?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
MALCOM MORLEY Study of the MS Victoria.
Collage with pen and ink, circa 1964. 225x300 mm; 8 3/4x11 3/4 inches.
Provenance: Acquired directly from the artist, New York, by Norman Dolph, New York; thence by descent to the current owner.
In 1964, as British-born artist Morley (1931-2018) was having his first solo exhibition of abstract art at the Kornblee Gallery in New York, he decided to shift his style towards photo-realist depictions of ships and maritime subjects. In 1965-66, he reproduced ocean liners in a highly detailed manner, diligently copying scenes from tourist brochures, advertisements and calendars. As one of the first noted photorealists, Morley chose this subject to find an iconography untarnished by art. His technique involved drawing a grid on the image source so that it could be easily transferred to a canvas, often painting upside down or sideways so that his own stylizations were not added to the finished work. The present work illustrates part of this process as ink grid lines cover a photograph of the Lido deck from of a brochure for the Ingres luxury cruise ship, the MS Victoria.
