Klaus Kertess was one of the most influential voices in the field of contemporary art over the past fifty years. As a gallerist and curator he helped launch the careers of the some of the most respected artists associated with the Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and Process Art movements of the 1960s and 1970s, including Brice Marden, Chuck Close, Dorothea Rockburne, Joe Zucker, David Novros, Barry Le Va, Ralph Humphrey, and Lynda Benglis. With business partner and former Yale classmate Jeffrey Byers, Kertess opened the Bykert Gallery in 1966 and soon developed an enviable reputation for identifying a generation of talented artists on the verge of a breakthrough. On one occasion, Kertess visited the studio of a young painter working as a guard at the Jewish Museum—Brice Marden—which led to his first solo show, at Bykert. Marden then introduced Kertess to his friend Chuck Close.After nearly a decade as a gallery owner, Kertess closed Bykert in 1975 to focus on writing fiction. He joined the Parrish Art Museum in Southampton, New York in 1983 as curator, and was appointed adjunct curator of drawings at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1989, where he organized the 1995 Whitney Biennial. Kertess contributed to such influential publications as Art in America and Artforum, and was the author of numerous catalogue essays and well-received monographs on artists such as Brice Marden, Joan Mitchell, Jane Freilicher, and Peter Hujar. A selection of Kertess’s art writing, Seen, Written, was published by Gregory R. Miller & Co. in 2011, and a collection of his short stories, South Brooklyn Casket Company, was published in 1997.Kertess became friends with Paul Walter during the Bykert years. Walter collected many of the gallery's artists, and later purchased and commissioned works by Kertess's husband, Billy Sullivan. Walter and Kertess shared a passion for Indian art, and Walter often promised to take him to India—a promise finally fulfilled in 1991 as a 50th birthday present for Kertess, with Sullivan in tow. The following lots of Indian court paintings (644-649) as well as a Thai sculpture (lot 634) come from The Collection of Klaus Kertess.

Durga Killing a Demon

India, Pahari Region, Mandi, circa 1775

Details

Durga Killing a Demon
India, Pahari Region, Mandi, circa 1775
Opaque pigments and gold on paper
9 ¾ x 8 1/8 in. (24.8 x 20.7 cm.)

Lot Essay

The present work, a quintessential example of the bold, folkish devotional images from Mandi, depicts Durga atop a demon, brandishing her weapons and accompanied by her tiger. For a similar example of a slightly earlier work, see the Varaha from Christie’s Mumbai, 18 December 2016, lot 41.

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