Interior designer Nicole Hollis and Bay Area architect Stephen Willrich blend drama and elegance in their design of our client's home, allowing our collection of contemporary masterpieces to shine.
As collaboration is one of our core principles, it was so fulfilling curating this home with the infinitely talented interior designer Nicole Hollis and Bay Area architect Stephen Willrich. Organic and clean architectural lines flow throughout the house, meeting seamlessly with Hollis’ signature, bold aesthetic. It’s a pairing that beautifully emphasizes the client’s artwork, letting each piece have its own space to shine.
California multimedia artist Doug Aitken brings an unexpected element of fun to this bold library with his signature medium, the lightbox.
Perfectly nestled in the Guggenheim inspired main staircase is our favorite ‘art moment’ of the whole project — this sumptuous bronze pumpkin by the global sensation Yayoi Kusama. We love how Kusama’s iconic polka dots mesh with the organic form of this sculpture, connecting the foyer of this home with the natural world just outside the front door.
Interior designer Nicole Hollis created an iconic dining room with custom wood paneling, a distressed metal fireplace, and artful furniture, making the process of curating the client’s collection for this unique space an absolute joy. We placed iconic works by Yayoi Kusama, Keith Haring, Donald Judd and Jenny Holzer to add more personality and cultural significance to the space.
This sophisticated and minimal work on paper by American street artist and social activist Keith Haring, sings against the tonality of Nicole Hollis’ custom walls of the dining room.
The inclusion of Glenn Ligon’s intimate work on paper, created with oil stick, coal dust, and acrylic on paper, is a contemplative surprise on our client’s marble kitchen counter. Ligon is renowned for his text-based paintings, which are inspired by the influential writing of 20th century titans such as James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Jean Genet, and Richard Pryor. Ligon describes the materials employed in this artwork as “beautiful, black, and shiny, with all of the racial overtones that trio of adjectives collectively implies.”
Given that this collection began with a love of Minimalism, it was very important to acquire a powerful work by the progenitor of the movement, American artist Donald Judd. This iconic red “stack” work is emblematic of his commitment to using repeated forms to explore space and how it can be used
German artist Georg Baselitz utilizes a vibrant palette and his characteristic raw style to evoke emotional impact. Notably, Baselitz employs an inverted portrayal of figures, leading us to engage with his compelling compositions and explore the intriguing tension between representation and interpretation.
Rashid Johnson’s Surrender Paintings are the latest iteration of his Anxious Men series, exploring the rise of anxiety and its connection to the larger societal angst around global immigration, police brutality etc. In this piece, Johnson applies multiple layers of oil paint, and then removing them to reveal the layers underneath. Johnson says of these washed-out, ghostly paintings: “They were cathartic, not simple – but every time I made them I felt alive, and unburdened.”
While attending RISD in the late 90s, Jenny Holzer began experimenting with language in her artwork. The sentence engraved on this marble bench, “ THE UNTHINKABLE CAN BE THOUGHT,” is part of her Truism series(short, concise statements or aphorisms that Holzer began creating in 1977), aiming to elicit diverse reactions and inviting contemplation by presenting Holzer’s perspectives.
This enigmatic work on linen by American artist George Condo, known for his captivating “psychological cubism” style, presents a compelling fusion of provocative figurative elements. Condo’s work is populated by a cast of characters whose bulging eyes, bulbous cheeks, proliferating limbs, and hideous over- and under-bites set them apart as a singular species as seen in this piece.
In 2019 the acclaimed artist Lorna Simpson opened her first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth with a suite of new, large-scale paintings inspired by the arctic landscape and theories on color, race and identity.
Former aerospace engineer Fred Eversley is an important exponent of postwar contemporary American art. Untitled (parabolic lens), (1969) (2018) is a product of Eversley’s fascination with color and numerous meditations on the optical mechanics of human sight. Eversley’s obsession with the parabola recalls the parabolic curve as the only shape that is able to direct all energy to a single focal point.
Renowned for the diverse range of mediums employed in his artistic practice, Sterling Ruby creates his WIDW paintings, named after the abbreviation for “window”. By layering vivid acrylic and oil paint, adhering squares of cardboard and patterned fabric onto canvas.
Here Bradford has incorporated half-hidden networks of nylon rope, which fracture the field of white and red paint, occasionally revealing the collaged paper beneath. Bradford is acclaimed for this unique artistic language, known as “social abstraction” rooted in his experiences growing up in Los Angeles.
Swiss-born artist Carol Bove showcases her signature assemblage style in this unique sculpture, part of her ongoing “collage sculptures” series, where the steel’s intricate folds and perceived lightness create a tension that reflects and influences perception.
Our clients have long been interested in media and advertising and were drawn to the work of Richard Prince, an artist known for pioneering the use of appropriated imagery. After a long search, we secured this piece which combines the Joke series and Prince’s iconic Marlborough Cowboy imagery with the elegant collaged background.
Since the 1970s, Richard Prince has been dismantling and questioning American archetypes and institutions through an art style characterized by the appropriation of various imagery. His continuing obsession with the American cowboy prototype and its proximity to the culture of Western masculinity reveals itself in Untitled (2020). Prince layers a joke about “two men at a bar” over highly saturated cowboy imagery, referring to the artist’s Jokes series that speaks to white, middle-class America’s sexual fantasies and frustrations in the 80s.
Alice Neel, one of the twentieth century’s most celebrated artists, was a figurative painter best known for her radical real portraits of the people she encountered throughout her life. This painting captures the essence of Neel’s granddaughter, Elizabeth, as she sits leisurely in a blue leotard and pink ballet shoes, engaging in a tender conversation with Neel.
Scandinavian artist, Olafur Eliasson, brings a refined minimalism and environmental justice to his art practice.
Here the tranquil ambiance created by Nicole Hollis’ warm-toned interiors are complemented by a Paper Drop photograph by German artist Wolfgang Tillmans. In his Paper Drop series, Tillmans captures the sculptural quality of curled or rolled photograph paper, creating a three-dimensional interplay of light and shadow.
One of our favorite series is his Paper Drops works, where images of photographic paper are folded back on itself in a teardrop shape.
Syrian-born artist Diana Al-Hadid is well-known for her sculptural paintings that combine drawing and sculpture. This piece exemplifies her methodical layering and controlled drips, resulting in an enthralling composition that blurs the lines between sculpture and painting while delving into larger narratives of power, urban development, and cultural progression.
American artist Lisa Yuskavage has long drawn inspiration from popular culture to populate her complex figurative paintings. Yellow Studio is part of a series of color-field compositions depicting the artist studio. Here Yuskavage captures the essence of art-making, portraying the interiority of the creative process and surrounding space.
Renowned for his provocative and controversial photography, Robert Mapplethorpe was driven by his fascination with composition, balance, and beauty. His works defied classical aesthetic norms, featuring stylized compositions of nudes and delicate flower still lifes. As his health declined, Mapplethorpe shifted his focus to photographing inanimate objects, seeking control and escaping the discomfort of human gaze. Mapplethorpe’s floral portraits showcased the intricacy and allure of nature through his lens.
This work by Mary Weatherford goes beyond the typical two-dimensional abstract paintings by adding a slash of her signature neon across the front of canvas.
This painting American artist Amy Sillman pushes painterly concerns to their extremes, blurring the boundaries between abstraction and figuration, and traditional painting and comic illustration.Through a skillful combination of silkscreen, paint, and drawing techniques, Sillman explores the complex interplay between color and line, flatness and depth.
Best known for his ongoing investigation of perspective, Grotjahn combines gesture and geometry reflecting a range of art-historical influences from Russian Constructivism to Op Art.
In Marilyn Minter’s Sauna series, she challenges the representation of women in art by meticulously constructing large-scale paintings with enamel paint, presenting her subjects as empowered objects of desire behind a steamy and abstracted surface.
Yoshitomo Nara’s endearing paintings, drawings, and sculptures are inspired by intimate encounters with people and the environment, and are often characterized by both thoughtful introspection and meditation on global socio-political issues. The delightful Miss. Smooth-Flat (2021) demonstrates Nara’s proficiency in conveying human expression using a diverse range of materials. Indeed, it transcends the classic two-dimensionality of Japanese painting traditions while preserving the beloved caricaturesque style of the Neo-pop movement with which Nara aligns himself.
American artist Richard Serra has not only made significant contributions to sculpture but has also revitalized the traditional medium of drawing, which now plays a pivotal role in his sculptural practice. This artwork demonstrates Serra’s extraordinary skill in capturing the monumental and weighty essence of sculpture on paper.
Gerhard Richter’s stylistic versatility drove him to experiment with the medium of watercolor at the midpoint of his career. The richness of Untitled (10.3.91) (1991) was achieved through the meticulous layering of moderately diluted watercolor, culminating in a remarkable exploration of the opacity and saturation of paint.
A pivotal figure in German contemporary art, Gerhard Richter is lauded for his innovative and prolific investigations in painting. His multimedia output has spanned the likes of photorealism, abstract painting, photography, and even glass sculpture.
Growing up during the economic boom of postwar Japan, which witnessed an influx of American popular culture, Yoshitomo Nara’s works are informed by comic books and cartoons, Walt Disney, anime, manga and punk rock. His subjects are frequently depicted in a doe-eyed, cartoonesque manner, and rendered with the two-dimensionality of traditional Japanese painting.