Property from the Collection of Lee V. Eastman For over 30 years, Lee Eastman was a central figure in the New York art world. During his lifetime he had witnessed the city's ascent from provincial backwater to world art capital; and in his special role both as sometime legal advisor to artists and as passionate collector of their works, he had befriended many of the painters who had brought about this metamorphosis, including Hans Hofmann, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, Robert Motherwell, and, above all, Willem de Kooning. His collection, which had been put together painstakingly over many years, with moderate means, became justly famous, both for its consistently high quality and for its legendary holdings of works by de Kooning. Christie's is privileged to offer 24 superb works by this artist in our sales of Post-War and Contemporary Art on November 8th and 9th, ranging from exquisite drawings and gouaches of the 1940's and 50's, to major sculpture and to great oil masterpieces of the 1970's. These are accompanied by equally judiciously chosen works by de Kooning's peers, including a powerful Kline oil of 1960, a beautiful oil on paper by Rothko of the same date, Motherwell's iconic Spanish Elegy#122, an early Guston oil, two constructions by Joseph Cornell, and many others. Lee Eastman's connoisseurship extended equally to the great 20th century European masters, including Matisse, Giacometti, Lipchitz and, not least, Picasso, who was such a formative influence on the young de Kooning. Important works by these artists and others from the Eastman collection will be offered in Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art sales on November 1st and 2nd. Picasso is brilliantly represented by many works, including his searing small portrait of Dora Maar of 1939, Buste de Femme; by his Atelier of 1955, a vivacious interpretation of his studio interior at La Californie in Cannes and by one of the small gems of the Eastman collection, his 1937 drawing of Père Ubu, with its remarkable poem by the artist. The collection was rich in sculpture as is demonstrated by the great Matisse bronze, Grand nu accroupi (Olga) of 1909-10, an abstracted portrait of the Russian painter Olga Meerson, as well as by two important cubist Lipchitz bronzes, one of 1917 the other of 1928. Of particular interest, too, are the important bronzes by Giacometti, one a transitional early head, Isabel I (L'Egyptienne), an elegant portrait of the young Englishwoman, Isabel Nicholas, conceived in 1936, the other a profoundly moving and exceptionally fine portrait bust of his brother Diego, conceived in 1957. On a personal note, my old collection books record that I first contacted the Eastmans in December of 1973, shortly after I had moved to New York; and that they were gracious enough, on January 4th 1974, to invite me, a complete stranger, to the first of several enthralling and stimulating tours of this magnificent collection. I am honored to be involved, nearly 32 years later, in steering so many wonderful works of art from this great pioneering assemblage into the hands of a new generation of buyers, all of whom will owe a debt to Lee Eastman's collecting zeal and to his intelligent and incisive eye. Christopher Burge Honorary Chairman

Albert Marquet (1875-1947)

Fruits, couteau et serviette

Details

Albert Marquet (1875-1947)
Fruits, couteau et serviette
signed 'Marquet' (lower left)
oil on canvas
13 1/8 x 18 in. (33.3 x 45.7 cm.)
Painted circa 1898-1899

Provenance

Mme Albert Marquet. Acquired from the above by the present owner, by 1958.

Exhibited

San Francisco Museum of Art, Albert Marquet 1875-1947, August 1958, no. 19.

Lot Essay

Guy Wildenstein will include this painting in his forthcoming Marquet catalogue raisonné being prepared under the sponsorship of the Wildenstein Institute.

Marquet studied at the Ecole des Arts Décoratifs in Paris in 1892, where he met Henri Matisse, thus initiating a close, life-long friendship. They were admitted to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1895, where they entered the studio of Gustave Moreau, and following his death in 1898, they studied under Fernand Cormon. Their fellow classmates included Charles Camoin, Henri Manguin and Georges Rouault. Together these painters would later make their mark in the famous Fauve exhibition at the 1905 Salon d'Automne.

The paintings of Marquet and Matisse of the late 1890s share several significant characteristics, which are visible in this still-life, Fruits, couteau et serviette. Both young painters were drawn to the bold use of vivid and at times even arbitrary color, a technique loosely adapted from the divisionism of Paul Signac, and a freshly spontaneous approach to their subjects. Working quickly, au premier coup, they often left passages of bare canvas, as seen here. Commentators have described the paintings of this period as being "proto-Fauve," because they prefigure the ground-breaking pictures of 1905. Marquet, however, would rarely return to the brilliant clash of "Mediterranean" colors seen in this still-life and other paintings of this period. In many of his Fauve pictures of Paris subjects, he favored more neutral, "northern" tonalities.

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