Jérôme de Noirmont, Paris
Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

Paris, Jérôme de Noirmont, Memories of Manet and Vélazquez, May - July 2004, p. 25, illustrated in colour
Paris, Jérôme de Noirmont, Au-delà du réel, February - March 2010

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate, although there are less magenta undertones visible in the lower half of the composition. Condition: This work is in very good condition. Very close inspection reveals some light wear to the upper right and lower corner tips, with some associated minute losses to the upper right corner tip. Extremely close inspection in raking light reveals two very short and faint rub marks towards the upper right hand corner tip. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultra-violet light.
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Executed in 2003, The Jester is perhaps one of George Condo’s most astute investigations into the tropes of traditional portraiture, where the artist skillfully conducts a symphony of art historical references only to disrupt and subvert them. Dressed in elaborate court attire, an intricate Jacobean ruff, shimming gold embellishments and sleeves of crimson red and royal blue the figure of The Jester offers a masterful replication of the pomp and glory of Old Master portraiture, while simultaneously distorting it. Here, Condo quotes from a cacophony of canonical sources, not only capturing the splendor of Anthony van Dyck’s nobleman and the formality of Diego Velazquez’s court scenes, but also borrowing from George Braque in the cubist patchwork of flurried brushstrokes which adorn the background, and of course, Pablo Picasso in Condo’s signature, strikingly disjointed face of the jester. As curator Laura Hoptman explains “he is not a painter of appropriated imagery… He is more like a philologist – a collector, admirer and lover of languages – in this case, languages of representation” (Laura Hoptman cited in: Exh. Cat., New Museum, George Condo: Mental States, 2011, pp. 26-27). Condo offers both a deep respect for Art History, as well a flagrant disregard for the conventional narratives of it; in his own words “as far as I’m concerned, the Renaissance was yesterday and Cubism was a hundred years before it” (George Condo cited in: Simon Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, New York 2015, p. 104). The Jester perfectly encapsulates Condo’s concept of Artificial Realism. Defined as the realistic representation of that which is artificial, the principals of Artificial Realism guide the conception of Condo’s fantastical, fictional characters. In the present work, Condo delves into the heavily constructed conventions of traditional portraiture, and beyond portraiture envisages how “reality… is now comprised of artificial components” (Ibid, p. 53). In this dystopian portrait, Condo ingeniously challenges the artificiality of visual representation; the figure of the jester is jauntily held in place by drawstrings from each of his limbs, which hint to the role of an unknown puppet master skillfully reveal the staging of the portrait. Conceptually rich in both subject matter and art historical quotations, The Jester stands as a striking, dynamic example of the artist’s venerated painting practice, which has solidified Condo’s position as a pioneer of contemporary portraiture.