WALTER DE MARIA (1935-2013) Untitled 63 1/2 x 67 1/4 in (161.3 x 170.8 cm) (Painted in 1962)

WALTER DE MARIA (1935-2013) Untitled signed and dated 'De Maria 1962' (lower right) oil on canvas 63 1/2 x 67 1/4 in (161.3 x 170.8 cm) Painted in 1962 Footnotes: Provenance Gifted directly from the artist to the present owner in 1966. Literature E. Childress & M. Childress (eds.), The Object, the Action, the Aesthetic Feeling, New York, 2023, p. 129 (illustrated). With only one owner, and unseen for nearly sixty years, Untitled (1962), is a rare work from a period in the conceptual artist's career in which he was actively experimenting across artistic categories, from drawing and painting to music and interactive sculpture. After studying history and art at the University of California, Berkeley, De Maria moved to New York City in 1960, at the age of 25. Though trained as a painter, the artist's practice would evolve to focus on sculpture and installation, ultimately becoming a titan in the Conceptual, Minimal and Land Art movements, most known for his outsized masterworks such as the iconic Mile Long Drawing (1968), in the Mojave Desert and The Lightning Field (1977), in New Mexico. The early 60s found the artist firmly entrenched in the bohemian milieu of downtown New York. From performing as a drummer in The Primitives, an early iteration of the band that would become The Velvet Underground, as well as participating in happenings with fellow artists Robert Whitman, with whom he co-founded the gallery 9 Great Jones Street, this was a time of broad discovery for De Maria. His focus on the experiential can be traced to this early period, when De Maria was making minimal, participatory, wooden sculptures such as Boxes For Meaningless Work (1961), and Ball Drop (1962), as well as his Invisible Drawings and a small number of works on canvas, including Untitled. These drawings and paintings featured landscapes and objects lightly rendered within large, spare compositions that evoked the expanse of the desert land he would later venture into. Containing seemingly incongruous vignettes, Untitled includes ideas he was considering at the time, such as the situational box sculptures, represented by the blue rectangle, and energy fields, represented by the yellow 'rays'. Astonishingly, the sun over the mountains, and parallel lines prefigure De Maria's best-known earthworks, Mile Long Drawing (1968), in particular. De Maria gave Untitled to his friend and neighbor, Lewis Oliver, Jr., shortly after it was painted, a gift for his assistance in constructing a wooden sculpture. The other six paintings from this series can all be found in a public institution, the Menil Collection in Houston. Dating a year prior, the six paintings show a range of subjects, from the absurdist Tale of the Two Fighting Boxes, to the topical Man on the Moon Painting to the singular Blue Rat. Standing at nearly double the size of the other paintings, Untitled shows the artist's expanding ambition. Light, land, nature, energy – all exhibited on the present canvas, hallmarks of the artist's later and most celebrated practice. Playing such a key role in the development of minimalism, conceptual and land art, De Maria's works can be found in the most august institutions around the globe, including the Kunstmuseum, Basel; the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC and the Dia Art Foundation, New York. He has furthermore had numerous solo exhibitions around the world, including those organized by the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1981), the Moderna Museet, Stockholm (1988) and the Menil Collection, Houston (2011). This lot is subject to the following lot symbols: W W If the lot is not picked up immediately following the auction it may be removed to an offsite storage location for collection. Please contact the salesroom location for further details including dates of removal and applicable charges. For further information on this lot please visit Bonhams.com For further information about this lot please visit the lot listing