Christie's New York
10 AM, November 14, 2019
Sale 17650
Lot 111, "
By
Carter B. Horsley
The November 12, 2019 auction of Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper and Day Sale at Christie's New York is highlighted by several works by Salvador Dali and good works by Frantisek Kupka, Pablo Picasso, Lyonnel Feininger, Fernand Leger, and Jacques Lipchitz.
Lot 111 is a very fine work by Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957) entitled "Autour d'un point." It is a gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper that measures 12 1/14 by 12 7/8 inches and was executed circa 1920-1925. It is from the James and Marilyn Alsdorf Collection.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"Autour d’un point is the most developed of a series of closely related works which culminated in an eponymous oil painting, now in the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 'In this early study, the brushwork and color as well as a slight blurring of the edges create a living, gently fluttering configuration that poses quietly on the surface,' explained Kathryn Allo. 'In the later works in his Around a Point series, the edges have hardened. Each wing or seep has its counterpart in the earlier work, but the life is gone. The painting is hard and static, and movement has stopped' (exh. cat., op. cit., 1971).
"Many of Kupka's paintings grew out of a complex abstraction of a simple motion. For the present work, the rotating arcs stemmed from the path of motion of a young girl playing with a ball. 'The earliest studies show the genesis of the idea: a mixture of the lotus flower (with its symbolism of mystical evolution), cosmic space and the Disks of Newton. As the image evolved, it became increasingly legible as the unfurled petals of a flower. Thus symbolic, cosmic and biological significance are combined…Autour d’un point is the consummate expression of Kupka’s vision. The clear syncopated rhythms of dissected circles spinning around telescoping axes, the chromatic juxtapositions which recall the highlights and tonal shading of floral and faunal nature, intermittently broken or fused by zones of hot white light, and finally the bursting monumental scale of the image which swells to bursting beyond the frame, evoke a supreme cosmic vision' (M. Rowell, František Kupka: A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, pp. 79 and 268)."
It has a modest estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. It sold for $325,000.
"Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
“'The rape of self-reflection is complete by introspection ravished and confounded through the rapt reverie of self-propounded on the archaic mirror’s watersheet.' Salvador Dalí Upon relocating to America in 1940 with Gala, his muse, business partner and wife, Dalí began to write his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, scandalizing many critics and turning the literary establishment on its head. Although Dalí’s personal history, both of factual events, memories and the unconscious associations they engendered, had always taken a significant role in his work, a distinctively heightened self-reflexive character is evident in works of this period. L’oeil du peintre acts as a potent portrait of the artist himself, a veritable retrospective and catalogue raisonné of the artist’s key iconography.
"The present work was initially created for a commission for S.C. Johnson & Co that was used in an advertising campaign in 1942 titled A Paintmaker’s Plight. The accompanying text begins: 'Mr. Dalí’s conception of a paint manufacturer at work may seem a bit bizarre. Actually, there are moments when the problems of our customers are just as confusing as Mr. Dalí’s picture. But we welcome the challenge.' Proceeding to expound the challenges of creating paint for multiple uses, the text of the advertisement further touches on requests by customers for solutions to treat bobby pins, baby furniture, tobacco cans, kitchen cabinets and incubators, Venetian blinds, farm implements and acoustical tiles. An earnest yet wildly at-odds attempt at creative advertising, it must have been an interesting proposition for the beguiled copywriter to try to reconcile Dalí’s 'interpretation' with the commercial imperative.
"Now titled L’oeil du peintre, the work exists within its own right as a clearly autobiographical portrait with little concern for the advertising brief, if there ever happened to be one. It relates back to significant visual themes within his practice up until this time, explored through the artist’s "paranoid critical method" of the unconscious or delirious association of otherwise unrelated objects.
"Set within a vast landscape that extends well beyond the immediate drama of the foreground, L’oeil du peintre presents a visual web of signs, at the center of which, the frenetic artist is represented as a large, animated eyeball. This motif had become a famed symbol within the surrealist lexicon as the interface between reality and the mind, made infamous by the film Un chien andalou by Dalí and Luis Buñuel from 1929, featuring a visceral and terrifying scene whereupon a young woman’s eyeball is sliced with a razor. The eyeball as presented in L’oeil du peintre, with the signature Dalíean telephone suspended by a thick eyelash, would recur on a grand scale in The Seven Arts from 1944, occupying one of the seven panels which would be destroyed in a 1956 house fire. As the artist thrusts his brush towards a barren olive tree in the form of a woman’s body with drawers emerging from her chest, recalling Dalí’s famed Venus de Milo aux tiroirs, a Surrealist proposition inspired by his delight in encountering the English term 'chest of drawers.' The brick wall behind echoes former evocations of a Catalan fisherman’s shack such as the one in Port Lligat where Dalí and Gala had lived in 1930, indicated by the small rectangular window. It takes humanoid form, leaning forward in a classical, melancholic pose, suggestive of The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937), its human features replaced by a clock face, a play on words and interconnection of objects but arguably Dalí’s most significant motif of the clock or watch, indicating memory and the fluidity of time. A myriad of potent motifs, this magnificently detailed composition, created within the context of the artist’s new life in America, therefore represents a powerful, self-reflexive Surrealist opus of Dalí’s life and work upon his emergence within a new frontier.
"L’oeil du peintre was formerly in the prestigious collection of Joseph Randall Shapiro, founding president of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and an active philanthropist and collector, particularly of Surrealist art. During his ownership, the work was exhibited as part of his collection in the 1970s and 1980s and has been held in prominent collections in the United States of America and London since its creation."
The November 12, 2019 auction of Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper and Day Sale at Christie's New York is highlighted by several works by Salvador Dali and good works by Frantisek Kupka, Pablo Picasso, Lyonnel Feininger, Fernand Leger, and Jacques Lipchitz.
Lot 111 is a very fine work by Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957) entitled "Autour d'un point." It is a gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper that measures 12 1/14 by 12 7/8 inches and was executed circa 1920-1925. It is from the James and Marilyn Alsdorf Collection.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"Autour d’un point is the most developed of a series of closely related works which culminated in an eponymous oil painting, now in the collection of the Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. 'In this early study, the brushwork and color as well as a slight blurring of the edges create a living, gently fluttering configuration that poses quietly on the surface,' explained Kathryn Allo. 'In the later works in his Around a Point series, the edges have hardened. Each wing or seep has its counterpart in the earlier work, but the life is gone. The painting is hard and static, and movement has stopped' (exh. cat., op. cit., 1971).
"Many of Kupka's paintings grew out of a complex abstraction of a simple motion. For the present work, the rotating arcs stemmed from the path of motion of a young girl playing with a ball. 'The earliest studies show the genesis of the idea: a mixture of the lotus flower (with its symbolism of mystical evolution), cosmic space and the Disks of Newton. As the image evolved, it became increasingly legible as the unfurled petals of a flower. Thus symbolic, cosmic and biological significance are combined…Autour d’un point is the consummate expression of Kupka’s vision. The clear syncopated rhythms of dissected circles spinning around telescoping axes, the chromatic juxtapositions which recall the highlights and tonal shading of floral and faunal nature, intermittently broken or fused by zones of hot white light, and finally the bursting monumental scale of the image which swells to bursting beyond the frame, evoke a supreme cosmic vision' (M. Rowell, František Kupka: A Retrospective, exh. cat., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1975, pp. 79 and 268)."
It has a modest estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. It sold for $325,000.
Lot
112, "Femmes aux papillons," by Salvador Dali, gouache, watercolor,
printed paper collage and pen and ink on board, 30 by 40 inches, 1953
The
catalogue provided the following commentary:The
cover illustration of the catalogue, Lot 112, "Femmes aux papillions"
is a very fine gouache, watercolor, printed paper collage and pen and
ink on board by Salvador Dalí (1904-1989).
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"For
Dalí, his incursion into the fashion world was a legitimate extension
of his Surrealist and artistic activities. He saw his involvement with
fashion as another means whereby he could experiment and communicate
the strange landscape of his universe. A familiarity with Dalí’s work
reveals that amid the enormous diversity of his imagination, there were
a few images that appear again and again, such as the inclusion of the
butterfly within larger scale compositions. In the 1950s, this imagery
is presented primarily in his work with the International Silk
Convention, for which the artist created several poster designs.
"Eleanor Lambert, the first owner of the present work who was closely associated with the International Silk Convention, was a notable presence in the fashion world and beyond. At the start of her career, the doyenne of public relations represented artists like Jackson Pollock, George Bellows, Isamu Noguchi, Thomas Hart Benton, Cecil Beaton, Dalí and many others. In those days, it was commonplace for the artists to compensate her with art, as they often could not afford her monthly retainer. It was through such arrangements that Lambert came to amass an impressive collection, including a wood sculpture portrait of herself by Noguchi and the present work among many others. After a time at the Whitney Museum of Art shortly after its formation, she aided in the establishment of the Art Dealers Association of America. Often referred to as the Empress of Seventh Avenue, Lambert was a major figure in the promotion of American fashion. She founded the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1962, started the International Best-Dressed list and promulgated the idea of New York Fashion Week. Her enduring influence on the fashion industry was further bolstered by her instrumental role in the formation of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as organizing its associated fundraiser the Met Gala. Through her work as his publicist, Lambert tapped Dalí for many fashion-related projects in the United States including designing posters and scarves for the International Silk Convention and creating sets for the March of Dimes charity fashion shows in the 1950s, in which the present work was likely included.
"Dalí contended that 'as a Renaissance man…I feel no separation between myself as an artist and the mass of the people.' He believed 'the modern artist should participate in every kind of extracurriciular activity. Michelangelo designed the dress for the Pope’s Swiss Guards. It is all propaganda of your imagination, no?' (quoted in H. Crawford, “Surrealism and the Fashion Magazine,” American Periodicals, vol. 14, no. 2, 2004, p. 212). Femmes aux papillons is the product of Dalí's direct engagement with consumer culture, a work in which the specificity of contemporary fashion is displaced by symbols and presented in the context of an atemporal dream-like world. He became known to American audiences as Surrealism's impresario and was increasingly viewed as the very personification and embodiment of Surrealism itself. Dalí's self-proclaimed 'dazzling' fame and notoriety had led, as the artist remarked in his 1942 autobiography, to the receipt of 'a shower of extravagant offers, each more unexpected than the last' (S. Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, 1942, p. 344).
"By the 1950s, Dalí’s work had a considerable commercial value and appeal, particularly in the United States, where he had lived from 1940-1948. Although he had returned to Europe by 1950, his popularity and success still boomed in America; his likeness and his artworks gracing the covers of many popular magazines. Throughout his life, as early on as his childhood, Dalí was conscious of his appearance and henceforth developed himself as an artist-dandy seeking to communicate messages as much through the organization of his appearances as by his paintings. His well-known image of the insane genius became an essential quality of his marketability. Beginning in his Paris years of the 1930s, spent in the company of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, he had been greatly influenced by the contemporary world of fashion, and in turn, he too had an influence on that world. In his relationship with Schiaparelli, their creative partnership fused art and fashion to create designs like the famous shoe-hat. His collaborations with magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Flair among others were endless. Dalí’s profound impact pervaded the salons and society gatherings of the late 1930s and eventually the wider world of fashion, which adopted many of his ideas in watered down versions in the years to follow. Fashion, with its focus on the body and foregrounding of desire, as well as its connection with notions of artifice and the real, concealment and revelation, and disfigurement and embellishment was a fertile area of exploration for the artists of the movement.
"The juxtaposition of the real and the unreal in the present work renders the ordinary sublime, as the oversized accessories are embedded in an enigmatic landscape replete with leitmotifs drawn from Dalí's earlier body of psychoanalytic work. The debt to many of the artist's pictures of the 1930s, most notably his iconic 1931 Persistance de la mémoire, is evident in the landscape setting reminiscent of the Ampurdán plain of his native Catalonia, and its trademark compositional structure with a very deep sense of perspective."
"Eleanor Lambert, the first owner of the present work who was closely associated with the International Silk Convention, was a notable presence in the fashion world and beyond. At the start of her career, the doyenne of public relations represented artists like Jackson Pollock, George Bellows, Isamu Noguchi, Thomas Hart Benton, Cecil Beaton, Dalí and many others. In those days, it was commonplace for the artists to compensate her with art, as they often could not afford her monthly retainer. It was through such arrangements that Lambert came to amass an impressive collection, including a wood sculpture portrait of herself by Noguchi and the present work among many others. After a time at the Whitney Museum of Art shortly after its formation, she aided in the establishment of the Art Dealers Association of America. Often referred to as the Empress of Seventh Avenue, Lambert was a major figure in the promotion of American fashion. She founded the Council of Fashion Designers of America in 1962, started the International Best-Dressed list and promulgated the idea of New York Fashion Week. Her enduring influence on the fashion industry was further bolstered by her instrumental role in the formation of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art as well as organizing its associated fundraiser the Met Gala. Through her work as his publicist, Lambert tapped Dalí for many fashion-related projects in the United States including designing posters and scarves for the International Silk Convention and creating sets for the March of Dimes charity fashion shows in the 1950s, in which the present work was likely included.
"Dalí contended that 'as a Renaissance man…I feel no separation between myself as an artist and the mass of the people.' He believed 'the modern artist should participate in every kind of extracurriciular activity. Michelangelo designed the dress for the Pope’s Swiss Guards. It is all propaganda of your imagination, no?' (quoted in H. Crawford, “Surrealism and the Fashion Magazine,” American Periodicals, vol. 14, no. 2, 2004, p. 212). Femmes aux papillons is the product of Dalí's direct engagement with consumer culture, a work in which the specificity of contemporary fashion is displaced by symbols and presented in the context of an atemporal dream-like world. He became known to American audiences as Surrealism's impresario and was increasingly viewed as the very personification and embodiment of Surrealism itself. Dalí's self-proclaimed 'dazzling' fame and notoriety had led, as the artist remarked in his 1942 autobiography, to the receipt of 'a shower of extravagant offers, each more unexpected than the last' (S. Dalí, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, New York, 1942, p. 344).
"By the 1950s, Dalí’s work had a considerable commercial value and appeal, particularly in the United States, where he had lived from 1940-1948. Although he had returned to Europe by 1950, his popularity and success still boomed in America; his likeness and his artworks gracing the covers of many popular magazines. Throughout his life, as early on as his childhood, Dalí was conscious of his appearance and henceforth developed himself as an artist-dandy seeking to communicate messages as much through the organization of his appearances as by his paintings. His well-known image of the insane genius became an essential quality of his marketability. Beginning in his Paris years of the 1930s, spent in the company of Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli, he had been greatly influenced by the contemporary world of fashion, and in turn, he too had an influence on that world. In his relationship with Schiaparelli, their creative partnership fused art and fashion to create designs like the famous shoe-hat. His collaborations with magazines like Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Flair among others were endless. Dalí’s profound impact pervaded the salons and society gatherings of the late 1930s and eventually the wider world of fashion, which adopted many of his ideas in watered down versions in the years to follow. Fashion, with its focus on the body and foregrounding of desire, as well as its connection with notions of artifice and the real, concealment and revelation, and disfigurement and embellishment was a fertile area of exploration for the artists of the movement.
"The juxtaposition of the real and the unreal in the present work renders the ordinary sublime, as the oversized accessories are embedded in an enigmatic landscape replete with leitmotifs drawn from Dalí's earlier body of psychoanalytic work. The debt to many of the artist's pictures of the 1930s, most notably his iconic 1931 Persistance de la mémoire, is evident in the landscape setting reminiscent of the Ampurdán plain of his native Catalonia, and its trademark compositional structure with a very deep sense of perspective."
It has an estimate of $600,000 to
$800,000. It sold for $939,000.
Lot 119, "L'oeil du peintre," by Salvador Dali, watercolor, pen and brush and colored inks over pencil on coas, 10 1/8 by 10 1/2 inches, 1941
Lot 119, "L'oeil du peintre," by Salvador Dali, watercolor, pen and brush and colored inks over pencil on coas, 10 1/8 by 10 1/2 inches, 1941
Another excellent work by Dali is Lot
119, "L'oeil du peintre," a watercolor, pen and brush and colored inks
over pencil on card. It measures 10 1/8 by 10 1/2 inches and was
created in 1941.
"Nicolas and Olivier Descharnes have confirmed the authenticity of this work.
“'The rape of self-reflection is complete by introspection ravished and confounded through the rapt reverie of self-propounded on the archaic mirror’s watersheet.' Salvador Dalí Upon relocating to America in 1940 with Gala, his muse, business partner and wife, Dalí began to write his autobiography, The Secret Life of Salvador Dalí, scandalizing many critics and turning the literary establishment on its head. Although Dalí’s personal history, both of factual events, memories and the unconscious associations they engendered, had always taken a significant role in his work, a distinctively heightened self-reflexive character is evident in works of this period. L’oeil du peintre acts as a potent portrait of the artist himself, a veritable retrospective and catalogue raisonné of the artist’s key iconography.
"The present work was initially created for a commission for S.C. Johnson & Co that was used in an advertising campaign in 1942 titled A Paintmaker’s Plight. The accompanying text begins: 'Mr. Dalí’s conception of a paint manufacturer at work may seem a bit bizarre. Actually, there are moments when the problems of our customers are just as confusing as Mr. Dalí’s picture. But we welcome the challenge.' Proceeding to expound the challenges of creating paint for multiple uses, the text of the advertisement further touches on requests by customers for solutions to treat bobby pins, baby furniture, tobacco cans, kitchen cabinets and incubators, Venetian blinds, farm implements and acoustical tiles. An earnest yet wildly at-odds attempt at creative advertising, it must have been an interesting proposition for the beguiled copywriter to try to reconcile Dalí’s 'interpretation' with the commercial imperative.
"Now titled L’oeil du peintre, the work exists within its own right as a clearly autobiographical portrait with little concern for the advertising brief, if there ever happened to be one. It relates back to significant visual themes within his practice up until this time, explored through the artist’s "paranoid critical method" of the unconscious or delirious association of otherwise unrelated objects.
"Set within a vast landscape that extends well beyond the immediate drama of the foreground, L’oeil du peintre presents a visual web of signs, at the center of which, the frenetic artist is represented as a large, animated eyeball. This motif had become a famed symbol within the surrealist lexicon as the interface between reality and the mind, made infamous by the film Un chien andalou by Dalí and Luis Buñuel from 1929, featuring a visceral and terrifying scene whereupon a young woman’s eyeball is sliced with a razor. The eyeball as presented in L’oeil du peintre, with the signature Dalíean telephone suspended by a thick eyelash, would recur on a grand scale in The Seven Arts from 1944, occupying one of the seven panels which would be destroyed in a 1956 house fire. As the artist thrusts his brush towards a barren olive tree in the form of a woman’s body with drawers emerging from her chest, recalling Dalí’s famed Venus de Milo aux tiroirs, a Surrealist proposition inspired by his delight in encountering the English term 'chest of drawers.' The brick wall behind echoes former evocations of a Catalan fisherman’s shack such as the one in Port Lligat where Dalí and Gala had lived in 1930, indicated by the small rectangular window. It takes humanoid form, leaning forward in a classical, melancholic pose, suggestive of The Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937), its human features replaced by a clock face, a play on words and interconnection of objects but arguably Dalí’s most significant motif of the clock or watch, indicating memory and the fluidity of time. A myriad of potent motifs, this magnificently detailed composition, created within the context of the artist’s new life in America, therefore represents a powerful, self-reflexive Surrealist opus of Dalí’s life and work upon his emergence within a new frontier.
"L’oeil du peintre was formerly in the prestigious collection of Joseph Randall Shapiro, founding president of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and an active philanthropist and collector, particularly of Surrealist art. During his ownership, the work was exhibited as part of his collection in the 1970s and 1980s and has been held in prominent collections in the United States of America and London since its creation."
The lot has an estimate of $300,000 to
$500,000. It sold for
$711,000.
Lot 388, "Le signe du doigt," by Jean Dubuffet, oil on canvas, 39 1/2 by 31 3/4 inches, 1954
Lot
659 is another work by Dubuffet, an oil on canvas entitled "Le Signe du
doigt." It measures 39 1/2 by 31 3/4 inches and was painted in
1954. It has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $1,395,000.
Lot 515, "
Lot
515 is an oil on canvas by Fernand Leger that is entitled "La joconde
aux cles (1er etat)." It measures 25 5/8 by 21 1/4 inches and was
painted in 1930.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"In the late 1920s
and early 1930s, Léger discarded the rigid frames of his
Purist-influenced compositions and allowed previously grounded objects
to float freely on the canvas. The geometric forms that had governed
the structure of his paintings gave way, although not completely, in
favor of more organic and figurative forms. His aesthetic of a
pictorial harmony drawn from contrasts was fully realized in his new
rhythmic canvases, in which the democracy of subject matter gave rise
to most extreme and unpredictable forms of representational plasticity.
"In many of the paintings of the period, Léger included a central element of a key or set of keys, none other than his own house keys on a ring. The appearance of the key is a marker, a recurring visual signifier that tracked the evolutionary process Léger had initiated in his art and which was already quickly gathering momentum. The artist was in effect unlocking and opening the door, to pass from one phase to the next in his painting, moving from the high classicism of the mid-1920s to the vital, more liberated forms of what he called the 'new realism,' founded upon his concept of the object in place.
"Léger related the story behind such motifs: 'One day I painted a bunch of keys on a canvas. They were my own keys. I had no idea what I was going to place next to them. I needed something absolutely different from the keys. When I finished working, I went out. I had hardly gone a few steps when what did I see in a shop window? A postcard of the Mona Lisa! I understood at once. What could provide a greater contrast to the keys? She was what I needed. And that’s how the Mona Lisa came into the picture. And following this I added a tin of sardines. It all added up to the sharpest possible contrast... I achieved the most risky painting in this way from the point of view of contrasted objects. For as far as I am concerned, the Mona Lisa is an object like any other' (quoted in P. de Francia, Fernand Léger, New Haven, 1983, p. 111)."
"In many of the paintings of the period, Léger included a central element of a key or set of keys, none other than his own house keys on a ring. The appearance of the key is a marker, a recurring visual signifier that tracked the evolutionary process Léger had initiated in his art and which was already quickly gathering momentum. The artist was in effect unlocking and opening the door, to pass from one phase to the next in his painting, moving from the high classicism of the mid-1920s to the vital, more liberated forms of what he called the 'new realism,' founded upon his concept of the object in place.
"Léger related the story behind such motifs: 'One day I painted a bunch of keys on a canvas. They were my own keys. I had no idea what I was going to place next to them. I needed something absolutely different from the keys. When I finished working, I went out. I had hardly gone a few steps when what did I see in a shop window? A postcard of the Mona Lisa! I understood at once. What could provide a greater contrast to the keys? She was what I needed. And that’s how the Mona Lisa came into the picture. And following this I added a tin of sardines. It all added up to the sharpest possible contrast... I achieved the most risky painting in this way from the point of view of contrasted objects. For as far as I am concerned, the Mona Lisa is an object like any other' (quoted in P. de Francia, Fernand Léger, New Haven, 1983, p. 111)."
The lot has an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It sold for $225,000.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Léger discarded the rigid frames of his Purist-influenced compositions and allowed previously grounded objects to float freely on the canvas. The geometric forms that had governed the structure of his paintings gave way, although not completely, in favor of more organic and figurative forms. His aesthetic of a pictorial harmony drawn from contrasts was fully realized in his new rhythmic canvases, in which the democracy of subject matter gave rise to most extreme and unpredictable forms of representational plasticity.
In many of the paintings of the period, Léger included a central element of a key or set of keys, none other than his own house keys on a ring. The appearance of the key is a marker, a recurring visual signifier that tracked the evolutionary process Léger had initiated in his art and which was already quickly gathering momentum. The artist was in effect unlocking and opening the door, to pass from one phase to the next in his painting, moving from the high classicism of the mid-1920s to the vital, more liberated forms of what he called the “new realism,” founded upon his concept of the object in place.
Léger related the story behind such motifs: “One day I painted a bunch of keys on a canvas. They were my own keys. I had no idea what I was going to place next to them. I needed something absolutely different from the keys. When I finished working, I went out. I had hardly gone a few steps when what did I see in a shop window? A postcard of the Mona Lisa! I understood at once. What could provide a greater contrast to the keys? She was what I needed. And that’s how the Mona Lisa came into the picture. And following this I added a tin of sardines. It all added up to the sharpest possible contrast... I achieved the most risky painting in this way from the point of view of contrasted objects. For as far as I am concerned, the Mona Lisa is an object like any other” (quoted in P. de Francia, Fernand Léger, New Haven, 1983, p. 111).
Lot 362, "Homme a la guitare," by Jacques Lipchitz, stone, 23 1/8 inches high, 1925
Lot
362 is an impressive stone sculpture by Jacques Lipchitz (1891-1973)
entitled "Homme a la guitare." It is 23 1/8 inches high and was
created in 1925.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"In
1919-1920, at the height of his mastery of the Cubist idiom, Lipchitz
undertook an important series of sculptures that depict street
musicians, Pierrots and Harlequins,
with their instruments: guitars, mandolins, accordions, and clarinets.
Although this choice of subject matter developed in part from
Lipchitz's interest in Jean-Antoine Watteau and other 18th-century
French painters, it also reflects the popularity that the world of
the commedia dell'arte enjoyed at this time among the
Parisian avant-garde. Both during and after the First World War,
artists such as Jean Metzinger, André Derain, Gino Severini, and
Lipchitz's close friend Juan Gris exploited the theme for its patriotic
associations with Latin (versus Germanic) culture. In the hands of
Pablo Picasso, characters from the commedia could embody
either the alienated melancholy of the 1915 Arlequin or the artistic
camaraderie of the 1921 Trois
musiciens, both seminal works of Synthetic Cubism (Zervos, vol.
2, no. 555, and vol. 4, no. 331; both The Museum of Modern Art, New
York). Catherine Pütz has written, 'Like many in his circle...Lipchitz
fêted the liberating effects of imaginative play by embracing the world
of Italian street theater, the commedia dell'arte, producing a
host of its traditionally masked characters—Pierrots, Harlequins, and a
panoply of musicians—like those that wandered through the scenes of his
friend Max Jacob's poetry (his 1921 Le bal masqué, for example) or
Erik Satie's musical score and Picasso's stage-setting for the
ballet Parade (1917)' (Jacques
Lipchitz: The First Cubist Sculptor, London, 2002, p. 23).
"The sequence of musicians also provided Lipchitz with a valuable opportunity to test new formal ideas. He would later recall in his memoirs, 'This was a transitional period in which I was playing variations on a number of familiar themes, more or less conscious that I needed to find a new direction, a new stimulus... The musical instruments that I used...were part of my basic vocabulary. Like the cubist painters, I collected musical instruments and decorated my studio with them. We used these objects, which were familiar parts of our everyday lives, as a kind of reaction against the noble and exalted subjects of the academicians. They were, in effect, truly neutral subjects that we could control and in terms of which we could study abstract relations' (My Life in Sculpture, New York, 1972, pp. 54-58).
"Although Lipchitz had been recognized as a leading proponent of Cubism since 1916, he enjoyed a conspicuous boost in his reputation when he signed a contract with Léonce Rosenberg. In early 1920, his inaugural one-man show, at Rosenberg's Galerie de l'Effort Moderne, attracted the attention of the influential writer Maurice Raynal, who published the first monograph on Lipchitz's work shortly thereafter. Lipchitz had also begun to frequent the homes of the leading beau-monde figures of the day, including Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel, all of whom commissioned portrait busts from him around this time. Later in 1920, Lipchitz had a falling-out with Rosenberg and severed ties with the dealer. He later recounted, 'My reputation was beginning to enlarge, and, as is frequently the case, my dealer was afraid that if I changed direction the works might be less salable. As a result, we agreed to part' (ibid., p. 57). Although Lipchitz lost the financial security that Rosenberg had provided, he gained a new freedom that enabled him to break away from strict Cubist discipline as he entered the second decade of his career as a sculptor.
"Executed in 1925, Homme à la guitare is a unique stone sculpture which was later cast in a bronze edition of 7."
The lot, which comes from the collection of Eileen and I. M. Pei, has an estimate of $700,000 to $1,000,000. It sold for $735,000.
"The sequence of musicians also provided Lipchitz with a valuable opportunity to test new formal ideas. He would later recall in his memoirs, 'This was a transitional period in which I was playing variations on a number of familiar themes, more or less conscious that I needed to find a new direction, a new stimulus... The musical instruments that I used...were part of my basic vocabulary. Like the cubist painters, I collected musical instruments and decorated my studio with them. We used these objects, which were familiar parts of our everyday lives, as a kind of reaction against the noble and exalted subjects of the academicians. They were, in effect, truly neutral subjects that we could control and in terms of which we could study abstract relations' (My Life in Sculpture, New York, 1972, pp. 54-58).
"Although Lipchitz had been recognized as a leading proponent of Cubism since 1916, he enjoyed a conspicuous boost in his reputation when he signed a contract with Léonce Rosenberg. In early 1920, his inaugural one-man show, at Rosenberg's Galerie de l'Effort Moderne, attracted the attention of the influential writer Maurice Raynal, who published the first monograph on Lipchitz's work shortly thereafter. Lipchitz had also begun to frequent the homes of the leading beau-monde figures of the day, including Gertrude Stein, Jean Cocteau and Coco Chanel, all of whom commissioned portrait busts from him around this time. Later in 1920, Lipchitz had a falling-out with Rosenberg and severed ties with the dealer. He later recounted, 'My reputation was beginning to enlarge, and, as is frequently the case, my dealer was afraid that if I changed direction the works might be less salable. As a result, we agreed to part' (ibid., p. 57). Although Lipchitz lost the financial security that Rosenberg had provided, he gained a new freedom that enabled him to break away from strict Cubist discipline as he entered the second decade of his career as a sculptor.
"Executed in 1925, Homme à la guitare is a unique stone sculpture which was later cast in a bronze edition of 7."
The lot, which comes from the collection of Eileen and I. M. Pei, has an estimate of $700,000 to $1,000,000. It sold for $735,000.
Lot 113, "Nu de tetes d'hommes," by Pablo Picasso, colored felt-tip pens and pen and brush and india ink on paper, 12 1/8 by 9 inches, 1970
Lot 113 is a superb colored felt-tip pens and pen and brush and india ink on paper work by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) that is entitled "Nu de tetes d'hommes." It measures 12 1/8 by 9 inches and was created in 1970.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"A tremendous surge of creative energy and urgency compelled Picasso to produce a rich and vast body of work in the last years of his life. Picasso actively utilized his sketchbooks in his final years, which, paired with his feverish, prolific output, bears testament to the artist’s constant search for innovation as he abandoned himself into a final stage of pure, almost childlike, experimentation.
"During this late Indian summer in Picasso's career, the artist remained preoccupied with his favorite subject of eroticism, now brought into the realm of unearthing fantasy. In the present work, the artist fuses several of his recurring motifs: a voluptuous, sculptural nude is the object of several voyeurs’ affection–including a hedonistic mousquetaire, perhaps a stand-in for the artist himself. The female nude's colorful, reclining body fills up the entirety of the left side of the sketchbook page, as the enlarged view of her central voyeur takes up the right side. His grotesque features protrude into her space in a way that alludes, none too subtly, to the penetrative desires of his gaze. Four more viewers peer out of the top corners of the page with a varying degree of near-comical expressions. The artist even permits himself a certain playfulness in the different shapes and sizes of these figures’ noses in regard to their corresponding reactions to the sight before them.
"In Nu et têtes d’hommes, Picasso is not mourning the loss of his former energy so much as reviving it, if only in pictorial form. When he visualizes these erotic scenes later in life, these representations become his way of vicariously participating. This sense of invocation is as apparent in the subject matter as it is in the vivid and vivacious style with which " has been drawn. There is an almost violent sense of activity apparent in his application of color and frenzied use of directional line. Here, the artist’s use of color is strategic: it is concentrated almost solely on the woman’s body, taking up most of the sketchbook page, as her voyeurs remain in the periphery of the page in black contours. The hatches and sways of Picasso's line cover almost every inch of the sheet, and create a pulsating energy that guides the viewer’s eye around the scene, from woman to voyeur, and back again. Here, in his late age, Picasso himself has become a voyeur, and in his technical manipulations of the composition, he has cleverly relegated us, as viewers, into complicit voyeurs as well."
It
has an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000. It sold for $200,000.
Lot 199, "Au coin du feu (The Churchills," by Pablo Picasso, pen and India ink on paper, 14 x 20 1/8 inches, 1959
Lot 199 is an amusing drawing of the Churchhills by Pablo
Picasso
(1881-1973). It is entitled "Au coin du feu (The Churchhills),"
and is a pen and India ink on paper that measures 14 by 20 1/8
inches. It was created in 1959. It is from the Robert B.
and Beatrice C. Mayer Family
collection.
It has an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. It sold for $112,500.
Lot 199, "Au coin du feu (The Churchills," by Pablo Picasso, pen and India ink on paper, 14 x 20 1/8 inches, 1959
It has an estimate of $50,000 to $70,000. It sold for $112,500.
Lot 106, "Nature morte horizontale, traces géométriques, motif des quatre poissons," by Le Corbusier, colored wax crayons and pencil on paper, 3 3/4 by 7 1/4 inches
Lot 106 is a good colored wax crayons and
pencil on paper by Le Corbusier (1887-1965) entitled "Nature morte
horizontale, traces géométriques, motif des quatre poissons." It measures 3 3/4 by 7 1/4 inches.
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
The catalogue provides the following commentary:
"Le
Corbusier’s influence has few parallels within the 20th century; his
unique and visionary approach to art and architecture established a new
modern vision for living that has become an integral part of 21st
century life. Drawing remained a central aspect of Le Corbusier’s his
multi-faceted artistic practice throughout his career. It was an
indispensable medium not only for communicating his utopian
architectural visions but also for exercising his artistic and purely
plastic ideas. Le Corbusier’s works on paper exemplify the thoughts of
the artist in the creative moment, complete with revisions and new
decisions throughout which makes them significantly compelling
documents of the creative process, active on the page. Form in the Service of Poetry: Five
Drawings by Le Corbusier from a Private Collection exemplifies
Le Corbusier’s mind-to-hand process through these five well-worked and
brightly colored pieces; clear successes that are all the more exciting
in their immediacy, having occurred spontaneously, fluidly and
unerringly.
"Painting and drawing fulfilled an essential part of the artist’s oeuvre as a means through which to express himself in a more personal manner, and most importantly, as a vehicle through which to attain a pure form of poetry. 'There are no sculptors only, no painters only, no architects only,' he declared in 1962, towards the end of his life. 'the plastic incident fulfils itself in an overall form in the service of poetry' (quoted in H. Weber, Le Corbusier–The Artist: Works from the Heidi Weber Collection, Zurich, 1988).
"Combining many pertinent motifs from his developing post-Purist oeuvre, this collection of colorful and expressive works on paper provides panorama of Le Corbusier’s visual lexicon. Incorporating still life—having evolved since the rigid and tightly structured Purist compositions— the female figure, amorphous and organic forms that the artist described as objets à réaction poétique, and of course, ubiquitous elements of interior architecture and landscape, these works provide a view into the arsenal of signs he would develop into the new and distinctive visual language of his mature career.
"The move towards color stands out as a singular triumph and was a measure that would provide significant stimulus for the artist after his Purist period. From the late 1920s onwards, color burst into Le Corbusier’s art and remained one of the most prominent characteristics of his plastic oeuvre. He drew upon this formal tool to construct his compositions, using overlapping and interlocking planes of unmodulated color in complex arrangements. Yet, in addition to this, color allowed Le Corbusier to impart a sense of poeticism and harmony into his practice, both artistic and architectural. As the artist once stated, 'Color is an immediate and spontaneous expression of life' (quoted in ibid.). These five works celebrate the new-found freedom that the artist enjoyed into his late career, expounding the pleasures and formal possibilities of color within his refined formal dialogue.
"Jean-Pierre Duport from the Fondation Le Corbusier has confirmed the authenticity of this work."
The lot has an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. It sold for $10,000.
"Painting and drawing fulfilled an essential part of the artist’s oeuvre as a means through which to express himself in a more personal manner, and most importantly, as a vehicle through which to attain a pure form of poetry. 'There are no sculptors only, no painters only, no architects only,' he declared in 1962, towards the end of his life. 'the plastic incident fulfils itself in an overall form in the service of poetry' (quoted in H. Weber, Le Corbusier–The Artist: Works from the Heidi Weber Collection, Zurich, 1988).
"Combining many pertinent motifs from his developing post-Purist oeuvre, this collection of colorful and expressive works on paper provides panorama of Le Corbusier’s visual lexicon. Incorporating still life—having evolved since the rigid and tightly structured Purist compositions— the female figure, amorphous and organic forms that the artist described as objets à réaction poétique, and of course, ubiquitous elements of interior architecture and landscape, these works provide a view into the arsenal of signs he would develop into the new and distinctive visual language of his mature career.
"The move towards color stands out as a singular triumph and was a measure that would provide significant stimulus for the artist after his Purist period. From the late 1920s onwards, color burst into Le Corbusier’s art and remained one of the most prominent characteristics of his plastic oeuvre. He drew upon this formal tool to construct his compositions, using overlapping and interlocking planes of unmodulated color in complex arrangements. Yet, in addition to this, color allowed Le Corbusier to impart a sense of poeticism and harmony into his practice, both artistic and architectural. As the artist once stated, 'Color is an immediate and spontaneous expression of life' (quoted in ibid.). These five works celebrate the new-found freedom that the artist enjoyed into his late career, expounding the pleasures and formal possibilities of color within his refined formal dialogue.
"Jean-Pierre Duport from the Fondation Le Corbusier has confirmed the authenticity of this work."
The lot has an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. It sold for $10,000.
See The City Review article on the Fall 2018 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2018 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2018 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2017 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2017 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2017 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2016 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2016 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Contemporary Art evening auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Looking Forward to The Past auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2015 Impressionist and Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Looking Forward to the Past auction May 11, 2015 at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
See
The City Review article on the
Fall 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's New York
See The
City
Review article on the Fall 2012 Impressionist & Modern Art day
auction at Sotheby's New York
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2012 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2011 Impressionist & Modern Art
auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2011 Impressionist & Modern Art
auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
Art auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City
Review article on the Spring 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Spring 2009 Impressionist & Modern
Art evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2008 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Christie's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2008 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The City Review article on the Christie's evening sale of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Art May 8, 2000
See The City Review article on the Christie's evening sale of Twentieth Century Art May 9, 2000