The Impressionist and Modern Art and Art of the Surreal evening sales at Christie’s in London tonight made £106.8 million. Tamara de Lempicka’s Portrait de Marjorie Ferry made £16.2 million, a new auction record for the artist. It was the top lot and the Polish artist becomes the first female artist to lead an Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale.
George Grosz’spolitically charged Gefährliche Straße made a record of £9,740,250 and Rene Magritte’s A la rencontre du plaisir made £18,933,750 to lead The Art of the Surreal evening sale. Trois Hommes qui marchent by Alberto Giacometti made £11.2 million and there were records for Louis Anquetin (£1.3 million) and James Ensor (£815,250). The Impressionist and Modern sale made £62.6 million, The Art of the Surreal made £43.9 million.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 1, January 30, January 15 and January 10, 2020)
The first major David Hockney painting to feature at auction in Asia – 30 Sunflowers – will lead Sotheby’s Hong Kong Contemporary Art evening sale on April 6. The work is not unlike Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, while exhibiting a radical and personal approach. Created in 1996 it marks his return to figurative painting after a decade in which he was primarily immersed in photography. 30 Sunflowers will be on view at Sotheby’s London from February 7 – 11. It will then tour to Los Angeles, Jakarta, Hong Kong, and Taipei.
David Hockney, 30 Sunflowers. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR US$14.8 MILLION
The Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Art sale at Sotheby’s this evening achieved a total of £49.9 million. Camille Pissarro’s Gelee blanche was the top lot of this 33 lot auction. It made £13.29 million over a top estimate of £12 million. This was the second highest auction price for a Pissarro. The painting was one of three works restituted to the heirs of Gaston Levy which together sold for £22.2 million. There were auction records for Jean Metzinger and Pyke Koch. The sale saw strong activity from Asia as well as Europe and the US. Asian collectors bid on one third of lots offered.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 1, January 29 and January 13, 2020)
Pyke Koch FLORENTIJNSE TUIN (FLORENTINE GARDEN) sold for £555,000
It is a pity that Claude Monet never came to Ireland. The rapidly changing light would have undoubtedly enthralled him. This depiction of Waterloo Bridge in London, which comes up at the Impressionist and Modern Art day sale at Sotheby’s on February 5, is both specific and otherworldly.
In words that could be readily used about the Irish climate Monet wrote from London to his wife Alice: “The weather was magnificent but unsettled… I can’t begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter.” Painted in 1899 the work is estimated at £400,000-600,000.
Claude Monet – Waterloo Bridge . UPDATE: THIS MADE £819,000
The catalogue for the online auction of Irish art now underway at de Veres in Dublin is online. Most lots are estimated at under 1,000 euro. The sale runs to February 11.
Michael Cullen b.1946 BATHERS, LA PELOSA, SARDINIA (watercolour) . UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Adding piquancy to the big London February art sales, which get underway next week, is that these are the first post Brexit auctions. These annual sales usually attract round the globe interest and large numbers of Asian and US buyers. Sothebys kicks off on February 4 with Impressionist and Modern art evening sales to include three works recently restituted to the heirs of Gaston Levy, two from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris headed by a Pointillist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro. This work depicts a young woman and child building a fire on a cold winter morning. Christie’s will follow on February 5 with an Impressionist and Modern sale and an auction of the Art of the Surreal.
Gaston Levy was a notable art collector living in Paris in the 1920’s and 1930’s whose holding was dispersed under the Nazi occupation. After the war the works were repatriated to the French state and two of them have recently been restituted by the French Government to Lévy’s heirs from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The third of his works, Signac’s Quai de Clichy. Temps gris, found its way into the collection of the dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, whose illicit hoard was discovered by the authorities in the Munich apartment of his son Cornelius in 2012. Through his patronage of the Pointillists, Lévy formed a lifelong friendship with Signac, holidaying with the artist and sponsoring his project to paint 107 ports in France – securing his first pick from every batch of watercolours. Over the arc of his collecting career, Lévy owned forty-four oils by the artist. The auction will offer two paintings from different points in Signac’s oeuvre – transporting the viewer from a brisk morning in a Parisian port to the exotic delights of Istanbul’s waterside.
Christie’s is highlighted by Tamara de Lempicka’s 1932 Portrait of Marjorie Ferry and Alberto Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui marchent from 1948. Each one is estimated at £8-12 million. Further highlights include George Grosz’s highly politicised depiction of German at the close of the First World War. Gefahrliche Strasse is being offered 100 years after it was first shown at Galerie Neue Kunst in Munich. Paintings from this series can be found at Tate Modern in London, MoMA in New York, the Nationalgalerle in Berlin and the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid. There are three Picasso Still Lifes and works on paper by Gino Severini, Paul Klee, Egon Schiele and Max Ernst.
Camille Pissaro’s Gelee Blanche . UPDATE: THIS MADE £13.3 MILLION, THE SECOND HIGHEST PRICE FOR THE ARTIST AT AUCTION.George Grosz (1893-1959) Gefahrliche Strasse . UPDATE: THIS MADE £9.7 MILLION
A paintings and sculpture online sale at James Adam in Dublin until February 3 includes 164 lots from the collection of Antoinette and Patrick J. Murphy. The sale runs until 6 pm on February 3 and the catalogue is online.
Carolyn Mullholland – Flowers (painted steel) UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 1,500 AT HAMMER
Tamara de Lempicka, Alberto Giacometti, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali are among the big names due to come under the hammer at Christies in London on February 5. The Impressionist and Modern evening auction will be followed by The Art of the Surreal, together launching 20th century at Christie’s. de Lempicka’s Portrait de Marjorie Ferry from 1932 and Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui march from 1948, each estimated at £8-12 million, will highlight the first of the sales. There is a similar estimate on Magritte’s A la rencontre du plaisir from 1962. It is one of seven works by the artist in the auction.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) Trois hommes qui marchent (Grand plateau) . UPDATE: THIS MADE £11.2 MILLION
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Akt vor dem Spiegel (Nude at the Mirror) comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art evening sale in London on February 4 with an estimate of £3-5 million. This is a powerful example of Kirchner’s painting from the time he lived in Berlin, where he moved from Dresden in 1911 together with other Die Brücke members including Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, setting up a studio in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. With its bold colouration and avant-garde approach to a traditional subject-matter, the work embodies the values proclaimed in Die Brücke programme, penned by Kirchner in 1906: ‘With faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators we call together all youth. […] As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces”.
In a bid to make collecting contemporary art easier on all pockets Christie’s in New York has launched its most accessible sale yet. Christie’s 100 is an online-only sale of nearly 100 lots, many with starting bids of $100. Assembled by the New York Post-War and Contemporary Art department it includes works by both emerging and established artists. Collectible works by Yayoi Kusama, KAWS and Robert Indiana are offered alongside photographs by Ryan McGinley and Vera Lutter and works on paper by Yves Tinguely, Barnaby Furnas and Richard Pettibone. Bidding is from January 28 – February 5.
LEFT: Leo Gabin, Mother’s Day Rumble, 2013 ($4,000 – 6,000 RIGHT: Ryan McGinley, Untitled (Morrissey 15) 2006 ($2,000-3,000
