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Van Gogh to Rothko: Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

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https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1298105948318129063#editor/target=post;postID=7859803624180179044;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=linkCrystal Bridges Museum of American announces the opening of Van Gogh to Rothko: Masterworks from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, on view  February 21 through June 1, 2015. The exhibition brings together 76 artworks by 73 influential artists from the late 19th century to the present, including Vincent van Gogh, Joán Miró, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, and Mark Rothko. The works were selected from the collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York, one of the finest collections of 20th century art in the country. General admission to the temporary exhibition is $10 and free to Members and youth under 18 years old.

This exhibition of renowned artworks—including paintings by Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Frida Kahlo, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, and Andy Warhol—opened in March 2014 at the Denver Art Museum to overwhelming critical acclaim. It traveled to the San Diego Museum of Art (October 4, 2014–January 27, 2015), Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art (February 19–June 1, 2015), and the Milwaukee Art Museum (June 26–September 14, 2015).

Van Gogh to Rothko explores the development of major art movements that shaped the course of modern art and marks the first time many of these works have toured in decades. The works have been arranged in chronological order by art movements, allowing visitors to follow the development of styles as they move through the gallery.

Beginning with Post-Impressionism,



Vincent van Gogh’s painting La Maison de la Crau, 1888,

shows that artists were less concerned with naturalistic representation. Instead, they conveyed personal and emotional responses to subjects. 

The exhibition then moves to Cubism withthree-dimensional objects depicted on two dimensional surfaces, breaking objects up into basic geometric shapes, or creating images in a collage-style, as seen with



Juan Gris, Le Canigou, 1921.

Van Gogh to Rothko also features Surrealism, which sought to unlock the unconscious mind and called upon Freudian methods of free association, seen with Joan Miro’s Carnaval d’Arlequin, 1924-25. 

The most significant representation in the exhibition is approximately 20 mid-century American artists, many whom identified as Abstract Expressionists, including Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Robert Motherwell, and Jackson Pollock.

“Abstract Expressionism signals a radical new direction, and begins to shift the focus of the art world to American art.



Jackson Pollock’s Convergence (1952),

is the centerpiece of the exhibition as an 8 x 13 foot example of his revolutionary drip paintings,” says Crystal Bridges Curator Manuela Well-Off-Man, who curated the exhibition’s installation at Crystal Bridges.

From the Abstract Expressionists, the exhibition moves to Pop Art. Born from postwar-America’s economic boom, the movement embraced the visual language of mass culture and consumerism seen in



Andy Warhol’s 100 Cans, 1962,


leading to Op Art with artists such as



Bridget Riley and her painting Sequel, 1975,

using optical effects often based on geometric abstraction to create illusions.

Also in The Exhibition:



Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997). Head—Red and Yellow, 1962. Oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches (121.9 x 121.9 cm). Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Gift of Seymour H. Knox, Jr., 1962. © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein



Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903). Spirit of the Dead Watching, 1892. Oil on burlap mounted on canvas; 28-3/4 x 36-3/8 in. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. A. Conger Goodyear Collection, 1965. Photograph by Tom Loonan.1965.001



Frida Kahlo (Mexican, 1907-1954), Self Portrait with Monkey, 1938. Oil on Masonite; 16 x 12 in. Collection of Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY. Bequest of A. Conger Goodyear, 1966. © 2014 Banco de México Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo Museums Trust, Mexico, D.F./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. 1966.009.010

GEORGES SEURAT at Auction

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CHRISTIE'S NOVEMBER 3 2010

RARE GROUP OF SEURAT STUDIES AND DRAWINGS FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION TO HIGHLIGHT  EVENING SALE IN NEWYORK  

As a highlight of its Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on November 3,  2010 Christie's offered a superb group of early works by Georges Seurat (1859-1891), including a study in oil for his most famous painting, Un dimanche d’été à l'Île de la Grande Jatte, now in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago.  The study, along with four rare early drawings that demonstrate Seurat's considerable skill as a draughtsman, is from a distinguished French collection.  Acquired over the course of a dozen years between 1988 and 2001, the group is expected to achieve a combined total in excess of $4 million.

“The appearance of such a sizable group of Seurat works on the market is a rare event,” said Conor Jordan, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie's New York.  “Seurat died tragically young at just 31 years old, leaving us with only a small output of works that have become highly sought-after by collectors and institutions worldwide.  This group of drawings and studies offers an exciting glimpse into Seurat's considerable genius, showing us how he explored composition, light and shadow, and the optical qualities of pure color.” 



 
Paysage, homme assis  (étude pour Un Dimanche d'été à l'Ile de La Grande Jatte)

The highlight of the group was Paysage, homme assis (estimate: $1,500,000-2,500,000), an oil on panel executed around 1884 as a preparatory study for Seurat’s greatest masterpiece, the monumental Un dimanche d’été à l'Île de la Grande Jatte.  This small study belongs to a crucial group of oil sketches Seurat created on the site of La Grande Jatte in 1884 to help him work through the challenges of his final composition.  With nearly all the figures save for the seated man at the left of the study removed from the scene, Seurat employed his trademark Divisionist technique to frame his view of the park on the banks of the Seine, juxtaposing touches of pure color directly onto the surface of the panel.  The result is an exceptional jewel-like landscape that stands on it own merits, while at the same offering a tantalizing glimpse into the development of Seurat’s greatest masterpiece.

Drawings often serve as the best insight into any given artist’s working methods, and the group of four early drawings included in this private collection beautifully illustrates Seurat’s increasingly refined approach to pictorial composition.  For three years while Seurat was enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, the young artist concentrated on creating vigorous life-sketches of people he saw in the street.

 


Among the earliest examples of these figure drawings is Le Peintre à la palette from circa 1881 (pictured above; estimate: $80,000-120,000).  Believed to be either a self-portrait or a study of his fellow artist Charles Angrand, the drawing reveals Seurat’s early system of using parallel strokes to model shapes and cross-hatching lines to render light and contrast.



 

 Later the same year, Seurat completed the little Conté crayon drawing Femme s’éloignant (pictured above, middle left; estimate: $100,000-150,000), which marks the artist’s first foray into what would become a larger series of drawings depicting enigmatic female figures.  Both works were first owned by Seurat’s contemporary and colleague Paul Signac before passing into private hands.  The upcoming sale marks the first time that either work has appeared at auction.

 


 



Seurat’s mature drawing technique is evident in two exceptional works created with only a black Conté crayon on Michallet, Seurat’s favorite brand of drawing paper. A luminous depiction of an elegantly dressed Parisienne, La Promenade from circa 1882 (pictured previous page, middle right; estimate: $1,500,000-2,500,000) is a marvel of chiaroscuro technique that demonstrates Seurat’s absolute understanding of the subtleties of light and shade.  For La Promenade and the later work Faneur (Casseur de pierres) from circa 1883 (pictured previous page, right; estimate: $800,000-1,200,000),   Seurat took advantage of the natural grain of the paper and the varied intensity of his marks to create the full range of tones from velvety black to purest white, making it appear as though light is emanating from the paper itself.  Widely recognized as one of the artist’s finest drawings, La Promenade was unveiled to the public for the first time at Seurat’s important monographic exhibition at Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in 1920, and was more recently featured in the 2007/2008 exhibition “Georges Seurat: The Drawings” at New York’s MoMA.

 In recent seasons, top prices have been achieved for Seurat works at auction; in February of this year,  



Garçonnet assis (Maurice Appert), a crayon and gouache drawing from circa 1884 achieved $3.1 million at auction,



and in May 2009, Femme avec deux fillettes, a Conté crayon drawing dated between 1882 and 1884 achieved $2.1 million.



The upcoming Evening Sale will also feature a sixth Seurat work, Le Chemin creux (estimate: $1.8-2.5 million), an important early landscape from the collection of the prominent San Francisco collectors Walter and Phyllis Shorenstein.

Sotheby's 2015




LOT SOLD. 7,765,000 GBP

Sotheby's 2014




LOT SOLD. 5,317,000 USD









LOT SOLD. 1,142,500 GBP




LOT SOLD. 2,434,500 GBP





LOT SOLD. 482,500 GBP



Lot. Vendu 2,965,000 USD

Sotheby's 2013




LOT SOLD. 425,000 USD 





 Christie's 2010










 Christie's 2012

Edouard Vuillard at Auction

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Sotheby's 2014







LOT SOLD. 149,000 USD






Lot. Vendu 27,500 GBP

Sotheby's 2012




Estimate 20,00030,000 GBP

Sotheby's 2011





LOT SOLD. 722,500 USD

Sotheby's 2007






LOT SOLD. 1,272,000 USD

Christie's 1999




Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
Les perdreaux




Christie's 2000




Pr.$193,000

Christie's 2004




Pr.$113,525

Christie's 2007

 




Pr.$481,000








Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940)
Le Déjeuner
Pr.$493,000








Christie's 2009







 
Pr.£5,081,250($7,306,838)

Christie's 2010











Christie's 2011






 







Christie's 2013



Salvador Dali at Auction

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 Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 2 May 2012 




Printemps nécrophilique.


Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on 2 May 2012 was be led by Salvador Dalí's Printemps nécrophilique from 1936. Painted at the height of the artist’s most creative years in Paris, the canvas exemplifies his unique aesthetic at its most refined and sensational. Printemps nécrophilique has not appeared on the market in nearly 15 years and is estimated to sell for $8/12 million*.

“Surrealism is the last great movement of 20th century modernism to be fully appreciated in the marketplace, and a number of new benchmarks have been set just over the course of the last year,” commented Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department in New York. 

“In February 2011, Sotheby’s set a new record for a Surrealist work of art at auction when Salvador Dalí’s Portrait de Paul Eluard sold for $21.7 million. That same sale saw a new record for a work on paper by René Magritte set when his Le Maître d’École brought just over $4 million. Just three months later, Sotheby’s set a new record for Paul Delvaux when his Les Cariatides achieved $9 million. Surrealism continues to present exciting opportunities for collectors given the wide range of material available at varying price points – literature, works on paper, paintings, sculpture and objects – and the fact that great masterworks remain in private hands. Additionally, given that the roots of much recent art lie in Surrealism, it crosses over well with collections of Contemporary art.”

By the time Dalí painted Printemps nécrophilique in 1936, he had established the style and the personal iconography that characterizes his most successful compositions. The eerie infusion of dreamscape with hyper-real figural elements is a hallmark of the artist’s approach. In the present work, Dalí depicts two figures that offer a confounding combination of anonymity and specificity. He envelops the figures in a wide expanse of plains and sky, reminiscent of the endless landscape of his native Catalonia. 

The lithe and graceful male figure at left recalls the artist's own profile, which will appear again in the artist's masterpiece painted the next year, Métamorphose de Narcisse. The flower-headed dominant female figure is one of the artist's most memorable characters, appearing in significant compositions such as Femmes aux têtes de fleurs retrouvant sur la plage la dépouille d'un piano à queue and staged in London for the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition. 

The canvas was originally owned by Elsa Schiaparelli, the couterière active in Paris during the first half of the 20th century. She staged momentous events in Paris and occasionally collaborated with Dalí - their work together is explored in detail in a current exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations







Salvador Dali
Cinq personnages surréalistes: femmes à tête de fleurs, femme à tiroirs (évocation du jugement de paris)
Gouache, brush and ink on pink paper
48.9 by 63.8cm; 191⁄4 by 251⁄8in.

Executed in 1937
Est. £400,000 - 600,000 


Executed in 1937 as a present for the renowned fashion designer Elsa Schiaparelli, this exquisite drawing exemplifies the blend of hyperrealism and surreal metamorphosis that was a hallmark of Dalí’s mature style. The work also brilliantly combines some of the artist’s most iconic transformations of the female figure. Dalí and Schiaparelli met in the 1930s and subsequently collaborated on a number of projects. The fashion designer owned a number of works by the artist, including both the present work – for which she apparently specified the use of pink paper – and the earlier oil




Sotheby’s London Surrealist Art Evening Sale on 5February 2013

 

One of Salvador Dalí’s most accomplished portraits Portrait of Mrs Harrison Williams, was commissioned directly from the artist and painted by him in 1943. Estimated at £1.5-2 million, the painting – offered for the first time at auction - depicts Countess Mona Bismarck (1897-1983), who was at the time of the portrait married to Harrison Williams, reputed to be one of the wealthiest men in America.

After their marriage in 1926 she swiftly became known as one of the most glamorous and beautiful women of her day; becoming the first American to be acclaimed as ‘the best-dressed woman in the world’ by the luminaries of fashion.

Dalí's dazzling depiction of the legendary Mona Bismarck is filled with classical allusions and Surrealist symbolism making it one of the most ambitious pictures he had produced by this point in his career. The painting was executed just three years after Dalí arrived in New York City, having fled Paris with his wife Gala in 1940. After his arrival, he was swiftly assimilated into the group of European Surrealists that had coalesced there at the outbreak of World War II. Together with them, he mingled with many of New York’s social luminaries, receiving from them prestigious commissions for works such as this, and the portrait of Helena Rubinstein sold at Sotheby’s New York for $2.65m in May 2011.

Sotheby’s London February 2011 sale saw a record price at auction achieved for any work by Salvador Dalí with the sale of



Portrait de Paul Éluard for£13.5 million (pre-sale estimate £3.5-5 million) from the private collection sale Looking Closely. 


Sotheby’s 2009






Girafe en feu” (Giraffe on Fire), a large gouache on paper signed by Salvador Dalí in 1937 belongs to the early phase of Surrealism, rarely seen at auction these days. Sotheby’s gave the rare work a $150,000 to $200,000 estimate. Obviously too low, it could easily have been doubled. But the best specialists never imagined that it might end up at $1.87 million, and set an auction record for any work on paper by Dalí.
 


Sotheby's 2014




LOT SOLD. 146,500 GBP







Estimate 3,000,0004,000,000 USD


Sotheby's 2013




LOT SOLD. 989,000 USD



Christie's 2004





Christie's 2009



Christie's 2010











 
Christie's 2011






 Salvador Dali (1904-1989)
Chevaliers en parade
Pr.$1,426,500






 

 



 




Salvador Dali (1904-1989)

  
 






 
Christie's 2013






 
Pr.£58,850($92,100)





 












Christie's 2014

 
 National Gallery (Washington DC)


Dalí, Salvador
, Spanish, 1904 - 1989
The Sacrament of the Last Supper
1955
oil on canvas
overall: 166.7 x 267 cm (65 5/8 x 105 1/8 in.)
framed: 202.6 x 302 cm (79 3/4 x 118 7/8 in.)
Chester Dale Collection



Dalí, Salvador
, Spanish, 1904 - 1989
Chester Dale
1958
oil on canvas
overall: 88.8 x 58.9 cm (34 15/16 x 23 3/16 in.)
framed: 111.7 x 81.3 x 6 cm (44 x 32 x 2 3/8 in.)
Chester Dale Collection
 

Tamara De Lempicka at Auction

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From The Economist:

Born, most likely, in Moscow in 1895 (though she liked to say it was Poland in 1902) to a wealthy family that emigrated, before the second world war, first to Paris, and then to California and New York, de Lempicka was glamorous, spoilt, demanding and bisexual. All of those attributes emerged in her painting.



Two of the pictures here show at her dramatic best, and are even stronger in the flesh than they are in the catalogue. The 1932 portrait of Marjorie Ferry (pictured above), which Mr Joop bought in 1995 for $500,000 and for which he is now asking $4m-6m, shows a figure resembling Carole Lombard wrapped only in a sheet, casting a knowing look over her shoulder. With her hair in gold twists and her sheet that seems bent rather than draped, the texture is metallic as much as celluloid, conjuring up the sleek gleam of cars in the age of speed.
MarikaMuscle rather than metal is the theme of the 1925 portrait of Marika, the Greek-born Duchesse de la Salle de Rochemaure, which carries the same estimate. Tall, well-rounded and boasting a beauty spot above her lip, the sitter has all of de Lempicka’s trademark characteristics, once described as “lighting by Caravaggio, tubism by Fernand Léger and lipstick by Chanel”. The picture radiates bisexual power. The Duchesse appears at first to be wearing black riding jodhpurs tucked into her boots, but when you look more closely it could just as easily be a black skirt pulled up almost to the crotch to reveal a powerful inner thigh.








 _______________________________________________________________






Tamara de Lempicka, 
Le rêve (Rafaëla sur fond vert) (1927) 
sold at Sotheby's New York on November 2, 2011 for $8,482,500.



A lost painting by artist Tamara de Lempicka, Nu adossé I, has been rediscovered and will appear on the auction block at Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern sale on May 2. 2012

Sotheby's 2014




LOT SOLD. 2,741,000 USD 


Tamara de Lempicka
SUZANNE AU BAIN
LOT SOLD. 2,378,500 GBP

Christie's 2015








Christie's 2012









 





Christie's 2011






 



Christie's 2010



Pr.$37,500






 
 
Christie's 2009




Max Ernst

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Sotheby’s London Surrealist Art Evening Sale on 5 February 2013

 

Surrealism by Max Ernst (est. £1.5 -2 million) was painted inNew York in 1942 a few months after the artist’s escape from war-torn Europe. Ernst’s standing as one of the foremost Surrealist artists prompted Duchamp to request from him a painting for First Papers of Surrealism, the show that he was organising in New York. This exhibition, the first devoted to Surrealism since the outbreak of war, focused on the work of Ernst, Duchamp, Masson,Matta, Breton, Dominguez, Lam, Tanguy and many other artists who had fled Europe from Nazi persecution. The work to be sold exemplifies the innovative techniques of representation that Ernst was developing in New York, and greatly influenced the next generation of American artists (it was among a group of Ernst’s paintings from 1942 said to have been admired by Jackson Pollock and Robert Motherwell) and would prove influential on the emergence of Abstract Expressionism.

Surrealism was exhibited in the Max Ernst 2005 retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 

 Sotheby’s  2015





Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 389,000 GBP


Max Ernst
Estimate800,0001,200,000 GBP
 
 
 
 
Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 47,500 GBP

Sotheby’s  2014

 

Max Ernst
Estimate 150,000250,000 USD
 
 
 
Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 84,100 GBP
 
 
 
Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 821,000 USD  





Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 43,750 USD
Sotheby’s  2007





Max Ernst
LOT SOLD. 1,059,200 USD 


Christie's 2014 













 Christie's 2013








 









 



 




Christie's 2011 












 



 



 



 


 
   

Christie's 2010










 
Pr.£1,049,250($1,668,308)
  

Christie's 2009

Max Ernst (1891-1976) 
 On parle le latin
Pr.£657,250($1,070,660)Christie's 2008






 






Max Ernst (1891-1976)
Composition
Pr.$61,000

Christie's 2007


 
 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner at Auction

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Sotheby's 2015
 
 
 
 Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 16,250 GBP

Sotheby's 2014





Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 905,000 USD



Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 1,482,500 GBP
 

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
Estimate1,600,0002,000,000 GBP
 
 
Sotheby's 2012
 
 
 
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 926,050 GBP

Sotheby's 2010



Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 2,953,250 GBP
Sotheby's 2009




 
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 5,417,250 GBP
Sotheby's 2008




Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
LOT SOLD. 722,500 Swiss Francs
 Christie's  2015



Christie's  2014




















 

Christie's 2013






Pr.£73,250($114,636)





 
 

Christie's 2012











Christie's  2011











Christie's  2010




















Christie's 2009







Christie's 2008






Christie's 2006


Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938)
Berliner Strassenszene (recto);
Pr.$38,096,000





Kathe Kollwitz

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Sotheby's 2014
 
 
 
Käthe Kollwitz
Estimate 6,0008,000 USD



Käthe Kollwitz
Estimación 8,00010,000 USD
 
 
 
Käthe Kollwitz
Estimation 5,0006,000 USD

Käthe Kollwitz

1867–1945

German-born Käthe Kollwitz used her prints and sculptures to confront social injustice and suffering.
Raised in a politically progressive middle-class family, Kollwitz enjoyed family support for her artistic ambitions. When she became engaged to a medical student in 1889, her father even sent her to study in Munich to persuade her to choose art over marriage. Following graduation, she returned to Berlin to marry her fiancé Karl Kollwitz in 1891.
Though Kollwitz studied both painting and printmaking, she turned exclusively to the print in the early 1890s. Influenced by fellow German artist Max Klinger, she saw the potential of the print for social commentary. Prints could be reproduced inexpensively and in multiples, allowing her to reach more people.
For the next 50 years she produced dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs—generally in black and white but sometimes including touches of color. Initially, her husband’s working-class patients proved worthy models and subjects. Beginning in the teens, Kollwitz’s subject matter came to reflect her experience as a witness to both World Wars. She was devastated by the suffering and loss of human life, including the loss of a son in the first war and a grandson in the second.
Although Kollwitz’s wrenching subjects and virtuoso technique soon made her work popular throughout Germany and the Western world, they also generated controversy. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy (in 1919); soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art.
During her final years, Kollwitz produced bronze and stone sculpture embodying the same types of subjects and aesthetic values as her work in two dimensions. Much of her art was destroyed in a Berlin air raid in 1943. Soon thereafter, Kollwitz evacuated to Moritzburg, a town just outside Dresden, where she died two years later.
- See more at: http://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/k%C3%A4-kollwitz#sthash.1dJu5Ix8.dpuf

Käthe Kollwitz

1867–1945

German-born Käthe Kollwitz used her prints and sculptures to confront social injustice and suffering.
Raised in a politically progressive middle-class family, Kollwitz enjoyed family support for her artistic ambitions. When she became engaged to a medical student in 1889, her father even sent her to study in Munich to persuade her to choose art over marriage. Following graduation, she returned to Berlin to marry her fiancé Karl Kollwitz in 1891.
Though Kollwitz studied both painting and printmaking, she turned exclusively to the print in the early 1890s. Influenced by fellow German artist Max Klinger, she saw the potential of the print for social commentary. Prints could be reproduced inexpensively and in multiples, allowing her to reach more people.
For the next 50 years she produced dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs—generally in black and white but sometimes including touches of color. Initially, her husband’s working-class patients proved worthy models and subjects. Beginning in the teens, Kollwitz’s subject matter came to reflect her experience as a witness to both World Wars. She was devastated by the suffering and loss of human life, including the loss of a son in the first war and a grandson in the second.
Although Kollwitz’s wrenching subjects and virtuoso technique soon made her work popular throughout Germany and the Western world, they also generated controversy. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy (in 1919); soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art.
During her final years, Kollwitz produced bronze and stone sculpture embodying the same types of subjects and aesthetic values as her work in two dimensions. Much of her art was destroyed in a Berlin air raid in 1943. Soon thereafter, Kollwitz evacuated to Moritzburg, a town just outside Dresden, where she died two years later.
- See more at: http://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/k%C3%A4-kollwitz#sthash.fT9UNoK5.dpuf

Käthe Kollwitz

1867–1945

German-born Käthe Kollwitz used her prints and sculptures to confront social injustice and suffering.
Raised in a politically progressive middle-class family, Kollwitz enjoyed family support for her artistic ambitions. When she became engaged to a medical student in 1889, her father even sent her to study in Munich to persuade her to choose art over marriage. Following graduation, she returned to Berlin to marry her fiancé Karl Kollwitz in 1891.
Though Kollwitz studied both painting and printmaking, she turned exclusively to the print in the early 1890s. Influenced by fellow German artist Max Klinger, she saw the potential of the print for social commentary. Prints could be reproduced inexpensively and in multiples, allowing her to reach more people.
For the next 50 years she produced dramatic, emotion-filled etchings, woodcuts, and lithographs—generally in black and white but sometimes including touches of color. Initially, her husband’s working-class patients proved worthy models and subjects. Beginning in the teens, Kollwitz’s subject matter came to reflect her experience as a witness to both World Wars. She was devastated by the suffering and loss of human life, including the loss of a son in the first war and a grandson in the second.
Although Kollwitz’s wrenching subjects and virtuoso technique soon made her work popular throughout Germany and the Western world, they also generated controversy. In 1933, the Nazi government forced her to resign her position as the first female professor appointed to the Prussian Academy (in 1919); soon thereafter she was forbidden to exhibit her art.
During her final years, Kollwitz produced bronze and stone sculpture embodying the same types of subjects and aesthetic values as her work in two dimensions. Much of her art was destroyed in a Berlin air raid in 1943. Soon thereafter, Kollwitz evacuated to Moritzburg, a town just outside Dresden, where she died two years later.
- See more at: http://nmwa.org/explore/artist-profiles/k%C3%A4-kollwitz#sthash.fT9UNoK5.dpuf
 
Christie's 2014

Christie's 2012


 









Christie's 2010






Berthe Morisot at Auction and at The National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)

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Sotheby's 2013




Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 605,000 USD

Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 1,865,000 USD

Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 4,365,000 USD




Berthe Morisot
Estimate 1,800,0002,500,000 USD

Berthe Morisot
Estimate 250,000350,000 GBP

Sotheby's 2012




Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 506,500 USD




Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 37,500 USD
Berthe Morisot
Lote. Vendido 218,500 USD 

Sotheby's 2011



Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 182,500 USD
Sotheby's 2009




Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 842,500 USD

Sotheby's 2007



Berthe Morisot
LOT SOLD. 937,000 USD 
Pr.£6,985,250($10,924,931)









 


Christie's 2012






Christie's 2011

 



· 
Christie's 2007





Pr.$20,000










 
 

Christie's 2004






Christie's 1999





National Gallery of Art (Washington, DC)





Yves Tanguy at Auction

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Sotheby’s London Surrealist Art Evening Sale on 5 February 2013

 

Composition by Yves Tanguy (est. £400,000 - 600,000), which comes to the market for the first time in 80 years, was executed in a year thatmarked a watershed in the artist’s career - 1927. It was during this year that he began to create works that, through their ingenuity and beauty, firmly established the style which became the defining aesthetic of Tanguy’s art. He had by then become a highly accomplished painter and in complete command of a new personal Surrealist language which was often based on his childhood fascination with the sea. In the same year he was recognised by his fellow Surrealists by being given his first one-man show at the Galerie Surréaliste in Paris. 

The luminous blue of the upper composition is enlivened by the presence of a biomorphic figure who stalks the ocean floor. Though Tanguy received no formal artistic training, his childhood summers spent near Finistère in Brittany, on the western coast of France overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, had a profound influence on his style. Composition is included in the forthcoming Yves Tanguy Catalogue raisonné.


Artcurial 2012

Yves Tanguy (1900-1955)
Untitled, 1933
Oil on canvas
signed & dated Yves Tanguy 33 bottom right
55 x 46 cm
Estimate: €700,000 - 1,000,000
This Untitled composition was acquired directly from Yves Tanguy by the grandfather of the current owner in 1933, and has never been exhibited, published or seen in public – making it a veritable discovery, to add to the corpus of Tanguy’s work to be featured in his Catalogue Raisonné currently under preparation.

It is also the most important painting by Tanguy to come on the market since the André Breton sale in 2003.

The painting has an estimate of €700,000-1,000,000 and combines all the qualities sought by Tanguy connoisseurs: richness of composition; multi-faceted visual appeal, spectacularly featuring what André Breton called ‘object-beings’; the miniaturist precision with which Tanguy evokes his inner world; technical mastery and chromatic musicality; the date of 1933, a year that marked a watershed in Tanguy’s stylistic development; and the rarity of such a work in terms of its size, dream-like vision and market virginity.

Unlike other Surrealists (such as Miro, Ernst, De Chirico, Masson, Magritte, Arp, Brauner or Dali), Tanguy was unique in emancipating himself from reality. The ‘objects’ he offers for view, floating against unremarkable backgrounds, are impervious to language, making Tanguy appear the most extremist artist in the movement.

A THRIVING MARKET

The market for Yves Tanguy is booming, with the paucity of his works to be found at auction internationally only increasing their value. After just three works in 2010, six appeared in 2011 – only one of comparable quality to our work, and sold for a premium-inclusive €2,800,000. Just one Tanguy painting has appeared on the international market since the start of 2012 – a larger work than ours, but again of similar quality, and sold for a premium-inclusive €3,100,000.

 Sotheby's 2015




Yves Tanguy
LOT SOLD. 2,165,000 GBP

Sotheby's 2014



Yves Tanguy
LOT SOLD. 245,000 USD




Yves Tanguy
LOT SOLD. 221,000 USD



Yves Tanguy
LOT SOLD. 785,000 USD
Christie's 2014








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National Gallery (Washington DC) 
  


Tanguy, Yves
, French, 1900 - 1955
The Look of Amber
1929
oil on canvas
overall: 100 x 81 x 2.3 cm (39 3/8 x 31 7/8 x 7/8 in.)
framed: 128.9 x 108.3 x 6.3 cm (50 3/4 x 42 5/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
Chester Dale Fund
1984.75.1

Gustav Klimt at Auction

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 Sotheby's 2011

From the NY Times:



“Litzlberg am Attersee” painted in Vienna by Gustav Klimt around 1914-1915 is hardly the greatest landscape ever done by the master. Yet this did not stop it from soaring to $40.4 million, far above the estimate given as “in excess of $25 million.”

Sotheby’s boldly illustrated for reference purposes two other monumental views of the village Litzlberg am Attersee that are actually vastly superior. But the picture seen at Sotheby’s has a dramatic history that put it in a different perspective.

It was originally acquired from Klimt by a couple of Austro-Hungarian collectors who were great art patrons, Viktor Zuckerkandl and his wife, Paula. After their deaths in 1927, the landscape passed into the collection of Viktor’s sister, Amalie Redlich.

When Hitler, who had incorporated Austria into the German Reich in 1938, decreed the “Final Solution” three years later, Amalie and her daughter Mathilde, who were Jewish, were deported into what is now the Polish town of Lodz. There, they vanished, dying — perhaps murdered — in circumstances unknown. By 1944, the Klimt was hanging on the walls of the Residenz Galerie in Salzburg, also known as the Museum der Moderne Rupertinum.

This year, the landscape was handed over in the spring to Amalie Redlich’s heir. It was announced that a portion of the proceeds of the sale would be donated to the Salzburg museum for the construction of an extension to be named in Amalie Redlich’s memory.

No one can tell to what extent the tragedy surrounding the history of the picture inspired some of those who took part in the very long bidding match for the Klimt. The extreme rarity of large landscapes by the Austrian artist in the market was undoubtedly a major factor in the huge price that “Litzlberg am See” commanded on Wednesday.


 Sotheby's 2013




LOT SOLD. 149,000 USD 


 Sotheby's 2012



 

Estimate 6,000,0008,000,000 GBP


Christie's 2015


 
Est.. £35,000 - £45,000
($52,955 -$68,085)




Christie's 2010





  





 


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Pr.€49,000($63,167)



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 National Gallery of Art (Washington DC)



Klimt, Gustav
, Austrian, 1862 - 1918
Baby (Cradle)
1917/1918
oil on canvas
overall: 110.9 x 110.4 cm (43 11/16 x 43 7/16 in.)
framed: 116.21 x 115.89 x 6.67 cm (45 3/4 x 45 5/8 x 2 5/8 in.)
Gift of Otto and Franciska Kallir with the help of the Carol and Edwin Gaines Fullinwider Fund
1978.41.1

Fernand Léger at Auction

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Christie’sEvening Sale of Impressionist & Modern ArtNovember 5 2014


Fernand Léger’s Les constructeurs avec arbre, (estimate: $16-22 million), is an important example from the artist’s rarely offered and highly coveted Constructors series. Known as the “painter of the machine age”, Léger was captivated by themes of construction and engineering, using them in his work as a symbol of man’s creative power in an industrialized modern world. In the years 1949-1950, he painted Les constructeurs avec arbre, using it as the model for the what would become the final acclaimed painting in this series, Les constructeurs à l’aloès.
  • The Constructor series is Léger's homage to the salt-of-the-earth working man, both as a class within French society and in the industrialized world generally, and as a more universal symbol of homo faber — man the maker and builder.
  • The emphasis that Léger devoted to the configuration of the four workmen in this study resulted in this picture becoming the most strongly characterized of the large compositions in this series.
  • At the upper left, one of the four construction workers perched on the girders of this building-in-progress is applying his muscular physique to the job. Two other men exchange greetings, and the fourth, perhaps a member of the architectural team that designed this structure, gazes dreamily away from the scene. This figure is thought to be Léger’s portrayal of himself as a young man.
  •  
SOTHEBY'S Impressionist and Modern Art February 4, 2003  


By Fernand Léger (1881-1955), is Sujet mécanique,  from 1920 -a work which depicts the streamline shape and smooth precision of an undetermined mechanical object. Property of a Private European collector, the oil on canvas is estimated to fetch £800,000-1,200,000. 

Sotheby's 2013 



From the NY Times:

Madonna sells Fernand Leger painting for $7.2 million

A Fernand Léger painting owned by pop star Madonna sold for $7.2 million at a New York auction Tuesday. Madonna had put the painting up for sale to benefit her charitable group, the Ray of Light Foundation.

The sale, which was part of a larger Sotheby's auction of Impressionist and Modern art, exceeded expectations. The auction house had originally estimated that the work would go for between $5 million and $7 million.

"Trois Femmes à la Table Rouge" was created around 1921 and is a quasi-cubist depiction of three women sitting around a red table...

Sotheby's said Madonna acquired the painting in 1990 from the Helen and William Mazer Foundation. The New York Times reported last month that the pop star had paid $3.4 million for the painting at a Sotheby's sale.

The pop star said in a statement earlier this year that she will "donate all the proceeds [from the Léger sale] to support girls' educational projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries where female education is rare or nonexistent."

Sotheby's 2015



Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 905,000 GBP 



Fernand Léger
Estimate 50,00070,000 GBP

Sotheby's 2014



Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 6,325,000 USD 
 
 
 
 
Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 3,973,000 USD



 
Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 941,000 USD
 
 
Fernand Léger
Estimate 400,000600,000 GBP
 
 

Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 81,250 USD
 
 
Fernand Léger
Estimate 500,000700,000 USD



Fernand Léger
LOT SOLD. 50,000 USD
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Pr.$422,500


 


 


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Pr.£1,945,250($3,092,948)




Pr.$2,770,500






 
  







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Projet de décoration pour Rockefeller Center


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    ALEXEJ VON JAWLENSKY at AUCTION

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    Alexej von Jawlensky (Russian, 1864 - 1941)

    Jawlensky was born in Russia, and started out with a military career. He began his art studies comparatively late, in his mid-twenties, and in 1896 left the army and went to Munich where he enrolled at art school. Another Russian artist, Wassily Kandinsky, was a fellow student, and the two became great friends. In 1905 Jawlensky spent some time in France, where he was influenced by the work of Gauguin, Van Gogh and the Fauves. He showed several paintings at the famous Salon d'Automne exhibition of 1905, in which the Fauves were given their name.


    Frauenkopf [Head of a Woman]about 1911

    The violent colours and broad brushstrokes seen in 'Head of a Woman' can be compared with paintings by Derain. Jawlensky's painting achieved maturity in 1911. He felt that his most powerful works were produced in the period up to 1914, when he was painting in strong colours with a 'tremendous inner ecstasy'. The majority of Jawlensky's works are portraits and heads of women, and, in a sense, he was continuing the great tradition of Russian icon painting. His later work became increasingly stylized, with the female head being reduced to a few schematic forms and lines.


    SOTHEBYS’ SALE of German & Austrian Art February 5, 2007





    Alexej von Jawlensky painted Resi (est: £800,000-1,000,000/€1,190,000-1,780,000) in 1909. The work belongs to an important series of Expressionist portraits that Jawlensky (1864-1941) executed in the years leading up to the First World War. Reflecting the influence of Fauve art, while at the same time demonstrating the characteristic features of the artist’s own expressionist style, the series is characterised by the rich colours associated with Van Gogh and the Fauves – colours which the artist was to abandon in his later, more geometric and abstract works. The rich and expressive works from 1908 and 1909 rank among Jawlensky’s strongest and finest portraits.
     
    Sotheby's 2014



    Alexej von Jawlensky
    LOT SOLD. 662,500 GBP
     Sotheby's 2013




    Alexej von Jawlensky
    LOT SOLD. 1,665,250 GBP 


    Christie's 2006












      Christie's 2007









    Pr.$657,000


     


      Christie's 2008




    ALEXEJ VON JAWLENSKY (1864-1941)
    PR.£1,588,500($3,126,168)





    Pr.$133,000




     
     

     

      Christie's 2009
     

     

      Christie's 2010



    Alexej von Jawlensky (1864-1941)
    Heilandsgesicht, Dornenkrone
    Pr.£313,250($468,622)




     
     
     
     


      Christie's 2011










      Christie's 2012





      Christie's 2013


    Pr.£2,281,250($3,567,875)



      Christie's2014





     


      Christie's2015






    René Magritte at Auction Part II

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    Emil Nolde at Auction and In National Collections

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    Sotheby's February 2011

    The sale  featured two works by Emil Nolde (1867-1956), both of which came to auction directly from the artist’s family. The first,



     Zinnen und Stockrose (Zinnias and Hollyhocks, 1938, est: £900,000-£1,400,000)

    is a powerful example of Nolde’s great series of flower paintings. His intensive preoccupation with the subject has been seen as a reflection of his continuing interest in the work of Van Gogh, whose bright colours, bold brushstrokes and magnificent textures are echoed here, while at the same time evincing Nolde’s own emotional admiration for the beauty of nature. Within the gamut of nature, another subject that preoccupied Nolde throughout his career was that of the sea.



    Űberschleierte Sonne (Veiled Sun, 1950, est: £500,000-700,000) is a powerful example of the artist’s breathtaking seascapes. 

     
    SOTHEBYS’ SALE of German & Austrian Art February 5, 2007



    Two powerful works by Emil Nolde (1867-1956) demonstrate the artist’s obsessive fascination with the natural world. 




    His Meer C (Sea C) of 1930 (est: £700,000-900,000/€1,040,000-1,340,000) is part of a series of sea paintings which Nolde executed in the course of his career and in which he explores the overwhelming power of natural forces. 




    In another work,Helle und dunkle Sonnenblumen of 1937 ( est: £700,000-1,000,000/€1,040,000-1,490,000), 

    Nolde explores a related theme, capturing both the vitality of the sunflower blooms and the resonance of their short-lived beauty. Charged with atmosphere and symbolism, this vivid representation of the blooming and dying flowers is an outstanding example from the artist’s series of depictions of sunflowers – a subject to which he returned constantly for some 20 years from 1926 onwards, and through which he pays homage to an artist who was for him a constant source of fascination: Vincent van Gogh. 



    SOTHEBY'S Impressionist and Modern Art February 4, 2003


    Works in this sale by Emil Nolde included the explosively colorful 




    Forsthaus of 1909 (est: £800,000-1,200,000) 


    and the vividly decorative Clematis und Dahlien of 1935 (est: £450,000-600,000). 

    What unifies the paintings is their quest for expression through simplification of form and distortion of line and colour.

    Christie's 2006







    Pr.£2,080,000($3,833,440)


    Christie's 2007



    Pr.$769,000


     





    Christie's 2009





                     
     

    Pr.$84,100

    Sotheby's 2014



    Emil Nolde
    LOT SOLD. 112,500 USD



    Emil Nolde
    Estimate 35,00045,000 GBP

    National Gallery of Denmark:

    The Last Supper is an artistic milestone within Emil Nolde’s body of work. The work marks the beginning of a series of very personal pictures where Nolde broke away from traditional religious imagery. Using expressive colours and shapes, he communicates subjective and intense religious sentiments with new, shocking coarseness.

    The motif of the painting
    Christ and the twelve disciples are seated around a table. The thirteen men are gathered around a source of light that creates drama by accentuating their grave and startled expressions. There is no depth in the painting, no details to describe the space in which the action takes place. The expressive colours and the restricted space serve to deepen the psychological aspects of the scene. Christ is seated in the middle and looks like a man close to death; the yellow face prefigures the fate of the Son of Man. Shortly before Nolde began work on The Last Supper, he almost died from poisoning. Thus, one might argue that Nolde identifies with Christ.

    Nazism, Nolde and the Entartete Kunst

    The Nazis took offence at The Last Supper, removed it from the museum in Halle and gave it a prominent place at the Entartete Kunst exhibition in 1937. Nolde eventually got back the picture and bequeathed it to the National Gallery of Denmark in his will.

    Emil Nolde’s works from around 1912 often feature grotesque juxtapositions. Child and Large Bird is one example of such works with its surrealist proportions and absurd combination of figures. The bird is frighteningly large compared to the child. Nevertheless, its superior size does not prevent it from being scared away by the little girl’s peculiar physique. The girl’s head is too large in proportion to the thin neck and the tiny body. Her nose is too broad, her forehead too low, and her mouth too wide. The grotesque relationship between the child and the bird is further accentuated by Nolde’s use of an expressive colour scheme. The colours are bright and fervent, full of discord.

    The grim aspect of the painting
    Things were looking grim in Germany in 1912. The country was on the brink of the Great War. The child can be interpreted as life chasing away darkness, death, and war as embodied by the eagle, a symbol of Germany. Nolde addressed the same motif in a number of woodcuts from 1906. Those images were less eerie, as the relative dimensions of the bird and the girl were less distorted and the colour scheme was black and white.

    Nolde is one of the key figures within German Expressionism. His art is powerful and deeply felt, partly inspired by the dark and sombre visions of the German Symbolist painter Arnold Böcklin (1827-1901).
    National Galleries of Scotland:




    Emil Nolde (German, 1867 - 1956) Kopf [Head]1913

    Emil Hansen was born in Nolde, a town which is now on the Danish side of the Danish-German border. He changed his surname to Nolde when he was in his late thirties. Nolde's style was highly influential for younger expressionist painters such as Kirchner. He loved the art of primitive peoples but was also interested in creating a style of painting that was specifically German. From 1906 to 1908, he was a member of the Brücke group of expressionist artists, but he preferred on the whole not to be associated with a group.

    Nolde's interest in the art of primitive peoples is evident in this painting. The shape of the head and facial features resemble a tribal wooden carving. The artist was a frequent visitor to the Ethnographic Museum in Berlin, and also made a trip to New Guinea where he spent a year. It was originally thought that this picture was painted during his trip. However it is more likely that it was done before his departure, in preparation for the type of painting he expected to make on the trip. 
     National Gallery of Ireland :

    Emil Nolde, German, 1867-1956
    Two Women in a Garden, 1915
    Oil on canvas
    73 x 88 cm
    Signed: on verso (on stretcher): Emil Nolde 'Frauen im Garten'
    Purchased, 1984 (Shaw Fund)
    NGI.4490
    Emil Nolde was one of the principal exponents of Expressionism. The Expressionists deliberately sought to abandon the naturalism implicit in Impressionism in favour of a simplified style which would carry far greater emotional impact. 
    In 1913, in order to study the 'primitive' art he had admired in the Berlin Ethnographic Museum at first hand , Nolde accompanied a scientific expedition that travelled through Russia to Japan and the South Seas. Although it was brought to an end by the outbreak of World War I, the voyage marked a turning point in the artist's career. It coincided with the end of first generation Expressionism and marked Nolde's return to painting gardens and flowers rather than urban subjects.
    Nolde spent most of 1915 in his small cottage on the island of Alsen. He produced some 88 works that year, many of which drew upon the sketches he had made during his voyage. 'Two Women in a Garden' was painted in his garden using large brush strokes.

    Joan Miró at Auction

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    Sotheby’s London Surrealist Art Evening Sale on 5 February 2013



    Highlighting the sale is Le fermier et son épouse (, est. £5.5-7.5 million), an intense and brilliantly coloured painting by Joan Miró.The work was executed in 1936, a time when the artist was reaching wide-spread international recognition, with his works participating in now legendary Surrealist exhibitions including the International Surrealist Exhibitionin London and Fantastic Art, Dada & Surrealism at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The painting depicts a Catalan farmer and his wife, surrounded by the landscape of Montroig and farm animals. Summarising the significance of this farm when working on a painting depicting it in 1928, Miró remarked that the work was: “a résumé of my entire life in the country. I wanted to put everything I loved about the country into that canvas - from a huge tree to a tiny little snail. I don't think it makes sense to give more importance to a mountain than an ant (but landscape artists just can't see that).”

    The powerful composition Le fermier et son épouse from one of the most turbulent periods of Miró's career was painted in the lead-up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War inthe summer of that year. For many decades the painting was in the collection of the great American film director Billy Wilder (of Some Like It Hot and Sunset Boulevard fame). The work was not seen in public until 1989, when Billy Wilder’s collection was sold at auction in New York. 

    Also in the sale:



    Joan Miró
    LOT SOLD. 8,441,250 GBP

    Sotheby’s London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in June 2012 sale saw a record price achieved for any record price achieved for any record price achieved for any record price achieved for any Surrealist work of art, and any work by Joan Miro with the sale of  




    Peinture (Étoile bleue) for £23.6 million (pre-sale estimate £15-20 million) 


    Sotheby’s Evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, 8th February 2011






    Joan Miró is represented in the sale with a striking example of the artist’s late works, Femme, 1978 (est: £900,000-£1.2 million), which features the characteristic iconography that occupied the artist throughout his career. For Miró, women, birds, stars, the moon, the sun, night and dusk formed a poetic language, and the present work shows his style verging between figuration and abstraction. While taking a recognisable image as his starting point, the artist builds his composition using a pictorial lexicon of signs and symbols. 


    Sotheby's 2014

     

    Joan Miró
    LOT SOLD. 2,285,000 USD



    Joan Miró
    Estimate 4,000,0006,000,000 USD
    Joan Miró
    LOT SOLD. 581,000 USD 




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    "Telling Tales: Stories and Legends in 19th-Century American Art"

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    The Frist Center for the Visual Arts presents Telling Tales: Stories and Legends in 19th-Century American Art from February 27–June 7, 2015, in the Center’s Upper-Level Galleries. The exhibition features paintings and sculptures that recount stories relating to American cultural aspirations and everyday life throughout the 19th century. Narrative landscapes by Thomas Cole and Asher B. Durand of the Hudson River School, genre scenes by William Sidney Mount and Francis W. Edmonds and sculptures by John Rogers are among the highlights of the exhibition.

    Assembled from the collection of the New-York Historical Society, Telling Tales integrates genre, historical, literary and religious subjects—through styles ranging from Neoclassicism to Realism—to paint a vivid portrait of American art and life during the country’s most formative century. The exhibition is organized into six sections: “American History Painting,” “English Literature and History,” “Importing the Grand Manner,” “Genre Paintings,” “Economic, Social, and Religious Division” and “Picturing the Outsider.” Frist Center Chief Curator Mark Scala says, “The works in Telling Tales show a culture in the process of defining its ideals and values. They offer an overview of the complex tastes, aspirations, and internal contradictions that marked the first full century of this new democracy.”

    In Europe, historical events and figures were considered the most important subjects in art. This tradition influenced American artists who sought to shape the nation’s sense of shared knowledge, pride and identity by painting leading historical figures and momentous events. Telling Tales begins with the section “American History Painting.”  In Rembrandt Peale’s George Washington (1853), the artist aimed to capture a perfect likeness of the person who most exemplified American ideals. The exhibition continues with works that imaginatively reconstruct stories relating to America’s settlement, expansion and conflicts.

    America’s language and culture were deeply rooted in English tradition, which is reflected in the second section of the exhibition. “English Literature and History” showcases works inspired by British aristocracy and popular writers, including Shakespeare, who was particularly admired in America. The subjects of many British dramas related subtly to contemporary issues in America, such as political and religious strife and slavery. A related section, “Importing the Grand Manner,” includes works created in the high styles of European art: the Baroque, the Neoclassical, and the Romantic. Believing that American taste was in need of elevation, many artists went to Europe to study the Old Masters and attend art academies where they could learn how to best convey themes of history, mythology and religion.

    While some American artists studied abroad with the intention of bringing European refinement to their own country, there was a growing resistance to European elitism in America. Mr. Scala notes, “For such artists, this infatuation with European culture reinforced elitist attitudes about connoisseurship and class; it was out of step with the needs and interests of an egalitarian society.” The artists reinforced what they felt was a distinctly American identity, expressed through both the everyday subject matter and a style that was simple and direct.

    Works in the section “Genre Paintings” focus on the lives of ordinary people, often living in rural settings. With a straightforward realism, the paintings convey the importance of farm work, family, faith and commerce. Artists often employed the use of stock characters, such as devout parents, politically engaged yeomen, roaming peddlers and slick Yankee traders.



    For example, William Sidney Mount’s Bargaining for a Horse (1835),

    in which two men are shown as they shrewdly negotiate the sale of a horse, was described by a contemporary reviewer as “an image of pure Yankeeism.” These genre paintings were more than simply slices of everyday life. As Mr. Scala explains, “While they appear to be charmingly uncomplicated, genre paintings often contained symbolic messages about topical matters of politics, religion and economics. These meanings would have been readily understood by the 19th century viewer but may be difficult for us to perceive if we do not know the political and historical backdrop.”

    Throughout the 19th century, large numbers of people seeking work moved from rural areas and other countries into large manufacturing centers like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Art included in the section “Economic, Social, and Religious Division” reveals a growing awareness of the difficulties encountered by this expanding population of working-class and poor people.

    Paintings and sculptures in the final section of the exhibition, “Picturing the Outsider,” hint at the even harsher realities faced by the most marginalized minorities, Native Americans and African Americans.



    John Rogers’ bronze sculpture The Fugitive’s Story (1869)

     reverently memorializes three prominent abolitionists with respect to their struggle to help slaves gain their freedom. Others were more ambiguous in their portrayal of race in America.



    Eastman Johnson’s NegroLife at the South (1859)

    shows slaves living in decrepit conditions but enjoying their leisure time, perhaps reinforcing the belief among slaveholders and other racist audiences that the treatment of slaves was fairly benign. “Such works tell how a culture’s perceptions—and misperceptions—are reinforced by art,” says Mr. Scala, “reminding us that as we explore our artistic heritage, it is important to take our ancestors’ biases and cultural blinders into account. It will likely be the same for us when our descendants look back on the 21st century.”

    Exhibition Credit

    Telling Tales: Stories and Legends in 19th-Century American Art is adapted from Making American Taste: Narrative Art for a New Democracy, organized by the New-York Historical Society.



    Louis Lang (1814–1893), Return of the 69th (Irish) Regiment, N.Y.S.M. from the Seat of War, 1862-1863. Oil on canvas. New-York Historical Society, Gift of Louis Lang, 1886.3. Photo courtesy Williamstown Art Conservation Center, 2011

    Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit

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    The Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA) presents an exhibition featuring two of the most fascinating artists of the 20th century. Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo in Detroit, on view March 15–July 12, 2015, explores the tumultuous and highly productive year that Mexican artists Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo spent in Detroit. The DIA is the exhibition’s only venue.

    The exhibition has been organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Generous support for the exhibition has been provided by Bank of America. Additional support has been provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Henry and Mary Ellen Bellaimey Family Foundation.

    This is the first exhibition to focus on their time in Detroit, a period during which each artist made significant career breakthroughs and where Rivera painted his groundbreaking Detroit Industry murals.

    “Rivera considered Detroit Industry, recently designated a national historical landmark, as his finest mural cycle,” said Graham W. J. Beal, DIA director. “It shows the artist at the height of his powers. For Frida Kahlo, on the other hand, the works she produced while in Detroit can be seen as the beginning of her development as a mature artist with her own distinct—and distinctive—style.”

    Between April 1932 and March 1933, Rivera created one of his most accomplished murals—Detroit Industry





     North Wall  – Detroit Industry Mural  – Diego Rivera



    South  Wall  – Detroit Industry Mural  – Diego River


    on the walls of what was then a garden courtyard at the recently opened new museum building. 

    At the same time and largely unnoticed, Kahlo developed her now-celebrated artistic identity. By including works before, during and after their time in Detroit, the exhibition provides a context for the impact Detroit had on each one’s career.

    Included in the 38 works by Rivera are his preparatory drawings for Detroit Industry. Not shown for almost 30 years, these to-scale drawings demonstrate Rivera’s vision for the murals: a synthesis between Mexico’s spiritual and political values and United States industrial might. Among the 26 works by Kahlo are those she created in Detroit, which reveal the emergence of her personal artistic style.

    Before coming to Detroit, Rivera’s and Kahlo’s art centered on Mexican politics, society and identity. Rivera focused on farmers, laborers and indigenous peoples, whom he aimed to bring to the center of Mexico’s history and national identity. Kahlo referenced folk art motifs, believing that indigenous and folk culture was an authentic expression of Mexico’s heritage.

    While in Detroit, Rivera worked primarily on the 27-panel Detroit Industryfrescos, which depict the complex interplay of natural resources, manufacturing processes and workers at the Ford Motor Company River Rouge plant, as well as other Detroit’s industries. Rivera spent months sketching at the Ford plant and was fascinated by the then state-of-the art factory. He conceived of the murals as promoting the understanding of the working class and American engineering genius.

    Rivera wove ancient Mexican cultural beliefs and their relationship to the modern world into the murals to illustrate his concept of the interconnectedness of the earth’s resources and modern technology. An example is his depiction of the stamping plant, which is modeled after the Aztec creator deity Coatlicue.

    For Kahlo, Detroit was a time of deep emotional turmoil, as well as growth as an artist. Shortly after arriving, she suffered a devastating event: the loss of her pregnancy. That experience is the subject of one of her most affecting paintings,  




    Henry Ford Hospital

    in which she expresses her physical and emotional pain in the aftermath of that event. The foreground shows Kahlo lying in her hospital bed, with deeply personal surreal images floating around her.

    Kahlo continued to define herself mostly through self-portraits that reflected her feelings about her time in Detroit. She was unhappy and wanted to return to her Mexican roots. 




    Self-portrait on the Borderline between Mexico and the United States 

    shows Kahlo standing in the middle, with references to Mexico’s ancient traditions on her left and symbols of U.S. industry on the right. While there are similarities to Detroit Industry, Rivera’s overriding theme is the synthesis of the Americas, Kahlo portrays them as two separate realms—clearly favoring Mexico.

    When the artists returned home, Rivera continued to paint murals and resumed his interest in portraying everyday people and indigenous Mexican heritage. Good examples are his paintings 




    Man Loading Donkey with Firewood 



    and Zandunga, Tehuantepec Dance.

    Kahlo established herself as an artist in her own right and continued painting self-portraits using iconography she developed in Detroit. 




    Self-portrait with Cropped Hair, a commentary on gender, and 

     

    Self-portrait with Monkey

    where the monkey is thought to be a surrogate for the child she never had, are two such paintings. 

    When Kahlo painted other women, she often showed them as weak or suffering, such as  



    Suicide of Dorothy Hale 



    and A Few Small Nips

    which shows a woman who had just been stabbed to death by her husband. Kahlo’s own anguish and sense of suffering come through in both paintings.




    A 248-page hard-cover catalog ($50) will accompany the exhibition, available in the DIA Museum Shop. Publication of the catalog is supported by Futhermore: a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund.

    The DIA offers a variety of related programs and dozens of community groups and other organizations are also hosting related programs, which are posted at www.ixiti.com/diegoandfrida.

    Maurice Utrillo

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    Maiurice Utrillo was born in Montmartre, the son of French artist Suzanne Valadon. He became an alcoholic at an early age, and in 1900 was first admitted to a sanatorium for treatment. Encouraged by his mother, and as a distraction from his craving for alcohol, he began to draw and paint scenes of cafés, churches and deserted squares around his home. Initially influenced by Impressionism, he developed a personal style when depicting the streets of Montmartre, of using light colours and thickly applied, impasto paint which proved popular and helped create the area's romantic, artistic image.

     Sotheby's 2013




    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 87,500 USD



    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 197,000 USD





    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 81,250 USD



    Sotheby's 2014



     
    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 146,500 GBP

    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 161,000 USD



    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 158,500 GBP



    Maurice Utrillo
    Lot. Vendu 161,000 USD



    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 194,500 GBP



    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 56,250 USD



    Maurice Utrillo
    LOT SOLD. 56,250 USD

    Christie's 1999




    Pr.$74,000


    Christie's 2000




      
     Christie's 2004







    Christie's 2008



     









    Pr.$109,000

     
    Christie's 2015



    MARK ROTHKO’S NO. 36 (BLACK STRIPE)

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    Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale - 13 May 2015



    Christie’s is delighted to have been entrusted for the sale of a dazzling master work by Mark Rothko, No. 36 (Black Stripe), 1958,from the collection of the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden - one of Europe’s most important and prestigious private museums for Classical Modernism and Contemporary art based in Germany.

    With Rothko’s signature concordance of three shimmering rectangles of directly contrasting color asserting themselves against a luminescent red ground, No. 36 (Black Stripe) is a classic example of Rothko’s mature style of painting and embodies perfectly renowned collector Frieder Burda’s vision and taste for emotional and expressive masterpieces of 20th  and 21st Century art.

    Painted in 1958 when Rothko was engaged with the creation of the series of famous murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in the Seagram building in Manhattan (now known as the famous The Rothko Room at the Tate Modern in London) – No. 36(Black Stripe) exemplifies this extraordinary moment in the artist’s life and career. Acquired by Frieder Burda over thirty years ago, No. 36 (Black Stripe) has never appeared at auction and has been featured prominently in every major museum exhibitions devoted to the artist, including the Tate Gallery in London, the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sidney and was part of the seminal artist’s retrospective at the Fondation Beyeler, in 2001. Estimated $30-50 million, the work will be on view in Hong Kong and London before being offered at auction in New York on May 13th. Proceeds from the sale will allow Frieda Burda’s non-profit foundation to further strengthen its asset base and thus to ensure the operation of the Museum Frieder Burda, which is exclusively funded by the foundation, for generations to come as well as to expand the work of the museum.


    Frieder Burda declared,“The decision to part with a work from my collection has been very carefully considered and hasn’t been easy for someone like myself who has a very personal relationship with all works of the collection. No. 36(Black Stripe) by Mark Rothko is an exceptional work, a solitaire within the collection from which it is hard to separate, however through its unique position within the collection as a whole it lent itself as the best option to implement our long-term plan to part from a work and further refine the collection. It is now strategically the right time and will also allow us to expand our ambitious plans and ideas for the future.”

    Painted in 1958, this vibrant, powerful and deeply emotive painting was created during Mark Rothko's most influential and acclaimed period. Here the artist has arrived at a new structural language of color that was to define his most famous body of works, The Seagram Murals, painted at the same time and which today constitute the celebrated Rothko Room at the Tate Modern, London. No. 36 (Black Stripe) is the quintessential Rothko – orange, black and red - passion and blood. This is the first time that the painting has been on the market for thirty years and we are sure to see a bidding war at the auction in May for this extremely rare and universally enticing work, especially with such a prestigious provenance and exhibition history,” stated Brett Gorvy, Chairman and International Head of Post-War & Contemporary Art.

    "We feel honored to be have been entrusted with the sale of Mark Rothko's No. 36, Black Stripe on behalf of the Frieder Burda Museum. Ever since its opening in 2004 the privately funded museum built by Richard Meier has attracted hundreds of thousands of visitors and stands out as one of the most beautiful and successfully designed museum buildings in Europe. It pays tribute to the unerring taste, passion, long term commitment and generosity of one of the great 20th Century art collectors of our time", added Andreas Rumbler, Chairman Christie's Switzerland.

    No. 36 (Black Stripe) is a rare, large and imposing landscape-format painting from 1958 that holds a place of particular historical importance in the history of Rothko's art. The year 1958 was to prove a watershed moment in the history of Rothko’s life and work. While his paintings would continue to develop, deepen and evolve over the next twelve years, becoming, as many observers have noted, progressively darker throughout the 1960s, nothing Rothko was to make in this decade was to surpass the intensity and glory of his achievements in the 1950s. By 1958, Rothko was not only at the very height of his creative powers - painting, in addition to the now famous Seagram Murals, many of the finest and most representative paintings of his career - he was also at the pinnacle of his influence, and reputation. For the first time in his life Rothko was not only both financially and critically successful but, in the wake of Jackson Pollock’s recent death, he was also widely thought to be the greatest living painter in America.

    With its hovering red and dark forms appearing to float around a radiant black rectangle shimmering with fiery energy at the center of the work against a soft red background, No. 36 (Black Stripe) is the embodiment of Mark Rothko's vision. The contrasts lead to a complex visual impression and reaction, Rothko has created a work that introduces us to the sublime, to the rawest and most profound emotions and anxieties of human existence. 

    Frieder Burda’sinternationally renowned collection encompasses around 1000 works of art. In order to maintain the collection and make it accessible to the public, he contracted American architect Richard Meier to build a museum in Baden-Baden which was inaugurated in 2004. The Museum is fully financed and run by the Foundation Frieder Burda which was established in 1998.  Rothko’s No. 36 (Black Stripe) was part of several major in-house exhibitions from 2002 to 2008, but over the past decade the collection has dedicated itself with increasing commitment to the current art of a younger generation of painters. The sale of No. 36 (Black Stripe) with the current market strength, especially for major works by Mark Rothko, will strengthen the asset base in the long-term of the Foundation Frieder Burda and thus the Museum Frieder Burda along with its collection and its successful exhibition program. Furthermore this sale will raise funds to continue the museum’s ongoing acquisition of young contemporary art. The core of the collection Frieder Burda with its holdings of works by German Expressionist Max Beckmann, the late work of Pablo Picasso, and major German post-war art will remain untouched by the planned sale.
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