Noël Coward is back III (Zahl und Freundschaft). 2006.
Oil on canvas.
Monogrammed and dated in center left. Twice signed on the reverse, as well as dated and titled. Frame and stretcher inscribed with the work number "MEE/M 1127". 210 x 140 cm (82.6 x 55.1 in). [CH].

• With the typical impasto style, Meese conjures up memories of Noël Coward (1899-1973), famous British actor, composer, director and writer active in the 1960s and 70s.
• Works by Jonathan Meese are part of many acclaimed collections, among them the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich.
• Meese can look back on numerous solo shows, among them at the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in 2018, and in 2017 at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and in 2007 at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen.

We are grateful to the Bureau Jonathan Meese, Berlin, for the kind support in cataloging this lot.

PROVENANCE: Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (with several gallery stamps on the reverse and a typographically inscribed gallery label).
Stuart Shave Modern Art, London.
Private collection (acquired from the above in 2007).

EXHIBITION: Thanks, Wally Whyton (Revendaddy Phantomilky on Coconut Islandaddy), Stuart Shave Modern Art, London, 26.2.-26.3.2006.

"[The fact that] Coward ultimately stands side by side with Wagner, Nietzsche and Balthus is part of the exhausting irreverent strategy from which Meese's work time and again rebuilts and recharges. Coward merely is the latest icon in Meese's mythomanic private pantheon of impossible father figures."
Edgar Schmitz about Jonathan Meese's exhibition "Thanks, Wally Whyton (Revendaddy Phantomilky on Coconut Islandaddy), Stuart Shave Modern Art, London, in: Väterreigen, Kunstforum, vol. 180 Zur Aktualität des Idyllischen II, 2006, p. 386.