August 28, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode of The Collectors’ Edge we discuss the work and career of Austrian painter Martha Jungwirth. Join us in this insightful episode to learn how her dynamic and textured paintings have earned her widespread acclaim, relatively late in life. Hosted, as always, by Nordic Art Partners' Jeppe Curth and Nicholas Robinson, we take you on a journey through Jungwirth’s evolution—from her early days in Vienna at the Academy of Applied Arts, the prestigious prize wins as a student that signalled her early promise, to her present day career which includes significant critial and commercial success and full retrospective survey shows at leading international museums.
We investigate the formative influences of the art world of the 1970s and the prevailing trends that formed the contextual backdrop of her early working life. Discover her painting methodologies, her unique approach to exploring colour, her oscillation between abstraction and figuration and why her innovative use of heavy paper and has become a signature element of her work.
As always, we take a closer look at Jungwirth’s standing and reputation and how this is reflected by the global art market of today. It is clear that her works are becoming increasingly coveted by collectors and museums alike but what trends are driving her market, and what might be coming next for this pioneering artist? With her work commanding significant attention at major exhibitions and auctions, we’ll discuss the growing demand for her expressive, textured paintings and why Martha Jungwirth is a name every serious art collector should be watching.
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Episode Transcript
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Jeppe Curth (00:00):
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic
Art Partners.
In this episode, we willexplore the work and career of
Martha Jungwirth, an Austrianartist known for expressive and
dynamic paintings.
With me today is, as usual, ourart expert, N Robinson, and I'm
your host, jib, let's getstarted.
Nicholas Robinson (00:20):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
400 million dollars is the bidand the piece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:42):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:02):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be consideredthoughtful and well informed in
your choices and actions.
Welcome to the art ofcollecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
(01:27):
Hi Nick, hi Nick, hi, Jeppe, howare you doing Very well.
Thank you and you.
Jeppe Curth (01:31):
Yeah, I'm good, thank you.
Nicholas Robinson (01:33):
Good to hear.
So, who are we going to talkabout today?
Today, we're going to talkabout Martha Jorwitz, an
Austrian painter.
Jeppe Curth (01:42):
Great, and why?
Nicholas Robinson (01:44):
Well, why do we talk about any artists on
this pod?
Because we love them because welove them, we believe in them,
we buy them, we sell them, wecollect them.
We talk about the things thatwe feel are relevant to our
personal and professionalinterests, where those two areas
coalesce yes we do so.
Jeppe Curth (02:06):
As always, can you walk us through?
Martha Jung was beginning ofthe art world.
What helped shape herdistinctive style?
Nicholas Robinson (02:13):
I can.
She was born in 1940 in Viennaand from 1956 to 1963 she
studied at the University ofApplied Arts there.
In 1961, whilst still a student, she was awarded the Monsignor
Otto Maurer Prize, which wasfollowed in 1964 by the Theodor
(02:33):
Koerner Prize, both of which aresomewhat local prizes for
up-and-coming talents.
But in 1966, she was awardedthe Juan Miro Prize, which I
suppose has a greater sort ofprestige internationally, which
of course was awarded in Spain.
(02:53):
So after she graduated, shetaught at the Academy of Applied
Arts there in Vienna, her almamater um, for a decade, from
1967 to 1977.
And then, um, in the middle ofthe 1970s, she began to create
these vibrantly colored,somewhat idiosyncratic
(03:15):
watercolors, um.
And this early work was todemonstrate a strong affinity
for the visceral, a strongaffinity for the visceral,
energetic abstraction that hadbeen, you know, the dominant
trend in abstract paintingthroughout the 20th century.
It had a very raw emotivequality which I guess we can
(03:39):
closely relate to Americanabstract expressionist, which
had also come to be termedaction painting, but also was
grounded in the Europeaninformel, which was a term
invented in the early 1950s bythe French critic Michel Tapier,
and it was largely designed toencompass different strands of
(04:05):
abstraction that he wasrecognizing.
Nowadays it's more closelyassociated with a particularly
European trend in abstraction.
Artists like Fautrier Hartung,mathieu Walsh, pierre Soulages,
mathieu Walsh, pierre Soulagesso her work perhaps can be
(04:28):
viewed as somewhat bridgingthese two tendencies.
But at this time, in the middleof the 1970s, pop art was still
a very dominant aesthetic Cameto prominence in the early 1960s
, but still very much holdingsway.
Minimalism another keydevelopment during the preceding
(04:50):
decade, characterized by itsvery rational principles, a lot
of rule-based art.
That was still also a verystrongly influential type of
practice and at this timeminimalism was evolving into
different strands which includedsome highly conceptual
(05:20):
approaches, perhaps epitomizedby artists like Larry Poons or
Paul Jenkins, kind of a decadent, late phase of this movement.
And when you look at work bythese artists from this period
it tends to seem actually ratherdated and very much of this
time.
So even in Vienna, painting hadbeen co-opted by a movement, a
(05:45):
group called the VienneseActionists, which was a
short-lived movement in the artscene there.
It was very transgressive,super aggressive, very masculine
, to develop painting but alsodevelop it through various
(06:10):
strands of art that wereincreasingly prevalent around
the world, things likeperformance art, happenings,
body art, so quite similar tokinds of things that were taking
place with the variousoffshoots of fluxus around
Europe.
So at this time there wasprobably a tendency for a
quieter, more highly personalvocabulary of abstraction to get
(06:31):
a little bit squeezed to themargins In America.
Also, in Italy, there was atremendously prominent artist
called Cy Twombly and I supposeone might consider his highly
personal lexicon of mark makinga little bit analogous to what
Martha was doing.
At the same time and duringthis phase, twombly, who'd been
(06:52):
working since the 1950s, wasperhaps coming into a very
sophisticated phase, I think, ofhis Roman notes, works of 1970,
natural history works from 1974, etc.
So that's, that's the sort ofbackdrop in terms of the kinds
of art production that wastaking place and the context in
(07:15):
which we can view theenvironment she was, she was
working in thanks, nick um.
Jeppe Curth (07:20):
Can you also walk us through the physical
properties, like what do theylook like, which materials is
she working with and also a bitabout her process?
Nicholas Robinson (07:31):
Yes, of course Her work was most often
executed on paper.
Early work is typicallycharacterized by being on this
sort of quite heavy paper Um,and then, in the more recent
past, the paper that she uses,has is a little more of a
(07:53):
material feature of the work.
Sometimes it's homemade,sometimes it's recycled from
other things, repurposed um, uh,surface, purposed surface for
her to paint on, and she wouldpaint on these pieces of paper
and then subsequently mount themon canvas.
So often you have a sort of aperimeter of the paper that is
(08:19):
visible within the externalboundary of the canvas surface,
so cut a little bit irregularlyand not cleanly aligned.
So you see this sort ofslightly irregular or misshapen
edge, certainly a kind ofasymmetry when you look at the
(08:40):
paper and the way that it isvisible, um, on the on on the
canvas.
So her, her process uh, wasalways she's always considered
it a very, very direct sort ofgestural rhythm involving the
body, and the main things thatshe focuses on making are
colored shapes, uh, or colorcolored fields and colored lines
(09:02):
, and these always tend to floatin quite an open field.
So you have a certainsparseness and a certain quality
of the pictorial surface notreally being filled in but
there's not a background tospeak of, just really empty
(09:24):
swathes of paper against whichthese coloured blotches are set
against.
And as her work has developedand evolved, she's become more
and more sort of interested inconcentrating on that which
really excites her, not onlyabout her subject matter but
also about the nature of hermark making.
(09:45):
And I should say that her workalternates a lot between pure
abstraction and figuration.
The works are even thefigurative works.
They're not very sort oftightly formed figures, they're
very gestural figures, very openfigures nonetheless, but they
still echo physical forms thatwe will recognize.
(10:06):
But as she's developed herprocess, she's sought more and
more to condense her marks,whilst sort of ridding herself
of anything that she woulddescribe as superfluous.
So the objective is not to endup with a sort of a filled in
picture but an open one whereall of the marks are sort of
(10:28):
very well chosen and somehowarticulate or punctuate the
surface, with both the sort ofsurface and the marks being very
much in balance with each other.
And the other key thing aboutthe way she works is that once a
mark is made it cannot beunmade or glossed over or edited
.
So even though she works or hasthe sort of appearance of
(10:52):
working quite quickly.
There still has to be a certainconsideration with the mark
that she makes.
So the fact that no editingtakes place will necessitate a
certain kind of painterlydecisiveness, because all traces
of her movements will remainvisible in the finished painting
.
So it is also the works becomea very intimate index of her
(11:19):
process, of her working,reflecting very much the way
that she and her body haveinteracted with that, with that
surface.
And this is this is a very keyidea for her in the way that she
makes the paintings and in theway that she wants the paintings
to be perceived A certain kindof visibility of this process,
(11:40):
the various sort of essentialnature of the lines and the
blotches and the subsequenttension that arises from them,
as a counterpoint to the spaceor openness she really wants
that the viewer is able todiscern or sort of deduce her
process from looking at the workand determine the kind of sort
of energy or whatever she's sortof physically committing to it.
(12:05):
So this is how she goes aboutmaking her marks of energy or
whatever she's sort ofphysically committing to it.
So this is how she goes aboutmaking her marks, and then she's
often kind of wrestling withthe notion of when a work is
finished and she describes asher working life has matured,
how she has learned to resistthe urge to apply a kind of a
(12:26):
perfect crowning mark to thework.
So this kind of also results inthe process of the work
carrying on even after it'sfinished, because she sort of
decided to stop, but of courseshe sort of feels that perhaps
she could have continued.
So this process of reading andcompleting the work continues,
even in the efforts of theviewer to look at and consider
(12:51):
the work.
So, in terms of the palettethat she uses, these sort of
main blocks that she that shedistributes across the surface,
or energy centers as shedescribes them, um, for a long
time there's been a very strongemphasis on on the color red and
all of its many variations.
So she will, uh, she willmitigate the red by sort of
(13:13):
diluting it, by blending it it alittle bit.
So you get these, you knowthese wonderful purples and
pinks, and what she tries to dois she tries to squeeze any
given color, in this case red,sort of to the limit of its
expressive range, and then shehas to make a determination
about how far she pushes itbefore.
(13:35):
The palette or color choicesort of degenerates into
becoming insipid, which issomething that she's keen to
avoid.
And she's done somethingsimilar with yellows, which she
has described as sometimes toxicand malignant.
So she's of course veryinterested in the expressive
(13:59):
potential of the colour or thetone of that colour itself.
And then she's also done agroup of works with a very heavy
dark forest green, which areworks that are related to to the
Congo, which of course aredesigned to echo the very thick
(14:20):
forest that one experiencesthere.
So, yeah, um, that's a littlebit how she goes about making,
making the paint.
She's very interested in the.
In the in the seventies shemade a lot of watercolors and in
in more recent times she'sgravitated more towards oil
paint.
She's very interested in oilpaints materiality.
She's very interested in itsdensity and how compact you can
(14:44):
make these marks, how you canbuild them up and then, through
varying kinds of strokes,sometimes denser, sometimes
heavy and pasto, and thenthey're very sort of a little
bit scrappy, scumbled with herfingers.
Um other kinds of actions thatshe performs on the surface.
Jeppe Curth (15:02):
I've also noticed that her very large works also
seems to be on paper.
Is this a medium she alwaysuses, and are there any works on
canvas?
Nicholas Robinson (15:13):
Well, the paintings are always on paper,
but then they are, after they'recompleted, they're mounted on
canvas.
And the reason that she workson paper isn't because she
doesn't want her paintings to bepaintings on canvas.
It's much more related to herprocess, related to her process,
(15:38):
um, and, and I guess it comes alittle from her initial
grounding as an artist whoworked primarily on paper with
watercolor Um, but now, whenshe's making these large format
works, the, the, the reason forchoosing paper is because it
actually, for her, enhances herprocess and the way it feels for
her to make a painting, theaction of making a brushstroke,
(15:58):
and that that is because a?
Uh, the paper has a an entirelysmooth surface, and her sort of
sensitivity to the?
Um, to making a gesture, tomaking a mark on the surface, is
such that when she would tryand do the same thing on a
(16:19):
directly onto a canvas, shewould notice that the, the nap
or the weave of the fabricsurface, however fine it might
be, that this would create acertain friction with the
bristles of the brush.
And this is something thatshe's keen to eradicate
completely so that she can getthis sort of fully fluid motion
(16:40):
of her brush stroke onto thesurface.
So, of course, this I mean Ialluded to this at the beginning
too with these sort of slightlyoddly shaped, irregular pieces
of paper mounted onto theseperfectly rectilinear canvas
surfaces.
So it does give them a littlebit of a non-conformist
appearance in some ways.
And, materially, some of thesupports she uses are even sort
(17:02):
of recycled, reused paper orcardboard and, as a result, they
can appear a bit tattered orshabby, non-precious, certainly
not conventionally beautiful,but, to her, beautiful because
they already have a, a built-inhistory that they wear and they
show, um, a little bit like the,the, the Japanese, uh, wabby,
(17:24):
sabby idea, I guess, um, and theother kind of interesting uh
effect, if you like, of ofutilizing paper as a medium, as
a support, is that what, nowthat she, she, um, makes oil
paints on these surfaces, theoil content of the paint itself
(17:44):
and also the linseed oil with,with which, uh, the pigments are
thinned, it means that these,these marks, can often sort of
bleed outwards onto the paper, alittle bit like chromatography,
but this is, you know, a mediumthat she's continually
experimenting with, to theextent that, in 2017, she
(18:06):
actually began to rip up heavypaper that she had had covering
the floor of her studio foryears, and so these surfaces
that became her paintingsurfaces had already accumulated
various layers of paint,splashes, grime, even footprints
onto them.
So even when she began to makeher paintings, the surface that
(18:29):
she was addressing was alreadyfar from pristine.
Jeppe Curth (18:32):
Okay, nick.
So what about her themes?
What themes does she explore?
Nicholas Robinson (18:36):
Well, her paintings sort of oscillate
between abstraction andfiguration, and we've learned
that she conveys the tactilesensations of painting through
her brushstrokes, her splatters,splashes, scrapes and pours.
But even though all of herworks have a very palpable sense
(18:57):
of immediacy and improvisation,actually a very sort of sense
of an intuitive approach tomaking marks, she does begin
each painting with what shecalls a conceptual pretext, and
this is essentially what becomesthe theme of any given work.
And it can begin with anencounter with an external model
(19:19):
, kind of a source idea, canalso be something, a photograph
from a newspaper or a magazine,so.
So she starts off with acentral idea and the painting
then emerges during the paintingprocess that I've described,
which she actually herselfdescribes as an adventure.
So, before the intuition andthe gesture comes some measure
(19:44):
of calculation, which of coursecompletely transforms this
original source into somethingvery different.
But if we want to break downher themes, I guess we can
characterize them as one of themis very sort of personal,
autobiographical, very kind ofliteral, physical depiction of
(20:05):
the act of making a painting,like a visual diary that traces
her physical engagement with thecreative process process.
So, because this process isfully honest, without the
editing that I mentioned open,transparent.
These works then are consideredby her as extensions of herself
or her physical person, and shehas.
(20:27):
She says drawing and paintingare a movement that runs through
me, so that that can come tosummarize this idea.
But other themes that she'sbeen interested in exploring are
art history she's been veryinterested in the work of Goya,
travel stories from Greekmythology Also, sometimes
(20:51):
contemporary political eventsare very moving to her.
A few years ago there were somehorrific bushfires in Australia
.
Thousands of animals werekilled in the wild burned, and
she was extremely moved by this,having always had a strong
affinity with animals.
So she made a whole series ofpaintings showing these sorts of
ossified animals that hadsuffered in this blaze, and
(21:16):
these, of course, were much morefigurative paintings.
So these are the themes.
That would be a good way tosummarize the kinds of topics
that interest her.
Jeppe Curth (21:33):
So, when advising clients to buy works by Martha
Youngwood, how do you situateher current art market trends
and historical context?
Nicholas Robinson (21:42):
Well, it's very interesting and I think in
a way her work appeals to usbecause we really admire what
she does.
And even though she's a matureartist who's been working for a
long time, even though she's a,you know, a mature artist who's
been working for a long time,it's only in the relatively
recent past that her work hasachieved an international
audience.
And I think, you know, often welook at artists who have been
(22:08):
distinguished by a really longand consistent practice but, for
whatever reason, the art marketat large has not fully
recognized that, and for quite along time that was the case
with Martha Youngworth.
Now it's no longer the case.
Her work is now becomingsomewhat expensive, but we can
get to that.
But in terms of situating herwork, well, we've described her
(22:32):
work as part of this sort ofexpressive painting trajectory
that originally began in the1970s.
I mean, there are other artistswho you could say are somewhat
similar to that.
An American painter who's alsoenjoying a renaissance, who was
also responsible for a verydistinctive personal vocabulary
(22:56):
of abstraction, was Joan Snyder,and she's also becoming much
more recognized and returning toprominence.
She actually had a much moredistinguished career in the
1970s than Martha Youngworth did, but that could also be down to
the fact that she's Americanrather than Austrian, which for
(23:19):
all intents and purposes isstill a relatively small country
and a little bit off the beatentrack when it comes to the main
centers of art production andconsumption.
But I think that, so that wouldbe one parallel career, I guess.
I think that, uh, so that wouldbe one parallel career, I guess
, um.
(23:43):
But I look at other artists umwho have you know, really come
to have massive amounts of ofrecognition just because of
their uh, the quality of theirwork, the distinctive vision
that they, that they um managedto communicate.
Um, joan Mitchell would be anartist, I suppose, who who of
course predates Youngworth butalso for years was overlooked,
probably mainly due to the factthat she was a woman working in
(24:08):
an extremely male world.
Linda Benglis, another, anotherexpressive uh artist um who who
kind of almost also treads afine line between figuration and
abstraction in a funny kind ofway, um also much more receiving
(24:28):
her due these days for herachievement and her contribution
than was formerly the case andher contribution than was
formerly the case.
So so I guess, you know, I, Isee, I see Martha's work as as
something that is very uniqueand sort of unto itself
qualitatively but also somehowcan be, can be conflated a
(24:48):
little bit with some of theseother artists, because of course
, you know, trends in a marketcan often be recognized and
identified when they take placewith different, different
practitioners.
Um, I I mentioned Twomblyearlier too.
I mean, I think that her verydeft and delicate marks, uh,
which are juxtaposed with muchheavier passages of paint, uh,
(25:13):
thickly applied impasto ando andvarious ways of applying that
paint, I think there are manyparallels with the gestural mark
making that Martha Youngworthis known for and the way of
painting that Cy Twombly hasactually become internationally
(25:34):
celebrated for and in factregarded as one of the greatest
painters of the second half ofthe 20th century.
Thanks, nick.
Jeppe Curth (25:42):
Can we also talk about prices and which galleries
she's represented by presentedat the Essel Museum.
Nicholas Robinson (25:48):
Uh, and this was noteworthy really only for
the fact that the show wascurated by Albert Erlen, who is
(26:10):
one of the more celebrated umpractitioners of of gestural
abstraction in the 21st century,um, and and has become, you
know, a massive, a massive starwith, with incredibly high
prices, um.
So so the fact that her workwas recognized champions,
(26:33):
perhaps you might say by him,that was a bit of an eye opener.
And then, in 2014, um, a fullretrospective of her work was
held at the Kunsthalle Krems.
2018, she received the OskarKokoschka Prize, which is the
highest distinction that can bereceived for an artist in
Austria.
(26:54):
That same year, there was asolo exhibition, quite a wide
ranging, extensive show of herwork at the Albertina in Vienna,
which is a very prestigiousmuseum there.
And then in 2021, she wasawarded the Grand Austrian State
Prize, which I suppose is youcould describe as an outstanding
(27:15):
lifetime achievement award.
And currently there is a majorretrospective of her work at the
Guggenheim in Bilbao.
So her recognition amongstinstitutions has been growing
and her very singular approachto painting has been more and
more recognised over the lastdecade, plus In terms of her
(27:38):
commercial exhibiting career.
In 2017, she started showingwith Modern Art in London, which
is a great gallery and oftenreally recognized as a place
that is really good atidentifying interesting talents,
sometimes even somewhathistorically obscured ones.
(28:00):
She showed with FergusMcCaffrey, which is a really
nice gallery in New York whichspecializes somewhat in actually
Japanese abstraction.
But anyway, he also recognizedthat her work was deserving of a
wider audience and granted hera number of exhibitions.
And since 2021, she has beenrepresented exclusively by
(28:24):
Thaddeus Ropak.
She has been representedexclusively by today's Ropac,
and Ropac, of course, is aextremely eminent dealer with
premises in Salzburg, in Paris,in London and in Seoul in South
Korea.
And since she has been workingwith Ropac, her prices have gone
up a lot on the primary marketand have remained somewhat
(28:48):
consistently there for the lastfew years.
And just to give a few examplesa, a large painting that is
maybe two and a half meters uhacross and maybe one and a half
two meters tall, would costaround 300,000 euros today,
(29:09):
something of one meter,thereabouts one meter by 70, 80
centimeters.
That would be around 150,000euros.
And then, because of thesomewhat haphazard sizing of
these pieces of paper, it oftenmeans there's not exactly a
standardized size, but you mightexpect to see a 30, 40
(29:34):
centimeter painting for about 60, 65,000 euros, so quite modest,
and that's the price point thatthey would be at.
And then slightly larger, 50centimeters, 80,000 euros, and
so on and so forth.
You know, you can of coursesort of fill in the gaps, to
(29:55):
extrapolate.
You know what would make sense.
Jeppe Curth (29:58):
Thank you, nick.
Her auction record, actuallythis May 24, was $241,000 for a
1 meter 8 centimeter and 84centimeter work.
What does this tell us abouther secondary market?
(30:21):
That the same size is around150,000 euro in the primary
market, exactly secondary market.
That the same size is around150 000 euro in the primary
market exactly.
Nicholas Robinson (30:26):
Well, it tells us, obviously, that the
demand for her work is nowoutstripping supply.
Um, and you mentioned beforethat she was, you know,
reluctant to try and paintvoluminously, much more
interested in focusing on thatwhich she wanted to do.
So that suggests that there aremore people that want to buy
(30:47):
them than there are works.
Uh, I know that, uh, recentpresentations that we've seen at
uh in Basel, uh, even in umArco in Madrid, that these,
these paintings, even the modestsize ones.
So of course the modest sizeones are understandably selling
(31:08):
very easily because they're moredigestible scale and price.
But her work is consistentlyselling out and, you know, a
combination of just, I guess aglobal recognition of her work,
of course, coupled with theassociation with Ropak and
obviously linked to the workthat he is doing to promote and
(31:29):
establish her reputation, meansthat she's, you know, she's,
she's now a really a top.
Jeppe Curth (31:35):
A top artist can you say, is that good or bad?
Nicholas Robinson (31:38):
because it also makes room for what we call
flipping right well, yeah, ofcourse, that's what happens when
, when there are too few worksand more people that want them.
But I think I mean all theworks now come from, come
through Ropac, so I mean agallery of this caliber.
(32:01):
They, they have presumably theluxury of who to sell them to,
which means that they willcontrol the market as much as
they're able to do, butobviously some will come out now
and then, and there there arepaintings, of course, that have
been out in the world thatpredate her working relationship
with his gallery.
So so things like this will beones that come to the market and
(32:24):
what will happen is that, youknow, the prices will be either
the same or in excess of theprimary market prices, most
likely.
I mean, you know, you have toalso realize that she's 84 years
old and so, you know, peopleare aware that that that there's
a finite amount of work thatshe's going to be able to do um
(32:48):
henceforth.
So people will take the chanceto buy them while they can, um,
there's every chance that theywill, you know, become much more
expensive, as emblematic of,you know, this incredible kind
of abstraction which which never, which never goes out of style,
or or at least never goes awayin a market sense or in a demand
(33:12):
sense.
You know, classic work from the40s and the 50s, colour field
work from the 1960s, the kindsof artists that I've mentioned,
(33:34):
from the 70s.
Obviously there was a bigreturn to painting in the 1980s,
so we get these vagaries oftaste and fashion a little bit,
which you know tend to fluctuatea bit between figuration and
abstraction.
But fundamentally, you know,this is a kind of painting that
is very universal andsufficiently established that
(33:55):
the interest in it never reallywanes completely.
Jeppe Curth (34:00):
Okay.
So if we look back on Jung'sextensive career, what do you
believe will be her lastinglegacy in this art world, and
how does this influence ouradvice to collectors?
Nicholas Robinson (34:13):
Well, I mean I, you know any response to any.
Any work is, of course, asomewhat subjective one, but I
also feel like we trust theevidence of her recent
recognition by the market andthe changes in the volume of
sales that she's made the pricepoint that the work has achieved
(34:33):
, the secondary market resultsthat you've referenced.
I believe that she will come tobe recognized, one of these
seminal artists making a veryhighly personal, gestural,
expressive painting that, youknow, that also spans figuration
(34:55):
and abstraction, but that isreally, you know, just a very
distinctive, unique voice.
I mean her.
You know painters that came outof that sort of period, in the
in the 1970s.
I mean I mentioned Twombly andthen, and then, of course, I've
mentioned Joan Mitchell andBenglis.
I mean other painters like,even like Philip Guston, people
(35:17):
like that, people that have, youknow, a by virtue of very few
marks, leave no doubt as to whowas responsible for making that
painting.
I mean Jungwirth's paintingshave this visual signature in
them and I think such is thepotency of that mark making that
(35:39):
I think her legacy will be oneof the great painters of, you
know, the last 50 years.
Jeppe Curth (35:54):
So, nick, what will the future bring?
Nicholas Robinson (35:58):
Well, unfortunately I left my crystal
ball at home today, so I don'tknow, but I think that I think
that the the future will bringincreased recognition, um, and
you know more and more museumexhibitions, more and more
(36:20):
reverence and respect for youknow her, her achievement.
These are exquisite paintingswhich are so full of energy, so
raw and highly emotive.
And you know, when you havethis combination of of elements
in a painting, it's a highlysort of alchemical thing.
And and you know Jungwirth, shehas that, she has that.
(36:42):
So the future will probablyjust bring greater recognition
for that.
Well, I say it's a fact, but ofcourse it's an opinion, but
it's an opinion that's shared bysufficiently great numbers of
people that I think her placewill be assured.
Jeppe Curth (37:00):
For those that are new to Martha Youngwood's arts,
where would you recommend theybegin their exploration, and how
do this enhance their journeyas a collector?
Nicholas Robinson (37:12):
Well, it's possible to find some really
nice content about her work onthe Thaddeus Ropak website.
He's had not so manyexhibitions but enough that you
can see a few different bodiesof work.
You could see numerous reallynice examples.
And then there's all kinds ofquotations, some links to
(37:38):
written reviews and also somevideo interviews conducted with
Youngworth herself videointerviews conducted with
Youngworth herself, and she isan interesting interviewee.
She's very forthright, she'svery opinionated, she's a little
dry, um, but very kind ofdetermined and singular and
(38:00):
impressive, um, elegant andfierce in a really great way.
So it's kind of enjoyable toget a, an impression of her from
from, from that, from those Um,I would, I would do that.
And, of course, if you go ontoYouTube and search for her name,
then you will find other videos, probably conducted in
(38:21):
institutions, and what have youother than the ones that Ropak
has has made himself?
Jeppe Curth (38:25):
institutions, and what have you other than the
ones that ropak has, has madehimself good?
Uh, I think on my paper wecovered the most of young worth.
You have anything to add?
Nicholas Robinson (38:36):
no, um, go and have a look.
Jeppe Curth (38:39):
Uh, you'll be pleasantly surprised, I think,
if it's not an artist thatyou're already familiar with if
you have any questions or anyrequests, you are more than
welcome to write to us at infoat nordicartpartnerscom, and we
will do what we can to help you.
Thanks for listening and wehope to have you back for the
(39:00):
next episode.
Goodbye.
Hi and welcome to the Collector's Edge for Nordic
Art Partners.
In this episode, we willexplore the work and career of
Martha Jungwirth, an Austrianartist known for expressive and
dynamic paintings.
With me today is, as usual, ourart expert, N Robinson, and I'm
your host, jib, let's getstarted.
Nicholas Robinson (00:20):
It is with Alex Rotter at 400 million
Selling here at Christie's.
400 million dollars is the bidand the piece is sold.
We've all heard about it.
Sometimes it's front page newsImportant works of art are being
sold for incredible sums ofmoney.
But can you get involved andbecome a part of the exclusive
(00:42):
club yourself, and how do youget started while avoiding
buying the wrong things?
That's exactly what thispodcast is about.
This is the Collector's Edgefrom Nordic Art Partners, a
podcast for those of youinterested in the mechanics of
the art industry, want adviceabout putting money into art, or
(01:02):
simply want to buy somethingfor your walls, to beautify your
surroundings.
Whatever your objectives, it ispossible to put money into art
wisely, to be consideredthoughtful and well informed in
your choices and actions.
Welcome to the art ofcollecting with an eye for
curated beauty and practicalvalue.
(01:27):
Hi Nick, hi Nick, hi, Jeppe, howare you doing Very well.
Thank you and you.
Jeppe Curth (01:31):
Yeah, I'm good, thank you.
Nicholas Robinson (01:33):
Good to hear.
So, who are we going to talkabout today?
Today, we're going to talkabout Martha Jorwitz, an
Austrian painter.
Jeppe Curth (01:42):
Great, and why?
Nicholas Robinson (01:44):
Well, why do we talk about any artists on
this pod?
Because we love them because welove them, we believe in them,
we buy them, we sell them, wecollect them.
We talk about the things thatwe feel are relevant to our
personal and professionalinterests, where those two areas
coalesce yes we do so.
Jeppe Curth (02:06):
As always, can you walk us through?
Martha Jung was beginning ofthe art world.
What helped shape herdistinctive style?
Nicholas Robinson (02:13):
I can.
She was born in 1940 in Viennaand from 1956 to 1963 she
studied at the University ofApplied Arts there.
In 1961, whilst still a student, she was awarded the Monsignor
Otto Maurer Prize, which wasfollowed in 1964 by the Theodor
(02:33):
Koerner Prize, both of which aresomewhat local prizes for
up-and-coming talents.
But in 1966, she was awardedthe Juan Miro Prize, which I
suppose has a greater sort ofprestige internationally, which
of course was awarded in Spain.
(02:53):
So after she graduated, shetaught at the Academy of Applied
Arts there in Vienna, her almamater um, for a decade, from
1967 to 1977.
And then, um, in the middle ofthe 1970s, she began to create
these vibrantly colored,somewhat idiosyncratic
(03:15):
watercolors, um.
And this early work was todemonstrate a strong affinity
for the visceral, a strongaffinity for the visceral,
energetic abstraction that hadbeen, you know, the dominant
trend in abstract paintingthroughout the 20th century.
It had a very raw emotivequality which I guess we can
(03:39):
closely relate to Americanabstract expressionist, which
had also come to be termedaction painting, but also was
grounded in the Europeaninformel, which was a term
invented in the early 1950s bythe French critic Michel Tapier,
and it was largely designed toencompass different strands of
(04:05):
abstraction that he wasrecognizing.
Nowadays it's more closelyassociated with a particularly
European trend in abstraction.
Artists like Fautrier Hartung,mathieu Walsh, pierre Soulages,
mathieu Walsh, pierre Soulagesso her work perhaps can be
(04:28):
viewed as somewhat bridgingthese two tendencies.
But at this time, in the middleof the 1970s, pop art was still
a very dominant aesthetic Cameto prominence in the early 1960s
, but still very much holdingsway.
Minimalism another keydevelopment during the preceding
(04:50):
decade, characterized by itsvery rational principles, a lot
of rule-based art.
That was still also a verystrongly influential type of
practice and at this timeminimalism was evolving into
different strands which includedsome highly conceptual
(05:20):
approaches, perhaps epitomizedby artists like Larry Poons or
Paul Jenkins, kind of a decadent, late phase of this movement.
And when you look at work bythese artists from this period
it tends to seem actually ratherdated and very much of this
time.
So even in Vienna, painting hadbeen co-opted by a movement, a
(05:45):
group called the VienneseActionists, which was a
short-lived movement in the artscene there.
It was very transgressive,super aggressive, very masculine
, to develop painting but alsodevelop it through various
(06:10):
strands of art that wereincreasingly prevalent around
the world, things likeperformance art, happenings,
body art, so quite similar tokinds of things that were taking
place with the variousoffshoots of fluxus around
Europe.
So at this time there wasprobably a tendency for a
quieter, more highly personalvocabulary of abstraction to get
(06:31):
a little bit squeezed to themargins In America.
Also, in Italy, there was atremendously prominent artist
called Cy Twombly and I supposeone might consider his highly
personal lexicon of mark makinga little bit analogous to what
Martha was doing.
At the same time and duringthis phase, twombly, who'd been
(06:52):
working since the 1950s, wasperhaps coming into a very
sophisticated phase, I think, ofhis Roman notes, works of 1970,
natural history works from 1974, etc.
So that's, that's the sort ofbackdrop in terms of the kinds
of art production that wastaking place and the context in
(07:15):
which we can view theenvironment she was, she was
working in thanks, nick um.
Jeppe Curth (07:20):
Can you also walk us through the physical
properties, like what do theylook like, which materials is
she working with and also a bitabout her process?
Nicholas Robinson (07:31):
Yes, of course Her work was most often
executed on paper.
Early work is typicallycharacterized by being on this
sort of quite heavy paper Um,and then, in the more recent
past, the paper that she uses,has is a little more of a
(07:53):
material feature of the work.
Sometimes it's homemade,sometimes it's recycled from
other things, repurposed um, uh,surface, purposed surface for
her to paint on, and she wouldpaint on these pieces of paper
and then subsequently mount themon canvas.
So often you have a sort of aperimeter of the paper that is
(08:19):
visible within the externalboundary of the canvas surface,
so cut a little bit irregularlyand not cleanly aligned.
So you see this sort ofslightly irregular or misshapen
edge, certainly a kind ofasymmetry when you look at the
(08:40):
paper and the way that it isvisible, um, on the on on the
canvas.
So her, her process uh, wasalways she's always considered
it a very, very direct sort ofgestural rhythm involving the
body, and the main things thatshe focuses on making are
colored shapes, uh, or colorcolored fields and colored lines
(09:02):
, and these always tend to floatin quite an open field.
So you have a certainsparseness and a certain quality
of the pictorial surface notreally being filled in but
there's not a background tospeak of, just really empty
(09:24):
swathes of paper against whichthese coloured blotches are set
against.
And as her work has developedand evolved, she's become more
and more sort of interested inconcentrating on that which
really excites her, not onlyabout her subject matter but
also about the nature of hermark making.
(09:45):
And I should say that her workalternates a lot between pure
abstraction and figuration.
The works are even thefigurative works.
They're not very sort oftightly formed figures, they're
very gestural figures, very openfigures nonetheless, but they
still echo physical forms thatwe will recognize.
(10:06):
But as she's developed herprocess, she's sought more and
more to condense her marks,whilst sort of ridding herself
of anything that she woulddescribe as superfluous.
So the objective is not to endup with a sort of a filled in
picture but an open one whereall of the marks are sort of
(10:28):
very well chosen and somehowarticulate or punctuate the
surface, with both the sort ofsurface and the marks being very
much in balance with each other.
And the other key thing aboutthe way she works is that once a
mark is made it cannot beunmade or glossed over or edited
.
So even though she works or hasthe sort of appearance of
(10:52):
working quite quickly.
There still has to be a certainconsideration with the mark
that she makes.
So the fact that no editingtakes place will necessitate a
certain kind of painterlydecisiveness, because all traces
of her movements will remainvisible in the finished painting
.
So it is also the works becomea very intimate index of her
(11:19):
process, of her working,reflecting very much the way
that she and her body haveinteracted with that, with that
surface.
And this is this is a very keyidea for her in the way that she
makes the paintings and in theway that she wants the paintings
to be perceived A certain kindof visibility of this process,
(11:40):
the various sort of essentialnature of the lines and the
blotches and the subsequenttension that arises from them,
as a counterpoint to the spaceor openness she really wants
that the viewer is able todiscern or sort of deduce her
process from looking at the workand determine the kind of sort
of energy or whatever she's sortof physically committing to it.
(12:05):
So this is how she goes aboutmaking her marks of energy or
whatever she's sort ofphysically committing to it.
So this is how she goes aboutmaking her marks, and then she's
often kind of wrestling withthe notion of when a work is
finished and she describes asher working life has matured,
how she has learned to resistthe urge to apply a kind of a
(12:26):
perfect crowning mark to thework.
So this kind of also results inthe process of the work
carrying on even after it'sfinished, because she sort of
decided to stop, but of courseshe sort of feels that perhaps
she could have continued.
So this process of reading andcompleting the work continues,
even in the efforts of theviewer to look at and consider
(12:51):
the work.
So, in terms of the palettethat she uses, these sort of
main blocks that she that shedistributes across the surface,
or energy centers as shedescribes them, um, for a long
time there's been a very strongemphasis on on the color red and
all of its many variations.
So she will, uh, she willmitigate the red by sort of
(13:13):
diluting it, by blending it it alittle bit.
So you get these, you knowthese wonderful purples and
pinks, and what she tries to dois she tries to squeeze any
given color, in this case red,sort of to the limit of its
expressive range, and then shehas to make a determination
about how far she pushes itbefore.
(13:35):
The palette or color choicesort of degenerates into
becoming insipid, which issomething that she's keen to
avoid.
And she's done somethingsimilar with yellows, which she
has described as sometimes toxicand malignant.
So she's of course veryinterested in the expressive
(13:59):
potential of the colour or thetone of that colour itself.
And then she's also done agroup of works with a very heavy
dark forest green, which areworks that are related to to the
Congo, which of course aredesigned to echo the very thick
(14:20):
forest that one experiencesthere.
So, yeah, um, that's a littlebit how she goes about making,
making the paint.
She's very interested in the.
In the in the seventies shemade a lot of watercolors and in
in more recent times she'sgravitated more towards oil
paint.
She's very interested in oilpaints materiality.
She's very interested in itsdensity and how compact you can
(14:44):
make these marks, how you canbuild them up and then, through
varying kinds of strokes,sometimes denser, sometimes
heavy and pasto, and thenthey're very sort of a little
bit scrappy, scumbled with herfingers.
Um other kinds of actions thatshe performs on the surface.
Jeppe Curth (15:02):
I've also noticed that her very large works also
seems to be on paper.
Is this a medium she alwaysuses, and are there any works on
canvas?
Nicholas Robinson (15:13):
Well, the paintings are always on paper,
but then they are, after they'recompleted, they're mounted on
canvas.
And the reason that she workson paper isn't because she
doesn't want her paintings to bepaintings on canvas.
It's much more related to herprocess, related to her process,
(15:38):
um, and, and I guess it comes alittle from her initial
grounding as an artist whoworked primarily on paper with
watercolor Um, but now, whenshe's making these large format
works, the, the, the reason forchoosing paper is because it
actually, for her, enhances herprocess and the way it feels for
her to make a painting, theaction of making a brushstroke,
(15:58):
and that that is because a?
Uh, the paper has a an entirelysmooth surface, and her sort of
sensitivity to the?
Um, to making a gesture, tomaking a mark on the surface, is
such that when she would tryand do the same thing on a
(16:19):
directly onto a canvas, shewould notice that the, the nap
or the weave of the fabricsurface, however fine it might
be, that this would create acertain friction with the
bristles of the brush.
And this is something thatshe's keen to eradicate
completely so that she can getthis sort of fully fluid motion
(16:40):
of her brush stroke onto thesurface.
So, of course, this I mean Ialluded to this at the beginning
too with these sort of slightlyoddly shaped, irregular pieces
of paper mounted onto theseperfectly rectilinear canvas
surfaces.
So it does give them a littlebit of a non-conformist
appearance in some ways.
And, materially, some of thesupports she uses are even sort
(17:02):
of recycled, reused paper orcardboard and, as a result, they
can appear a bit tattered orshabby, non-precious, certainly
not conventionally beautiful,but, to her, beautiful because
they already have a, a built-inhistory that they wear and they
show, um, a little bit like the,the, the Japanese, uh, wabby,
(17:24):
sabby idea, I guess, um, and theother kind of interesting uh
effect, if you like, of ofutilizing paper as a medium, as
a support, is that what, nowthat she, she, um, makes oil
paints on these surfaces, theoil content of the paint itself
(17:44):
and also the linseed oil with,with which, uh, the pigments are
thinned, it means that these,these marks, can often sort of
bleed outwards onto the paper, alittle bit like chromatography,
but this is, you know, a mediumthat she's continually
experimenting with, to theextent that, in 2017, she
(18:06):
actually began to rip up heavypaper that she had had covering
the floor of her studio foryears, and so these surfaces
that became her paintingsurfaces had already accumulated
various layers of paint,splashes, grime, even footprints
onto them.
So even when she began to makeher paintings, the surface that
(18:29):
she was addressing was alreadyfar from pristine.
Jeppe Curth (18:32):
Okay, nick.
So what about her themes?
What themes does she explore?
Nicholas Robinson (18:36):
Well, her paintings sort of oscillate
between abstraction andfiguration, and we've learned
that she conveys the tactilesensations of painting through
her brushstrokes, her splatters,splashes, scrapes and pours.
But even though all of herworks have a very palpable sense
(18:57):
of immediacy and improvisation,actually a very sort of sense
of an intuitive approach tomaking marks, she does begin
each painting with what shecalls a conceptual pretext, and
this is essentially what becomesthe theme of any given work.
And it can begin with anencounter with an external model
(19:19):
, kind of a source idea, canalso be something, a photograph
from a newspaper or a magazine,so.
So she starts off with acentral idea and the painting
then emerges during the paintingprocess that I've described,
which she actually herselfdescribes as an adventure.
So, before the intuition andthe gesture comes some measure
(19:44):
of calculation, which of coursecompletely transforms this
original source into somethingvery different.
But if we want to break downher themes, I guess we can
characterize them as one of themis very sort of personal,
autobiographical, very kind ofliteral, physical depiction of
(20:05):
the act of making a painting,like a visual diary that traces
her physical engagement with thecreative process process.
So, because this process isfully honest, without the
editing that I mentioned open,transparent.
These works then are consideredby her as extensions of herself
or her physical person, and shehas.
(20:27):
She says drawing and paintingare a movement that runs through
me, so that that can come tosummarize this idea.
But other themes that she'sbeen interested in exploring are
art history she's been veryinterested in the work of Goya,
travel stories from Greekmythology Also, sometimes
(20:51):
contemporary political eventsare very moving to her.
A few years ago there were somehorrific bushfires in Australia
.
Thousands of animals werekilled in the wild burned, and
she was extremely moved by this,having always had a strong
affinity with animals.
So she made a whole series ofpaintings showing these sorts of
ossified animals that hadsuffered in this blaze, and
(21:16):
these, of course, were much morefigurative paintings.
So these are the themes.
That would be a good way tosummarize the kinds of topics
that interest her.
Jeppe Curth (21:33):
So, when advising clients to buy works by Martha
Youngwood, how do you situateher current art market trends
and historical context?
Nicholas Robinson (21:42):
Well, it's very interesting and I think in
a way her work appeals to usbecause we really admire what
she does.
And even though she's a matureartist who's been working for a
long time, even though she's a,you know, a mature artist who's
been working for a long time,it's only in the relatively
recent past that her work hasachieved an international
audience.
And I think, you know, often welook at artists who have been
(22:08):
distinguished by a really longand consistent practice but, for
whatever reason, the art marketat large has not fully
recognized that, and for quite along time that was the case
with Martha Youngworth.
Now it's no longer the case.
Her work is now becomingsomewhat expensive, but we can
get to that.
But in terms of situating herwork, well, we've described her
(22:32):
work as part of this sort ofexpressive painting trajectory
that originally began in the1970s.
I mean, there are other artistswho you could say are somewhat
similar to that.
An American painter who's alsoenjoying a renaissance, who was
also responsible for a verydistinctive personal vocabulary
(22:56):
of abstraction, was Joan Snyder,and she's also becoming much
more recognized and returning toprominence.
She actually had a much moredistinguished career in the
1970s than Martha Youngworth did, but that could also be down to
the fact that she's Americanrather than Austrian, which for
(23:19):
all intents and purposes isstill a relatively small country
and a little bit off the beatentrack when it comes to the main
centers of art production andconsumption.
But I think that, so that wouldbe one parallel career, I guess.
I think that, uh, so that wouldbe one parallel career, I guess
, um.
(23:43):
But I look at other artists umwho have you know, really come
to have massive amounts of ofrecognition just because of
their uh, the quality of theirwork, the distinctive vision
that they, that they um managedto communicate.
Um, joan Mitchell would be anartist, I suppose, who who of
course predates Youngworth butalso for years was overlooked,
probably mainly due to the factthat she was a woman working in
(24:08):
an extremely male world.
Linda Benglis, another, anotherexpressive uh artist um who who
kind of almost also treads afine line between figuration and
abstraction in a funny kind ofway, um also much more receiving
(24:28):
her due these days for herachievement and her contribution
than was formerly the case andher contribution than was
formerly the case.
So so I guess, you know, I, Isee, I see Martha's work as as
something that is very uniqueand sort of unto itself
qualitatively but also somehowcan be, can be conflated a
(24:48):
little bit with some of theseother artists, because of course
, you know, trends in a marketcan often be recognized and
identified when they take placewith different, different
practitioners.
Um, I I mentioned Twomblyearlier too.
I mean, I think that her verydeft and delicate marks, uh,
which are juxtaposed with muchheavier passages of paint, uh,
(25:13):
thickly applied impasto ando andvarious ways of applying that
paint, I think there are manyparallels with the gestural mark
making that Martha Youngworthis known for and the way of
painting that Cy Twombly hasactually become internationally
(25:34):
celebrated for and in factregarded as one of the greatest
painters of the second half ofthe 20th century.
Thanks, nick.
Jeppe Curth (25:42):
Can we also talk about prices and which galleries
she's represented by presentedat the Essel Museum.
Nicholas Robinson (25:48):
Uh, and this was noteworthy really only for
the fact that the show wascurated by Albert Erlen, who is
(26:10):
one of the more celebrated umpractitioners of of gestural
abstraction in the 21st century,um, and and has become, you
know, a massive, a massive starwith, with incredibly high
prices, um.
So so the fact that her workwas recognized champions,
(26:33):
perhaps you might say by him,that was a bit of an eye opener.
And then, in 2014, um, a fullretrospective of her work was
held at the Kunsthalle Krems.
2018, she received the OskarKokoschka Prize, which is the
highest distinction that can bereceived for an artist in
Austria.
(26:54):
That same year, there was asolo exhibition, quite a wide
ranging, extensive show of herwork at the Albertina in Vienna,
which is a very prestigiousmuseum there.
And then in 2021, she wasawarded the Grand Austrian State
Prize, which I suppose is youcould describe as an outstanding
(27:15):
lifetime achievement award.
And currently there is a majorretrospective of her work at the
Guggenheim in Bilbao.
So her recognition amongstinstitutions has been growing
and her very singular approachto painting has been more and
more recognised over the lastdecade, plus In terms of her
(27:38):
commercial exhibiting career.
In 2017, she started showingwith Modern Art in London, which
is a great gallery and oftenreally recognized as a place
that is really good atidentifying interesting talents,
sometimes even somewhathistorically obscured ones.
(28:00):
She showed with FergusMcCaffrey, which is a really
nice gallery in New York whichspecializes somewhat in actually
Japanese abstraction.
But anyway, he also recognizedthat her work was deserving of a
wider audience and granted hera number of exhibitions.
And since 2021, she has beenrepresented exclusively by
(28:24):
Thaddeus Ropak.
She has been representedexclusively by today's Ropac,
and Ropac, of course, is aextremely eminent dealer with
premises in Salzburg, in Paris,in London and in Seoul in South
Korea.
And since she has been workingwith Ropac, her prices have gone
up a lot on the primary marketand have remained somewhat
(28:48):
consistently there for the lastfew years.
And just to give a few examplesa, a large painting that is
maybe two and a half meters uhacross and maybe one and a half
two meters tall, would costaround 300,000 euros today,
(29:09):
something of one meter,thereabouts one meter by 70, 80
centimeters.
That would be around 150,000euros.
And then, because of thesomewhat haphazard sizing of
these pieces of paper, it oftenmeans there's not exactly a
standardized size, but you mightexpect to see a 30, 40
(29:34):
centimeter painting for about 60, 65,000 euros, so quite modest,
and that's the price point thatthey would be at.
And then slightly larger, 50centimeters, 80,000 euros, and
so on and so forth.
You know, you can of coursesort of fill in the gaps, to
(29:55):
extrapolate.
You know what would make sense.
Jeppe Curth (29:58):
Thank you, nick.
Her auction record, actuallythis May 24, was $241,000 for a
1 meter 8 centimeter and 84centimeter work.
What does this tell us abouther secondary market?
(30:21):
That the same size is around150,000 euro in the primary
market, exactly secondary market.
That the same size is around150 000 euro in the primary
market exactly.
Nicholas Robinson (30:26):
Well, it tells us, obviously, that the
demand for her work is nowoutstripping supply.
Um, and you mentioned beforethat she was, you know,
reluctant to try and paintvoluminously, much more
interested in focusing on thatwhich she wanted to do.
So that suggests that there aremore people that want to buy
(30:47):
them than there are works.
Uh, I know that, uh, recentpresentations that we've seen at
uh in Basel, uh, even in umArco in Madrid, that these,
these paintings, even the modestsize ones.
So of course the modest sizeones are understandably selling
(31:08):
very easily because they're moredigestible scale and price.
But her work is consistentlyselling out and, you know, a
combination of just, I guess aglobal recognition of her work,
of course, coupled with theassociation with Ropak and
obviously linked to the workthat he is doing to promote and
(31:29):
establish her reputation, meansthat she's, you know, she's,
she's now a really a top.
Jeppe Curth (31:35):
A top artist can you say, is that good or bad?
Nicholas Robinson (31:38):
because it also makes room for what we call
flipping right well, yeah, ofcourse, that's what happens when
, when there are too few worksand more people that want them.
But I think I mean all theworks now come from, come
through Ropac, so I mean agallery of this caliber.
(32:01):
They, they have presumably theluxury of who to sell them to,
which means that they willcontrol the market as much as
they're able to do, butobviously some will come out now
and then, and there there arepaintings, of course, that have
been out in the world thatpredate her working relationship
with his gallery.
So so things like this will beones that come to the market and
(32:24):
what will happen is that, youknow, the prices will be either
the same or in excess of theprimary market prices, most
likely.
I mean, you know, you have toalso realize that she's 84 years
old and so, you know, peopleare aware that that that there's
a finite amount of work thatshe's going to be able to do um
(32:48):
henceforth.
So people will take the chanceto buy them while they can, um,
there's every chance that theywill, you know, become much more
expensive, as emblematic of,you know, this incredible kind
of abstraction which which never, which never goes out of style,
or or at least never goes awayin a market sense or in a demand
(33:12):
sense.
You know, classic work from the40s and the 50s, colour field
work from the 1960s, the kindsof artists that I've mentioned,
(33:34):
from the 70s.
Obviously there was a bigreturn to painting in the 1980s,
so we get these vagaries oftaste and fashion a little bit,
which you know tend to fluctuatea bit between figuration and
abstraction.
But fundamentally, you know,this is a kind of painting that
is very universal andsufficiently established that
(33:55):
the interest in it never reallywanes completely.
Jeppe Curth (34:00):
Okay.
So if we look back on Jung'sextensive career, what do you
believe will be her lastinglegacy in this art world, and
how does this influence ouradvice to collectors?
Nicholas Robinson (34:13):
Well, I mean I, you know any response to any.
Any work is, of course, asomewhat subjective one, but I
also feel like we trust theevidence of her recent
recognition by the market andthe changes in the volume of
sales that she's made the pricepoint that the work has achieved
(34:33):
, the secondary market resultsthat you've referenced.
I believe that she will come tobe recognized, one of these
seminal artists making a veryhighly personal, gestural,
expressive painting that, youknow, that also spans figuration
(34:55):
and abstraction, but that isreally, you know, just a very
distinctive, unique voice.
I mean her.
You know painters that came outof that sort of period, in the
in the 1970s.
I mean I mentioned Twombly andthen, and then, of course, I've
mentioned Joan Mitchell andBenglis.
I mean other painters like,even like Philip Guston, people
(35:17):
like that, people that have, youknow, a by virtue of very few
marks, leave no doubt as to whowas responsible for making that
painting.
I mean Jungwirth's paintingshave this visual signature in
them and I think such is thepotency of that mark making that
(35:39):
I think her legacy will be oneof the great painters of, you
know, the last 50 years.
Jeppe Curth (35:54):
So, nick, what will the future bring?
Nicholas Robinson (35:58):
Well, unfortunately I left my crystal
ball at home today, so I don'tknow, but I think that I think
that the the future will bringincreased recognition, um, and
you know more and more museumexhibitions, more and more
(36:20):
reverence and respect for youknow her, her achievement.
These are exquisite paintingswhich are so full of energy, so
raw and highly emotive.
And you know, when you havethis combination of of elements
in a painting, it's a highlysort of alchemical thing.
And and you know Jungwirth, shehas that, she has that.
(36:42):
So the future will probablyjust bring greater recognition
for that.
Well, I say it's a fact, but ofcourse it's an opinion, but
it's an opinion that's shared bysufficiently great numbers of
people that I think her placewill be assured.
Jeppe Curth (37:00):
For those that are new to Martha Youngwood's arts,
where would you recommend theybegin their exploration, and how
do this enhance their journeyas a collector?
Nicholas Robinson (37:12):
Well, it's possible to find some really
nice content about her work onthe Thaddeus Ropak website.
He's had not so manyexhibitions but enough that you
can see a few different bodiesof work.
You could see numerous reallynice examples.
And then there's all kinds ofquotations, some links to
(37:38):
written reviews and also somevideo interviews conducted with
Youngworth herself videointerviews conducted with
Youngworth herself, and she isan interesting interviewee.
She's very forthright, she'svery opinionated, she's a little
dry, um, but very kind ofdetermined and singular and
(38:00):
impressive, um, elegant andfierce in a really great way.
So it's kind of enjoyable toget a, an impression of her from
from, from that, from those Um,I would, I would do that.
And, of course, if you go ontoYouTube and search for her name,
then you will find other videos, probably conducted in
(38:21):
institutions, and what have youother than the ones that Ropak
has has made himself?
Jeppe Curth (38:25):
institutions, and what have you other than the
ones that ropak has, has madehimself good?
Uh, I think on my paper wecovered the most of young worth.
You have anything to add?
Nicholas Robinson (38:36):
no, um, go and have a look.
Jeppe Curth (38:39):
Uh, you'll be pleasantly surprised, I think,
if it's not an artist thatyou're already familiar with if
you have any questions or anyrequests, you are more than
welcome to write to us at infoat nordicartpartnerscom, and we
will do what we can to help you.
Thanks for listening and wehope to have you back for the
(39:00):
next episode.
Goodbye.
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