Art collecting, much like cooking at the highest level, is an act of conviction. You study, you wait, and when the right moment arrives, you commit without hesitation. On April 24, 2026, that moment came in the form of a Tom Wesselmann.
At yesterday's auction, Kevin Micheli successfully acquired "Bedroom Face" — a work measuring 43.5 × 61.3 cm that distils everything Wesselmann did best: bold, flat colour fields; a reclining female figure reduced to her most essential contours; the charged intimacy of a private interior. It is Pop Art at its most self-assured.
Tom Wesselmann (1931–2004) occupies a singular position in the canon of New York Pop Art. Alongside Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol, he helped define a generation's visual language — yet his work always retained a warmth and sensuality that set it apart from the cooler ironies of his peers. His "Great American Nude" series, begun in 1961, remains one of the defining bodies of work in twentieth-century American art. Works by Wesselmann are held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, among many others.
"Bedroom Face" belongs to the intimate, domestic world Wesselmann returned to throughout his career. The work's cropped composition and jewel-like palette give it an immediate graphic power that commands the room — and rewards sustained attention with its quiet complexity.
Kevin Micheli is proud to welcome this piece into his collection, where it joins works that share a common thread: a commitment to craft, to vision, and to the kind of beauty that does not explain itself.