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JJ Manford — Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol
JJ Manford

Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol

2022

Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol presents a charged dialogue between two towering figures of twentieth-century modernism, rendered through JJ Manford's distinctly physical and layered approach to mark-making. Working in oil stick, pastel, and Flashe on burlap stretched over canvas, Manford activates the rough, open weave of the support to create a surface that is simultaneously gestural and architectural, intimate and monumental. The work operates at a scale, 182.9 by 213.4 centimeters, that commands the room, inviting the viewer into a space where Bauhaus rationalism and Pop sensibility are held in productive tension rather than resolved into easy synthesis. Manford occupies a compelling position within contemporary figurative painting, mining art history not as a source of reverence but as living material to be questioned and reimagined. Here, the Gropius interior, with its clean geometries and utopian spatial logic, becomes a stage onto which Warhol's shadow is cast, complicating the narrative of modernist progress with the cooler, more ironic register of Pop. The choice of burlap as a ground lends the work a tactile rawness that resists the sleek surfaces both subjects might otherwise evoke, grounding the painting firmly in the handmade tradition even as it engages with ideas of reproduction and design. For the discerning collector, this work represents a significant example from Manford's ongoing investigation into inherited visual culture and the painted interior as a site of critical reflection. The unsigned frame is not included, leaving open the possibility of presentation choices that further honor the materiality of the work itself. Currently available through Harper's, Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol stands as a confident, richly layered statement from an artist whose practice continues to attract serious institutional and private attention.

Medium
Oil stick, pastel, and Flashe on burlap over canvas
Overall
Signed
Yes
Location
Harper's, New York, NY

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About this work

JJ Manford, Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol, 2022

Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol presents a charged dialogue between two towering figures of twentieth-century modernism, rendered through JJ Manford's distinctly physical and layered approach to mark-making. Working in oil stick, pastel, and Flashe on burlap stretched over canvas, Manford activates the rough, open weave of the support to create a surface that is simultaneously gestural and architectural, intimate and monumental. The work operates at a scale, 182.9 by 213.4 centimeters, that commands the room, inviting the viewer into a space where Bauhaus rationalism and Pop sensibility are held in productive tension rather than resolved into easy synthesis. Manford occupies a compelling position within contemporary figurative painting, mining art history not as a source of reverence but as living material to be questioned and reimagined. Here, the Gropius interior, with its clean geometries and utopian spatial logic, becomes a stage onto which Warhol's shadow is cast, complicating the narrative of modernist progress with the cooler, more ironic register of Pop. The choice of burlap as a ground lends the work a tactile rawness that resists the sleek surfaces both subjects might otherwise evoke, grounding the painting firmly in the handmade tradition even as it engages with ideas of reproduction and design. For the discerning collector, this work represents a significant example from Manford's ongoing investigation into inherited visual culture and the painted interior as a site of critical reflection. The unsigned frame is not included, leaving open the possibility of presentation choices that further honor the materiality of the work itself. Currently available through Harper's, Walter Gropius Interior with Warhol stands as a confident, richly layered statement from an artist whose practice continues to attract serious institutional and private attention.

Medium
Oil stick, pastel, and Flashe on burlap over canvas
Dimensions
overall: 182.9 x 213.4 cm
Year
2022
Signed
Hand-signed by the artist
Seen at
Harper's, New York, NY

More works by JJ Manford

Collected by

Gavin Kennedy