Pablo Picasso Cubist Masterpiece Buffalo Bill will Highlight Christie's 20th Century

Pablo Picasso Cubist Masterpiece Buffalo Bill will Highlight Christie's 20th Century Evening Sale in New York

17 November 2022

PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973)

Buffalo Bill

Oil and sand on canvas 18¼ x 13⅛ in. (46.3 x 33.3 cm.)

Painted in Paris in spring 1911

Photo courtesy of Christie's

$10,000,000-15,000,000

Christie’s announces Pablo Picasso’s Buffalo Bill as a leading highlight of the 20th Century Evening Sale taking place at Rockefeller Center Thursday, 17 November 2022. Estimated to achieve $10 million – 15 million, Buffalo Bill carries an esteemed provenance. The painting’s first owner was the legendary art dealer of the Cubist movement, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. It comes to Christie’s from a distinguished private collection where it has remained for more than thirty years.

David Kleiweg de Zwaan, Christie’s Senior Specialist, Impressionist and Modern Art remarks: “Buffalo Bill’s daring exploration of new territory as a scout resonated with Picasso, who himself was reconnoitering new frontiers in his pioneering Cubist art. With the recent opening of the Cubism show at The Met, we are thrilled to bring this rare Cubist portrait depicting an icon of the American West to the market in our 20th Century Evening Sale in New York this November.”

Painted in 1911 during the highpoint of Analytical Cubism, Buffalo Bill is singular within Pablo Picasso’s oeuvre, standing as one of the few named male portraits that he painted in the years of pre-war Cubism. It is exemplary of the artist’s practice during this period of radical artistic experimentation, as Picasso interpreted the well-known image of Buffalo Bill, an icon of the American frontier, through his newly conceived language of deconstructed lines and forms. In it, Picasso pushed the boundaries of representation to their extreme, reducing the well-known image of the Wild West star to its essentials, whilst retaining glimpses of his signifying characteristics—such as his flamboyant goatee and famed Stetson hat.

Pablo Picasso was a great fan of the rugged frontiersman and identified with this heroic adventurer and showman. Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show first toured to Paris in 1889, and returned in 1905, filling a 17,000 seat arena to capacity for months. In letters to his Cubist accomplice, Georges Braque, Picasso signed himself “ton pard,” short for the cowboy “pardner,” playfully indulging in their shared love of, as they called it, “Le Far West.”

Buffalo Bill has been in a number of important exhibitions. Picasso selected it for his landmark 1932 retrospective at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, followed by the Kunsthaus Zurich, and it was included in the 1989-1990 exhibition Picasso and Braque, Pioneering Cubism at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The sale of Buffalo Bill coincides with the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s current show, Cubism and the Trompe l’Oeil Tradition, open through January 2023. The exhibition is one of 40 exhibitions participating in the International Celebration Picasso 1973-2023, a worldwide initiative marking the 50th anniversary of the artist’s death and celebrating his lasting legacy.

CHRITIE'S NEW YORK

20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020

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I.M.A.gination @ Christie’s Paris & Online - Charity Sale to Benefit the Claude and France Lemand I.M.A. Fund

I.M.A.gination 
Charity Sale to Benefit the Claude and France Lemand I.M.A. Fund
Christie’s Paris & Online
24 June - 16 July 2020

DIA AL-AZZAWI

Search for a symbol, 2006

Claude and France Lemand Collection

Estimate: €20,000-30,000

Claude and France Lemand, Parisian collectors and gallery owners, who presented Middle Eastern Art in the capital as early as 1988, have decided to donate 44 works by Middle Eastern, Japanese and French artists from their personal collection to be sold by Christie’s Paris to help young artists who are in great need due to the Covid 19 crisis and to benefit the Claude & France Lemand-IMA Fund at the Institut du Monde Arabe. The fund aims to secure future acquisitions, organise exhibitions, undertake research work, publish exhibition catalogues.

The format of the sale will be an online auction, starting on 24 June and closing on 16 July. Some selected highlights will be on view at Christie’s Paris from 26 and to 30 June, during the Post-War and Contemporary Art Paris sales, then from 4 to 10 July again, during the exhibition of Christie’s new concept Evening sale ‘ONE’ taking place in 4 cities. Estimates range from €1,000 to €40,000 and works by each artist are already present in the collections of the Institut du Monde Arabe and many of the 26 artists are also represented in permanent collections of other international institutions.

In October 2018, Claude and France Lemand have generously donated more than 1300 works by Middle Eastern artists to the Institut du Monde Arabe museum, the largest donation in the history of the institution, founded in 1980 by 18 Arab countries in Paris. One year later, the number of works donated reached 1500.

The 44 works are spanning 60 years of artistic development throughout the Middle East, starting with the top lot of the sale Shafic Abboud’s 1959 work entitled Saison, and estimated at €40,000-60,000 and finishes with a series of 9 works produced in 2019-2020 as tributes to the Notre-Dame fire in April 2019. Claude Lemand initiated this project as the Institut du Monde Arabe directly oversees Notre-Dame and hence was a first-hand witness on the destruction of the historical monument.

Jack Lang, Former French Minister of Culture and President of the Institut du Monde Arabe comments: “Claude and France Lemand were among the first to believe in the creativity of contemporary artists in the Arab world. They are also known for their generosity. A donation is always a human adventure. It continues and grows, since the benefactors of the IMA Museum are now also becoming benefactors of artists from the Arab world. I am pleased to bring my patronage to this charity sale”.

Valérie Didier, Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Specialist: “What a pleasure and honour to organize a sale in Paris to benefit the Claude and France Lemand - IMA Fund. I personally have immense admiration for the couple, in particular for their unprecedented generosity, as Claude and France have devoted their whole life to defend these artists. I am convinced collectors will be present to support their latest great cause and to reinvigorate the Institut du Monde Arabe’s activity.”

SHAFIC ABBOUD

Saison, 1959

Estimate: €40,000-60,000 

SHAFIC ABBOUD

Composition, 1960

Estimate: €5,000-7,000

SHAFIC ABBOUD (1926-2004) is one of the foremost Arab artists of the 20th century. His paintings are a manifesto for freedom, colour, light and joy, as well as being a permanent bridge between the art scenes of France and Lebanon and that of Europe and the Middle East. Both Lebanese and Parisian, he was very attached to Lebanon, to its landscapes, its light and his own childhood memories. The stories of his grandmother, who was the village’s story-teller, left an indelible mark on him, at a very early age. Shafic Abboud arrived in 1947 in Paris. He is represented with two works: Saison 1959, estimate €40,000-60,000, and a nice Composition done the following year, estimate €5,000-7,000.

DIA AL-AZZAWI

Arabic Letter, 2008

Estimate: €15,000-20,000

DIA AL-AZZAWI (born 1939, Baghdad), started his artistic career in 1964, after graduating from the Institute of Fine Arts and Archaeology in Baghdad. His studies of ancient civilizations and Iraqi heritage had a profound impact on his art, and a key objective in the early formation of his artistic style was to link the visual culture of the past to the present. He is internationally recognised as one of the pioneers of modern Arab art. Defined by its powerful visual impact and brilliant colour, Al-Azzawi’s art covers a range of subjects executed in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, drawing, prints and art books. He lives and works in London since 1976, but continues to derive inspiration from his homeland, Iraq. With exhibitions of his work held worldwide, his art features in numerous private and public collections. Dia Al-Azzawi in his own words about his art: "My work is part of the Renaissance of Arab Art trend, yet it is universal in its dimension and interlocked within contemporary history and culture." Dia Al-Azzawi is represented with three works in this auction: Search for a Symbol, 2006, estimate €20,000-30,000, Arabic Letter, 1984-2005, estimate €15,000-20,000 and was also part of the group of artists creating tributes to the fire of Notre-Dame My tribute to Notre Dame, 2019, estimate: €20,000-30,000.

NAJIA MEHADJI

La Vierge à l’enfant, 2019

Estimate : €15,000-20,000 

Another artist who paid tribute to the fire of Notre-Dame is French-Moroccan female artist NAJIA MEHADJI (b. 1950), who created a vibrant and unusually large 180 x 110 cm painting of La Vierge à l’Enfant, 2019, estimate: €15,000-20.000. "This is the painting I made as a tribute to Our Lady, based on the sculpture of the Madonna and Child at the entrance to the choir near the left transept (at Notre Dame) and the many blue drapes that feature the mantle of the Virgin in Bellini's or Fra Angelico's paintings. Its dimensions, 180 x 110 cm, are those of the sculpture of Our Lady, and the red background refers both to the fire and to the colours of the stained-glass windows in the cathedral's rosettes. ", commented Najia Mehadj on, 27 May 2019 about her work.

All artists represented in the auction are: Shafic Abboud - Youssef Abdelke - Etel Adnan - Nasser Al-Aswadi - Boutros Al-Maari - Dia Al-Azzawi - Assadour - Abdallah Benanteur - Mahjoub Ben Bella - Halida Boughriet - Chaouki Choukini - Dahmane - Khaled Dawwa - Fatima El-Hajj - Abdelkader Guermaz - Mohamed Kacimi - Mohammed Khadda - Mohammad Omar Khalil - Manabu Kochi - Mohamed Lekleti - Hussein Madi - Najia Mehadji - François Sargologo - Hussein Taï - Khaled Takreti - Hani Zurob

Online Auction: 24 June to 16 July 2020
Exhibition: From 26 and to 30 June, then from 4 to 10 July, each time from 10 am to 6pm
Venue: Christie’s: 9 avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris

*Estimates do not include buyer’s premium. Sales totals are hammer price plus buyer’s premium and are reported net of applicable fees. 

CHRISTIE'S
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Masterpieces of Design and Photography @ Christie's London

Masterpieces of Design and Photography
Christie's London
3 October 2017

Christie’s Frieze Week season will launch on 3 October 2017, including, for the first time, an evening auction that showcases two complementary collecting categories: Masterpieces of Design and Photography. The auction will showcase masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries and tell the story of the extraordinary expansion of creativity in both design and photography from 1865 to the present day. Featuring major names including Diane Arbus, Gilbert & George, Andreas Gursky, Allen Jones, Finn Juhl, Robert Mapplethorpe, Carlo Mollino, Marc Newson, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Gio Ponti, Jean Prouvé, Gerrit Rietveld and Thomas Struth, the auction will provide an opportunity for both established and younger collectors. On view at Christie’s, King Street from 26 September to 3 October. 

Francis Outred, Chairman & Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art EMERI: “I am delighted to present Masterpieces of Design and Photography: a new concept sale for Frieze Week 2017. Coinciding with our Post-War and Contemporary Art auctions, it is the sheer breadth and depth of materials on display in these 39 objects which underlines the extraordinary expansion of creativity from 1875 to the present day. The way that these ‘artists’ have responded to technological evolution by inventing new ways and approaches to deal with their vision of the world is truly breathtaking. Across 15 photographic works there are no less than six different process, but comparing the Platinum print in Robert Mapplethorpe’s masterpiece Self Portrait from 1988 with that of Baron Adolph de Meyer’s from 1906 creates two very different experiences. The touch and ‘texture' of photography is what I hope that this auction and exhibition encourages. Colour in the hands of Thomas Struth is very different to that of Andreas Gursky for example. These aspects are all heightened by the context of the surfaces, forms and textures of Design which surround them. Virtually each of the 24 pieces uses a unique set of materials from hand-blown glass to cutlery and porcelain, from steel mesh to stainless steel and painted steel and riveted aluminium. These pioneers of Design have tackled the human relationship with the world, making functional yet beautiful works, none more so than Marc Newson’s Lockheed Lounge. By placing these works within the context of twentieth- and twenty-first-century painting and sculpture – as celebrated in our Evening and Day Auctions, as well as our themed sales Thinking Italian and Up Close – we will bring new stories and artistic relationships to light. With prices ranging from £20,000 to £1,500,000, we are looking to encourage both established and younger collectors to come together and experience the special excitement and drama of an evening auction at Christie’s King Street.”

Highlights of the sale include Allen Jones’ Table, Chair and Hatstand (Hatstand estimate: £600,000 – £800,000; Chair estimate: £600,000 – £800,000 and Table estimate: £600,000 – £800,000), which are icons of British Pop Art and were created at the height of Jones’ career. Executed in 1969, the works were acquired that year by the pioneering collector, filmmaker and photographer Gunter Sachs, and remained in his possession for the next 43 years. Doubling as purposefully provocative pieces of household furniture, three exaggerated feminine figures are contorted into subservient postures. Illuminating the sexual undercurrents that ran through commercial advertising in the 1960s. Laced with seduction and critique in equal measure, they capture the Zeitgeist of this revolutionary period.

The pared back colour of Gilbert & George’s Red Morning (Hell) (1977, estimate: £800,000 – £1,200,000), from the landmark ‘Red Morning’ series of seventeen mural-sized works, with examples in various museums including Tate Modern. Red Morning (Hell) stands apart from others through its complete absence of red colour, resulting in a composition of austere monochrome impact. Red Morning (Hell) captures a pivotal moment in Gilbert & George’s career – the year was 1977, the Silver Jubilee of the Queen, but it was also a year rife with political and social unrest in Britain. The series’ title is a reference to the socialist movement which grew in the UK from 1976-77 and refers more broadly to tensions that coursed through many aspects of English culture at the time, from economic difficulties and police strikes to the anti-establishment punk movement, conveying deep social unrest.  

One of the leading design pieces in the auction, Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s 1919 ‘Elling’ sideboard (estimate: £60,000 – £90,000) is one of the most articulate examples of furniture as art and mirrored the evolution of minimalism and conceptualism in painting and sculpture such as that of Gilbert & George. The cabinet reveals the interior as exterior, the components identified, exploded and now held static in time, space and volume.  As a member of the Dutch De Stijl collective, founded in 1917, Rietveld embraced the group’s conceptual abstraction that adopted a streamlined, reductive personality that was now guided by bold use of line, plane, and colour. The ambient, deconstructed imagery of the painters Theo van Doesburg, Bart van der Leck, and Piet Mondrian, amongst others, found synergy with Rietveld’s experimental abstractions of furniture.

Stretching over five metres in width and two in height, Andreas Gursky’s May Day IV (2000, estimate: £500,000 – £700,000) offers a vast, panoramic spectacle of humanity. Viewed from a staggering aerial vantage point, a sea of semi-clad revellers pulses to an unheard beat. Executed in 2000, it is the second from an edition of six photographs, examples of which are housed in the Kunstmuseum NRW, Düsseldorf, the Kistefos Museet, Oslo and the Castello di Rivoli, Turin. The work was included in the artist’s 2001 touring exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York – Gursky’s first American retrospective – where it featured on the front cover of the catalogue. Capturing a split-second of frenzied activity in intoxicating detail, it is a consummate example of Gursky’s ability to distil the chaos of contemporary human experience into a single, crystalline image. Merging and manipulating multiple different shots, his works play with radically intensified colour, overlapping perspectives and dramatically enlarged scale. Andreas Gursky’s Rheine II (1999) holds the record for a single photographic print, selling for $4,338,500 at Christie’s New York in 2011.  Gursky leads a field of major photographers of the German school including Thomas Demand, Thomas Struth and Wolfgang Tillmans, also featured in the auction. 

At the other end of the 20th century, Marc Newson’s pioneering A Lockheed Lounge (designed 1985-1988, this piece executed before 1993, estimate: £1,000,000– £1,500,000) inaugurated a new aesthetic language for the twenty-first century, and confirmed Newson’s status as a universal creator whose sensitivity, diversity and sense of innovation remains unparalleled. A Lockheed Lounge holds the highest price achieved for a contemporary design by a living maker, selling for £2,434,500 in 2015. This chaise longue was designed to investigate mobility and movement and was was inspired by a classical furniture form – a daybed – however, through the use of a biomorphic form and the rich texture of the riveted aluminium surface, it was updated to now become the leading icon of contemporary design.  In 1993 the Lockheed was brought to a wider audience when featured as the centrepiece in Madonna’s video for her single, ‘Rain’. Two years later Vitra Design Museum included the Lockheed in their exhibition of ‘100 Masterpieces’, and in 2000 the chaise was the focus of the Carnegie Art Museum’s aluminium retrospective, occupying both front and back covers of the exhibition catalogue. The innovative status of this landmark design was now assured, and swiftly the few remaining examples that had not already been secured by museums became the focus of pioneering collectors, many drawn from the fields of contemporary art, transcending the traditional boundaries that were perceived to exist within the fields of the fine and the decorative arts.

Another stand-out work, Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait (photographed and printed in 1988, £300,000 – £500,000) is an edition of three platinum prints, with two of them in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, and the J. Paul Getty Museum / Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. An icon of twentieth century portraiture, Robert Mapplethorpe’s Self Portrait signifies one of the very last self-representations he would make before his life – and profound contribution to the history of art – was tragically cut short in 1989 at the tender age of 42. Seen clad in a black turtle-neck that intentionally blends with the background and disembodies his brilliant, sharp mind from the decaying, ailing body it underlines the artist’s understanding of his impending death. Clutched in his right hand is a walking cane, an open confession of physical frailty, adorned with a shiny metal skull, turning the entire composition into a vanitas and aligning Mapplethorpe with other greats who foretold their own death.

Carlo Mollino’s dining suite (1954-55, estimate: £300,000 – £500,000) is another highlight, and this is the first complete suite featuring a rectangular dining table with six chairs to be offered at auction in nearly two decades. The present suite is consciously rugged – its construction designed to withstand regular use and stylistically informed by Carlo Mollino’s studies into Alpine, vernacular furniture and architecture. Carlo Mollino is today celebrated as one of the most strikingly original creators of mid-century Italian architecture and design. He was a passionate skier and as such was naturally attracted to design in the context of winter sports. This suite was designed for just such a commission, the Casa del Sole ten-story apartment complex, in the Italian Alpine resort of Cervinia in Italy.

CHRISTIE'S LONDON
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Andy Warhol's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) To Star New York's Post-War and Contemporary art Auctions, Christie's, New York

Andy Warhol's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) To Star New York's Post-War and Contemporary art Auctions

Christie's, New York

17 May 2017

Andy Warhol’s Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable), 1962 (estimate on request) will star in Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 17 May. One of the 20th-century’s most iconic images, Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ quite literally changed the course of art in the post-war period. The property of the Cingillioglu Family Collection, the present work was originally part of the legendary collection of Pop Art assembled by Emily and Burton Tremaine, who acquired the painting after a visit to Warhol’s studio in the year of its execution.  It was last sold as part of the renowned collection of Barney A. Ebsworth at Christie’s New York in 2010. The work will be on view at Christie’s King Street in London from 4 March to 8 March. 

Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art EMERI, “Warhol’s Soup Cans changed art history by recognizing the rise of mass consumption in society, and predicting the world we live in today. This painting was made at the very moment of recognition and thereby created the foundation for the for the Pop Art phenomenon which continues to inspire many aspects of contemporary society. The Cingillioglu Family Collection has been established over the past 40 years, collecting the very best across many categories and periods and is particularly known for its strong constellation of Pop art. Bought at Christie’s in 2010 for over 23 million dollars, Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) is now set for a triumphant return to the auction room and presents a real opportunity to acquire one of the most historically relevant and instantly recognizable canvases of the 20th century.”

Conceived and executed in Warhol’s New York factory, Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) is the first in Warhol’s series of large-scale hand painted ‘Campbell's Soup Cans’. In July 1962 it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, becoming the first picture by Andy Warhol to ever be shown in a museum. Of the ten large-scale Campbell soup cans painted by Warhol, six are in museum collections, including the Menil Collection, Houston; the Kunsthaus, Zurich; the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; and two in The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) directly predates the birth of the silkscreen, prefiguring the means of painting that came to define Warhol’s practice. Looking at the lack of shadow and the treatment of the reflected light on the metal of the tin and of the opener, it becomes clear that Warhol is considering a way to bridge the handmade with the mechanical. The evidence, on close inspection, of traces of pencil on the surface and the rather lush red brushstrokes on the label shows Warhol working through the ideas that would become the focus of his entire career.

When Andy Warhol was asked, in a 1977 interview by Glenn O'Brien, what his favorite work was, he said, 'I guess the soup can'.* Warhol’s ‘Campbell Soup Can’ paintings draw attention to the world of mass production that had become a fundamental part of modern existence in the 1960s. By co-opting the visual tropes of commercial art, in which he had been trained, Andy Warhol was able to speak to a contemporary audience that was fully conversant in the same language. Recalling the tactics of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade Andy Warhol was able to capture the attention of the media and public like no other artist of our time.   

* (Glenn O'Brien, 'Interview: Andy Warhol", High Times, August 1977, in K. Goldsmith, ed., I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews: 1962-1987, New York, 2004, p. 242).

Auction:

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York, 17 May 2017

7pm

CHRISTIE'S

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Jean-Michel Basquiat at Christie's, New York. Works from the collection of Alexis Adler

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT 
WORKS FROM THE COLLECTION OF ALEXIS ADLER 
Christies's, Exhibition at Rockefeller Center, New York
1-28 March 2014 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

© Alexis Adler

Before Jean-Michel became Basquiat, and could afford studios and canvases, he painted all over his apartments — on walls, doors, refrigerators, clothes and any other bare surface he could find. In 1979, the artist began transforming the East Village apartment he was sharing with Alexis Adler, just such a living installation. Christie’s is honored today to announce a blockbuster month-long curated exhibition featuring a grouping of approximately 50 works coming from the Lower East Side apartment, where she lived with Jean-Michel Basquiat from 1979 to 1980. The three major works, a glyph-like work on plaster that reads Olive Oyl, a door titled within as Famous Negro Athletes and Milk painted on a radiator will highlight the First-Open sale of Post-War and Contemporary on March 6th, and a selection of 41 works and items will be sold through a dedicated Online-Only sale to be held March 3-17. To be comprehensive, the exhibition will also present works and archive photographs on loan from Alexis Adler’s collection.

The exceptional month long exhibition will take place on the 20th floor of 1230 Avenue of the Americas, at Rockefeller Center in March 2014. The show will be accompanied by a fully-illustrated catalogue, featuring never before published images of the artist and several unique photographs of Basquiat taken by Alexis Adler.

“Jean was just a young and wonderful person that had a lot to say. Everything around us was about art at that time, everything was about creativity, and whatever he could find became art. He was only 19 and just absorbing and creating. It’s been really wonderful living with these pieces for almost 35 years, and I hope that the next owners get as much joy as I did. Living with it is a responsibility. There are beautiful pieces, and they mean a lot to me because I was there, have remembrances.  But I know that Jean gave them to me as a gift, and I enjoyed them as such, I have just the memories. I’ve always been interested in sharing and I have realize that today young people are willing to learn more about Jean and are really interested in his art.  I'm really excited to be able to have the show at Christie’s, as well as pass on, and share the artwork with other people so they can enjoy it. I’ve been enjoying it for a long time,” declared Alexis Adler.

Jean-Michel Basquiat and Alexis Adler cohabited from 1979 to 1980, when Basquiat was nineteen, and creating punk-influenced photocopied collages and painted clothing for sale on the street. Alexis Adler’s collection includes never before exhibited items including paintings, drawings and postcards as well as painted clothing kept private since the 80’s when the artist and Alexis shared the Lower East Side apartment.

“It's a pleasure to be able to present to the public this wonderful grouping of material from the collection of Alexis Adler. The sum total of these works provide an intimate view of Basquiat before his fame and while he was practicing graffiti in the streets and getting by on his own wits and the good will of others who recognized his tremendous creative spark. His name was SAMO and it was written everywhere, he was infamous before becoming famous. This body of work exhibits the artist’s early grasp of his ability and potential, many of the words and forms represented here carry over into his canvases which will be created just a few months later. We are indebted to Alexis Adler for having the foresight to preserve these early pieces and present them to the public now for the very first time,” stated Jonathan Laib, Christie’s, Senior Specialist, Post-War & Contemporary Art.

Adler has just graduated from college when they met. She became part of the downtown scene along with Basquiat, Michael Holman, Al Diaz and Shannon Dawson – young friends with an alternative style who became regulars at the Mudd Club and other downtown fixtures.  When they first started going together neither Basquiat or Adler had a home, and they sometimes stayed together with some friends. In 1979, they both moved in an apartment on East 12th Street near Avenue B. It was his first permanent address after leaving his father's home in Brooklyn. He had a room in the back of the railroad apartment filled with papers where he made his drawings and poetic phrases. Adler had studied art history at Barnard, and majored in Biology in college; she is today a successful embryologist in New York. Jean-Michel Basquiat was fascinated by her Biology textbooks, and copied many of the Biology and Chemistry symbols into his drawing.

The collection also includes writings and early drawings, as well as his postcards and painted clothes. In these early years, Basquiat painted on walls and objects in other apartments he stayed at, or left drawings on paper as gifts. But many of those were thrown away and painted over, and other objects sold when prices for his work first started rising.

BASQUIAT'S WORKS TO BE OFFERD IN THE FIRST OPEN OF POST WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART, 6 March 2014

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988) 

Olive Oyl 

paint on wall, 48 x 30 in. 

Estimate: $400,000-600,000 

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Untitled (Famous Negro Athletes)

paint on door (Detail), 80 x 24 in.

Executed in 1980-1981

Estimate: $800,000-1,200,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Milk

paint on radiator, 24 x 16 x 6 in.

Estimate: $300,000-500,000 

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

“I met Jean (which is what everybody called him, I think, until he got famous—I never called him that while he was alive), toward the beginning of 1979 when he was 18.  (I was at the self-dramatic Jesus’s crucifixion age.)  But we treasured the same information and we spoke the same language and that put us on the level.  I never thought of him as a kid, but as a wise guy/wise man.  He was a rebel.  What are you rebelling against?  What have you got?  Hey, I found him by tracking down the words he wrote on walls on the street, and that was the beginning of a permanent friendship.  I was always glad to see him show up.  He was always up for perpetrating some fun.  He would tell you something interesting, ask you a question you couldn’t answer, give you a gift you didn’t expect, play your records, look through your books and in the refrigerator, and leave you a drawing. Thanks!

Alexis’s collection is the pure pro-bono production of an artist on fire with ideas.  These are the roots and the seeds of thing to come. Already in 1979 he was developing his own vocabulary of words, characters (Popeye and Olive Oyl) and signs.  Here’s the crown and the wheel, the dotted line, the spilled ink.  He’s trying things out.  With the postcards he’s doing Warhol and Rauschenberg, pop art, and with the clothes he’s doing Franz Kline and Pollock.” Glenn O’Brien, writer and friend of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Extract from the text written for the Christie’s dedicated exhibition catalogue. 

BASQIAT'S WORKS TO BE OFFERD ON THE ONLINE-ONLY SALE, 3 - 17 March 2014

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Untitled (Typical Cancer)

ink and collage on paper, 11 x 8 1/4 in.

Executed in 1979-1980

Estimate: $20,000-30,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Untitled

collage and mixed media on paper

7 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.

Executed in 1979-1980

Estimate: $8,000-12,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Untitled (Rock Hudson)

collage and ink on paper

6 3/4 x 6 3/4 in.

Executed in 1979-1980

Estimate: $20,000-30,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Untitled (Flag)

watercolor and typewriter type on paper

2 3/8 x 5 in.; 11 7/8 x 12 1/4 in. (framed)

Executed in 1979-1980

$50,000-70,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)

Mead Sketch Diary

spiral notebook with red ink inscriptions

11 x 8 1/2 in.

Executed in 1979-1980

$80,000-120,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT (1960-1988)
Blue paint on sweatshirt
Executed in 1979-1980
Estimate: $10,000-15,000

Image courtesy Christie's, New York 

Exhibition
Rockefeller Center, 20th Floor on 1230 Avenue of the Americas, March 1 - 28, 2014
Monday to Saturday 10am – 5pm
Sunday March 2, 1pm – 5pm
Closed on Sunday March 9, 16 and 23

First open sale: March 6, 2014
Christie’s 20 Rockefeller Plaza

Online-only sale, March 3 – 17, 2014
Christies.com/pwconline

Christie’s Website: www.christies.com

Andy Warhol at Christie's realizes $17 to benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Andy Warhol at Christie's New York First sale in the multi-year and multi-platform series to benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, November 12, 2012

Christie’s announces the results of Andy Warhol at Christie’s, the three single-artist sales of Photographs, Prints, and Paintings and Works on Paper held at Christie’s New York on November 12, 2012, to benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Proceeds from this first auction in a multi-year, multi-platform partnership between the Foundation and Christie’s realized a total of $17,017,050 for the Foundation’s endowment, enabling the institution to ensure and expand its long-term support of the visual arts.  The sale achieved sell-through rates of 91% by lot and 82% by value.

Amy Cappellazzo, Chairman, Post-War & Contemporary Development at Christie’s, stated:  “Today’s vigorous launch of the Warhol Foundation sales was met with enthusiasm by established and new collectors globally, including successful bidders from mainland China, Russia, the European Union, the Middle East and the Americas.  Warhol’s enduring appeal was underscored by a 91% sell-through rate by lot, with Photographs and Prints performing exceedingly well.  Today’s sales have set the stage beautifully for the next offering of works from the Collection of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, which includes a selling exhibition in Hong Kong and the debut of online-only sales in February.  The sales today were in our traditional auction channel and proved that our global collector network is the strongest in the art world and we are honored to leverage our standing on behalf of the Warhol Foundation in support of its noble mission.”

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)  

Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot 

Estimate: $1,000,000-$1,500,000 

Price realized: $1,258,500

Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Leading the sale of 354 works by Andy Warhol were Endangered Species: San Francisco Silverspot which had an estimate of $1,000,000 - $1,500,000 and sold for $1,258,500, followed by Endangered Species:  Bighorn Ram, estimated at $700,000 - $1,000,000 which achieved $842,500, and Jackie, which more than doubled its high estimate of $300,000, realizing $626,500.  

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)  

Endangered Species: Bighorn Ram 

Estimate: $700,000-$1,000,000 

Price realized: $842,500 

Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Among the diverse expanse of works offered in today’s sale we saw a strong demand for unique photographs and prints with many exceeding high estimates, including  Self-Portrait in Fright Wig, estimated at $12,000 - $18,000, which achieved $50,000;  Enna Jetticks, estimated at $50,000 - $70,000 which reached $206,500 and Dove, estimated at $60,000-$80,000 and selling for $266,500.  

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

Self-Portrait in Fright Wig, 1986

Unique Polacolor ER print, 4 1/4 x 3 3/8 in.

Estimate: $12,000-$18,000

Price realized: $50,000

Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

Dove

Estimate: $60,000-$80,000

Price realized: $266,500

Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Michael Straus, Chairman of the Board of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, stated:  “We warmly welcome the results of this first auction. It has allowed us to increase our grant-making capacity at a time when the arts community needs support and has engaged an ever-expanding audience with the art of Andy Warhol.  Andy Warhol at Christie’s has advanced both our philanthropic programs and our work in keeping Andy’s legacy alive.”

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

Jackie

Screenprint on acetate and colored paper collage on board, 21 1/4 x 21 1/8 in., Executed circa 1960s.

Estimate: $200,000-$300,000

Price realized: $626,500

Image © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts

Joel Wachs, President of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, stated:  “This first sale has proved to be a fitting marker for the Foundation’s 25th anniversary year.  The new level of global access to Andy Warhol’s work that this series of sales makes possible, along with the bolstering of our philanthropic base, makes this an important moment for the Foundation and indeed for the world of art.”

The November 12 auction was the first of a number of phased sales by Christie’s of works from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts’ collection. Future sales in the series will include online auctions beginning in February 2013 and private sales conducted on an ongoing basis.  

The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts' website : www.warholfoundation.org 

For more information: www.christies.com/warhol

Post-War & Contemporary Art - Christie’s London Auctions lead by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons works

Post-War & Contemporary Art Auctions 

Christie’s London

16 - 17 February 2011

CHRISTIE’S AUCTIONS OF POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART will take place on 16 and 17 February 2011 in London and are expected to realise a combined total of £46,246,000 to £66,447,000 (corresponding auctions in February 2010 - £34.9 million to £50.5 million). Highlights from the Evening auction were on public exhibition at Christie’s New York from 24 to 26 January. The full auctions is on public exhibition in London from 12 to 16 February.

ANDY WARHOL AND JEFF KOONS LEAD CONTEMPORARY MASTERWORKS

Francis Outred, Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Europe: “I am very excited by the upcoming auction which is probably the strongest and most diverse we have had in London since I joined Christie’s in January 2009. Showing some of the most important art from Europe and America of the last fifty years, it also showcases the best art which has emerged across the globe over the last decade. Anchored by the re-discovery of the outstanding monumental self-portrait by Andy Warhol, it is also great to offer Jeff Koons’ seminal ‘Winter Bears’. An incredible life-like representation in wood which is child-size, this re-fashioning of the Adam and Eve story as cutesy Alpine bears clutching a heart shaped bag, where all seems too perfect to be true, represents one of Koons' greatest musings on the nature of modern relationships. It seems very apt to be offering this work in Valentine's week.”

REDISCOVERED SEMINAL LARGE SELF-PORTRAIT BY ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)

Executed in 1967 and an addition to an historically important series of 10 self-portraits, the picture has been in a private collection since 1974 when it was acquired from Leo Castelli, Warhol’s primary dealer. It will be offered at the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction on Wednesday 16 February 2011 in London and is expected to realise £3 million to £5 million. The picture was exhibited in public for the first time at Christie’s New York from 22 to 26 January 2011.

The present work is one of an historic series of 11 large-scale self-portraits executed in 1967, five of which are in museums (Tate, London; The Staatsgalerie Moderne Kunst, Munich; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and two at the Detroit Institute for Arts). Such is the importance of the series that eight of the known works were included in the artist’s landmark retrospective at MOMA two years after his death in 1989. The present work is completely unpublished and has been in the same private collection since 1974.

Francis Outred, Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art, Christie’s Europe: “I’m incredibly excited at the prospect of offering this rediscovered masterpiece by Andy Warhol. At the time of its execution Warhol was at the peak of his creative powers and this very rare series of works were the largest self-portraits he had made. This work shows a classic image of the artist in an imposing, larger than life scale, with an extraordinary presence of thick, red paint. That 5 of the works from this series are in museums is a testament to their importance.”

The image of Warhol with his hand to his mouth is one of the most representative and iconic images of the artist. Warhol first used the image for a group of works in 1966 painted in a much smaller, life-size scale. The following year he used the same image in producing 11 monumental works in a large-scale format of six foot square, of which the present example is one. Six works from this series were exhibited in the American Pavilion at the 1967 International and Universal Exposition in Montreal which was visited by tens of millions of people, and which saw the portraits dominate an exhibition including works by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Barnett Newman and Robert Rauschenberg.

By 1967 Warhol had reached a point in his career when he was internationally recognized as the most important and controversial figure in American Pop Art. The present series of self-portraits represent the high point of his career when he has achieved great wealth and fame, and when as a celebrity he brashly and confidently presented his own image in a truly monumental fashion to a global audience of millions.

SEMINAL WORK FROM JEFF KOONS

Another leading highlight is Winter Bears, 1988, a seminal work from Jeff Koons (b. 1955) highly acclaimed Banality series which launched him as an international art star in the late 1980s. At over 120 cm in height, the pair of child-sized sculptures, with their wide eyes, matching ‘his and hers’ clothing and cartoonish faces, wave to us and welcome us into the distinct world of Jeff Koons. If the Banality series was Koons’ idealised human civilisation or ‘Garden of Eden’, the Winter Bears represented Adam and Eve, the perfect depiction of human unity, as an Alpine European couple. Painstakingly carved out of wood which has then been polychromed in the traditional manner redolent of the great Medieval church sculpture in Germany, Koons has here lent a human and spiritual air to a cartoon-like creation. Their size and physicality lends them a thoroughly human quality which begins to jar the lines between cartoon and reality, and high and low art. Offered at auction for the first time having been in the present collection since 1994, it is expected to realise £2.5 million to £3.5 million. Another version of Winter Bears resides in the collection of the Tate Modern in London.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF POST-WAR AND CONTEMPORARY ART EVENING AUCTION

Dina Amin, Director and Head of Evening Auction: “The global personality of the sale is reflected in works from China, Brazil, India and Iraq as well as major works from America and Europe. We are particularly pleased to have strong representations of Eduardo Chillida, Gerhard Richter and Lucio Fontana, alongside an extremely rare pioneering portrait by Martial Raysse.”

Italy

The dawn of conceptual art is represented at the auction through two Italian pioneers of the movement; Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) and Piero Manzoni (1933-1963). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, these two artists transformed the landscape of contemporary art with works that went on to inspire, among others, Warhol, Koons, Hirst and Gursky.

Concetto spaziale, 1961, by Lucio Fontana (1899-1968) is a sumptuous symphony of gold which explores the ideas and concepts of space and the immaterial in the same year that Yuri Gagarin would become the first man in space. From the artist’s breakthrough series Olii, which includes the celebrated Venice series of the same year, the present work relates very closely to Concetto spaziale, Venezia era tutta d’oro, now in the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid. It is expected to realise £2 million to £3 million. Also by the artist, Concetto spaziale, Attesa was executed in 1964 and is a beautiful, crisp minimalist work in white which emphasizes the purity of the slash against a background reminiscent of Manzoni, whom he had strongly influenced and who had died the previous year. It is expected to realise £1 million to £1.5 million.

Achrome by Piero Manzoni (1933-1963) is an early, majestic example of the artist’s most celebrated series of works. Executed in 1958-59, it is of a relatively large scale of 60cm by 80cm and is offered at auction for the first time. Created through the marriage of soaked kaolin and canvas, the work has been allowed to develop autonomously to mesmerizing effect. It is expected to realise £1.8 million to £2.5 million.

United States

Untitled by Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) is an important, early work executed in 1981, the year in which the artist moved from the street to the studio. Acquired by the current Italian owner circa 1982, the year after it was painted, this important, early and rarely seen work captures the raw energy and power of the artist before his star rose in the art world. It is expected to realise £1 million to £1.5 million. ‘While I was there looking at the painting [the present work], the owner came closer to me and said: ‘When Basquiat knew that the painting was here, he came back to see it again. As soon as he saw the painting, he started crying. He said that he would never be able to do paintings like this again’ (T. Lo Porto, quoted in Phoebe Hoban, ‘Vita Lucente e Breve di un Genio dell’arte’, Rome, 2006).

France

L'année dernière à Capri (titre exotique) by Martial Raysse (b. 1936) is one of the artist’s most important works. Painted in 1962, it captures the point at which Nouveau Réalisme the movement that he pioneered, met with Pop Art in striking fashion. An exceptionally early milestone from the early history of Pop Art, this vibrant, larger than life work measures 184cm x 134.6cm and is offered at auction for the first time having been in the same private collection since circa 1975. It is expected to realise £1 million to 1.5 million with proceeds to benefit a charitable Foundation.

UK

Branded by Jenny Saville (b. 1970) is an epic, early portrait measuring 7 foot in height and 6 feet in width. Painted in 1992, it was one of the first works by the artist acquired by Charles Saatchi as he began to champion her work and it was subsequently exhibited in 2000 at the National Portrait Gallery’s Painting the Century: 101 Portrait Masterpieces 1900-2000. It was acquired at auction by the present owner in 2000 for a then world record price for the artist and is expected to realise £700,000 to £1,000,000. 

Arginine Decarboxylase by Damien Hirst (b. 1965) was executed in 1994, the year that he was nominated for the Turner Prize, and is one of the largest of the artist’s early, celebrated spot paintings. It is expected to realise £400,000 to £600,000.

Germany

Athanor by Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945) is a haunting and provocative presentation of a Reichstag-like building as a vast, ruined and burnt-out brick oven painted in 1991, the period soon after German reunification. A monumental and highly important work that represented both a warning and an image of hope and possibility to the German people, it is expected to realise £800,000 to £1,200,000.

Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) is widely regarded as the father of post-modern painting and the auction will offer 4 of his works each from different, influential periods in his career:

o Stadtbild, is an almost abstract townscape painted in 1969 as the artist moved away from the photo-realist style that had dominated his output during that decade (estimate: £400,000 to £600,000).

o Gilbert & George, 1975, is one of a series of six portraits of the celebrated British artists, two of which are in museums (Tate Modern, London and National Gallery, Canberra) (estimate: £600,000 to £800,000).

o Abstraktes Bild, 1990, is a mesmerizing work that represents the pinnacle of the artist’s move into abstraction (estimate: £1 million to £1.5 million)

o Ausschnitt (Kreutz), 1971, is a masterly painting, a photo-realist depiction of a brushstroke (estimate: £1.2 million to £1.8 million).

Untitled V, 1997, by Andreas Gursky (b. 1955) is one of the most important and recognisable of the artist’s works, showing 6 rows of sport shoes – a symbol representing consumerism and popular culture in the 1990s. Executed in 1997 and measuring 4 metres in length, the present work is one of an edition of only six, another of which established a then world auction record price for the artist in 2002. Offered from an important private European collection, it is expected to realise £800,000 to £1,200,000.

Spain

The auction will offer three outstanding works by Eduardo Chillida (1924-2002), each a powerful example of the artist’s command of form and space executed in three vastly differing materials. Lo profundo es el Aire XX (How Profound is the Air XX), 1998, is carved from a vast block of translucent alabaster in such a way that it mpoetically explores and demonstrates the conceptual penetration of solid material by light and space (estimate: £600,000 to £800,000); Elogio del Vacío V (Eulogy of the Void V), 1984, is made from cor-ten steel and expected to realise £350,000 to £450,000; and Mural G-46, a large and comparatively rare clay work from 1984 carries an estimate of £300,000 to £400,000.

Tres equis, 1990, by Miquel Barceló (b. 1957) belongs to one of the most celebrated series of paintings by the artist in which he portrays images and interpretations of Bullfights. Offered from an important European collection, it is expected to realise £400,000 to £600,000.

21st century global artists

A strong group of global artists from the 21st century will be presented at the auction including works by Charti Kher from India, Yan Pei Ming from China and Adriana Vãrejao from Brazil. Parede com Incisões a la Fontana II (Wall with Incisions a la Fontana II), 2001, is an important masterpiece by Adriana Vãrejao (b. 1964), one of Brazil’s most prominent contemporary artists. The work shows a vast representation of a tiled wall which has been dramatically punctuated with slashes which recall the work of Lucio Fontana. However, these slashes allow a glimpse through to an apparently fleshy background, giving the illusion of an existence beneath the surface. One of the most important works of South American contemporary art to be offered on a global auction platform, it is expected to realise £200,000 to £300,000.

The Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction will take place on Thursday 17 February 2011 and will offer 215 lots with a combined pre-sale estimate of £10,246,000 to £14,507,000, with individual estimates from £10,000.

*Estimates do not include buyer's premium

Sale 7955: Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Auction, 16 February 2011

Sale 7956: Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Auction, 17 February 2011

CHRISTIE'S LONDON
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Art Collection of Max Palevsky Christie's Auctions

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky tour started today at Christie's Paris where it is exhibited through September 21, followed by Christie’s Hong Kong from October 2-6, then to Christie’s London from October 9-14 and finally in Christie’s New York from October 21-27, 2010. 

The Collection of Max Palevsky is a superb group of over 250 works ranging  from Antiquities to those by the most significant artists from the Impressionist and Modern and Post-War and Contemporary periods.  The collection will be offered throughout multiple auctions starting in October 2010 at Christie’s New York and is expected to realize from $53 million to $78 million. 

Short biography of Max PALEVSKY (1924-2010) - Born in Chicago, he was an innovator and forerunner in computers and systems technology. His work continues to influence computing technology today. After serving in World War II, he traveled to New York and became fascinated with an exhibition on modern architecture at the Museum of Modern Art.  It was then that he began to envision what a modern utopia could be.  Palevsky was trained in mathematics and engineering and had a love for the literature of Balzac and Proust. In 1951 Palevsky leapt from a job as a philosophy professor at the University of California, Los Angeles to pursue computers technology, a fledgling field.

“We saw a class of problems that should be solved by computers, but for which no computers were being built.” — Max Palevsky, 1967

He worked early on at firms including Bendix Corporation and Packard Bell Computer Corporation.  In the early 1960s he  was a  proponent of small and medium-size business computers — a market he intuited was neglected by IBM and other leading firms at the time —  and co-founded Scientific Data Systems, which he eventually sold to Xerox in 1969 for close to $1 billion. He helped found Intel Corp. and then exited the corporate world for other endeavors such as film production, then politics supporting Democrats George McGovern, Robert F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Gray Davis. He also invested in a passion of his, Rolling Stone magazine. Palevsky began collecting art later in life, which enriched his homes in Beverly Hills, Malibu and Palm Springs, Calif.

“Max Palevsky’s keen intellect, passion for mathematics, computer systems and philosophy is acutely reflected in the works he collected,” said Marc Porter, chairman of Christie’s America.  “From Fernand Léger, whose obsession with the machine age echoed Palevsky’s own, to Richard Lindner’s robotic women and Alexander Calder’s riveted steel sculptures, there is a sense of order and symmetry to the collection.  Palevsky’s art collection offers insight to his genius.”

The Collection of Max Palevsky comprises Antiquities, Impressionist and Modern Art, Post-War and Contemporary Art, 20th Century Decorative Arts and Design, Prints and Multiples, Japanese Art, Latin American Art, American Sculpture and  Modern British Art.

Highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky within Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale to be held on November 3, 2010 in New York, include five works by the French artist Fernand Léger (1881-1955). Most notable is Léger’s La Tasse de Thé 1921 (estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000), a depiction of a voluptuous curvilinear woman against a geometric background of contrasting forms in primary colors. It belongs to Léger’s pivotal series of the early 1920s, which culminated in his seminal masterpiece Le Grand Déjeuner, on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It is the top lot in the Palevsky collection.  Femme sur fond rouge, femme assise, painted in the 1920s (estimate: $5,000,000-7,000,000) shows Léger in his most daring and reductive style, placing a woman in tones of steely gray and black against a flat crimson background. 

Max Palevsky’s love of Balzac inspired him to collect a series of Auguste Rodin bronzes related to the sculptor's commission for a monument to the author. Balzac étude finale (estimate: $500,000-700,000), depicting the imperious Balzac in costume, is the highlight of the group. Other exciting versions of the Balzac subject will be offered in the following Day Sale on November 4. 

Also a part of the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale is Giorgio Morandi’s poetic Natura Morta (estimate: $700,000-1,000,000), a still life of a carafe and two canisters in muted tones and an Egon Schiele work from 1911, named Liegender Akt mit schwarzen Strumpfen (estimate: $1,000,000- 1,500,000), depicting a nude woman lounging.

For the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale to be held on November 10, 2010, at Christie’s Rockefeller Center flagship, the highlights from The Collection of Max Palevsky include: Tableau Noire, a painted steel stabile sculpture completed by Alexander Calder in 1970 (estimate: $2,500,000-3,500,000), four works by Donald Judd including Untitled, 1980, a signature Judd stack comprised of 10 units of stainless steel and red anodized aluminum (estimate: $2,000,000-3,000,000) and Roy Lichtenstein’s Girl in Mirror, 1964 (estimate: $3,000,000-4,000,000) depicting a flaxen-haired woman smiling at her reflection in a hand mirror in porcelain enamel on steel.

Frank Stella’s Telluride, 1960-1961 (estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000) is a rare and important example from his copper painting series, the majority are in museums and institutions. The T-shaped painting with striations in copper oil paint is a testament to Palevsky’s fondness for symmetry. Four lots by Richard Lindner are also slated to be sold in the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale. Most notable is West 48th Street, 1964 (estimate: $600,000- 800,000) which shows a woman with breasts exposed wearing a fantastically-harsh metal corset juxtaposed with a ladylike handbag and opera-length gloves.

The standouts in the Antiquities auction on December 10, 2010 include: A Roman Marble Athena, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $200,000-300,000), A Roman Marble Head of Aphrodite, circa 1st-2nd Century A.D. (estimate: $150,000- 250,000) and A Roman Marble Herm of a Draped Female, circa 1st-2nd century A.D. (estimate: $250,000-350,000).

Palevsky’s collection of Decorative Arts was international, but also focused on the richness of American decorative art in the early 20th century.  Christie’s 20th Century Decorative Arts & Design department will offer several pieces from The Collection of Max Palevsky on December 15th, 2010, including a group of leaded glass windows by the likes of Frank Lloyd Wright, Morris & Co. and Louis Sullivan; works by Tiffany Studios and an enameled silver vase by Archibald Knox for Liberty & Co. (estimate: $70,000-90,000).

On October 26, 2010, Christie’s will offer several works from The Collection of Max Palevsky in the Prints and Multiples Sale in New York.  The key features in that sale are Pablo Picasso, Buste de Femme au Chapeau, 1962 (estimate: $220,000-280,000) as well as several works by Roy Lichtenstein and Richard Lindner.

Latin American Art, Christie’s Paris Galleries

Art d’Amérique Latine ~ Latin American Art
Christie’s Paris Galleries
June 10, 2004

The sale Art d’Amérique Latine (Latin American Art), traditionally held in New York, will be hosted this year at Christie’s elegant Parisian salesroom at Avenue Matignon. During a festive evening event on June 10, François Curiel, Chairman of Christie’s Europe and Director of Christie’s France, will conduct the auction. Not only will this extraordinary sale showcase some of the finest works of Latin American masters, it will also shed a fascinating light on the enduring fertile exchange between Latin American art and European artistic capitals. The sale will feature 100 works including paintings by Rufino Tamayo, Wifredo Lam, J.C. Orozco and Fernando Botero.

The French capital especially had a mesmerizing effect on the young Latin American artists that roamed the streets of Montparnasse where Picasso, Léger, Modigliani and many other creative geniuses worked, exhibited and socialized. The subsequent influences of Cubism, Fauvism, Surrealism and other movements on the style, technique and palette of these aspiring young artists can not be underestimated and these chance encounters - sometimes brief, sometimes lasting – have influenced generations of Latin American artists even today.

“The similarities between Tamayo and Dubuffet are as revealing as their differences.” (Paz)

It was Octavio Paz who made this observation, thereby also referring to Tamayo’s capacity to capture ‘sun.’ The sale offers several significant works from Tamayo’s oeuvre, including Claustrofobia, a painting the artist executed in 1954 (estimate: $800,000-1,000,000). Also featured are El fumador from 1945 (estimate: $350,000-400,000) and Mujer con canasta de manzanas, circa 1940 (estimate: $40,000-60,000).

“For the work’s force to burst forth, the drawing has to be demanding on the outside and reduced to the extreme on the inside.” (Botero)

Two paintings by Fernando Botero, Los Amantes, 1977 (estimate: $500,000-700,000) and El mariscal de campo, 1983 (estimate: $350,000-450,000), depict his trademark round massive figures, which overtake the immediate space around them. The military uniform on the figure in the latter work illustrates Botero’s personal connection to Colombian iconography, and both paintings solidify his status as one of the most prolific and alluring artists from Latin America. The sale also features a bronze by the artist, Reclining Venus (estimate: $400,000-600,000).

“Je veux, de toutes mes forces, peindre le drame de mon pays, Cuba.” (“I want with all my might, paint the drama of my country, Cuba.”) (Lam)

Cuban-born Wifredo Lam arrived in Paris in 1938. As a Surrealist painter in the 1930s, Lam’s gouache on paper mounted on canvas, La ventana, II, 1935 (estimate: $200,000-250,000), is an early example of how Parisian movements and especially the works of Matisse influenced his style. A later work by Lam, Quatre mains pour un être, 1967 (estimate: $250,000-300,000), represents the evolution of Lam’s style in the late 1960s. Untitled, 1947 (estimate: $400,000-450,000), is another fine illustration of his work.

“A strange thing, this life in exile, when we saw each other every day … Breton, Masson, …hordes of people, many of them young.” (Matta)

Chilean-born Roberto Echaurren Matta worked principally in Paris and New York and was an active member of the Surrealists during the 1930s. His works are noted for reconciling his early Cuban influences with the European avant-garde. Offered this spring are Matta’s Le Cyclopedic (estimate: $250,000-300,000) and Espacio de la especie, 1962 (estimate: $200,000-300,000). The latter represents an otherworldly landscape wrought with internal tension.

Further highlights include Diego Rivera’s Madre y niño, 1934 (estimate $700,000-900,000); José Clemente Orozco’s La cantina, 1941(estimate: $700,000-900,000); Angel Zarraga’s Septiembre, 1917 (estimate: $400,000-600,000); Francisco Toledo’s Personajes y animales, 1970 (estimate: $450,000-550,000) and Tomás Sánchez’s Meditadores y un canal, 1995 (estimate: $80,000-120,000).

Christie’s premises on Avenue Matignon are conveniently located between the Champs Elysées and Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, in the heart of the well-known district of galleries and antique dealers on the Right Bank. The original building was renovated to include extensive galleries and auction facilities, offices and warehouse space, resulting in 4,500 square meters of comprehensive, state-ofthe- art public and office space.

Auction: Art d’Amérique Latine: June 10 at 6 p.m.

Viewing: Christie’s New York by appointment: May 21 – 27

Christie’s Paris Galleries: June 5 - 9

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