The artist Simon Lee Gallery, London Skarstedt, New York Private collection, New York (Acquired from the above by the present owner)

For nearly 40 years, George Condo’s strikingly discordant paintings have challenged perceptions of reality, securing his place as one of his generation's most innovative and celebrated artists. Through a cascading interplay of abstract and figurative forms, Condo weaves together art historical influences and personal narratives.  Laughing Clown continues the artist’s long-standing exploration into his cast of strange and recurring characters, instantly recognizable for their alarmingly exaggerated features—bulbous eyes, oversized ears, and prominent overbites.Human features—eyes, ears, and teeth—emerge and dissolve within a chaotic network of bold geometric shapes, animated by dynamic brushstrokes and erratic charcoal streaks. Condo first rose to prominence in the 1980s New York art scene before relocating to Paris, where he honed his distinctive style through a transatlantic dialogue between American and European artistic traditions. His vibrant art-historical imagination reaches a fever pitch in Laughing Clown, merging influences from Pablo Picasso, Paul Cezanne, Willem de Kooning, and his contemporary Jean-Michel Basquiat. The composition builds on the aesthetic of his "Drawing Paintings" series, initiated in 2008, combining spontaneous draftsmanship with a refined mastery of pigment. “People might say that one of my paintings looks like Guston meets Monet in a Picasso format in Cezanne’s world, but ultimately, I consider it to be just about the knowledge of painting,” the artist has said. “You want to reach a point where your work is the sum total of everything that ever happened before you.” Simultaneously alluring and unsettling, Condo’s works transcend mere appropriation to delve into the layered complexity of human experience. His “psychological Cubism” directly addresses this theme, incorporating fragmented art historical references to reflect the contradictory, multifaceted nature of the psyche. “Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment,” Condo explained. “I do the same with psychological states. Four of them can occur simultaneously. Like glimpsing a bus with one passenger howling over a joke they’re hearing down the phone, someone else asleep, someone else crying – I’ll put them all in one face.” Condo’s figurative work can, in part, be seen as a challenge to the traditions of portraiture. Through his attempt to capture the psychological essence of his subjects, he dismantles the illusion central to traditional portraiture. As the artist has stated, “the affected part of people is the interesting side to me. It’s the real side of them that’s boring.” This sentiment underscores his belief that portraiture is inherently performative. The portrait emerging from an artist’s studio often functions as a kind of propaganda, presenting the reality the subject wishes to convey. However, Condo subverts this convention by tracing the psychology of his figures rather than their outward appearance, stripping his subjects of the ability to curate their own image. Amid its vibrant art-historical pastiche, Laughing Clown also carries a deeply personal narrative. Painted in 2013, the painting emerged from a tumultuous period in Condo’s life following his battle with Legionnaire’s Disease and triple pneumonia that left him hospitalized. Inspired by the phantasmic figures he encountered during his hospitalized delirium, these works radiate triumph and innovation, serving as vital celebrations of the artist’s recovery from a near-fatal experience.

London, Simon Lee Gallery, George Condo: Headspace, 2014 (illustrated in colour, p. 85; detail illustrated in colour, pp. 86-87).