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Van Rysselberghe, Klee, Magritte Lead June 2020 Paris Impressionist and Modern Sales: Analysis

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Moise Kisling. Femme au corsage blanc. Courtesy Christie's.

This report on the Paris Impressionist and Modern Art market by Angelica Villa with data from Live Art Auction is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Without the force of FIAC and La Bienniale Paris this season to attract global collectors, Christie's and Sotheby's faced a new challenge staging their Impressionist & Modern Art auctions in their French headquarters. The sales were lead this June by Van Rysselberghe, Klee, Magritte, Picabia and Picasso, placing works with buyers for prices as high €5.6 million to as low as €625,000.

The summer sales of Impressionist and Modern art in Paris saw an increase from the previous year—the two sessions, which came to €22.6 million total (excluding works on paper offered in a separate session) were up 23% from the €18.4 million total across the March 2019 auctions. The season’s top lots were by Belgian Neo-Impressionist, Theo van Rysselberghe and Swiss artist, Paul Klee.

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As Coronavirus Escalates, Sotheby’s Relocates Modern and Contemporary Hong Kong Sales to New York

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The Sotheby’s salesroom in New York. PETER FOLEY/EPA-EFE/SHUTTERSTOCK

Amid increasingly turbulent conditions in Hong Kong around the spread of coronavirus, Sotheby’s has relocated its major April Hong Kong Modern and Contemporary sales to New York. The announcement coincides with an increase in travel restrictions as the impact of the epidemic continues to grow in severity, reaching the Middle East and Europe. This follows initial concerns around the city’s stability as a trade site after the outbreak was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organization in January.

The firm’s Modern Art Evening Sale, and its Contemporary Evening and Day Sales will be held the week of April 16th at the house’s headquarters on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. The venue change in the leading category sales requires a heavy lift for specialists, not only in terms of managing consignors’ expectations, but also in pivoting attention towards the U.S. base of potential buyers. Sotheby’s has seen success in Asia in the last four years and the news comes with an imperative goal of matching last year’s robust regional sale results. In a statement, CEO of Sotheby’s Asia, Kevin Ching said the “strategic decision” came “[a]fter careful consideration and reflection on nearly 50 years of working with our clients in Asia.” The remaining series of Hong Kong sales, which include offerings in the categories of Chinese Works of Art, Classical & Modern Chinese Paintings Modern Art, Southeast Asian Art, Jewels, and Luxury will be postponed until the first week of July. Sotheby’s top competitor, Christie’s, has scheduled the Hong Kong 20th Century and Contemporary Art Evening and Day sales for the end of May.

The relocated Hong Kong sales, which come on the heels of the New York Contemporary Mid-season auctions slated for early March—Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated, Christie’s Post-war to Present and Phillips’ New Now sales focused on the core market offering works by emerging artists— are not the first coronavirus-related disruptions to the international art market. Earlier this month, the top auction houses confirmed that the regular Spring Asia Week sales in New York would be postponed until June. And Art Basel has cancelled its annual Hong Kong edition. Each announcement has been a serious signal to the global art industry of the current trade limitations in the region.

In a release regarding these sale changes, the representative for Sotheby’s Asia noted the arrangements would “make it easy for our clients in Asia to participate,” adding that the “global team stands ready to activate the international market” around the upcoming consignments.

As previously reported, among the highlights in the upcoming April Contemporary Evening sale revealed during the London auctions earlier this month is David Hockney’s 30 Sunflowers (1996). A large square painting reminiscent of Van Gogh’s still life work, it is unofficially estimated around $10.3 million. Leading the Modern Art Evening sale will be the highly anticipated modern Chinese master Sanyu’s Quatre nus (1950), a figurative work depicting four female nudes. In November 2019, a similar work titled Five Nudes (1950) by the artist set a new record in the Christie’s Hong Kong Modern Art Evening auction, selling for $38.8m. The release did not mention any changes to the property tour scheduled throughout the U.S. and Asia until April.

 

Sotheby’s Unveils Plans for New Galleries at York Ave.

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Sotheby’s released more details on their ambitious plans to remake the building on York Ave. The new galleries set to open in may will have more than 90,000 square feet of gallery space across 4 floors. That will include 40 public galleries and 9 private sales galleries with 3,000 light fixtures and 7,228 linear feet of lighting tracks. The galleries will have an incomparable amount of wall space, 5,435 linear feet with one as large as 1,200 square feet and one as long as 106-feet-long. The space will also include two new ‘flexible’ auction spaces.

Designed in collaboration with Sotheby’s by Shohei Shigematsu, of the internationally-acclaimed architecture firm OMA New York, the redesign features vast new exhibition galleries that will distinguish Sotheby’s as the world’s premier commercial space for viewing and acquiring fine art, precious objects, luxury goods and more.

Opening with Sotheby’s marquee May exhibitions and auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art, the new galleries increase Sotheby’s exhibition space from 67,000 to more than 90,000 square feet – the equivalent of two acres.  Comprising 40 galleries of varying sizes spread across four entirely transformed floors, the new space rivals major museums around the world in scope, scale, quality and flexibility.

Sotheby’s galleries were designed to provide the optimal exhibition space for everything from single objects to expansive collections, and can accommodate works of art of any scale – the tallest gallery measures more than 20 feet in height, while the smallest gallery is 350 square feet.  New public exhibition spaces include:

  • Three two-story spaces that can accommodate the largest-scale works;
  • The Grand Gallery, a 150-foot-long space ideal for exhibiting full collections;
  • The Octagon Gallery, a temple-like space ideal for jewelry, watches and other intimately-scaled objects, as well as for commanding displays of paintings;
  • The Enfilade Galleries, a suite of four cascading spaces whose entryways align to create a stunning perspective;
  • A number of domestically-scaled galleries ideal for furniture, design and collections;
  • A series of L-shaped galleries for small-scale works and works on paper;
  • Nine galleries dedicated to discreet, private sale opportunities;
  • And two new flexible auction spaces.

Upon entering, visitors to Sotheby’s will be greeted by state-of-the-art digital signage designed by 2×4, and a new double-height ground-floor gallery that can hold exhibitions as well as auctions.  A new Sant Ambroeus Coffee Bar will open next to a dedicated space for collecting purchased items, joining Sotheby’s retail Wine store to complete the lobby experience.

Freud’s £4.5m Early Portrait at Sotheby’s in March

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On March 5th in London, Sotheby’s will sell this early portrait by Lucian Freud of his then brother-in-law Garech Browne. In the 1950s, Freud was married to Lady Caroline Blackwood who would go on to be married to the poet Robert Lowell and be immortalized by him. Freud and Lady Caroline spent a fair bit of time when they were married visiting, Luggala, her family home in Ireland. Luggala was a bohemian refuge overseen by the Guinness family and, eventually, Browne. Here Browne is captured in a small portrait characteristic of Freud’s approach at the time of filling the frame with sitter’s face.

Head of a Boy is being offered with a £4.5-6.5m estimate. Here is some of what Sotheby’s has to say about the picture followed by a video of Tom Eddison:

Embodying the sensational powers of observation which famously characterise Freud’s work, this tightly composed painting from 1956 is a remarkable example of portraiture executed when Freud was just 34 years of age. Small in scale and yet boasting a remarkable emotional intensity, the 18 by 18cm work is at once testament to the artist’s masterful control over his subject, and a tremendous tribute to the sitter – the late Hon. Garech Browne.

The portrait bespeaks the lifelong friendship between Lucian Freud and Garech Browne – dedicated patron of Irish music, poetry and culture, Guinness heir, and last custodian to the magical Luggala estate.

Freud first visited Luggala in the 1940s with his wife Kitty, before eloping with Garech’s cousin, Lady Caroline Hamilton-Temple-Blackwood, in 1952. This painting of a young Garech was created at the Luggala estate during a potentially fractious moment in the course of Freud’s tempestuous second marriage; he and Caroline acrimoniously separated in 1957, barely a year after its execution.

Rarely exhibited and yet well known within Freud’s historical cannon, the painting speaks to both the history of Luggala and the history of Freud’s oeuvre in equally important measure. Tom Eddison, Contemporary Art Specialist at Sotheby’s London, explains:

“The first appearance at auction of a portrait of such extraordinary quality from this early period in Freud’s career is an incredibly rare and exciting moment. Head of a Boy from 1956 boasts the technical brilliance and focused scale that is so prevalent in the masterpieces of this period, and as this jewel of a painting demonstrates, Freud was unique in his ability to deliver such extraordinary impact within such a small arena. There is no question that Freud’s most arresting images are born from his closest relationships, and in this painting of Garech Browne we witness a tantalising story that is truly unparalleled – immortalising one of Ireland’s greatest cultural patrons and a bygone era of flamboyant creativity and unprecedented social synergy at bohemian Luggala”.

Sotheby’s Trawls for £6m with Schiele’s Fishing Boat in London

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Sotheby’s is touring an Egon Schiele painting of a fishing boat through Asia at the moment before they bring it back to sell in London on February 26th in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. It will be offered with an estimate of £6 – 8 million. The sale follows Schiele’s centenary year and a series of celebratory exhibitions all across Europe. These have coincided with some strong recent prices for Schiele, especially at Sotheby’s which sold his 1913 cityscape for $24.6 million in NY in November – the second highest price for the artist. That interest was echoed in the wider interest in German and Austrian art in the same sale (which saw records for Oskar Kokoschka and Ludwig Meidner, and an exceptional price for an oil by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner.)

A square-format depiction of a fishing boat in Trieste painted in the pivotal year of 1912, it has never before been at auction, having remained in a private collection since 1962. Its first owner was the patron Heinrich Böhler, Schiele’s pupil who supplied the artist with paint, canvas and models. Böhler worked side by side with his teacher. He also became a dedicated collector of his work.

The painting is notable for its composition, sitting alongside Schiele’s townscapes with its flattened, closely-cropped perspective and bold colour. The painting holds a unique position in Schiele’s oeuvre. Schiele was imprisoned earlier that year. Outcast and shaken, he returned to Trieste where he could relive memories of earlier visits shared with his sister Gerti in 1907 and 1908. Here’s Sotheby’s release on the art work:Continue Reading

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