Françoise Gilot and her Labyrinth Series
“I must cancel the emptiness of the canvas like an opening gambit in a game of chess”.
— Francoise Gilot
Françoise Gilot (French, b. 1921) was born in Paris and studied art, philosophy, literature, and law before rebelling against her strict parents by quitting law school and dedicating her life to art. By the young age of 21, Françoise Gilot was amongst the most buzzed-about artists of the emerging School of Paris movement. Soon after her breakout exhibition in 1943, Françoise met Pablo Picasso. In 1946, Gilot and Picasso began a decade-long relationship and Françoise became both a witness and a participant in one of the last great periods of the modern art movement in Europe. Her circle came to include poets, philosophers, writers, and many of the legends of the art world, such as Braque, Giacometti, Chagall, and Matisse.
After her relationship with Picasso ended, Françoise left Paris for London, where the Tate gave her a studio. She then began to split her time with New York starting in 1961, which helped lead to a surge in creativity and to an increase in her experimentation with bold abstract color, shape, and form. In 1970, Gilot married Dr. Jonas Salk, creator of the polio vaccine. They had a happy marriage until his death in 1995. At 99 years old, Françoise Gilot continues to paint and exhibit her art all over the world. Her work resides in many major museums and private collections.
The Labyrinth Series
Gilot is perhaps best known as a protégé and muse of Pablo Picasso’s, as well as a formidable Modern painter in her own right. Female artists who were working in the 1950s and 1960s have historically been overlooked, but their work is increasingly being celebrated and Gilot’s market has been benefiting from this resurgence in attention.
In the summer of 1962, Gilot chartered a yacht belonging to friends and sailed with her son, Claude, and a crew of three in the Aegean Sea among the Greek Islands. While there, she pondered the classic Greek myths.
Her Labyrinth Series, composed of about 50 abstract works and started soon after this voyage, echoes one particular myth. Her cumulative works of this time capture the tale of Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur. Gilot alternated her days from then on in 1962 and 1963 between working on the series and writing her memoir, Life with Picasso, which also offers parallels to the myth. “What interested Gilot was to see the myth from an androgynous point of view where all the characters were just the different aspects of one person, namely, the painter, on a voyage of self-discovery,” which is exactly what the paintings seem to invoke when exhibited. The series’ “structures, rhythms and colors themselves evoke the different phases of the legend and also its multifaceted meanings as envisioned by Theseus, Ariadne or the Minotaur.”
The Labyrinth Series is an exceptional example of Gilot’s complex compositional structures and highlights her unique ability to fuse the Parisian Fauvist and Cubist movements with the Abstract Expressionist artistic styles that surrounded her during her visits to New York around this time. As the bridge between the heroic period of the School of Paris and the emergence of New York City as the new world center for contemporary art, Gilot’s paintings from the early 1960s are among the most important in her oeuvre. The Labyrinth Series itself was completed in 1963, setting the early tone of this decade for Gilot.
Of known works from Gilot’s Labyrinth Series that have sold at auction since 2010, 71 percent, or five of the seven total, have sold for above the high estimate. The works in this series, executed between 1962 and 1963, were first exhibited at Galerie Coard in Paris in May 1963. The range in size of the works accounts for the differing estimates in works sold since 2010, though there is general constancy of relative high sale prices when compared to each work’s respective estimate.
Recent Related Sales
Though created non chronologically, the known works from the series are marked with a roman numeral on the verso. Some of Gilot’s works that have recently come to auction, like the recently sold OMENS (1963) at Sotheby’s October 2020 Impressionist and Modern Art auction, bear a striking resemblance to the known works of the series. OMENS is unmarked on the verso and so also without the typical catalogue note that states its place among the series. The work hammered for $18,000, above its high estimate and in keeping with the ongoing trend of high relative sales for works from the Labyrinth Series.
HERMES (ÉTUDE DE JEUNE HOMME) (1969), hammered for $22,000 in the same Sotheby’s auction as OMENS, is an example of Gilot’s portrait work. Her portraits are more commonly seen in her muted drawings and their subsequent lithographs and prints. This work’s bright, contrasting colors tie it to the early 1960’s era of both OMENS and the known, auctioned works of the Labyrinth Series, even though it is not a geometric abstract work.
A total of 10 works of Gilot’s were shown at Sotheby’s October 2020 Impressionist and Modern Art auction. OMENS and HERMES (ÉTUDE DE JEUNE HOMME) joined two other colored (tempera and gouache) works on paper, all of which hammered. The remaining six were pencil on paper, only two of which hammered.
Out of the seven pencil on paper Gilots that have been brought to auction since, three have not hammered and two have hammered at or below their low estimates. This is in direct contrast to works that more emulate Gilot’s early 1960s use of color and overall style. Of the six comparable works within this era that have come to auction since October, only one did not hammer, with all others selling comfortably within or their estimates.
The Labyrinth Series marked a compositional shift for Gilot that has come to define her most sought after works. It’s continuously strong, though rare, presence in the auction market stands separate from her pencil drawings. The drawings, lacking her now iconic color palette, have recently not garnered the same attention at auction.
