Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on Tuesday 2 February 2016 will present works by leading artists of the late 19th and 20th century. The sale includes
50 lots which trace the rich variety and breadth of revolutionary
movements from the period, from Impressionism, to early Modernism,
Cubism, Colourist works and Expressionism; presenting a selection of
celebrated, museum quality works - many of which are coming to the
market for the first time in generations - with attractive estimates at
all price ranges. This sale opens a week of five Impressionist, Modern
and Surreal art sales at Christie’s King Street and South Kensington.
With estimates starting from £300 up to £10 million, the auctions
present new and established collectors with a wealth of opportunities to
acquire rare and seminal examples by masters of the period.
The Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
is led by a self-portrait by Egon Schiele painted when the artist
reached creative maturity in 1909 (estimate: £6-8 million); one of Marc
Chagall’s most romantic paintings of the 1920s, Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel (estimate:
£4.8-6.8 million); the largest of a series of four works Paul Cézanne
created at the home of legendary Impressionist collector Victor Chocquet
(estimate: £4.5-6.5 million); Le moteur, 1918, which dates to
one the most important periods of Fernand Léger’s career (estimate: £4-6
million); a still life by Pablo Picasso from 1937, painted on the eve
of Guernica (estimate £4-6 million); a rare oil Chrysanthemum by Piet Mondrian (estimate: £1.6-2.4 million); and Bahnhof Königstein,
1916, a major painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner from the artist’s last
truly expressionist period, from the collection of the industrial
chemist Dr Carl Hagemann (estimate: £1.5-2 million).
Ferme en Normandie, été (Hattenville),
1882, by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) is being offered at auction for the
first time in almost 20 years, having been acquired by the present owner
in 1997 (estimate: £4.5-6.5 million). This is the largest of a series
of four works that Cézanne created during a summer break at the home of
his friend, the legendary impressionist collector Victor Chocquet, in
Hattenville, Normandy. Chocquet, one of the first champions and earliest
collectors of Impressionism, was also the first owner of this painting;
it remained in his collection until his death. Painted at a time when
Cézanne was reaching artistic maturity, this work exemplifies a crucial
moment in the artist’s career, illustrating his move from Impressionism
towards his own distinctive and highly influential ‘constructed’ style.
Rather than a fleeting depiction of a transitory moment, this is a
carefully considered and constructed composition, which transforms the
landscape into a timeless, enduring image, qualities which lay at the
very heart of Cézanne’s artistic practice. Constantly striving for the
best means to capture the beauty, grandeur and structure of the world
around him, Cézanne invented a whole new way of looking and painting
nature, opening the door for a generation of subsequent artists.
Selbstbildnis mit gespreizten Fingern (Self-Portrait with Spread Fingers) by
Egon Schiele (1890-1918) was painted in 1909, a breakthrough year when
Schiele reached creative maturity (estimate: £6-8 million). Although
only nineteen years old, Schiele’s prodigious talent had already
asserted itself to the point where he had become recognised by Gustav
Klimt among others, as one of the greatest hopes for the future of
Austrian art. An important early work, this painting reveals Schiele
already beginning to move beyond the dominant influence of his mentor
Klimt towards a new, more existentially aware expressionist art. With
its self-conscious depiction of the artist’s features emerging from a
typical gold-ground Secessionist background this work was an
announcement of Schiele’s arrival into the contemporary art world of
Vienna - a new character taking the stage. Schiele’s first self-portrait
oil made for public display, it is a clear statement of how Schiele saw
himself as working ‘through’ or ‘by way’ of Klimt and the Seccession,
towards a newer more transcendent style of his own. Previous sale: http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/AAA/AAA-4860121-details.aspx
Offered from the collection of the industrial chemist Dr Carl Hagemann, Bahnhof Königstein, 1916,
is a major painting by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) deriving from
the artist’s very last truly expressionist period shortly before he left
Germany for good, in 1917, to convalesce in Switzerland (estimate:
£1.5-2 million). This is one of a rare and important group of paintings
that Kirchner made in and of the landscape around Königstein in the
Taunus region near Frankfurt, where he had been ordered to enter a
sanatorium after being discharged from the army in September 1915. Bahnhof Königstein
is one of the first of Kirchner’s paintings to have been bought by Carl
Hagemann, an important friend, patron and life-long supporter of the
artist and his work. Priced originally at 600 marks, this painting was
the most highly priced oil that Kirchner sold to his new patron in 1916.
A letter from Kirchner to Hagemann written in September 1916 reveals in
what high regard Kirchner held this particular painting and how
important Hagemann’s patronage was during this critical time of upheaval
for the artist.
Dating from one of the most important periods of Fernand Léger’s (1881-1955) career, Le moteur
was painted in May 1918, just months after the artist had resumed
painting following his discharge from the army (estimate: £4-6 million).
Taking as its subject a gleaming, multipartite, modern engine, Le moteur
is one of the first of a group of visionary works that marks the
beginning of Léger’s renowned ‘mechanical period’, which would come to
define his art of the years following the First World War. Keen to
embrace modernity in all its varied forms, Léger deified the machine
during this period, using a fragmented, dynamic pictorial vocabulary
with which to depict it. With its riotous explosion of bold colour,
frenzied interlocking and overlapping forms and jubilant patterns and
texture, Le moteur is a glorious example of this series of
works: a vibrant emblem of the industrialised and modernised post-war
era that so enthralled the artist.
Acquired over 30 years ago, Les mariés de la Tour Eiffel
by Marc Chagall (1887-1985) is one of the artist’s most romantic
paintings of the 1920s, celebrating the love between the artist and his
wife, Bella, as they entered a new phase of security and contentment in
their lives (estimate: £4.8-6.8 million). Painted in 1928, the work
features a double portrait of the couple as they tenderly embrace in the
shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Their daughter Ida floats through an open
window, which acts as a fluid boundary between the interior and exterior
world, as she delivers a bouquet of flowers to the pair. Around the
figures, a panoramic view of Paris reveals the gaiety of the city in the
1920s. Executed during a period of professional prosperity and personal
comfort, the painting celebrates the strength of the familial bond
between Chagall, his wife and their daughter, and the joy they felt
together, as a family, in the pulsating and dynamic city of Paris in the
twenties. The artist’s renewed happiness is reflected in the vivid,
radiant hues employed, introducing sparkling shades of violet, green,
mauve, blue, red and yellow to the composition, to achieve a complex
interplay of colours across the canvas.
Painted in oil, Chrysanthemum
by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), is a particularly rare example of the
artist’s floral studies which were predominantly executed in
watercolour, gouache, charcoal or pencil (estimate: £1.6-2.4 million).
Hailed as one of the most pioneering artists in the development of
nonrepresentational geometric abstraction, Mondrian also painted
naturalistic flower paintings throughout his career, from as early as
1898 and continuing until 1938. Mondrian’s poetic and representational
depiction of solitary flowers form a fascinating visual counterpart to
his works of pure abstraction. Depicting one of Mondrian’s favourite
flowers, Chrysanthemum is rendered with exquisite and delicate
detail. For Mondrian, flowers not only provided an opportunity for the
scrupulous observation of form, but with their symbolic iconography,
also served as a means for the artist to explore a range of deeper
spiritual concerns.
Nature morte by Pablo Picasso
(1881-1973) was painted in 1937 (estimate £4-6 million), on 26 April,
the very day that the Basque town of Guernica was bombed, killing over a
thousand people; an atrocity which fuelled Picasso’s outrage over war
and inspired his iconic mural Guernica. An angular, sophisticated and poetic still life, the apparent whimsy of Nature morte,
which only hints at Picasso’s anxieties of war, marks the end of an
entire period of Picasso’s work before a change of direction that would
leave its mark on the artist for a long time. Stars are glowing in the
night sky, while in the foreground a pipe and book lie alongside a drink
and a candelabra, hinting at the passing of an evening of solitary
pleasures, both of the mind and of the body. Christie’s Impressionist,
Modern and Surreal Evening sales in February 2016 will present a wealth
of 9 works by Picasso, spanning almost every period of his oeuvre, from
his Blue Period, to Analytical and Synthetic Cubism, Surrealism in the
1920s, alongside works from war period and later.
