Apr 06, 2023 - Sale 2632

Sale 2632 - Lot 201

Price Realized: $ 32,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
DEANA LAWSON (1979 - )
Baby Sleep.

Pigment print, 2009. 635x762 mm; 25x30 inches. Artist's proof, printed in 2011, aside from the edition of 4 and 2 APs. Signed and inscribed "A.P. Gift Print" in ink, lower right verso.

Provenance: acquired directly from the artist, private collection (2011).

Exhibited (another print): Deana Lawson The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, November 03, 2021 - February 27, 2022; MoMA PS1, April 14, 2022 - September 05, 2022; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, October 07, 2022 - February 19, 2023.

Another print of this photograph is in the collection of the Tate Modern, London.

With--Arthur Jafa, Deana Lawson and Zadie Smith.Deana Lawson: An Aperture Monograph. Bound volume with 40 images and complete text, 2018. Published by the Aperture Foundation, New York. Signed by the artist in gold ink, lower right.

This now iconic image by Deana Lawson is coming to auction for the first time. This photograph emboidies the approach of her early body of work - a reflection upon the intimate lives of her subjects. Lawson photographs families, friends and lovers in their own spaces- eschewing the white-walled space of the studio. Lawson said in a 2011 interview:

"I never really had the luxury of being in a studio environment and when I think of traditional philosophers, you know, sitting with a pipe thinking for a long time about these theories and sh*t… I mean, girl, I don't have that kind of quietude! I don't think a lot of women do. Even that mess though can be used for material for your work. Which is what I do. For example the image Baby sleep --that is directly drawn from real sh*t! You know what I'm saying?"

Born in 1979 in Rochester NY, photographer Deana Lawson blends controlled composition and intimacy to explore contemporary representations of blackness and collective memory. At first glance, her images appear straightforward but soon raise a series of complex questions and associations that challenge the viewer. Lawson received her BFA in photography from Pennsylvania State University in 2001, and her MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in 2004. Recent solo exhibitions include Deana Lawson: Centropy, Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, 2020; Deana Lawson: Planes, The Underground Museum, 2018-19 and Forum 80: Deana Lawson, Carnegie Museum of Art, 2018. She has been awarded the Aaron Siskind Foundation, Individual Photographer's Fellowship grant, 2008–2009, the Guggenheim Fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, 2013, and the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.