Press Release
17th June 2015
London | Mitzi Mina | [email protected] Sarah Rustin | [email protected] |
New York | Lauren Gioia | [email protected] | Darrell Rocha | [email protected]
A Stellar Line-Up of Outstanding Works that Rank
Among the Finest by Artists Including
Manet, Degas, Gauguin, Picasso, Klimt & Malevich
Estimated to Raise a Combined Total of £140 -203 Million/
$225 -327 Million
Sotheby’s June 2015 Impressionist & Modern Evening Sale: 7pm 24th June 2015
Helena Newman, Global Co-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art
Department, said: “The forthcoming sale offers a rich range of highly desirable works, including
those that rank among the finest by Manet, Degas, Klimt, Malevich, Gauguin and Miro. We are
also honoured to have been entrusted with outstanding paintings by heirs to whom the artworks
have been successfully restituted, enabling us to present unprecedented opportunities to acquire
works that would otherwise not appear on the market.”
MUSEUM-QUALITY MASTERPIECES
Kazimir Malevich, Suprematism, 18th Construction, 1915 (est. £20,000,000-30,000,000)
Leading the Impressionist & Modern Art
Evening sale is one of the most important
paintings by Kazimir Malevich to ever appear at
auction. Suprematism, 18th Construction, a
highlight of the critically acclaimed recent Tate
retrospective in London, is appearing at auction
for the first time, a century after it was painted,
directly from the artist’s family. Suprematism,
18th Construction dates from the height of the
artist’s career, a period that marked the epitome
of revolutionary abstraction and placed
Malevich as one of the most important
international artists of the 20th Century. It was
held in the collection of the Stedelijk Museum,
Amsterdam, for fifty years before being
restituted to the artist’s family.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
Édouard Manet, Le bar aux Folies-Bergère, 1881 (est. £15,000,000-20,000,000)
Depicting what is arguably the most famous
and iconic image of Manet’s œuvre, Le bar
aux Folies-Bergères is the first version of his
celebrated oil of the same title, now in the
collection of the Courtauld Gallery, London.
These were the only two paintings by
Manet of the Folies-Bergère, thus it is the
only version remaining in private hands.
The painting remained in the artist’s
personal collection up until his death, after
which his famed dealer Paul Durand-Ruel
was able to procure the work. The painting
was shown to the public in 1905 in the now
legendary exhibition at the Grafton
Galleries, London, which introduced the
British public to Impressionism. Testament
to its outstanding quality, it has since been
exhibited extensively internationally; most recently featuring as one of the highlights of the
National Gallery’s blockbuster exhibition in London Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel
and the Modern Art Market.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
Edgar Degas, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans, 1922 (est. £10,000,000-15,000,000)
Petite danseuse de quatorze ans is the most
ambitious and iconic of Degas’ works and one
of only a handful of bronze casts that remain
in private hands - the majority are housed in
major international museum collections,
including Tate, London, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, New York, Philadelphia
Museum of Art and Museé d’Orsay, Paris.
Celebrated for the revolutionary nature of its
modern sculptural form, this groundbreaking
work from the Impressionist period was the
only sculpture exhibited during Degas’
lifetime. When the wax model was first seen
by audiences in 1881, the unflinching realism
of Petite danseuse de quatorze ans excited
considerable comment. Rather than showing
the graceful poise and elegance expected of
the dancer, with this sculpture Degas focused
on capturing a momentary glimpse that
exposed the relentless work that a ballerina’s performance demands. It was hailed for its
modernity as much as it was chastised for its perceived vulgarity.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
Gustav Klimt, Bildnis Gertrud Loew (Gertha Felsöványi), 1902 (est.
£12,000,000-18,000,000)
Gustav Klimt’s exquisite representations of women have led him to
become the most celebrated painter of the female portrait of the early
20th-century. This extraordinarily beautiful and captivating portrait Bildnis
Gertrud Loew depicts the ethereal figure of Gertrud Loew, later known by
her married name Gertha Felsöványi, a member of fin-de-siècle Viennese
society, wreathed in diaphanous folds of gossamer fabric. The sale will
follows a settlement between the Felsöványi family and The Klimt
Foundation, Vienna, and is one of the greatest portraits by the artist to
come to auction.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
Paul Gauguin, Nature morte aux mangos, circa 1891-96 (est. £10,000,000-15,000,000)
Nature morte aux mangos is thought to have been
executed in Tahiti during Gauguin's first trip to the
Island. Inspired by the lush environment that
surrounded him, the work epitomises the artist’s lifelong search for the primitive and displays the same
vividness and sensuous atmosphere and the bright,
warm palette that characterised his celebrated
Tahitian landscapes and figure paintings. Indeed, to a
traveller from Europe, mangoes – which grew in
abundance in Tahiti – must have seemed symbolic of
the rich and colourful landscape of these islands. The fruit of the earth represented a part of
the everyday life of the islanders, not only as a source of food but as an offering to the gods, and
this is reflected in Gauguin’s work. A fascinating and highly accomplished image of the
harmony between the natural and the man-made, Nature morte aux mangos is a powerful
testament not only to Gauguin’s own creative vision, but also to the artistic and spiritual ideal
of freedom, wilderness and simplicity.
MODERN MASTERS
Pablo Picasso, Deux Personnages (La Lecture), 1934 (est. £13,000,000-18,000,000)
This exceptional painting of two women reading by Pablo Picasso,
comes from the extraordinary group of canvases inspired by his
beloved mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter. Distinguished by their
rich colouration, harmonic curves and sweeping arabesques,
these exceptional pictures are renowned as Picasso's most
euphoric, fantastical and inspired compositions, and they rank
among the most instantly recognizable works of 20th-century art.
Among the most evocative of these pictures is Deux personnages,
created when Marie-Thérèse was firmly at the centre of Picasso's
artistic and private universe.
André Derain, Londres : Le Quai Victoria, 1906-07 (est. £6,500,000-9,000,000)
Painted in London at the height of the Fauve
movement, this vibrant painting of Victoria
Embankment belongs to the series which helped
define Derain as one of the most brilliant artists of
his generation. Following Claude Monet’s successful
trip to London, during which he painted the iconic
scenes of the Thames and its banks, Monet’s dealer –
who also represented Derain – persuaded the artist
to make a trip to London himself, to further his
career and make the most of the urban London
landscape.
Joan Miró, Peinture, 1954 (est. £5,000,000-8,000,000)
From the collection of the Alberto and Annette Giacometti
Foundation comes a powerful and exceptionally beautiful
testament to the friendship between two of the greatest artists of
the 20th Century – Joan Miró and Alberto Giacometti. Dedicated
to Alberto and his wife Annette, it forms part of a group of
pictures painted in 1954 that Miró gifted to his closest friends.
Peinture combines Miró’s love of signs and symbols with a
thematic narrative that is at once passionate, lyrical and intensely
creative. The work exemplifies the expressive power of images,
depicting the lexicon of motfis that he had developed over the
years: celestial bodies, the gaping mouths, stretching limbs and
the all-important colour blue – the colour of his dreams.
Fernand Léger, Le Pont du Remorqueur, 1919 (est. £6,000,000-9,000,000)
Le Pont du remorqueur is a remarkable example of
Léger's exuberant abstract style. Created shortly
after the end of the First World War, it is the
culmination of a series of works created during the
period which featured bridges and boats - a
gleaming symbol of technological progress in an
age of rapid industrialisation. The artist's
experience of front-line service during the war, in
which he had witnessed mechanised killing on an
atrocious scale, led him to innovations in both
style and subject matter. The present work was
first owned by Léonce Rosenberg, Léger's primary dealer until the 1940s, before being
acquired by the remarkable Helene and Anton Kröller-Müller. The Kröller-Müller's amassed
one of the finest collections of late 19th and early 20th-century art in the Netherlands.
Max Liebermann, Zwei Reiter am Strand nach links (Two Riders on a Beach), 1901 (est.
£350,000 – 550,000)
An exceptional work by Max Liebermann, Zwei Reiter am
Strand nach links was discovered among the trove of art
secreted away for decades by Cornelius Gurlitt and will be
sold by the heirs of the painting’s original owner following its
successful restitution. Max Liebermann is considered to be
one of the greatest German artists of his generation, and this
painting is one of his first large-scale oil paintings of horses
and riders - a theme that continued throughout his career but
was rarely depicted with such elegance and poise as in this
particular work.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
THE FIGURE AND FORM COLLECTION
An extraordinary private collection of rarely seen masterpieces will come to auction for the
very first time this summer, as 21 superlative works are offered across a series of sales at
Sotheby’s in London, New York and Paris between May and July 2015. Assembled in the 1970s
and 80s, this discerning collection encompasses outstanding works ranging from African to
contemporary art, focused around a single theme – the human figure and form.
Henry Moore, Two Women and Child, 1948 (est. £300,000-400,000)
The finest work on paper by Henry Moore to appear
on the market for many years, this magnificent work
exemplifies the artist’s richly hued, densely worked
drawings that render the physicality of the figures so
completely that they possess a sculptural quality all of
their own. According to the catalogue raisonné, the
intricately executed and stylised heads of the women
may have been influenced by tribal art, specifically by
the carved masks from Africa and the Marquesas
Islands, often decorated with incisions, which Moore
began collecting in the late 1940s.
Henry Moore, Falling Warrior, 1956-57 (est. £1,800,000-2,500,000)
This monumental work of emotive power and
gravitas was inspired by the fallen soldiers of
the Second World War. The sculpture reflects
the artist’s deep interest in Classical sculpture
as well as his love of bronze as a material. Of
the other ten examples of Falling Warrior that
Moore had cast at the Fiorini foundry in
London, seven are currently in public
collections, including Tate, London.
Edgar Degas, Physionomie de Criminel, circa 1881 (est. £300,000-400,000)
One of the most written about and discussed works by Degas
to have been offered at auction for many years, this
extraordinary work was first shown at the 6th Impressionist
exhibition in 1881 as a male counterpart to the Petit danseuse
de quatorze ans sculpture. From 1979 the work was ‘hidden’
in the collection of the current owner and away from the
public eye. When in 1994-95 it was loaned to the exhibition of
Degas portraits and the Venice Biennale, it was greeted with
much acclaimed by the public, critics and art historians alike.
It demonstrates Degas’s fascination with human physiognomy – a subject which has interested
artists from Leonardo da Vinci to Francis Bacon – but almost unique in the artist’s œuvre.
PLEASE SEE THE FULL PRESS RELEASE FOR FURTHER DETAILS ON THE COLLECTION.
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