Untitled (you make me feel lousey)
2003 · Synthetic polymer paint and colored pencil on board
23 7/8 x 34" (60.6 x 86.4 cm)
Museum of Modern Art
WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture
Peter Saul
American, 1934
WA-00029281
San Francisco, CA, USA
PaintingPop ArtFiguration
Representation
None documented
4
Institutional Exhibitions
24
Works in Collection
38
Assets Indexed
4
Authority-backed Facts
0
Publications Referenced
80%
Profile Completeness
Cultural Positioning
Influence Graph
No influence edges encoded yet.
Authority Records (3)
Selected Institutional Exhibitions
View all exhibitions →No image
Committed to Print
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1988
No image
California Prints
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1972
No image
The Artist as Adversary
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1971
No image
Pop Art Prints, Drawings, and Multiples
Museum of Modern Art, New York
1970
Field Verification (4 fields)
4 cross-verified · 0 single-source
- BiographyMoMA· 93%✓
- Birth yearMoMA· 93%✓
- LocationMoMA· 93%✓
- NationalityMoMA· 93%✓
Source Registry (1)
- MoMA bulk 2026-05-04Tier 1 · Institutional92%
About
Why this artist matters now
Peter Saul is an American painter known for aggressive, densely layered figuration that combines carnival grotesquerie with political satire. Working in acrylic and oil since the 1960s, he developed a maximalist approach to the canvas, filling pictorial space with writhing forms, garish color, and deliberately crude distortions of anatomy and proportion. His work emerged within postwar American painting but resists the period's dominant abstraction, instead pursuing a deliberately vulgar and confrontational figuration rooted in comic art and low culture. Saul's paintings function as visual polemics, channeling rage and absurdity into formally expansive, visually overwhelming compositions.
Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 1mo ago
Graph relationships
Taste overlap and adjacency
Movement
Pop Art
Medium
Painting
Related Artists
12 in graph
Institutional
Museum Collections
Canonical record
Artworks (24)
View all 24 artworks →
Artwork sources (3)
24 published of 35 catalogued · 32 with image
- MoMA11 publishedof 22 catalogued21 img
- Art Institute Chicago11 published11 img
- The Met2 published
Record
Images
Relationships
8Institutional
Representation & Collections
In collection
Art Institute of Chicago
In collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
In collection
Museum of Modern Art
New York, US
Market
Auction sale history
Houses that have sold works by this artist at auction
Market
Auction History
Range: $29,210 – $2,500,000
| Work | Auction House | Date | Estimate | Hammer Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Christie's | May 2026 | $30,000 – $50,000 | $29,210 | |
| Phillips | Feb 2026 | $3,000 – $5,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | Feb 2025 | $50,000 – $70,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | Nov 2023 | $100,000 – $150,000 | Unsold | |
| Christie's | May 2023 | $300,000 – $400,000 | $819,000 | |
| Christie's | Dec 2022 | €120,000 – €180,000 | €289,800 | |
| Christie's | Nov 2022 | $120,000 – $180,000 | $170,100 | |
| Christie's | Nov 2022 | $180,000 – $250,000 | $289,800 | |
| Christie's | Jun 2022 | €25,000 – €35,000 | €88,200 | |
| Christie's | Jun 2022 | €70,000 – €100,000 | €138,600 |
Showing 10 of 20 results
Record