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Descriptif du lot
‘Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states.’ – George Condo (quoted in S. Jeffries, ‘George Condo: “I was delirious. Nearly Died”, in The Guardian, 10 February 2014).
A field of red engulfs the whole canvas, from which an embracing couple emerges. Locked together physically yet absorbed within separate psychological realms, the pair occupies a space suspended between intimacy and distance. Executed in 2008, Woman and Man stands as a compelling example from George Condo's mature period, fully articulating the artist's celebrated concept of 'Psychological Cubism'. In this monumental composition, multiple, overlapping and even contradictory emotional states coexist simultaneously upon the picture plane. The expansive red ground flattens spatial depth, bringing the intertwined figures directly to the foreground and heightening the painting's emotional intensity.
Double portraits occupy a remarkably rare place within Condo's oeuvre. Of the more than 350 paintings to have appeared at auction over the past five years, only around ten have centred on double portraits. In recent years, Condo has commanded growing institutional and commercial attention worldwide. The major retrospective held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris in 2025 reaffirmed Condo's significance within contemporary art history, while forthcoming solo exhibitions with Hauser & Wirth in Paris and Palo Alto further underscore the sustained momentum of his market and critical reception.
Since emerging from New York's East Village art scene during the early 1980s, Condo has forged a unique path between the traditions of European painting and the visual language of contemporary popular culture. Drawing upon an eclectic range of sources, from Old Master portraiture and modernist experimentation to comics, cartoons and advertising imagery, he has developed a distinctive idiom that combines humour with profound psychological insight. At the centre of Woman and Man stands a pair of figures whose visual tension drives the composition. The woman retains a measure of classical poise: her elegant profile, softly rendered hair and gently uplifted smile evoke the refinement of traditional portraiture. Beside her, however, the male figure appears radically transformed. Bulging eyes, fragmented features and an open mouth create an expression suspended between comedy and unease. Their bodies merge and interlock, contours dissolving into one another, yet their psychological presence remains strikingly separate. Rather than constructing a narrative, Condo condenses desire, anxiety, tenderness, uncertainty and vulnerability into a single image.
This psychological ambiguity lies at the heart of Condo's theory of Psychological Cubism. If Picasso's Cubism sought to present multiple viewpoints simultaneously, Condo's project aims to accommodate multiple states of mind within a figure. In Woman and Man, the viewer encounters two individuals with a constellation of emotions and identities existing at once. Stable notions of selfhood are fragmented and reassembled, producing figures that appear at once familiar and strangely alien. The painting thus transcends conventional portraiture, becoming an image of consciousness itself.
The male figure recalls Rodrigo, a fictional character created by Condo and one of the artist's most enduring alter egos. Distinguished by exaggerated facial distortions, protruding eyes and improbably constructed features, Rodrigo has often been interpreted as a manifestation of the subconscious and of irrational human impulses. Yet Condo never presents him simply as a grotesque caricature. Beneath the absurdity lies an unmistakable humanity. Humour, fragility and emotional sensitivity coexist within the character, transforming him from a fantastical invention into a powerful embodiment of the contradictions of human experience.
Woman and Man further demonstrates Condo's extraordinary command of pictorial form. The woman's flowing curves stand in deliberate contrast to the fractured, angular geometry of the male figure. Softness and sharpness, continuity and disruption, constantly collide across the canvas. As their contours overlap at the centre of the composition, the boundary between self and other becomes increasingly unstable. Particularly striking is the yellow triangular structure that anchors the composition. Containing a gaze-like motif suggestive of a 'third eye', it functions as a visual fulcrum, connecting the disparate emotional states embodied by the two figures. Meanwhile, the vast red background eliminates all anecdotal detail, compelling the viewer to focus entirely on the subtle psychological exchange unfolding between them.
The painting also exemplifies Condo's sustained dialogue with the history of twentieth-century art. The interlocking figures and fractured facial constructions recall Picasso's Cubist deconstruction of the human form, yet Condo's primary concern is not the fragmentation of physical space but the multiplicity of emotional and psychological realities. Likewise, the uneasy coexistence of humour and existential tension within the figures inevitably calls to mind Francis Bacon's penetrating investigations of the human condition. Condo, however, moves beyond homage or quotation. He absorbs these artistic precedents into a language uniquely his own, one in which classical portraiture, modernism, popular culture and contemporary psychology converge to form a world that is simultaneously absurd, unsettling and deeply human.
More broadly, Condo occupies a pivotal position between the legacies of twentieth-century modernism and the concerns of contemporary art. Inheriting the European portrait tradition of Velázquez, Rembrandt and Goya, while extending the formal innovations of Picasso, he also belongs to a generation of artists, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, who reconnected high art with popular culture and contemporary visual experience. From this foundation, Condo developed the distinctive language of Psychological Cubism, transforming the anxieties, desires, humour and vulnerabilities of modern life into a new form of portraiture. The influence of this achievement can be traced throughout the resurgence of figurative painting in recent decades and among numerous contemporary artists exploring identity, psychology and emotion. Woman and Man stands as a powerful embodiment of this enduring legacy, capturing the fluid, contradictory and perpetually evolving nature of human experience that continues to give Condo's work its lasting relevance and appeal.
A field of red engulfs the whole canvas, from which an embracing couple emerges. Locked together physically yet absorbed within separate psychological realms, the pair occupies a space suspended between intimacy and distance. Executed in 2008, Woman and Man stands as a compelling example from George Condo's mature period, fully articulating the artist's celebrated concept of 'Psychological Cubism'. In this monumental composition, multiple, overlapping and even contradictory emotional states coexist simultaneously upon the picture plane. The expansive red ground flattens spatial depth, bringing the intertwined figures directly to the foreground and heightening the painting's emotional intensity.
Double portraits occupy a remarkably rare place within Condo's oeuvre. Of the more than 350 paintings to have appeared at auction over the past five years, only around ten have centred on double portraits. In recent years, Condo has commanded growing institutional and commercial attention worldwide. The major retrospective held at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris in 2025 reaffirmed Condo's significance within contemporary art history, while forthcoming solo exhibitions with Hauser & Wirth in Paris and Palo Alto further underscore the sustained momentum of his market and critical reception.
Since emerging from New York's East Village art scene during the early 1980s, Condo has forged a unique path between the traditions of European painting and the visual language of contemporary popular culture. Drawing upon an eclectic range of sources, from Old Master portraiture and modernist experimentation to comics, cartoons and advertising imagery, he has developed a distinctive idiom that combines humour with profound psychological insight. At the centre of Woman and Man stands a pair of figures whose visual tension drives the composition. The woman retains a measure of classical poise: her elegant profile, softly rendered hair and gently uplifted smile evoke the refinement of traditional portraiture. Beside her, however, the male figure appears radically transformed. Bulging eyes, fragmented features and an open mouth create an expression suspended between comedy and unease. Their bodies merge and interlock, contours dissolving into one another, yet their psychological presence remains strikingly separate. Rather than constructing a narrative, Condo condenses desire, anxiety, tenderness, uncertainty and vulnerability into a single image.
This psychological ambiguity lies at the heart of Condo's theory of Psychological Cubism. If Picasso's Cubism sought to present multiple viewpoints simultaneously, Condo's project aims to accommodate multiple states of mind within a figure. In Woman and Man, the viewer encounters two individuals with a constellation of emotions and identities existing at once. Stable notions of selfhood are fragmented and reassembled, producing figures that appear at once familiar and strangely alien. The painting thus transcends conventional portraiture, becoming an image of consciousness itself.
The male figure recalls Rodrigo, a fictional character created by Condo and one of the artist's most enduring alter egos. Distinguished by exaggerated facial distortions, protruding eyes and improbably constructed features, Rodrigo has often been interpreted as a manifestation of the subconscious and of irrational human impulses. Yet Condo never presents him simply as a grotesque caricature. Beneath the absurdity lies an unmistakable humanity. Humour, fragility and emotional sensitivity coexist within the character, transforming him from a fantastical invention into a powerful embodiment of the contradictions of human experience.
Woman and Man further demonstrates Condo's extraordinary command of pictorial form. The woman's flowing curves stand in deliberate contrast to the fractured, angular geometry of the male figure. Softness and sharpness, continuity and disruption, constantly collide across the canvas. As their contours overlap at the centre of the composition, the boundary between self and other becomes increasingly unstable. Particularly striking is the yellow triangular structure that anchors the composition. Containing a gaze-like motif suggestive of a 'third eye', it functions as a visual fulcrum, connecting the disparate emotional states embodied by the two figures. Meanwhile, the vast red background eliminates all anecdotal detail, compelling the viewer to focus entirely on the subtle psychological exchange unfolding between them.
The painting also exemplifies Condo's sustained dialogue with the history of twentieth-century art. The interlocking figures and fractured facial constructions recall Picasso's Cubist deconstruction of the human form, yet Condo's primary concern is not the fragmentation of physical space but the multiplicity of emotional and psychological realities. Likewise, the uneasy coexistence of humour and existential tension within the figures inevitably calls to mind Francis Bacon's penetrating investigations of the human condition. Condo, however, moves beyond homage or quotation. He absorbs these artistic precedents into a language uniquely his own, one in which classical portraiture, modernism, popular culture and contemporary psychology converge to form a world that is simultaneously absurd, unsettling and deeply human.
More broadly, Condo occupies a pivotal position between the legacies of twentieth-century modernism and the concerns of contemporary art. Inheriting the European portrait tradition of Velázquez, Rembrandt and Goya, while extending the formal innovations of Picasso, he also belongs to a generation of artists, alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, who reconnected high art with popular culture and contemporary visual experience. From this foundation, Condo developed the distinctive language of Psychological Cubism, transforming the anxieties, desires, humour and vulnerabilities of modern life into a new form of portraiture. The influence of this achievement can be traced throughout the resurgence of figurative painting in recent decades and among numerous contemporary artists exploring identity, psychology and emotion. Woman and Man stands as a powerful embodiment of this enduring legacy, capturing the fluid, contradictory and perpetually evolving nature of human experience that continues to give Condo's work its lasting relevance and appeal.