antiquesandartireland.com

Information about Art, Antiques and Auctions in Ireland and around the world
  • ABOUT
  • About Des
  • Contact
  • Posts Tagged ‘Max Beckmann’

    NEW WORLD RECORD FOR MAX BECKMANN AT CHRISTIE’S

    Tuesday, June 27th, 2017

    Max Beckmann, Hölle der Vögel (Birds’ Hell) c CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2017

    Max Beckmann’s Hölle der Vögel (Birds’ Hell) (1937-38) achieved a new world record price for the artist of £36,005,000 at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on June 27.  The work continues the Germanic tradition of using gruesome allegorical scenes at the same time as taking aspects of Classicism and mythology to turn reality into a timeless evocation of human suffering.

    In this sense, the painting transcends the time and political situation in which it was created to become a universal symbol of humanity like Pablo Picasso’s Guernica of the same period. Begun in Amsterdam in 1937 and completed in Paris at the end of 1938 it ranks amongst the clearest and most important anti-Nazi statements that the artist ever made.

    The sale totalled £149.5 million.  Three lots made over £20 million, the Beckmann, Picasso’s Femme ecrivant (Marie-Therese) which made £34.8 million and Van Gogh’s Le moissonneur (d’apres Millet) which made £24.2 million.