Christie's annual auction The Art of the Surreal will continue on from the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale on 5 February 2020, marking the launch of ‘20th Century at Christie’s’. Painted in 1962,

 
René Magritte’s À la rencontre du plaisir (Towards Pleasure) (estimate: £8,000,000-12,000,000) combines several of the artist’s most iconic motifs into a single, evocative image, creating an elegant summation of the poetic imagination which fuelled his unique form of Surrealism. Purchased directly from the artist shortly after its creation, the painting has remained in the same family collection for over half a century, and is coming to auction for the first time.

Olivier Camu, Deputy Chairman, Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie’s: “It is with great expectation that we present this unique masterpiece by Magritte to the market for the first time on behalf of the family who were close friends of the artist and frequent guests at his famous Saturday gatherings of poets and other Surrealist intellectuals. It is probably the most hyper realistically painted and most strikingly poetic composition by the artist that I have had the honour to work with. It is a powerful illustration, just as his best ‘L'empire des lumières’ paintings are, of the ways in which Magritte deployed realistic looking symbols of a normal, ordinary and conventional life to casually pull us, the viewer, into a familiar setting only to then surprise us, unsettle us, cast his magical spell on us, thereby changing forever our experience of everyday reality.”
At its centre stands one of Magritte’s most familiar and enigmatic characters, the solitary man in the bowler hat, who appears lost in thought as he gazes upon the landscape before him. The bright glow of the moon casts a subtle sheen on the dome of his hat, while a soft, creeping mist hangs in the middle-distance, blurring the boundary between the forest and the open field. Seen from behind, the gentleman seems captivated by the vista, his stance and positioning amidst the sublime beauty of the natural world calling to mind the compositions of Caspar David Friedrich, although Magritte was no Romantic. There is a palpable sense of mystery and poetry to the scene, an uncertainty as to whether or not the view is real or imagined, and what exactly this figure’s role or place is in the world that the artist conjures. 

René Magritte, La magie noire , 1946, (detail) oil on canvas (est. £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 / $3,187,500 - 4,462,500) 

La magie noire stands as one of the most elegant examples of the theme that preoccupied Magritte in the 1940s, that of a female nude in an unidentified landscape. Here, the artist transforms his wife Georgette Berger into a modern - day Venus. Depicting her image in a classical manner, abiding by the laws of conventional beauty and proportion, she resembles a marble sculpture or mythical figure as much as a live model. This traditional representation is juxtaposed with the unexpected colouration of the figure, as her upper body gradually acquires the tone of the sky behind. The painting’s first owner was the artist’s brother Raymond Magritte, a successful businessman, who often supported the artist by buying his pictures, particularly in the early stages of his career. Frit representation is juxtaposed with the unexpected colouration of the figure, as her upper body gradually acquires the tone of the sky behind. The painting’s first owner was the artist’s brother Raymond Magritte, a successful businessman, who often supported the artist by buying his pictures, particularly in the early stages of his career. 

Christie’s on 27 February 2019, The Art of the Surreal 

René Magritte’s masterpiece Le Lieu Commun, 1964 (estimate: £15,000,000-25,000,000), one of the finest and largest examples of his iconic bowler-hatted men, will lead Christie’s The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale on 27 February 2019. Never before offered at auction, and poised to set a new world auction record for the artist, the work offers a unique vision of the wandering icon in that it offers a view of the figure both full-face and hidden behind a column in an ambiguous landscape of either impossible or multiple reality. The large scale (39 3/8 x 31 7/8 in. and 100 x 81 cm.) oil on canvas, signed ‘Magritte’ in the upper right corner, will be on view in New York from 4 to 11 November 2018 before touring to Hong Kong from 22 to 26 November 2018, Beijing 8 to 9 December 2018, Shanghai from 12 to 13 December 2018, Taipei from 15 to 16 January 2019, and LA from 31 January to 6 February 2019. The painting will be exhibited in London ahead of the auction from 22 to 27 February 2019.

Le Lieu Commun was formerly owned by Gustave Nellens, the great collector who commissioned the ‘Le Domaine Enchanté’ series of eight paintings by Magritte, and owned many great works by the artist, as well as the Fuji Museum in Tokyo. It is one of four paintings featuring the bowler-hatted man from 1964 that mark the culmination of this theme in Magritte’s work. The others are

 

Le Fils de L’Homme, made for Harry Torczyner and which previously set the world record for the artist when auctioned in 1999,



La Grande Guerre



and L’Homme au Chapeau Melon.
René Magritte

 

Led by Le lieu commun, six additional works by René Magritte will be offered for sale. In La belle captive (1931, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000), René Magritte presents, for the very first time, the image of a painted canvas standing on an easel, depicting the exact same scene that its presence within the picture seems to obscure. This was to become a familiar device for the rest of his career.

René Magritte, Composition on a Sea Shore, 1935-36. Estimate: £2,000,000 - 3,000,000). © Christie's Images Ltd 2019.

In Composition on a Sea Shore (1935-36, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000) three incongruous and impossible objects are positioned amidst a sun-soaked beach: a sheet of corrugated metal interspersed with spherical bells; a picture-within-a-picture; and an amorphous, flesh-coloured column or pillar, an object that is completely unique within the artist’s oeuvre. Floating amidst the clouds, the body of a statuesque nude woman is framed by the jagged opening of a darkened cave in Magritte’s Le pain quotidien (1942, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000). Never-before seen at auction, Le pain quotidien has remained in private hands since the time of its conception. Additional works include Le monde poétique II (1937, estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000), Moments musicaux (1961, estimate: £750,000-1,250,000) and Les barricades mystérieuses (1960, estimate: £350,000-450,000).

 
The Art of the Surreal sale will follow the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 27 February 2018.

 

  René Magritte , Le groupe silencieux , oil on canvas, 1926, estimate: £6,5 00,000 - 9,500,000

Magritte’s large Le groupe silencieux of 1926, one of a handful of large and important early works by the artist, is the highlight of the sale . 

René Magritte 

The sale includes seven paintings by René Magritte, led by Le groupe silencieux (above), (1926, estimate: £6,500,000 - 9,500,000) an important example of his early Surrealist style, and where all the pictorial devices, props and structures that go into the making of a so - called ‘figurative’ or ‘representational’ painting have been rendered in an unusual, subversive manner. The work is one of a pioneering series of oil paintings that the artist made between January 1926 and April 1927 in preparation for his first one - man show, held at the Galerie le Centaure, Brussels in the spring of 1927. In conjunction with his deconstruction of the components of landscape and still - life painting there is also a sense that the representation of the human figure has been broken down into parts. This painting is, in this respect, a landmark work that establishes some of the logic and framework of the aesthetic path that Magritte was to follow for the rest of his life. 



 

La recherche de l'absolu (1948, estimate: £1,000,000 - 1,500,000), 

 

L’explication (1962, estimate: £400,000 - 700,000), 




and L'oasis (1926, estimate: £1,400,000 - 2,000,000).