Kenneth Riley
1919-2015
The Coup Stick
MEDIUM: Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS: 30 x 24 inches
Signed/CA lower right
SOLD FOR: $54,000.00
Including Buyers Premium
2026 - APRIL,
LOT 343
Additional Information
Provenance:
Private collection, Texas
The composition of The Coup Stick, with a figure standing in front of a teepee, allowed Kenneth Riley to play with three-dimensional space with a two-dimensional backdrop. Here, the main subject and his horse riff off the pictographic representation of a horse on the teepee. Everything is in play: the dots on the edge of the teepee, the thin coup stick on the left, the shadows at the figure’s feet, the horns of his headdress and much more. The effect was so successful that Riley did a whole informal series of these paintings, with titles such as Eternal Circles, The Black Eagle and The Red Tepee.
In West of Camelot: The Historical Paintings of Kenneth Riley, author Susan McGarry relates his meticulous design to a form of visual poetry. “The integrity of the two-dimensional surface—the flat rectangle that is completely under control of the artist—is important in all of Riley’s paintings and paramount in this third realm. ‘Everything becomes a design tool,’ he explains. ‘Manipulating viewers is what art is all about... and of course, it is the artist's goal to manipulate them in his favor!’ While relying upon his standard repertoire of people, landscape, animals and artifacts, the inspiration for these paintings is more conceptual than perceptual. They also share an unnatural (even anti-natural) space and an inventive utilization of negative shapes which become as important as the positives. Colors are subjective, chosen less for their fidelity to reality than for their ability to evoke a mood. And the light typically emanates not only from an outside source but seemingly from within the painting itself.”