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Contact:
Andrée Corroon 212.636.2680
Margaret Doyle
CHRISTIE'S FALL SALES OF IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART LED BY MASTERPIECES BY MONET, MODIGLIANI, LEGER AND OTHERS
Impressionist & Modern Art
November 6 & 7, 2002
New York - Christie's fall evening sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on November 6 at Rockefeller Center will offer an excellent variety of rare works by Cézanne, Gauguin, Léger, Modigliani, Monet, Picasso, and other renowned Impressionist and Modern art masters. Drawn primarily from a number of important private collections, such as the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Norman Granz and The Cohen Collection, the sale will be led by an exquisite, late example of Monet's series of waterlilies and an exceptional portrait by Modigliani.
Claude Monet's Grandes Décorations in the Musée de l'Orangerie were described by André Masson as "the Sistine Chapel of Impressionism." Le bassin aux nymphéas, 1917-19 (estimate: $10,000,000-15,000,000), is one of the most complete paintings that pre-figure this great series. The Nymphéas pictures, created at the lily pond behind Monet's house at Giverny, were the last serial undertaking by the artist, and they represent his most expressive and profound explorations of nature and art. In many respects they represent the quintessence of Impressionism: impermanence, reflection, the evanescence of light, and the instantaneous movement of water, sky, and perception itself.
Amedeo Modigliani's La robe noire, 1918 (estimate: $9,000,000-12,000,000), an elegant and sophisticated portrait of an anonymous sitter, is a masterpiece of Modigliani's mature period that powerfully synthesizes all the characteristic traits of the distinctive figural type that the artist
developed after 1916: the elongated oval face, the graceful swan-like neck, the sensuous pursed lips, and the impenetrable almond eyes. Another important Modigliani is Beatrice Hastings devant une porte, 1915 (estimate: $3,000,000-4,000,000), an especially evocative portrait that Modigliani painted of his mistress, the English writer Beatrice Hastings. Between 1914 and 1916 he portrayed her in a variety of ways that reflected the stormy nature of their relationship; the present painting shows her as poised and elegant, with thin, arching brows, a long graceful neck, and a stylish plumed hat.
Property from the Collection of Mr. & Mrs. Norman Granz includes Fernand Léger's Les deux acrobates, 1918 (estimate: $6,000,000-8,000,000) and Pablo Picasso's La guenon et son petit, 1951 ($5,000,000-7,000,000). Les deux acrobates was executed during Léger's prolific Post-War period and is from a series of seven paintings from 1918 that featured the circus as a symbol of modern spectacle and urban leisure. In choosing the Cirque Médrano as his setting, Léger was following in the footsteps of great modern painters such as Degas, Renoir, Seurat and Lautrec, and even Picasso and van Dongen. La guenon et son petit is a whimsical bronze of a mother baboon cradling her young that is highly unusual in its composition: the sculpture's belly was formed with a large pottery jar, the shoulders and ears with pottery handles, the legs from pieces of wood, the tail from the spring of a car, and the head from two toy cars (which were given by Kahnweiler, the dealer, to Picasso's son Claude). When cast in bronze the assemblage of diverse objects cohere to create a moving although humorous image of a mother baboon and her young.
L'Estaque vu à travers les arbres, 1879 (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000), was painted by Paul Cézanne during one of his frequent stays in l'Estaque, a hamlet on the bay of Marseilles. While he was drawn there by both the town's proximity to his family in Aix and the beauty of its views, it is also the place where Cézanne fully explored the potential of en plein-air painting, executing the most celebrated landscapes of his career.
Eleven works of Modern art from Property from the Cohen Collection include Gustave Caillebotte's Le pont de l'Europe, 1876 (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000), a highly finished preparatory painting for one of Caillebotte's most important pictures of the mid-1870s, Le pont de l'Europe, which is now in the collection of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas. The painting depicts one of the engineering marvels of the Second Empire, an immense bridge spanning the yards of the Saint-Lazare train station. Another work from the collection, Picasso's Le repos (Marie-Thérèse Walter), 1932 (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000), was painted at the height of the artist's affair with the young Marie-Thérèse Walter and captures the spirit of Boisgeloup, the château that Picasso used as a hideaway for this intense romance. This gem-like canvas dates from the year in which many of the strands that influenced his art came together to produce a flowering that culminated in the extraordinarily vibrant and colorful works celebrating his love for Marie-Thérèse.
Also of particular note in the sale are three superb canvases by Camille Pissarro. La route par la neige, Louveciennes, ca. 1872 (estimate: $1,500,000-2,000,000), from a private Swiss collection, was painted the year after Pissarro returned to Louveciennes from England. The town provided the artist with a wide range of subjects, and Pissarro changed his focus from the strict dictates of landscapes to more suburban imagery. Le Cours-La-Reine à Rouen, matin, soleil, 1898 (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000), which has been held in the same private collection for more than 60 years, dates from one of Pissarro's most productive stays in Rouen. An idyllic vision of people at rest on a fine summer day, this work shows the artist's rare return to the rural landscape and pastoral imagery. Les mathurins, Pontoise, 1877 (estimate: $700,000-900,000), from the collection of Dr. and Mrs. Freddy and Regina T. Homburger, is an example of the artist's celebrated works from the years of high Impressionism that were painted around the region of Pontoise. This canvas captures the very essence of Impressionist landscape painting with the delicate transitions between shades of light and dark.
A number of important sculptures also will be offered in the Impressionist & Modern Art evening sale. Highlights include Julio Gonzalez's Homme gothique (estimate: $1,500,000-2,000,000), a unique piece from the Fondation Hartung, Paris and Antibes; Alberto Giacometti's Femme debout (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000), one of the iconic, elongated female figures the artist produced late in his career; Aristide Maillol's La nymphe, a bronze with dark green patina (estimate: $1,000,000-1,500,000); several pieces by Auguste Rodin, including L'éternel printemps, premier état, taille originale (estimate: $700,000-900,000); and Alexander Archipenko's Blue Dancer, a bronze cast during the artist's lifetime (estimate: $700,000-1,000,000).
The Impressionist and Modern Art Works on Paper Sale, Nov. 7
Christie's sale of Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper features a wide range of works by Impressionist and Modern art masters such as Picasso, Cézanne, Degas, Léger, Klimt and Klee. Among the highlights are a rare hand-colored zincograph on canary yellow paper by Paul Gauguin (estimate $180,000-220,000), and two Edgar Degas studies for his masterpiece of 1866 Scene de steeple-chase; aux courses, le jockey blessé (estimates $100,000-$150,000 and $70,000-90,000), from the Collection of Irene and Howard Stein.
The Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, Nov. 7
A diverse selection of works exemplifying the many styles of Impressionist and Modern art will be offered in this sale. From the collection of Mrs. Robert Lehman come two superb paintings by Armand Guillaumin (estimate $100,000-150,000) and Henry Cross (estimate $300,000-400,000). Van Gogh's Weaver, Arranging Threads (estimate $300,000-400,000), from a Private Family Collection, will be joined by paintings by Renoir, Daumier, Gauguin and Boudin. The School of Paris is represented with works by Soutine, Laurencin, Vlaminck, Utrillo and Chagall, and a lively scene of the polo field of Deauville by van Dongen (estimate $350,000-450,000). Picasso's Le peintre et son modèle (estimate $800,000-1,200,000) is the highlight of the Modern section, which also includes works by Braque and Léger, and Surrealist artists Picabia, Tanguy, Miró, Dalí, and Masson.
Auction:
Impressionist & Modern Art (evening sale) Nov. 6 at 7 p.m.
Impressionist & Modern Works on Paper Nov. 7 at 10 a.m.
Impressionist & Modern Art (day sale) Nov. 7 at 11 a.m. & 2 p.m.
Viewing:
Christie's Galleries, 20 Rockefeller Plaza Nov. 1 - 7
Images available on request
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