Richard Anuszkiewicz - Man's Vest - Terrific Vintage Needlepoint Work Of Art

Rare and fabulous vest after a design by Richard Anuszkiewicz, circa 1969, hand-stitched wool embroidery on fabric backing with red silk lining, brass buttons, and imitation abalone buttons, size approx. man's medium or large [insert measurements here], the vest bearing the stitched label of bespoke tailor Bernard Weatherill, Madison Avenue, New York, in a framed presentation with silk ribbon inscribed and signed by Anuszkiewicz to the original owner (see below) and bearing the artist's thumbprint, together with a typed card of provenance, the overall size of the frame [22.5” by 31.75”]. A bit of tarnishing to brass buttons, otherwise fine, attractive condition, with no stains, tears, losses, or odors, the colors remaining rich, vibrant, and unfaded. Please note that the vest is easily removable from the hanger and frame so that it can be worn and, in turn, replaced on the wall.

A UNIQUE SARTORIAL "COLLABORATION" WITH ONE OF THE SEMINAL FIGURES OF THE OP ART MOVEMENT. Anuszkiewicz (1930–2020) emerged in the early 1960s as one of the leaders of the nascent op art movement, which took hard-edge abstraction a step further by using juxtapositions of high-contrast color, carefully organized shapes and patterns, and calculated distortion to create the impression of altered space, eye-bending dazzle, and even movement in the stationary, two-dimensional picture plane. The artist summed up his early practice thus: ""My work is of an experimental nature and has centered on an investigation into the effects of complementary colors of full intensity when juxtaposed and the optical changes that occur as a result, and a study of the dynamic effect of the whole under changing conditions of light, and the effect of light on color." Anuskiewicz's works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, Cleveland Art Museum, and numerous other major institutions.

The vest offered here had its origins in an unusual and ambitious project commissioned by the magazine Art in America. The art historian and author Russell Lynes, who counted needlepoint among his avocations, felt that the medium was unfairly dismissed as fusty and "feminine." Citing the aesthetic success of needlepoint designs based on the works of Calder, Miró, Mondrian, and Braque, Lynes invited thirteen contemporary artists to produce designs specifically for needlework projects, which readers of the magazine could then execute. The participants represented a wide cross section of aesthetics and styles: Gene Davis, Leonard Baskin, Walter Murch, Carol Summers, William Copley, Chryssa, Frank Stella (two throw pillows incorporating his rainbow palette in a concentric square motif), Lorser Feitelson, George Ortman, Cleve Gray, Alfonso Ossorio, Roy Lichtenstein (a tongue-in-cheek rendering of a ball of yarn in black and white, complete with meticulous Ben-Day-dot background), and Anuszkiewicz. As Lynes put it: "If this display of distinguished modern needlepoint designs helps to shoot out some of the cute and genteel nonsense that clutters the wool shops (and hence the living rooms) of America, that would be almost justification enough. If it should inspire other artists to turn their serious attention to this highly flexible and, to the needlepointers, delightful medium, that would be a bonanza indeed."

Anuszkiewicz's contribution, rendered in Liquitex on paperboard and documented in a full-page, full-color reproduction in the magazine, was for a vest incorporating his trademark vibrant palette in a precisely spaced and proportioned pattern of diagonal lines, each made up of identically spaced segments in bright tones of blue and green against a red background. The alignment of blues and greens produces the illusion of wide "secondary" stripes in the opposite direction, while the lessening distance between lines toward the edges of the design creates the impression of varying densities of color and light. (An original copy of the magazine, the May-June 1968 issue, is included with the vest.)

The artist explained his approach to the project: "The needlepoint vest design was no different for me than painting a shaped canvas. The only limitation was the shape, which had to perform a function. I chose the right-to-left diagonal in order to produce an unbroken line when stitched. The lines themselves alternate between warm green and cool blue affect the red in contact. The intervals of red expand and decrease in arithmetical manner and result in a multicolor shape with maximum economy of means. With the vast range of styles and ideas of today's contemporary art I have always found the rsults of projects such as this most fascinating. . . ."

The thirteen designs commissioned by Art in America were the subject of an exhibition at the FAR Gallery in New York from May 6 to May 18, 1968.

In addition to the wildly varying individual styles and aesthetics of the participating artists, the vest, as well as the other designs, also relate to another movement then emerging in parallel--the "conceptual" idea of the spectator as active participant in the creation of an artwork. The artist/spectator collaborations of conceptual art emerged in the 1960s in contexts as varied as the early "happenings" of Claes Oldenburg; Andy Warhol's "factory" aesthetic; Yoko Ono's "instructions" (e.g., "Painting to Be Stepped On: Leave a piece of canvas or finished painting on the floor or in the street"); and even Jasper Johns' "Target 1970," a large-edition uncolored version of the artist's iconic motif that came with three small pans of watercolors and a brush so that it could be "finished" by the viewer.

Clearly intended to be produced as a piece of wearable art, rather than as a mere lark, Anuszkiewicz's vest design, with its precisely calibrated effects, required a needlepointer of considerable skill and patience. The accompanying card notes that Helen W. Benjamin--together with her husband, Robert M. Benjamin, notable collectors of contemporary art--completed only a quarter-inch-by-quarter-inch segment before handing it off to a presumably more experienced needlepointer. (As Bernard Weatherill, whose custom label is sewn to the back of the vest, was best known as a bespoke tailor, it seems likely that one of his employees was the "unknown worker" who completed the needlepoint. It is clear, in any case, that the silk-lined vest that provided the "canvas" for the needlepoint originated with Weatherill and, as the typed tag indicates, was tailored expressly for Robert L. Arnstein.)

It seems virtually certain that Anuszkiewicz saw and gave his stamp of approval to the completed vest, as he inscribed the accompanying silk ribbon (perhaps originally intended to be sewn into the vest), "To Robert L. Arnstein, April 4, 1969, Anuszkiewicz," the artist adding his own thumbprint. Arnstein, a longtime Yale psychiatrist, and his wife Mary, like the Benjamins, were ardent collectors of contemporary art. It also appears that the couples were personally close; a number of paintings from the Benjamins' collection, exhibited at Yale in 1967, were later gifted by or sold to the Arnsteins. (Among the paintings that passed from the Benjamins to the Arnsteins was Anuszkiewicz's 1963 The Quickening Power, which ultimately sold at Sotheby's in 2008.) Given the relationship, the statement of provenance, and the custom tag, it seems likely that the vest was made expressly as a gift from the Benjamins to the Arnsteins--a token from one pair of friends and collectors to another.

Given the amount of effort required and the now-relative obscurity of the original project, it seems unlikely that more than a handful of these vests were ever made from Anuszkiewicz's design. None has ever appeared at auction, no institution or museum appears to own one, and, indeed, there appears to be no documentation for the existence of a single other original example. A quirky, impressive, and eminently wearable confluence of op art, conceptual art, and Age-of-Aquarius fashion for the adventurous collector, scholar, historian, or extra-sharp dresser!

Frame is 22.5” w x 31.75” h
Vest is 38” at the widest and 23” from top of neck to waist

Clothing & Fashion Accessories, Other

15%

Jamie Doris | (917) 340-8246 | jamiedoris@gmail.com

Pickup Details

Jamie Doris

Nashua, NH 03064

When to Pickup

Sunday, 11/5, 12:00 pm to 3:00 pm

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