Red, Green & Purple Woman Nude
signed and dated 1964 (verso)
mixed media
11 1/2” x 15 1/2” (29 cm x 39 cm)

Provenance:
Mr. and Mrs. Emil Jurado

While primarily known as an abstractionist, Lee Aguinaldo (1933-2007) had many other interesting facets to his artistic career. One in particular is his being an artist of appropriation. His appropriative strategies were wide-ranging—including using imagery from newspapers and magazines.

The use of collage extended into his abstractions, which evolved into the so called “Galumphing” paintings. These works involved the juxtaposition of large areas of pure color punctuated by a perfectly placed cutout image from American magazines, of which Life was a favorite. The image culled from American magazines were used in a manner that merged, by turns, a deadpan attitude and a hedonist’s fascination with photographic images. Aguinaldo feasted as much in photographic images as he did on luminous passages of color.

After his “Flick” series in the early ’60s of arduously flicking paint onto a ground with a loaded scalpel knife, he made the “Galumph”series, which included a number of paintings collaged with images from fashion magazines like Harper’s Bazaar. His foray into pop continued with his use of the frottage image transfer technique of Robert Rauschenberg, continually appropriating images from magazines and newspapers.