(Lakewood, Ohio 1926-2014 Paris)
‘Peinture à Haute Tension’, titled, signed and dated on the reverse Sturtevant ‘70, acrylic on canvas, collage, flocage, neon light, one of 8, 162 x 97 cm 

Provenance:
Formerly Private Collection, France

Exhibition: 
Paris, Galerie Claude Givaudan, Sturtevant. Huit Tableaux et un Prototype, 1970; 

Literature: 
C. Duparc, “Faites-le vous-même”, Le Nouvel Observateur, 17 March 1969 ; 
Meymac, Abbaye Saint André Centre d’Art Contemporain, Aspects de l’art du XX siècle, 1991 exhib. cat., ill. p. 127 ;
L. Maculan (ed.), Sturtevant, Catalogue Raisonné 1964–2004, Osterfildern-Ruit, 2004, no. 377, p. 149 ill. of a different example (here 1969, 1970 not mentioned)

The artist Elaine Sturtevant reproduced works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Jasper Jones, Frank Stella, Marcel Duchamp, and Joseph Beuys. She reproduced artworks without copying them. She reproduced artworks by yet unknown artists during their formative phases, who would later become superstars. As she said herself, these were no coincidences. 

Anne Dressen, curator at the ARC / Department of Contemporary Art at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris at the Palais de Tokyo, speaks in this regard of the "visionary dimension" in Sturtevant's work. Already in the 1960s, she had reproduced Andy Warhol, Frank Stella and Jasper Jones, who at that time were still far from their present celebrity; in the 1970s, she reproduced Joseph Beuys, then still completely unknown in the United States. She had a kind of "aesthetic intuition". Elaine Sturtevant "never herself used the term 'copy': she found this too short-sighted, too static. Seeking conformity as a means of submission to a model, she prefers the idea of repetition– with critical distance to the object, with clarity of view, she achieves a reactivation."
Thaddeus Ropac met Elaine Sturtevant around 1985 in Soho, New York. He says her presence aroused his curiosity– he wanted to discover what hid behind it. For him, Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp are especially important in understanding Elaine Sturtevant's work. In both cases, he finds it "not really about assimilation or appropriation"; rather it's about "repetition by calling into question the truth and meaning of things. She produced Warhol's flowers in the 1960s, at the same time as Warhol was himself creating the flowers. He even gave her the very silk canvas he used. I think Warhol respected her work, because it was very close to his own– he understood it and appreciated her for her boldness."
Fabrice Hergott, director at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris says: "When she repeated a work, she focuses attention on its essence and not on ownership– that is, on the relationship between material possession and art. And that's what I find so extraordinarily subversive about her. Like all subversion, it's uncommonly liberating. It means that we can take this formidable attitude towards the importance of art history a little easier, maybe even lifting the weightiness of museums, the art market and the work that one wishes to own– maybe managing to break away from it all. That's pretty outrageous, and had never been accomplished by anyone while at once retaining such respect for the spirit of the work. She also shows a certain respect for the subject of a work, while being completely disrespectful at the same time. It's a kind of complete irreverence towards ownership...  I find this point of view very political."

Elaine Sturtevant was a rebellious artist, with an outspoken wit, who referred to herself as a strong woman with a lot of energy and a power, a woman that loves life and existence. Her work, replicas executed by the artist from memory using the same technique as the "original artist", encourages reflection and calls into question what constitutes a work beyond its signature. In the 1960s and 70s, she experienced great resistance in America, because they knew how to string out economic principles such as copyright and the 'art market' ad absurdum. 
Sturtevant, however, was not to be deterred.

arte (ARTE FRANCE), Elaine Sturtevant – Ein Portrait (L’art et la manière I Sturtevant), France 2010

The present work refers to a painting by Martial Raysse, the French artist regarded as the founder of New Realism. 
Sturtevant "irritates and provokes the viewer of her art, and equally the art world, by repeating original works by contemporary artists who she would use – surprisingly soon after the "original" – as a source and catalyst to enhance and develop our current understanding of aesthetics, to explore originality, to explore the relationship between original and originality, and to create space for new thinking. [...] The result of her conceptual thinking and activity is the amazing repetition of that what already exists, the duplication of already existing artworks, which probes the relation of original to originality [...]."

Udo Keitelmann/Mario Kramer (Hg.), Sturtevant, The brutal truth, Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Hantje Kantz Verlag, 2004 

From the Schumacher Collection Part I

Provenance:
Formerly Private Collection, France

Exhibition:
Paris, Galerie Claude Givaudan, Sturtevant. Huit Tableaux et un Prototype, 1970; Meymac, Abbaye Saint André Centre d’Art Contemporain, Aspects de l’art du XX siècle,