Radical Genius: Works on Paper from A Distinguished Private Collection
Radical Genius: Works on Paper from A Distinguished Private Collection

Sale Overview

Works on paper offer an unparalleled intimacy with the artistic process, preserving the artist’s gestures as direct traces of thought and sensation. Radical Genius: Works on Paper from A Distinguished Private Collection brings together visionary artists who challenged convention and forged new artistic languages. Long valued by scholars as primary documents and prized by collectors for their immediacy, these works reveal moments of experimentation, refinement, and breakthrough. For artists such as Paul Cezanne, who drew almost daily in pursuit of ‘concrete expression,’ John Singer Sargent, whose drawings display extraordinary confidence and economy of line, and J.M.W. Turner, whose watercolours shaped his vision of the sublime, paper was not preparatory but essential—a space where perception and imagination could unfold freely.

Across the collection, works by Eugène Delacroix, George Grosz, Paul Klee, Alfred Kubin, Piet Mondrian, Pablo Picasso and other important artists exemplify radical independence of thought. From Kubin’s psychologically charged imagery to Mondrian’s abstract dynamism, these artists used the medium’s immediacy to explore emotion, modernity, and the unseen. Some were inspired by social change, some by spiritual or religious beliefs, while others were eager to explore new techniques and media, but whatever the catalyst, the results are inventive and intoxicating works that represent the high point of each artist’s career.

Together, these works affirm paper as a site of invention, where ideas first take form and the foundations of modern art are laid.

Tour Details
New York
29 January–4 February

London
Early March

Auction times
15 Apr 04:00 PM (CEST)

Our specialist’s selection

Brought to you by

Antoine Lebouteiller

Antoine Lebouteiller

International Specialist | Impressionist & Modern Art

Antoine Lebouteiller is the Head of the Impressionist and Modern Art department at Christie’s France. Antoine first joined Christie’s in 2009 in Paris, and has worked since 2013 at the London office as a Specialist for the Day and Works on Paper sales and later as Director and Senior Specialist for the Evening Sale. In December 2018, he rejoined the Paris team, leading the Avant-Garde and Works on Paper Sales.

Antoine worked closely with Deputy Chairman Olivier Camu on the Art of the Surreal evening auctions and was instrumental in the record-breaking sale of the Claudel bronze group in June 2018. Furthermore, he played a seminal role for many acquisitions by major international institutions, including an important Paul Gauguin ceramic acquired by the Musée d’Orsay during the October 2018 Unbreakable sale, of which he was the Impressionist lead.

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