
David Salle
After Michelangelo, The Flood, 2005-2006

Neo-expressionist painter David Salle gained prominence in the 1980s as a leader in the return to figuration, along with contemporaries Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He is well known for his large-scale canvases featuring a sparse, seemingly disjunctive arrangement of elements, often including provocatively posed women and nudes and the use of grisaille. Pairing Pop art's common imagery with Surrealism's private associations, Salle's collage-like paintings often gather widely different moods, styles, and sources within one work.


Neo-expressionist painter David Salle gained prominence in the 1980s as a leader in the return to figuration, along with contemporaries Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Eric Fischl, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He is well known for his large-scale canvases featuring a sparse, seemingly disjunctive arrangement of elements, often including provocatively posed women and nudes and the use of grisaille. Pairing Pop art's common imagery with Surrealism's private associations, Salle's collage-like paintings often gather widely different moods, styles, and sources within one work.