Christie’s specialists share highlights coming to auction this November

‘Kandinsky was fascinated by Wagner’s concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. He saw painting as a way to unify all the arts, and his love of music was a particular influence on his development. He believed colour had the same power in a painting that sound has in music, and painting should be as “abstract” as music. His synaesthesia led him to create what is widely considered the first modern work of abstract art.

‘Monumental in scale and impact, this painting is also closely tied to the origins of the Guggenheim collection. It was acquired by Hilla Rebay in 1929, a German artist who travelled with and advised Solomon R. Guggenheim. He acquired the work from Rebay in 1938 and gifted it to the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation in 1941. It remained in their collection until 1964.’

‘The composition is deceptively simple, built around the spool’s flat areas of colour and graphic lines. The contours are almost architectural, yet the subject remains instantly recognisable. At 68 inches wide, its scale also elevates something commonplace into a monumental, commanding form.

‘Remarkably, the work has remained with the same family since its first exhibition in 1963. It comes from the collection of Antonio Homem Sonnabend, whose adoptive mother Ileana Sonnabend was one of the most influential figures in the history of 20th and 21st Century Art.’

‘The Bass Picasso and the Tate’s masterpiece are true “sister” pictures. La Danse may indeed have faced La leçon de dessin in Picasso’s studio before their completion in June 1925. Together, writes Marilyn McCully, these twenties masterpieces represent “a great advance.”

‘In the contrast between the boy’s fragmented features and the classical perfection of the bust lies the power and paradox of Picasso’s art: the Cubist boy with reverence for the past.’

‘Cornelis van Haarlem was among the most gifted Dutch Mannerists working in Haarlem in the late 16th century. Hercules and Achelous is one of his most ambitious paintings. It depicts a scene from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which Hercules vanquishes the river god, Achelous, who shape-shifted into a serpent and then a bull while pursuing Deianira. The mythological encounter distilled to a battle between man and beast.

‘The composition captures Hercules at the brink of victory. His taut, muscular arms twist the bull’s horns, his knee presses into the bull’s flank, and that bracing intensity contrasts with the bull’s agony. Ovid’s story is partly an allegory of logic and reason over impulse: though the bull embodies a more formidable physical power, Hercules relies on strategy and cunning to overcome it. The transformation of the bull’s horn into a cornucopia is a sign of hope and abundance in addition to symbolising Hercules’ victory.’

‘These later works represent a whole lifetime of building to this moment. After nearly 20 years of developing his iconic Colour Field imagery, it all comes together here. But what's most special about this painting is that you don't have to be an art historian to recognise its beauty. It speaks to anyone visually drawn to Rothko’s work, as well as those attuned to the nuances of his career. It moves both the connoisseur and the enthusiast.’

‘This painting is also from a prime period in Richter’s practice when he broke through with abstract painting and honed the methods he had begun exploring in the 1980s. Marian Goodman was one of Richter’s great champions who worked alongside him as he developed this mature abstraction technique. This painting comes from the last chapter of her personal collection. It’s one that the family chose to live with a bit longer, and it caps off the last opportunity to acquire a major Richter abstract from her groundbreaking collection.’

‘Painted in 1890, the beginning of a decade defined by the artist’s great series of grainstacks, poplar trees and the Rouen cathedral, the painting was already in the collection of Alfred Atmore Pope by 1891. Pope was one of the earliest and most passionate of several American collectors who embraced the groundbreaking movement of Impressionism right from the beginning.’

‘Leonardo’s original image is considered the most elaborate of his Grotesques; drawings of exaggerated figures seen as a counterpart to his concurrent investigations of ideal beauty. Throughout art history, from Bosch to Goya to Bacon, the grotesque has been used to critique societal norms and conventions. Studying the grotesque was also highly influential on Basquiat’s own raw, fractured figuration. Basquiat, a sage at the age of 22, asks us to consider what is beautiful, what is grotesque, and who is making that judgment?’

'This is the largest nude from the period left in private hands, and yet, for all its monumentality, the painting retains an extraordinary sense of intimacy. Caught in a moment of quiet repose, Henriette rests with eyes closed and arm outstretched, transforming the grandeur of the composition into something deeply personal and profoundly human.’

‘At the centre of the composition, stands the “Vitreur,” a recurring character inspired by Duchamp’s Large Glass (1915-23) and a symbol of fragility, transparency and the limits between the inner self and the external world. Completed in the fall of 1944, Matta first unveiled Science, Conscience et Patience du Vitreur  to an audience of two: Max Ernst and André Breton. Now, over eighty years later, it makes its debut at auction as a quintessential Surrealist masterpiece.’

‘Arguably his most iconic self-portrait, the ‘Fright Wig’ series presents Warhol in this crazy wig that is scary but also very hip and apropos to the New York scene. It even slightly mimics Basquiat’s hair, which Warhol acknowledged in his diaries. Everything in his paintings was deliberate, and this feels like the ultimate presentation of himself. At approximately 80 inches square, it’s also monumental, while the beautiful lavender colour sets it apart from others in the series.

‘Overall, there’s an end note to these portraits. They are the last great works he created, and we imagine him reflecting on his career and place in art history. It’s all summed up in this one iconic image, with Warhol presenting himself as artist, celebrity, icon and death. It really is the artist at his best.’

‘Jointure de boules brims with visual puns, magnetic juxtapositions and deep psychological texture. This uncanny effect is intensified by the quotidian wallpaper mount. To Bellmer, the ball-joint motif, with its free rotation around a fixed point, speaks to something key about the human condition: endless possibility anchored only by a white-hot core of desire.

‘This piece was Bellmer’s singular contribution to the legendary Exposition surréaliste d’objets at Galerie Charles Ratton in 1936. Later held in the collections of Daniel Filipacchi and Herbert Lust and illustrated on the cover of Sue Taylor’s definitive monograph on the artist, Jointure de boules is an emblem of Bellmer’s radical imagination and the triumph of the Surrealist object itself.’