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Rare Family Collection of Eight Works by René Magritte to be Offered at Christie's
Contact:
Patricia Clark 44 (0)207 389 2117
Catherine Fenston 44 (0)207 389 2982
CHRISTIE'S OFFERS ONE OF THE BEST IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN PICTURE SALES FOR OVER A DECADE
Exceptional works of art by Monet, Gauguin, Vlaminck, Picasso, and Rothko
Impressionist and Modern Art (Evening Sale)
Post-War Art (Evening Sale)
Monday, 25 June 2001
London - Christie's evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art and Post-War Art on 25 June 2001 promises to be one of the strongest ever staged in London. Comprising superb works of art from the major artists and artistic movements of the late 19th and 20th centuries such as Impressionism, Fauvism and Expressionism, the sale also offers a wonderful selection of important works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet as well as works by Mark Rothko and Andy Warhol.
Impressionism
The term and artistic movement of Impressionism was derived from a painting by Claude Monet, which represented the play of light on water. In Christie's evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art there is an exceptional example by this innovative master. Matinée sur la Seine, près de Giverny (estimate: £3,500,000-4,500,000) by Claude Monet (1840-1926) was painted in 1896 and was one of a series depicting the fusion of colour and light. There was a tremendous discipline involved in the paintings. Monet would rise at 3.30 every morning to be on the river just before dawn. Once on the riverbank, he would paddle the small flat-bottomed skiff into the waters of the Seine and take up exactly the same painting position as the previous day. The damp air of the river, the fast changing climate of late summer, and the rising of each dawn provided him with a variation of light, colour and mist effects which he had never experienced before.
Le Boulevard extérieur (Boulevard de Clichy et Angle de la rue de Douai) by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) (estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000), circa 1904, reveals the artist's more intimiste approach to painting. In contrast to Monet, Bonnard is interested in the human aspect of town life and even when adopting an aerial perspective distancing him from the scene, the focus remains on the human activity in the busy city streets below. People rush back and forth on urgent business, horses and carriages fill the boulevard, and people look down from the balcony of the apartment building opposite. Images and impressions are distilled in his memory and given life through animated brushwork and a richly varied palette. Colour was also essential to the work of Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and his stunning still-life, executed in 1890, Nature morte aux pommes (estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000), is imbued with a spiritualism that transcends the subject-matter.
Fauvism and Expressionism
Maurice de Vlaminck moved to the area of Chatou, a small suburb on the Seine near the outskirts of Paris, in 1892. It was here that he painted many of his finest 'fauve' paintings depicting in rich vibrant colours the local landscape and the life of the riverside. Péniche sur la Seine (estimate: £1,200,000-1,600,000), 1905, and Nature Morte (estimate: £1,200,000-1,600,000), 1906, both show that Vlamick's greatest Chatou paintings date from the period immediately after his chance meeting with André Derain. In the summer of 1900, the train that both artists were travelling on was derailed and the two men struck up a conversation on the walk to Chatou where they both lived. It was this meeting, and the friendship which ensued, that led to the creation of the so-called 'School of Chatou', a school which was actually more of a friendly partnership. In 1901, they shared a studio in an abandoned restaurant called 'La Venneaux on the Ile de Chatou and their friendship, as well as a visit to Van Gogh's exhibition at Bernheim-Jeune in 1901, proved a turning point in both of their careers.
Further highlights include works by Emil Nolde (1867-1956) and Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956), two leading lights in the German Expressionist movement. Schwertilien (estimate: £600,000-800,000), was painted in 1907 and is one of the first series of flower paintings that Nolde executed during his summer visits to the Baltic island of Aslen. The bridge dominating the composition in Lyonel Feininger's Die Grüne Brücke (estimate: £800,000-1,200,000), of 1908, is probably based on the aqueduct at Arcueil which so impressed Feininger when he first saw it on a visit to the town in 1906. The huge arches of the aqueduct became a regular architectural feature in his imaginary representations.
Pablo Picasso
Yo Picasso: Preparatory for Self-Portrait (estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000), by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), is the preparatory pastel for Picasso's major self-portrait which opened his first one-man exhibition in Paris in 1901. This outstanding work marks the emergence of Picasso's powerful and innovative personality presented directly within his oeuvre. Within six months of painting this self-portrait, the joy and confidence of his earlier virtuoso style of painting would be reduced to the stark monochrome hues and flat texture of his blue period paintings. This preparatory work, Yo Picasso or I Picasso, therefore marks the beginning of his artistic self-discovery.
Bouteille de Malaga (estimate: £600,000-800,000) by Picasso was executed in 1919 when a grape disease resulted in the loss of his family's vineyards. The event evoked a strong sense of regret and resentment within this work. The bottle in the painting is clearly marked with 'Malaga' on the label, which refers to the town of Picasso's birth and his home for the first ten years of his childhood. In the beginning of March 1953, Picasso painted the striking portrait of his partner Françoise Gilot. It is clear that Picasso's relationship was coming to an end with Françoise in Femme assise dans un fauteuil (estimate: £600,000-800,000), as he depicts her in a very cold and formal pose. Francoise's crossed hands and her entire posture indicate that it was she who ended the affair and not the artist. The third picture by Picasso to be offered is Mandoline, cruche et verre (estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000), executed between April and May 1959 and the culmination of a series of still-lifes that Picasso painted shortly after moving into his new home at the Château de Vauvenargues. Dated several times on the back, it is a work that Picasso evidently returned to repeatedly working and reworking the composition with a intensity and passion that is rare in his late work.
Post-War Art
Post-War Art offers a selection of the best artists from the second half of the late 20th century. Highlights from this sale include a superb work by Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Untitled (estimate: £450,000-650,000).
In late 1967, after three years of intense and exhausting work, Rothko finally completed the most important project of his life; the mural installation for the Menil Chapel in Houston. A few months later, in the spring of 1968, the 65 year-old artist suffered a massive aneurysm to his aorta and after his recovery was advised by his doctors never to work with the strenuous medium of oil or on paintings of over 40" in height again. In response to these restrictive conditions, in the summer of that year, Rothko began to fully explore the new acrylic medium in a series of paintings executed on paper which he later laid down on panel or canvas for the purpose of preservation. Untitled of 1968 is an impressive and commanding example from this dramatic and important late series of acrylic paintings.
Marcel Broodthaers (1924-1976) asserted, that the mussel is a pure and perfect form, because it secretes its own shell and takes its own mould. This was the reasoning behind the work entitled Cercle de Moules (estimate: £300,000-400,000). Broodthaers believed that the mussel is a pure form because it is made by itself and remains independent and uncontaminated by the outside world. Like much of his aesthetic, the conceptual origin of the mussel as a raw material for his work derives from language and in particular the play on the French words 'la moule', meaning mussel, and 'le moule', meaning mould.
A superb example of the work of Alexander Calder (1898-1976) will feature in the sale of Post-War Art entitled 12 Ender - 1 Red (estimate: £350,000-450,000). Jean-Paul Sartre's comments on these floating wonders, "Sculpture suggests motion, painting suggests light or space. Calder suggests nothing, he fashions real living motions which he has captured….these motions, which are meant only to please, to enchant the eye, have nevertheless a profound meaning, a metaphysical one."
A name synonymous with this period of post-war art is Andy Warhol (1928-1987). In 1981 he cast an eye back to his Dollar Bill series of 1962 and returned to the theme of money. The Dollar Sign image (estimate: £200,000-300,000) which followed was again part of a series of prints and paintings of sketchy dollar signs which consolidated Warhol's exploitation of art as a commodity and paid tribute to the capitalism that was so central to his oeuvre.
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