 40 x 42 in. (101.6 x 106.6 cm)

9 – 17 January 2025, 10:00 PST
Online, Los Angeles

Sold for US$2,816 inc. premium

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Prints & Multiples specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

Mark Spencer (born 1949)

Gorilla with Flowers
initialed indistinctly and dated 'MS / 06' (lower right)
oil on canvas
40 x 42 in. (101.6 x 106.6 cm)

Footnotes

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.

Additional information

Bid now on these items

Attributed to Katherine Hepburn(1907-2003)Church steeple scene 9.25 x 12.25 in.; frame: 15.25 x 18 in.

David Hockney R.A.(British, born 1937)Rue de Seine

Yolande Ardissone(French, 1927-2024)Boats at Belle-Ile en Mer

Georges Washington(French, 1827-1910)Horseman at an oasis

Francesco Podesti(Italian, 1800-1895)Portrait of French Military Officer

Olly and Suzi(English, born 1968)Emerald Manta, 2011, 40 × 28 in

British School(18th/19th Century)A Bay Horse in the Stable

George Morland(British, 1763-1804)Sheltering from a Storm

Karl Markó(Hungarian, 1791-1860)An Extensive Bay Landscape with Figures and Boats at Sunset

Félix François Georges Philibert Ziem(French, 1821-1911)Intérieur d'un Jardin à Venise

Edward Seago, RWS, RBA(British, 1910-1974)St. Benet's Marsh, Evening

Hedwig Edle von Malheim Friedländer(Austrian, 1863-1916)Mother and Child

Clive Madgwick(British, 1934-2005)Collecting bluebells

Arthur Streeton(1867-1943)View Across Windsor, c.1915

Sir Howard Hodgkin(British, 1932-2017)Tropic Fruit

Charles Ross(American, born 1937)Prism Column

TONY MARSH (BORN 1954) 'Untitled (White Sacred Heart Vase)' and 'Untitled (Angel White Vase)' (two works) glazed porcelain with sculpted applied elements height of taller vase 9in (22.9cm); height of shorter vase 5 3/4in (14.5cm)

Andrew Macara N.E.A.C.(British, born 1944)Orange Windbreaks

IDA RITTENBERG KOHLMEYER(1912-1997)Composition 93-7 36 x 54 in. (91.4 x 137.2 cm.)

William Roberts R.A.(British, 1895-1980)Study for Germans in Constantinople 22.6 x 14.7cm (8 7/8 x 5 7/8in) (image) 22.6 x 17.1cm (8 7/8 x 6 3/4in) (sheet)

AFTER NICOLAI FECHINBearded Man height 6 1/4in; width 5 1/2in; depth 4in; height overall 7 3/4in