Alexia Rockman "The Foul and the Fragrant" (1988)

Alexis ROCKMAN (1962) 

"The Foul and the Fragrant" (1988) 

Oil, acrylic/canvas (Signed dated Title / verso) 

284.5 x 152.5 cm (111 x 60in) 

Provenance – Originally sold at Christies 19^th Nov 1996 (£2900) With original artist and Christies Labels verso. 

Superb large scale work by the internationally acclaimed US born artist Alexis Rockman. A few of his works have been sold this year at auction, ranging from £23,500 for a large scale work (121 x 203cm) down to £2000 for a small (46 x 61cm oil on panel. 

Alexis Rockman (born 1962) is an American contemporary artist known for his paintings that provide depictions of future landscapes as they might exist with impacts of climate change and evolution influenced by genetic engineering. He has exhibited his work in the United States since 1985, including a 2004 exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, and internationally since 1989.  

Born in 1962 in New York, where he lives and works, Alexis Rockman has depicted a darkly surreal vision of the collision between civilization and nature – often apocalyptic scenarios on a monumental scale – for over three decades. Notable solo museum exhibitions include “Alexis Rockman: Manifest Destiny” at the Brooklyn Museum (2004), which travelled to several institutions including the Wexner Centre for the Arts (2004) and the Rhode Island School of Design (2005). In 2010, the Smithsonian American Art Museum organized “Alexis Rockman: A Fable for Tomorrow,” a major touring survey of his paintings and works on paper. Concurrent with Rockman’s 2013 exhibition at Sperone Westwater, the Drawing Centre mounted “Drawings from Life of Pi,” featuring the artist’s collaboration with Ang Lee on the award-winning film Life of Pi. His series of 76 New Mexico Field Drawings was included in “Future Shock” at SITE Santa Fe (2017-18). “Alexis Rockman: The Great Lakes Cycle,” a major exhibition of large-scale paintings, watercolours and field drawings, toured the Midwest in 2018-20, opening at the Grand Rapids Art Museum and traveling to five institutions in the Great Lakes region. “Alexis Rockman: Shipwrecks,” opened at the Peabody Essex Museum in February 2021 and travelled to Guild Hall the following June. The exhibition continues at Ackland Art Museum and Princeton University Art Museum in 2022. Rockman’s work is represented in many museum collections, including the Baltimore Museum of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art; Grand Rapids Art Museum; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; New Orleans Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; and Whitney Museum of American Art. 

in 2005, Ang Lee asked Rockman to be an "Inspirational Artist" in his adaptation of Life of Pi. (2012) over the course of three years, He completed several dozen watercolour concept paintings and developed with associate producer Jean Castelli, the "Tiger Vision" sequence. Rockman's watercolours for the Life of Pi "served as the backbone for much of the film’s aesthetic."