Portrait 2013 (Young Man) - Nicolas Party

Portraiture has been at the heart of Nicolas Party's artistic canon since his transformation into an artist of significance following his time spent at the Glasgow School of Art (2007 to 2009).

This piece is one of the first pastels ever created by Party in the summer of 2013, and formed the heart of his career-changing show at the Neus Museum Nuremberg, as well as the basis of a humorous moustachioed print series.

Materials

Pastel on Paper.  68  x 52.5cm. Unique. Presented in its original frame, and signed on the reverse.

Career defining & significant

This piece marks an important juncture in Nicolas Party's career, and is the first example of the artist's use of pastels as a medium.

Up until his serendipitous viewing of Picasso's pastel portait Tête de Femme (1921) in early 2013 at a Basel art museum, Party hadn't used pastels in his work - favouring oils & performance art instead.

Seeing this pastel portait by Picasso, inspired Party to explore pastels & portraiture - subsequently spending the following months of the summer of 2013 obsessively replicating the specific style of this Picasso piece and developing his own style & idiosyncratic colour palette.

* N.B. these historic details are sourced from the book Nicolas Party, by Stéphane Aquin - based around various interviews with the artist.

Nuremburg Museum Show - 2013

The results of Party's intense exploration of the use of pastels during the summer of 2013 were shown months later at a joint show in October, at the Neus Museum Nuremburg.

The Nuremburg Museum show was the first time Party had the opportunity to showcase his new mastery of pastels. The show presented his now trademark mix of landscapes, still life and portraiture, with 'Young Man Portrait' at the heart of the show shown against a black and white mural landscape background - the first example of his trademark artistic presentation in a museum setting.

This Neus Museum show proved a significant milestone in Party's pastel-based artistic style development, off the back of which the artist gained the confidence to focus on pastels as his primary medium.

Moustachioed Print series

In the winter of 2013, following the opening of his Nuremburg show, Party partnered the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) to release a limited edition print series of his Young Man Portrait - this time playfully including a moustache.

At the time, Party was part of a Glasgow-based collective called 'Poster Club', and the moustachioed print was Duchamp-inspired - taking a ready-made stylistic approach similar to Duchamp's L.H.O.O.Q. (now owned by the Norton Simon Museum - Pasadena).

Party’s moustachioed print series was a limited edition of 50, sized at 119.5 × 84.5 cm, screen printed on poster-stock paper, and originally sold for £50.

An unknown number of these prints still exist, due to the relatively low-quality of the print, and are now traded for £20,000+ on the secondary market (dependent on quality).

Pastel & print brought together

Because of the significance of this early Nicolas Party work, we have acquired a copy of the moustachioed print and now brought together both the original pastel & sister print to show together.

Presenting the two together gives a wonderful snapshot in time, to the beginnings of the career of a highly significant 21st Century artist.

Self-portRait?

Although not officially described as a self-portrait, there are clear similarities between the young man in the painting and a young (beardless) Nicolas Party.

The prominence that Party put on the work in placing it in his career-changing show in Nuremberg and making it into a moustachioed print series - which was unique at the time - also lends weight to the view that this was a stylised self-portrait; an idealised view of himself.

The Artist

Throughout a practice that spans painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, installation, and murals, Nicolas Party creates a fantastical, often pastel-hued universe. His figurative canvases feature rounded, wide-eyed figures and geometric landscapes drenched in vibrant Fauvist hues. The rest of his oeuvre adds texture to his singular vision and—in his elaborate, immersive exhibitions—extends it into the third dimension.

Party studied at the École cantonale d’art de Lausanne in Switzerland before receiving his MFA from the Glasgow School of Art in Scotland.

He has exhibited in cities including New York, Los Angeles, Brussels, Zürich, Beijing, and Paris, among others. Party’s work belongs in the collections of the Hammer Museum, the K11 Art Foundation, the Kunsthaus Zürich, the Rubell Museum, and the X Museum.

Party's works now sell for multi-million-dollar prices on the secondary market.

His highest selling piece to date was $6.8m at a Christies Auction in December 2022.

Provenance

This piece was purchased by the current owner at the Frieze Art Fair London in 2014 from The Modern Institute Gallery (Glasgow), and forms part of his first portrait series (2013).

This piece is signed on the reverse and is presented in its original frame.

Exhibited globally by Institutions

Party's practice has received significant institutional support with the show Rovine at MASI in Switzerland (27 June 2021–9 January 2022), L'heure mauve at Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (12 February–16 October 2022), and Nicolas Party: Draw the Curtains at the Hirshhorn Museum (18 September 2021–17 October 2022).

Significant & Highly collectable

Party's work is collected by major museums around the world, including Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden and Nasher Sculpture Center.

Party is currently represented by International gallery Hauser & Wirth.

This piece is a significant piece from Party’s historic work, marking the start of his work in pastels in the summer of 2013, and forming the heart of his first major show in Nuremberg in October 2013 - a milestone at the start of Party’s journey to becoming a world-respected artist.

The piece is unique, and highly collectable.

Highest Auction Record

Nicolas Party's highest recorded auction sale was HK$52.1m ($6.8m) at Christies (Hong Kong) in 2022.

loan or SALE

If you’re a Museum interested in showing this piece (along with it’s print) as part of a show, then please get in touch to discuss options to loan the work.

We’re also open to discussions around the sale of the piece (as a pair), to enable it to fit into a wider collection of Party’s work.

Please contact chris@kittencapital.com for further information.