André Derain, Londres: la Tamise au pont de Westminster, oil on canvas
(1906-07) UPDATE: THIS FAILED TO SELL
André Derain’s Londres: la Tamise au pont de Westminster (1906-07) will highlight Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in London on February 27. One of 29 recorded paintings of London that Derain painted across 1906 and 1907, it comes to auction alongside the exhibition ‘Impressionists and London’ currently on view at London’s Tate Britain. Londres: la Tamise au pont de Westminster is captured from the Albert Embankment, portraying the Thames, the Palace of Westminster, Westminster Bridge and, in the background, the pyramidal silhouette of Whitehall Court.
As with all of the works in this series, the British capital is saturated in radiant colour. The expansive grey waters of the Thames are transformed into a mosaic of shimmering yellow, blue and turquoise; the sunlit sky rendered in an iridescent patchwork of blues and pink. It is estimated at £6-9 million.
Keith Gill, head of sale said: “Among the most iconic works of Fauvism, many of this rare series of London paintings are now housed in museum collections across the world, including the Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; and the Tate Gallery, London”