Post War & Contemporary Art

Provenance:

Galerie Denise Rene, Paris

Private Collection, Illinois

Thence by descent to the present owner

We are grateful to the Cruz-Diez Foundation for their assistance in cataloguing this work; this work will be sold with a certificate of authenticity from the Cruz-Diez Foundation. 

Lot Essay:

[Color is] not simply the color of things or the color of form [but rather] an evolving situation, a reality which acts on the human being with the same intensity as cold, heat, and sound. 

- Carlos Cruz-Diez (Venezuelan, 1923-2019) 

Color first caught the eye of Carlos Cruz-Diez at the age of 9, watching the sunlight cast vibrant projections on his white shirt though the cola bottles at the soft drink factory where his father worked. Engaging with color – and sharing this experience -- would become his life’s work, as he made his mark as a pivotal figure in the Op Art and Kinetic Art movements of the 20th century. 

We are pleased to present in this sale two culminations of Cruz-Diez's interactions with color, from one of his best-known series: Physichromie No. 751, 1974 and Physichromie No. 537, 1970. They are both excellent examples of the Artists’ deep and obsessive fascination with color theory and perception. 

Born in Caracas in 1923, Cruz-Diez initially studied at the School of Fine and Applied Arts in Caracas and worked as a graphic designer in advertising before moving to Europe in the 1950s. The move was predicated by the restrictions of the dictatorship of Pérez Jiménez in his home country, which stifled Cruz-Diez and his peers. After a few years in El Masnou, Cruz-Diez relocated to Paris, allowing him to more deeply connect to the art world and continue his visual experimentations.  

Driven by a desire to explore how color interacts with light and space, he was inspired by such diverse sources as Sir Issac Newton’s chromatic experiments and the artist Josef Albers, among others, Cruz-Diez began to create relief paintings that seem to vibrate before their viewers – the first of his Physichromies, a title he invented by combining the words ‘physical chromatism.’  

Physichromies are characterized by their meticulously arranged colored strips or panels that create dynamic visual effects as viewers move past them. The series embodies Cruz-Diez's exploration of color's mutability and its ability to engage the viewer in an active, participatory experience. The Physichromies are not static artworks; they transform and evolve as the viewer's position changes, which Cruz-Diez discussed with the magazine Frame in 2018:  

How you perceive [the Physichromies] colours depends on your movements and the surrounding light – the way the light strikes the work alters everything. What you see from your position is different from what I perceive from mine. My challenge is to show you a reality that has no past or future – a piece that exists in a perpetual present. One of the fundamental conditions of art is to provoke astonishment. My works are about triggering something that’s different from what you experience when viewing a traditional painting. 

Physichromies are significant in their fusion of art and science, their engagement with the viewer's perceptual experience, and their contribution to the larger discourse on color theory and visual cognition. These works challenge the traditional boundaries of painting by transcending the two-dimensional canvas and interacting directly with the viewer's surroundings. Physichromies force viewers to engage, becoming active participants in the shifting colors of the optical illusion. 

Carlos Cruz-Diez's Physichromie series left an indelible mark on the art world, redefining the relationship among color, light, and space. His exploration of the ephemeral nature of perception and his innovative use of color as a dynamic, ever-changing element have influenced subsequent generations of artists and have had a lasting impact on the trajectory of contemporary art. The Physichromies push the boundaries of artistic expression as they continue to captivate and engage their viewers.