Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 11

Francesco Clemente
Clemente Untitled B: surreal mythical landscape, voyage with ocean, Venus, snake

1986

About the Item

A black and white, large-scale surreal mythical landscape of an ocean voyage, with a snake wrapped around a clock, a ship, Venus sculpture, greek urns, and snakes, printed in black on translucent Japanese paper. Paper: three panels, total 65.5 x 199 cm. / 25.75 x 78.25 in. Lithograph in three panels on buff mould made Okawara (Kozo) paper. Edition 100. Signed and numbered by the artist. Published by Petersburg Press. Clemente drew this lithograph while working on his large scale de luxe book “The Departure of the Argonaut”, both of which were exhibited on publication at MoMA, New York in 1986. “The Departure of the Argonaut” includes 49 original lithographs overlaying the text of Alberto Savinio (the brother of Giorgio de Chirico). In both “Untitled B” and “The Departure of the Argonaut” Clemente’s surreal, mythological imagery, draws on themes of mortality, eternity, sexuality, and the fluidiity of life. This epic, three-part print portrays a surreal scene stretching across the paper. To the left, animals sit in row: a chimpanzee, crab, lemur, tapir, cockroach, and other species sit happily side-by-side, as if lined up for Noah's ark. Four figures stand above them in a row, assuming the pose of Rodin's The Thinker. To the right, a bisected nude female figure is flanked by urns. A snake-print ocean divided into long strips stretches across the middle of the print, its waves transforming into the body of a coiled snake. The clock, wrapped tightly by the snake, reads 11:55. A shrew hides beneath the snake. The ocean's stripes turn into a storm of capsized boats and urns: smoke rises from the striations, curling into dots and letters that curl into a spiral vortex. Fluid brushstrokes and airy, sketched marks capture the movement of the ocean, its waves marking the passage of time. Capsized ships imply the inevitable end of life. Clemente contrasts the traditional Memento Mori imagery of a clock, marking the mortality of man, with the snake, a symbol of renewal and rebirth. Here, the clock reads 10:45, while in this work’s companion piece, Untitled A, the clock has almost struck midnight. A nude woman displays male genitalia, containing the means for human reproduction in just one body. The promise of renewal in Noah's ark is dashed on the waves with the Grecian urns. John Keats' poem "Ode to a Grecian Urn" describes the urn's beauty as eternal, yet lacking the vitality and warmth of life itself, and ultimately serving as a reminder of the brevity of existence. The urns can be seen, too, as the ephemeral vessel of the human body, broken in the waves. And while Clemente's broken urns and boats suggest the inevitable end of things, the curved lines and spirals of Untitled promise the possibility of renewal. A prodigious producer of paintings, drawing, and prints, Clemente frequently depicts the nude human form, including intimate self-portraits and couples in erotic embrace. Clemente’s visual language combines art-historical reference and ancient mythology with images of nature, imbuing figurative scenes with a dreamy spirituality. Sex, violence, death and birth provide equal inspiration for Clemente’s nomadic soul-searching. Clemente was born in Naples, Italy, and raised surrounded by the images of Greco-Roman myth and the art of Italian masters. At the age of 21, he travelled to India, where he would later live for a time, immersing himself in the cultural and spiritual traditions of Madras. He currently divides his time between New York, India and Rome. A fixture of the New York art scene since the 1980’s, he has exhibited most recently at Blain Southern Gallery, London and Berlin; James Cohan Shanghai, Daniel Templon, Paris; and Mary Boone, New York. This lithograph is in the collection of Tate, London; Des Moines Art Centre, Des Moines and the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra amongst others.
  • Creator:
    Francesco Clemente (1952, Italian)
  • Creation Year:
    1986
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 26.75 in (67.95 cm)Width: 119.25 in (302.9 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    This print is not pre-owned and has been stored in a flat file since its publication.
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1211210671902
More From This SellerView All
  • Vladimir: Greek column abstract etching and screenprint, handmade paper frame
    By Michael Hurson
    Located in New York, NY
    An abstract black and white shadowbox drawing of a Greek column, with a unique handmade, hand printed, leather brown wood grain frame. According to Roberta Smith, Michael Hurson "......
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph, Intaglio, Screen

  • Clemente Untitled A: surreal mythical landscape, voyage with ocean and animals
    By Francesco Clemente
    Located in New York, NY
    A black and white, large-scale surreal mythical landscape of an ocean voyage, with a snake wrapped around a clock, female figure, greek urns, and an...
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • The Departure of the Argonaut by Francesco Clemente Alberto Sauvinio (portfolio)
    By Francesco Clemente
    Located in New York, NY
    The Departure of the Argonaut (1918) is the travelogue and wartime diary of Alberto Savinio, one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century Italian arts and letters. Clemente's acco...
    Category

    1980s Abstract Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Vintage David Hockney Poster Miami New World Festival of Arts 1982 palm trees
    By David Hockney
    Located in New York, NY
    This vintage David Hockney poster features whimsical imagery and rich, bright color. Palm trees, boats in the ocean, a cafe, and a bodega with an elaborate iron-wrought balcony sit a...
    Category

    1980s Realist Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • The Departure of the Argonaut (book)
    By Francesco Clemente
    Located in New York, NY
    The Departure of the Argonaut (1918) is the travelogue and wartime diary of Alberto Savinio, one of the seminal figures in twentieth-century Italian arts and letters. Clemente's acco...
    Category

    1980s Abstract Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Rainbow: colorful Rosenquist pop art with gold, turquoise, purple, pink, blue
    By James Rosenquist
    Located in New York, NY
    A classic Rosenquist pop art composition with gold, turquoise, purple, pink, blue, green and yellow. Characteristically surreal and graphic, Rainbow incorporates bold geometric forms with painterly washes of color and airbrush texture. Rosenquist's signature gleaming metallic chrome texture can be seen on an inverted fork behind the glass of a golden window. Paper 25.25 x 30.25 in. / 64 x 77 cm Image 17 x 21.5 in. / 43 x 54.5 cm Lithograph with screenprint on cream-coloured Hodgkinson handmade Wookey Hole paper. Edition of 75 with 8 color trial proofs: this impression 8/8. Signed and dated 1972 lower right in pencil; titled, numbered 8/8 and labeled Color Trial Proof lower left in pencil. This graphic, colorful scene is based on Rosenquist’s 1962 oil painting of the same name, collected in the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. The artist used real glass and wood to construct windows for the original painting – here, house siding is abstracted to bold, black horizontal lines, and the window glass is printed in dark gold ink. At the top of the composition, a window with shutters pushed open is colored in turquoise, with sharp black shadows. The left-hand window pane is shattered, and to the right, the outline of an oversized...
    Category

    1970s Pop Art Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph, Screen

You May Also Like
  • Untitled (Airport Paris)
    By Peter Fischli & David Weiss
    Located in New York, NY
    Peter Fischli / David Weiss Untitled (Airport Paris) 2008 Offset lithograph on three sheets Each sheet: 51 1/4 x 32 5/8 inches; 130 x 83 cm Edition of 100 Signed and numbered in ink ...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • East 15th Street (Faberman 8)
    By Yvonne Jacquette
    Located in New York, NY
    Yvonne Jacquette EAST 15th Street (Faberman 8), 1974 Lithograph in five colors on Arches Cover paper Hand signed by the artist on lower right front This is a rare pencil signed proof, aside from the regular edition of 125. Printed by Paul Narkiewicz and Chip Elwell; published by Brooke Alexander, Inc. (to benefit the Horace Mann School in NYC) 17 3/8 × 21 1/8 inches Unframed Other examples of this exquisite work are in major museums and collections such as the Whitney Museum of American Art. Literature: Aerial Muse: The Art of Yvonne Jacquette by Hilarie Faberman (2002-01-29), 8. Yvonne Jacquette Biography: Yvonne Jacquette (1934 - 2023) was born on December 15, 1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and grew up in Stamford, Connecticut. She attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence from 1952 to 1955, when she moved to New York City. She continued to live and work in New York City, as well as in Searsmont, Maine. A flight to San Diego in 1969 sparked Jacquette’s interest in aerial views, after which she began flying in commercial airliners to study cloud formations and weather patterns. She soon started sketching and painting the landscape as seen from above, beginning a process that has developed into a defining element of her art. Her first nocturnal painting with an aerial perspective, East River View At Night (1978), inspired a lasting exploration of the effects of bright lights, reflections, and indistinct objects set against surrounding darkness. The city of New York was a special focus of Jacquette’s. In the 1980s and 1990s, she chartered planes from Teterborough Airport in New Jersey to circle the city while she sketched the scene below. She also worked from the Empire State Building, and, from 1974 through early 2001, often used empty offices or an enclosed deck at the World Trade Center. Jacquette painted aerial landscapes across the country, as well as city views in San Francisco, Chicago, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Vancouver, Tokyo, and New Orleans. After a trip to Hong Kong in 1990, she began incorporating composite viewpoints into her work, realizing that she could better express the city’s many layers of complexity by creating new spatial configurations through multiple perspectives. Since then, she continued to base her paintings on pastels made from direct observation, while frequently enlivening compositions through heightened color, repetition of certain elements, and manipulation of light, scale, and perspective. As she approached the rendering of space with greater freedom, her paintings became both more inventive and disjunctive, combining aspects of observation, memory, and imagination.  Jacquette participated in her first group show in New York City in 1962 and has been exhibiting steadily since. In 1965 she had a one-person exhibition at Swarthmore College, PA. In 1983, the St. Louis Art Museum organized her first major museum exhibition. A comprehensive retrospective, Aerial Muse: The Art of Yvonne Jacquette, originated at the Cantor Center for Visual Arts, Stanford University, CA in 2002 and traveled to Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, ME; Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City; and the Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY. In 2008, the Museum of the City of New York organized Under New York Skies: Nocturnes by Yvonne Jacquette, which was shown concurrently with Street Dance, an exhibition of photography by her late husband, Rudy Burckhardt...
    Category

    1970s Contemporary Landscape Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph, Pencil, Graphite

  • Boardwalk of Atlantic City lithograph by Melanie Taylor
    Located in Pasadena, CA
    Melanie Taylor Kent "Boardwalk of Atlantic City" Signed Numbered Lithograph Art. Wow this is an amazing signed and numbered print 166/500 of the At...
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Pink Blossoms - Original Lithograph by Martine Goeyens - 2000s
    By Martine Goeyens
    Located in Roma, IT
    Pink blossoms is an original colored lithograph realized by the Belgian artist Martine Goeyens. On the back, the label of the certificate of authenticity by the "Fondazione Di Paolo...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Pink Blossoms - Lithograph by Martine Goeyens - 2000s
    By Martine Goeyens
    Located in Roma, IT
    Pink blossoms is an original colored lithography artwork realized by the Belgian artist Martine Goeyens in the years 2000s. On the back, the label of the certificate of authenticity...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Landscape Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

  • Landscape - Original Lithograph by Michel Estèbe - 1980s
    By Michel Estebe
    Located in Roma, IT
    Landscape is an Original Lithograph realized by Michel Estèbe. Hand signed on the lower right margin. Good conditions. Michel Estèbe is a french artist born in Talence. He studied ...
    Category

    1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

    Materials

    Lithograph

Recently Viewed

View All