Anton Henning

Anton Henning Pin-Up No 49 2001 Oil on canvas 126 x 157 cm. Framed. Monogrammed and dated 'AH01'. Monogrammed, dated and titled 'Pin-up No 49 AH 01.' verso on stretcher. Provenance Entwistle Gallery, London (label verso); Karl & Faber, Munich, 04.12.2015, lot 958; private collection, Baden-Wuerttemberg Exhibitions London 2001 (Entwistle Gallery), Anton Henning, Interieur No.79 & Metabolism at Dusk Anton Henning is a multidisciplinary artist who creates paintings, sculptures and often room installations including modernist elements derived from the world of interior design. His painterly style consists of markmaking which oscillates between abstract lines, colour fields or figurative series verging on humours banalities, as well as Kitsch and Pornography. Henning is self-taught, he paraphrases other artists such as Picabia, Matisse or Picasso. At the same time many of his installations in institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt or at the Ausstellungshalle am Hawerkamp in Münster have consisted of rooms, which the viewer had to enter. As opposed to the classical White Cube these spaces provided an opportunity for him to show his art within their ideal context. Making it a visual as well as physical experience, and thus bridging the diverging directions between fracturing (Picasso) and re-using (Duchamp). His Pin-up series imbues soft colours and females in relaxed and confident poses. Sometimes more or less sexual there is a sense of seeing subjects depicted which are comfortable in their bodies. There is a sense of immediacy without aggression, and irony without loosing sight of his sense of self-irony.