Art Market Monitor

Sotheby’s has unveiled two paintings by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch to go up for auction during its cross-category evening sale at their London headquarters on March 25. Together, the two early 20th century works, a commissioned frieze and a self-portrait, are expected to fetch £13.5 million ($18.5 million).

Each of the works are coming to sale from the collection of Norwegian Munch patron, Thomas Olsen.

Completed in 1904, Summer Day or Embrace on the Beach (The Linde Frieze) depicts a couple against a bucolic shoreline; it was painted as part of a commission for a nursery room in the family home of Lübeck-based doctor, Max Linde. Estimated to sell for £9 million-£12 million ($12 million-$16 million), the Linde Frieze was based on Munch’s seminal 1890s project Frieze of Life, exhibited at the Berlin Secession in 1902. In this series, the artist began developing his melancholic style, exploring love, jealously, anxiety and separation at the turn of the century.

According to Sotheby’s, Munch added the embracing figures on the left— a recurring motif of couples between union and rift—at a later date.

The later work set to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s, Self-Portrait with a Palette (1926), is an outdoor scene of the artist holding a set of brushes and painting palette. It was last exhibited in 2015-16 in the exhibition “Munch: Van Gogh” at the Munch Museet in Oslo and Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. The image is one Munch painted in several variations. Another paint of the artist Self Portrait with Brushes from 1904 resides at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.Continue Reading

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While Christie’s does not stage Old Master paintings sales in New York in January, it does still go head-to-head with Sotheby’s for drawings. But the record shows them trailing. In 2019, it was $15 million to $2.7 million in favor of Sotheby’s, and again in 2020, $15.1 million (including a $11.7 million Mantegna) at Sotheby’s compared to $5.4 million at Christie’s.

Last week, Christie’s opened the latest round with a comfortable $3.9 million for a sale that was estimated at $2.3 million- $3.4 million (Prices include the buyer’s premium; estimates do not.)

This included a $724,000 to $1.1 million collection formed by the late Cornelia Bessie, an art book publisher, which sold for $1.5 million. Bessie’s main focus was on 18^th century French artists. Topping the bill was a red chalk drawing of a seated young woman by Fragonard which Bessie had been given by her mother, art dealer Kate Schaeffer, in 1982. The gift realised a double estimate $1.1 million. A further 13 Fragonards— all made for Ludovico Ariosto’s epic poem Orlando furioso– were from the collection of American patrons Nina R. and Arthur A. Houghton, Jr. and all sold, mostly above estimate for prices up to $56,253 each. Another top lot from the Bessie collection was crisply colored pastel portrait of Philip Cramer, also a publisher, by Jean-Etienne Liotard, which sold above estimate for $810,000.

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Bonhams will sell a collection of works by Jewish modern artists belonging to the World War II–era School of Paris this season in London. Featuring works by Moïse Kisling, Léon Indenbaum and Jules Pascin, among others, the sale, titled “L’ Ecole de Paris 1905-1939: The Jewish Artists,” is expected to achieve £350,000–450,000 ($478,000–$617,000) and will hit the auction block on March 3 at Bonhams New Bond street location.

The group of 86 lots comes from the collection of the Nieszawer and Princ families, which own Bureau d’art, a Paris- and Tel Aviv–based art dealership and research firm with specializing in School of Paris artists. First established by French art dealer Nadine Nieszawer, the collection of works was later expanded by her son and daughter-in-law Boris and Deborah Princ.

Kisling’s Nature morte au pichet (1917), an early Cubist still life painting, by the Polish-born artist will lead the sale. Kisling moved to Paris in 1910 when he was 19, and lived and worked in the city’s Montparnasse and Montmartre districts, where he came in contact with contemporaries such as Picasso and Modigliani. The painting is estimated at £30,000–£35,000 ($41,000–$48,000).

The work last came up to market in December 2016, when it sold at Shapiro Auctions for $32,000. Prior to that, it sold during a Sotheby’s London Impressionist and modern art day sale in February 2007 for £38,400 ($72,500).

Among the other top lots in the Bonhams auction is La Cavalière (ca. 1917), a painted oak panel depicting a woman on horseback, formerly installed as part of staircase by Russian artist Léon Indenbaum. Best known as a sculptor, Indenbaum forged friendships with Modigliani and Diego Rivera, both of whom painted portraits of Indenbaum. By 1929, the artist had garnered a circle of prominent patrons including designers Jacques Doucet, Paul Poiret, and banking brothers Georges and Marcel Bernard. During the war, Indenbaum remained in hiding. According to Bureau d’art’s online entry on the artist, many of his works were lost or destroyed.

Other highlights in the sale include Bulgarian artist Jules Pascin’s Les Provinciales and La Figurante du Palace (1927). Made following a period spent studying under painter Georg Grosz in the early 1900s, Les Provinciales dates from his early years working in Paris, at the beginning of his extra-marital relationship with Matisse Academy model, Lucy Krohg, who is the painting’s subject. The work is expected to achieve a price between £15,000–£18,000 ($25,000–$30,000).

Pascin made La Figurante du Palace while living on the Boulevard de Clichy. The work dates from the period in his oeuvre is known as ”nacré,” named for the pearly hue of his paintings. It is expected to achieve a price of £18,000–£22,000 ($25,000–$30,000).

A painting of a reclining nude by the Czech painter Georges Kars, whose works recalls that of his friend and fellow painter Suzanne Valadon, will also be included in the sale. It is estimated at £10,000–£15,000 ($14,000–$20,000).

The National Institute of Anthropology and History, a division in the Mexico government dedicated to the preservation of cultural artifacts, has filed a legal claim over 33 objects of Pre-Columbian art set to be auctioned at Christie’s on February 9 in Paris.

According to a report published on Tuesday by Spanish outlet El País, the organization argues that the works, which originate from Mexico, should be repatriated to the country. The government group filed its claim in Mexico, and it has also called on the nation’s Ministry of Foreign Relations to take action to recover the objects.

“It was determined that the auction catalog includes pieces that correspond to cultures originating in Mexico, which is why they are part of the nation’s heritage,” said the Institute in a statement obtained by El País.

Representatives for Christie’s did not respond to requests for comment.Continue Reading

Last week, the Fondation Pierre Bergé–Yves Saint Laurent acquired a group of couture items belonging to one of the designer’s close friends and top clients, French ballerina Zizi Jeanmaire, during an online auction of her wardrobe at Christie’s in Paris. Bidding for the auction ended on January 26.

The foundation, which was established in 2002 upon the late designer’s retirement, purchased eight items for a total of €16,250 ($19,550). The entire collection of the dancer, who died this past July, sold for €161,000 ($194,000).

Saint Laurent first met Jeanmaire in 1956 while he was working for Dior in Paris. In 1962, he went on to found his namesake couture label, taking on the dancer as one of his top clients. He dressed Jeanmaire for various stage appearances, among them her 1961 performance of Mon Truc en Plumes, and in 1963, he dressed her for the musical Spectacle Zizi Jeanmaire.Continue Reading