From Mitchell to Modigliani: a stellar line-up of 20th/21st Century art offered in Paris

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Le Cap d’Antibes, 1916

In 1907, more than 30 years after Pierre-Auguste Renoir had broken ground participating in the first Impressionist exhibition in Paris, he decided to leave the city behind. In search of a warmer climate that would ease his rheumatoid arthritis, he purchased Les Collettes, a picturesque farmhouse in Cagnes-sur-Mer on the French Riviera, where he would spend the final 12 years of his life.

‘Among olive and citrus groves, with views towards the mountains and the Mediterranean, the scenery at Les Collettes provided the painter with a new source of inspiration, while the light pushed the luminosity of his palette to new heights,’ says Lou Clinton-Celini, an Impressionist and Modern Art specialist at Christie’s in Paris.

Painted in 1916, Le Cap d’Antibes shows a glimpse of the sea naturally framed by twisted tree trunks. The landscape is painted in the classical tradition — Arcadian, and unspoiled by modern life. Its expression, though, is unmistakably Renoir’s: radiant, with saturated blues, green, pinks and golds that have been applied in fluid, vigorous strokes. Colour is used to convey volume, movement and light with extraordinary vitality.

During the first decades of the 20th century, the picture was purchased by the prominent banker and art collector Jakob Goldschmidt. In 1933, Goldschmidt, who was Jewish, fled to Switzerland, then to the United States, having become an early target for Nazi propaganda. The painting was confiscated and sold in Berlin on the Reich’s command in 1941. It is now being offered following a restitution agreement with Goldschmidt’s heirs.

Jean Dubuffet, Le Commandeur and Le Reître, 1954

In 1945, Jean Dubuffet coined the term ‘Art Brut’ to describe a style of mark-making that he thought revealed the true nature of the human spirit, unfettered by the art-historical canon or academic training. Studying the art of children, nomadic tribes or psychiatric patients, he began creating his own unbridled pictures — but almost exclusively using materials associated with fine art, chiefly oils and ink.

That changed in March 1954, when Dubuffet abandoned painting to create his Petites statues de la vie précaire, a series marking his first sustained engagement with three-dimensional work. Le Commandeur and Le Reître both belong to the first phase of this experimentation. They are constructed from the residue left from the combustion of coal, which the artist collected from railway depots in Paris.

‘Le Commandeur has a rich, organic surface. The figure’s dynamism doesn’t feel anatomically descriptive, but looks more like it has emerged from the material’s own energy,’ says Josephine Wanecq, co-head of Christie’s 20th/21st Century: Paris Evening Sale. ‘In contrast, Le Reître has a more tormented texture, and feels condensed by violence. The works’ titles allude to characters traditionally associated with heroic iconography, but here they’re stripped of that grandeur, reduced to irregular masses that could represent humanity’s absurdity. Dubuffet has given a worthless by-product immense expressive power.’

The two sculptures come to Christie’s from the Collection of Antonio Homem Sonnabend, heir of the legendary gallery owner Ileana Sonnabend. They were shown together in Dubuffet’s 1954 show Petites statues de la vie précaire at Galerie Rive Gauche in Paris, then again in The Art of Assemblage, which toured MoMA, the Dallas Museum of Contemporary Arts and San Francisco Museum of Art between 1961 and 1962. They also featured in the Pomipdou’s Les années 50 exhibition in 1988 and Jean Dubuffet: 1901-1985 at Rome’s Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna in 1989.

Joan Mitchell, Sans titre, circa 1957

When Joan Mitchell painted Sans titre, around 1957, she was in her early thirties. Yet she was already making a name for herself among New York’s Abstract Expressionist circles, exhibiting alongside Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler — and was on the cusp of worldwide fame.

In the months leading up to the work’s creation, she participated in several important group shows, including Vanguard 1955 at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; and Recent American Watercolorists, which was organised by the international council of the Museum of Modern Art and toured across Europe. Critic Irving Sandler called Mitchell ‘one of America’s most brilliant Action-Painters’. Sans titre highlights the newfound confidence this recognition gave her.

What appears to be the spontaneous application of paint is in fact a carefully plotted web of brushstrokes. Dashes of ocean blue, forest green and blood red appear to push against the boundaries of the canvas with the energy of free jazz. This lyrical use of colour is heightened by rich textures, combining dry arcs with thick, wet daubs of paint.

During this breakthrough year, Mitchell also painted Ladybug, using as her new visual language the same style of counterposed lines and fields of colour. The following year, Ladybug was exhibited at the Venice Biennale, before being acquired in 1961 by MoMA. By that time, Mitchell had left her tight-knit community of Downtown artists and moved to France. There, her work took on a new style that was more indebted to the Post-Impressionists, such as Van Gogh and Cezanne, but also shaped by the loss of both her parents. She remained there until her death in 1992.

‘Sans titre has never been at auction before,’ says Wanecq. ‘It’s a stunning work that combines everything collectors look for in Mitchell’s painting: powerful colour, defiant brushwork and a palpable sense of movement and energy.’

Carlo Mollino, ‘Arabesque’ table, circa 1950-51

Carlo Mollino was the 20th century’s version of a Renaissance man. Born in 1905 in Turin, he would become an acclaimed architect, portrait photographer, author, racing driver, champion skier and acrobatic pilot.

The origins of his celebrated ‘Arabesque’ table date back to 1949-50, when Mollino designed a unique example for the Casa Orengo in his home city. Its sculptural structure, with sinuous wooden curves supporting a ‘floating’ glass top, reflected his fascination with organic forms, movement and the female body. The glass top itself was inspired by a reclining female figure photographed by the Surrealist artist Leonor Fini.

Around 1950-51, Mollino revisited the design, exploring new proportions and more elongated, fluid lines. Executed by the skilled Turin craftsmen Apelli, Varesio & C., these exceptionally rare variations demonstrate Mollino’s remarkable ability to transform furniture into sculptural works of art.

‘The “Arabesque” is among the rarest and most celebrated creations of Carlo Mollino,’ explains Capucine Tamboise, Design specialist at Christie’s in Paris. ‘Fewer than a dozen examples are believed to have been produced across its different variations, and several are preserved in major museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.’

This particular example also has an exceptional provenance. Formerly in the collection of Giovanni Brino, the Italian architect and leading Mollino scholar, it was subsequently acquired in 1994 by renowned Swiss art dealer Thomas Ammann.

‘Combining sculptural elegance, extraordinary rarity and a remarkable provenance, this table represents a rare opportunity to acquire one of the true masterpieces of 20th-century Italian design,’ says the specialist.

Amedeo Modigliani, Minoutcha, 1916-17

In 1914, Amadeo Modigliani was living a ramshackle existence in bohemian Paris. Recently compelled to quit making sculpture because dust from the stone he worked with was damaging his tuberculosis-scarred lungs, he instead experimented with his new, impulsive style of portraiture in oils. Sitters’ necks were stretched, their eyes widened, and their heads were cocked at an inquisitive angle. His palette deepened and his lines became more stylised, as his work reached new levels of potency.

The art critic Emile Schaub-Koch documented this newfound conviction: ‘He painted eagerly, more often than not without an easel or palette, nor did he even own a box of colours… Without bothering to arrange a pose, he stared at his model for several minutes, then made a rough sketch. This done, he looked up at his model again… Finally, he set to work with amazing virtuosity, and, in one or two hours, the work was done.’

Minoutcha was painted during this intense period. It depicts an unknown woman, most likely from the Montparnasse neighbourhood where Modigliani lived and worked and found many of his subjects, including heiresses, maids and artist friends.

The colours and angular intersections show the influence of Baule masks and other African sculptures that he and Picasso had discovered at the Trocadéro and in the collection of Paul Guillaume. But unlike the Spaniard, he was never inspired to adopt Cubism’s fully abstract geometry, preferring instead to maintain a degree of realism in order to reflect a sitter’s mood.

‘Modigliani often left his sitters’ eyes blank,’ says Post-War and Contemporary Art specialist Renato Pennisi. ‘Referencing African masks and classical statues, it’s a startling innovation that gives his faces an enduring sense of grandeur and mystery.’

Claude Lalanne, Lit ‘Singerie’, 1997

Throughout the second half of the 20th century, Claude Lalanne created an enchanting universe where nature, sculpture and furniture became one. Butterflies, crocodiles, ginkgo leaves and fantastical creatures populated her creations, blurring the boundaries between art and everyday life.

In 1997, she conceived one of her most ambitious and spectacular works, the Lit ‘Singerie’, a unique commission for the French socialite Florence Grinda. Inspired by a visit to the home of Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne, where she had admired a child’s bed adorned with water lilies, Grinda asked the artist to transform the bedroom of her new Parisian apartment into an enchanted garden.

The result was a sculptural masterpiece, one of only a handful of monumental beds created by Lalanne for a select circle of collectors. Its spectacular headboard unfolds into a luxuriant jungle of bronze foliage, recalling the dreamlike landscapes of Henri Rousseau. Among the intertwined branches, mischievous monkeys climb and swing, bringing the entire composition to life.

More than a piece of furniture, the Lit ‘Singerie’ embodies the dialogue between sculpture, nature and the decorative arts that defines Lalanne’s work. Conceived as a deeply personal commission, it also reflects the unique relationship between the artist and the collectors who inspired some of her greatest works.

‘It’s a true masterpiece of imagination and technical virtuosity,’ says Tamboise, ‘perfectly capturing Claude Lalanne’s singular ability to transform an everyday object into a work of art. Monumental yet intimate, whimsical yet incredibly sophisticated, it is one of those rare creations that transports us into an entirely different world.’

Gustave Caillebotte, Bateaux à l’ancre sur la Seine, circa 1892

In 1878, two years after Gustav Caillebotte participated in the second Impressionist exhibition in Paris, he acquired his first racing yacht. The purchase would turn him from a keen rower into a skilled boat designer, the co-president of the Cercle de la Voile sailing club and one of the most influential yachtsmen in France.

Bateaux à l’ancre sur la Seine, painted around 1892, depicts the river running alongside the Paris suburb of Argenteuil. Monet had lived there between 1871 and 1878, using the landscape as a laboratory for Impressionism. Of the approximately 170 pictures he made there, roughly half depict the banks of the Seine, and the sailing boat became one of Impressionism’s defining motifs.

In 1881, Caillebotte acquired a house in Petit-Gennevilliers, directly opposite Argenteuil. The property had its own boatyard, and he won several regattas with his yacht, Roastbeef. Like Monet, Caillebotte painted the same stretch of river repeatedly, but varied the arrangement of boats from the perspective of someone who lived, worked and sailed on its waters. With no people or notable landmarks in sight, the anchored vessels became his entire subject.

Another of his depictions of this part of the Seine, also made in 1892, is now housed at the Museum Barberini in Potsdam. Together, the works highlight Caillebotte’s intimate relationship with this landscape. They also reveal how he used boats as a formal device for creating strong horizontal rhythms across the water and vertical accents that pierce the sky. His precise skills of observation are balanced by the fleeting qualities of Impressionism, as each vessel’s reflection dissolves into looser, more unstable forms.

‘Remarkably, the picture has remained with the artist’s family until now,’ says Paris-based specialist Antoine Lebouteiller. ‘This incredible provenance connects the work directly to the world it depicts.’

The 20th/21st Century: Paris Evening Sale including Thinking Italian (22 October 2026) is on view from 16 October at Christie’s in Paris, alongside Art Moderne — Vente du Jour, including Works from the Durand-Ruel Collection and Works from the Marlene and Spencer Hays Collection (23 October) and Art Contemporain — Vente du Jour (23 October)