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PROPERTY FROM THE COLLECTION OF RUDOLF AND LEONORE BLUM A collection that reflects the passion of a hunter who travelled the world in pursuit of big game trophies and exceptional artworks, The Blum Collection is an insightful observation of global culture. Beginning with their earliest explorations into Western Twentieth Century art, as the Blums travelled extensively through Europe and Africa, they became interested in diverse artistic practices, recognizing a deep connection between African art and the Modern art which they had already been collecting. With a steady interest in the local Swiss art scene developing from the 1950s when the Blums collected works by Varlin, Franz Fischer, Gerald Veraguth, and Hans Falk, it was in the early 1960s that they began to build their impressive Twentieth Century art collection. In the 1970s, they extended their collection to include African art and artefacts that complemented their interest in the development of abstraction in Modern and Post-War art. Reflective of the Blums’ grand tour, this collection embraces African Tribal Art, Asian Art, Antiquities, Impressionism, Modern British and European Twentieth century. This extensive and varied collection represents the great masters of these disparate art movements, including Piet Mondrian, Wassily Kandinsky, Jackson Pollock, Nicolas de Staël and Alberto Burri. A celebration of a couple’s deeply sophisticated connoisseurship, these works introduce a dynamic dialogue across periods, genre and media: contrasting cultures and mediums from Antiquity to the new millennia. The Blums created a collection which, in its entirety, explores the subtle balance between representation and abstraction, which was at the core of much of the art of the Twentieth Century. Some of the earliest Western examples are led by two impressive works from the 1930s, Mondrian’s Composition A, with double line and yellow (1935) and Wassily Kandinsky’s Schwebender Druck (1931). These two works outline different tendencies dominating the emergence of abstract art: one, rational, Apollonian and geometrical; the other emotional, Dionysian and lyrical. This duality is further demonstrated in The Blum Collection by the contrasts between works by artists as diverse as Paul Klee, Joan Miró, Kurt Schwitters, Walter Dexel and Georges Vantongerloo, as well as British artists such as Ben Nicholson and William Scott, many of whom the Blums had close personal ties with. Over the past three decades, Rudolf and Leonore Blum traversed continents, developing a sophisticated eye as they assembled species and artworks from around the world. The Blum Collection is a tribute to the intellectual approach, inquisitive eye, and passion of its creators.

Howard Hodgkin (b. 1932)

Alpine Snow

Details

Howard Hodgkin (b. 1932)
Alpine Snow
signed, inscribed and dated 'Alpine Snow/Howard Hodgkin/1997' (on the reverse), signed again and dated again 'Howard Hodgkin 1997' (on a label attached to the reverse)
oil on panel laid on board
13¼ x 15½ in. (33.6 x 39.4 cm.)

Provenance

with Anthony d'Offay Gallery, London.
with Galerie Lawrence Rubin, Zurich, where purchased by the present owners in 1998.

Literature

M. Price (ed.), Howard Hodgkin The Complete Paintings Catalogue Raisonné, London, 2006, p. 300, no. 304, illustrated.

Exhibited

Zurich, Galerie Lawrence Rubin, Howard Hodgkin: Recent Work, April - May 1997, no. 12.
Dublin, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Howard Hodgkin, February - May 2006: this exhibition travelled to London, Tate Gallery, June - September 2006; Madrid, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia.

Special notice

Artist's Resale Right ("Droit de Suite"). Artist's Resale Right Regulations 2006 apply to this lot, the buyer agrees to pay us an amount equal to the resale royalty provided for in those Regulations, and we undertake to the buyer to pay such amount to the artist's collection agent. These lots have been imported from outside the EU for sale using a Temporary Import regime. Import VAT is payable (at 5%) on the Hammer price. VAT is also payable (at 20%) on the buyer’s Premium on a VAT inclusive basis. When a buyer of such a lot has registered an EU address but wishes to export the lot or complete the import into another EU country, he must advise Christie's immediately after the auction.

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Anne Haasjes

ahaasjes@christies.com +44 (0)20 7389 2681

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