George Condo’s unconventional paintings are illuminated in context with his vast range of artistic influences—from Tiepolo to Picasso to Basquiat, and from psychedelic to new wave.

George Condo is renowned for his eclectic mix of artistic influences—from the Old Masters to cubism to pop art. The artist who coined the term “artificial realism” blends imagery and styles from various movements in works that critique contemporary Western culture and its excesses. His paintings and sculptures feature Humanoids—figures that are metaphors of our humanity, magnifying our emotions and revealing our high and low points. For the first time in his own words, Condo reveals the genesis and significance of his distorted creations and unveils previously unseen paintings created during the pandemic and the political turmoil in the United States.

Didier Ottinger examines the career, influences, and works of this unconventional artist who is at once rewriting the history of art and caricaturing the immoderation of the modern world. An exhibition of Condo’s Humanoids at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco opens nearly a quarter century after he created set and costume designs for Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo.

About The Author

Didier Ottinger, general curator of heritage and specialist in modern and contemporary painting, is assistant director of cultural programming at the Centre Pompidou where he curated exhibitions on Edward Hopper (2013), David Hockney (2017), and Georgia O’Keeffe (2022). American artist George Condo’s work is in the permanent collections of the Met, MoMA, Broad Foundation in Los Angeles, Tate, and Centre Pompidou. Exhibitions of his work have been shown in New York, London, Rotterdam, Berlin, Venice, Shanghai, and more. H.R.H. the Princess of Hanover is a philanthropist.