Art 1955-1959
1955 Woman (green)
2020 SOLD for $ 23M by Christie's
De Kooning is an abstract painter, influenced by Arshile Gorky. In his return to woman and flesh, he conceives the opposite of the cubist deconstruction : the forms appear by offsetting the abstraction with very violent brushstrokes.
Woman I is exhibited in 1953 after two years of work. It arouses scandal, without even offering the disturbing humor of the Corps de Dames by Dubuffet. The new idol is standing with her ugly body, horribly close to reality, in full contrast to post-war pin-ups.
The negative reactions confirm a contrario the emotional impact of the work. De Kooning continues the series in the same year up to Woman VI, as well as many trials carried out in parallel. Woman (blue eyes), oil, enamel and charcoal on paper 71 x 51 cm made in 1953, was sold for $ 19M by Christie's on May 15, 2013, lot 29.
On October 6, 2020, Christie's sold for $ 23M Woman (green), lot 7 estimated $ 20M. This oil and charcoal on canvas 77 x 60 cm, probably started in 1953, has the main characteristics of the Woman I-VI. Completed in 1955, it humanizes the character with a gentle smile that is just as disturbing as the grotesque grins of previous versions.
Woman I is exhibited in 1953 after two years of work. It arouses scandal, without even offering the disturbing humor of the Corps de Dames by Dubuffet. The new idol is standing with her ugly body, horribly close to reality, in full contrast to post-war pin-ups.
The negative reactions confirm a contrario the emotional impact of the work. De Kooning continues the series in the same year up to Woman VI, as well as many trials carried out in parallel. Woman (blue eyes), oil, enamel and charcoal on paper 71 x 51 cm made in 1953, was sold for $ 19M by Christie's on May 15, 2013, lot 29.
On October 6, 2020, Christie's sold for $ 23M Woman (green), lot 7 estimated $ 20M. This oil and charcoal on canvas 77 x 60 cm, probably started in 1953, has the main characteristics of the Woman I-VI. Completed in 1955, it humanizes the character with a gentle smile that is just as disturbing as the grotesque grins of previous versions.
1955 Rothko
2010 SOLD for $ 22.5M by Sotheby's
Mark Rothko divides the canvas into rectangular areas with blurry edges, loosely demarcated. He removes the form, the line, the sign. Only remains the emotion created by the dialogue of colors.
His works from the early 1950s have generated a new vision of art. Recognizing the limitations and potential pitfalls of his style and not wanting to be considered as a decorator, he understood that the immersion of the observer in the artwork is only possible if it is of large size.
When such colors are yellow, opalescent white and a wide range of shades of orange, it is not only with color but with light that the visitor is invited to commune.
These forces characterize the oil on canvas dated 1955, 233 x 175 cm, sold for $ 22.5M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010, lot 21. The white viewed like a halo occupies nearly two-thirds of the surface in the lower part.
His works from the early 1950s have generated a new vision of art. Recognizing the limitations and potential pitfalls of his style and not wanting to be considered as a decorator, he understood that the immersion of the observer in the artwork is only possible if it is of large size.
When such colors are yellow, opalescent white and a wide range of shades of orange, it is not only with color but with light that the visitor is invited to commune.
These forces characterize the oil on canvas dated 1955, 233 x 175 cm, sold for $ 22.5M by Sotheby's on November 9, 2010, lot 21. The white viewed like a halo occupies nearly two-thirds of the surface in the lower part.
1955 Portrait of a Contemporary Pope
2015 SOLD for £ 10M including premium
Francis Bacon composed his paintings from photographs. Troubled by the paradox of the human vulnerability of the most powerful leaders, he displays their pictures in his studio.
He focuses his analysis on two popes, the image of the painting of Innocent X by Velazquez and a photograph of the Pope of his time, Pius XII. Reigning since 1939, Pius XII had been confronted with the atrocities of war and racism with an efficiency that would later be disputed. His elongated head and hollow cheeks perfectly illustrate the theme chosen by Bacon.
On February 11 in London, Christie's sells Study for a head painted by Bacon in 1955, oil on canvas 102 x 77 cm, lot 17.
In the expressive style of the artist, the face of the pope is perfectly recognizable, and his glasses were not omitted. The dark colors on a black background increase the tragic feeling that haunts Francis after the Battleship Potemkin.
What was happening into the troubled mind of the artist ? A continuity of style is established between this painting and his first self-portrait, made in the following year, as if Francis suddenly understood that the vulnerability of others that aroused his discomfort should also and especially apply to himself.
The critical imaging of the men of power will experience another climax in 1972 with Mao's portrait by Warhol.
He focuses his analysis on two popes, the image of the painting of Innocent X by Velazquez and a photograph of the Pope of his time, Pius XII. Reigning since 1939, Pius XII had been confronted with the atrocities of war and racism with an efficiency that would later be disputed. His elongated head and hollow cheeks perfectly illustrate the theme chosen by Bacon.
On February 11 in London, Christie's sells Study for a head painted by Bacon in 1955, oil on canvas 102 x 77 cm, lot 17.
In the expressive style of the artist, the face of the pope is perfectly recognizable, and his glasses were not omitted. The dark colors on a black background increase the tragic feeling that haunts Francis after the Battleship Potemkin.
What was happening into the troubled mind of the artist ? A continuity of style is established between this painting and his first self-portrait, made in the following year, as if Francis suddenly understood that the vulnerability of others that aroused his discomfort should also and especially apply to himself.
The critical imaging of the men of power will experience another climax in 1972 with Mao's portrait by Warhol.
1955 Sumac by Calder
2020 SOLD for $ 8.3M by Sotheby's
The visit by Sandy Calder to Gira Sarabhai is a nice story reminding the globalization of art after World War II and the independence of India.
Gira is the youngest daughter of a wealthy industrialist of the textile. In 1949, she seconds her brother Shri Gautam Sarabhai to create in Ahmedabad the Calico Museum of Textile which is a great achievement.
Gira is very attentive to modern art. She invites Western artists for short stays in her family home. The choice of her visitors shows her keen interest in the avant-gardes : Noguchi, Le Corbusier, John Cage, Rauschenberg, Cartier-Bresson, Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames.
Circa 1954 in Paris, Gira buys a hanging mobile realized in 1952. An architect by training, she loves the art of Calder, a clever mixing of technique, of geometric balance of weights and of ingenious vegetable inspiration. Sandy and Louisa Calder enthusiastically accept Gira's invitation.
Sandy wants to make this trip successful and carefully prepares before leaving the drawings of the nine sculptures which he will build in Ahmedabad in January and February 1955, using his models with the greatest diversity and a wide range of colors.
The Sarabhai collection of custom made Calder art was a time capsule when it was sold by Christie's on May 10, 2016. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
The top lot sold at Christie's in 2016, lot 10 B for $ 5.8M, was a hanging mobile 106 x 192 x 100 cm with brilliant red painted metal sheets, titled Sumac 17 by reference to the namesake plant. It was sold for $ 8.3M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 7.
Christie's sold two Calder mobiles from the same date and provenance on March 7, 2017. A standing mobile 276 x 362 x 150 cm which had stayed in the garden was sold for £ 3.5M. A polychrome hanging mobile 181 x 372 x 118 cm titled Guava was sold for £ 4.5M.
Gira is the youngest daughter of a wealthy industrialist of the textile. In 1949, she seconds her brother Shri Gautam Sarabhai to create in Ahmedabad the Calico Museum of Textile which is a great achievement.
Gira is very attentive to modern art. She invites Western artists for short stays in her family home. The choice of her visitors shows her keen interest in the avant-gardes : Noguchi, Le Corbusier, John Cage, Rauschenberg, Cartier-Bresson, Neutra, Charles and Ray Eames.
Circa 1954 in Paris, Gira buys a hanging mobile realized in 1952. An architect by training, she loves the art of Calder, a clever mixing of technique, of geometric balance of weights and of ingenious vegetable inspiration. Sandy and Louisa Calder enthusiastically accept Gira's invitation.
Sandy wants to make this trip successful and carefully prepares before leaving the drawings of the nine sculptures which he will build in Ahmedabad in January and February 1955, using his models with the greatest diversity and a wide range of colors.
The Sarabhai collection of custom made Calder art was a time capsule when it was sold by Christie's on May 10, 2016. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
The top lot sold at Christie's in 2016, lot 10 B for $ 5.8M, was a hanging mobile 106 x 192 x 100 cm with brilliant red painted metal sheets, titled Sumac 17 by reference to the namesake plant. It was sold for $ 8.3M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 7.
Christie's sold two Calder mobiles from the same date and provenance on March 7, 2017. A standing mobile 276 x 362 x 150 cm which had stayed in the garden was sold for £ 3.5M. A polychrome hanging mobile 181 x 372 x 118 cm titled Guava was sold for £ 4.5M.
1955 Why Christ went to Cookham
2013 SOLD 6 M£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, a village on the banks of the Thames. Throughout his career, he was interested in the theme of the Resurrection. This artist also known for his erotic art developed a unique and exuberant imagery where proximity invites to promiscuity.
The Resurrection is not the most common theme in Christian iconography but it concerned the artist for both its social meaning of reconciliation between humans and its necessary relocation all around the globe.
The ultimate major project of Spencer was to locate this event in the context of Cookham Regatta. The centerpiece showing the preaching Christ remained unfinished due to the artist's final illness in 1959.
On November 20 in London, Christie's sells an oil on canvas, 107 x 92 cm, painted in 1955. Five clustered boats comfortably convey the idle and confident persons to which the sermon will be addressed.
The composition without perspective looks medieval : Spencer is a successor to the pre- Raphaelites. The characters are carnal although their features are not sharp, and they are distant cousins of Blake's ghosts.
This work is important because it is a synthesis of the mystical, social and erotic aspirations of one of the most atypical modern artists. It is estimated £ 3M.
POST SALE COMMENT
This outstanding element of the latest artistic project of Stanley Spencer was sold for £ 6M including premium.
Stanley Spencer was born in Cookham, a village on the banks of the Thames. Throughout his career, he was interested in the theme of the Resurrection. This artist also known for his erotic art developed a unique and exuberant imagery where proximity invites to promiscuity.
The Resurrection is not the most common theme in Christian iconography but it concerned the artist for both its social meaning of reconciliation between humans and its necessary relocation all around the globe.
The ultimate major project of Spencer was to locate this event in the context of Cookham Regatta. The centerpiece showing the preaching Christ remained unfinished due to the artist's final illness in 1959.
On November 20 in London, Christie's sells an oil on canvas, 107 x 92 cm, painted in 1955. Five clustered boats comfortably convey the idle and confident persons to which the sermon will be addressed.
The composition without perspective looks medieval : Spencer is a successor to the pre- Raphaelites. The characters are carnal although their features are not sharp, and they are distant cousins of Blake's ghosts.
This work is important because it is a synthesis of the mystical, social and erotic aspirations of one of the most atypical modern artists. It is estimated £ 3M.
POST SALE COMMENT
This outstanding element of the latest artistic project of Stanley Spencer was sold for £ 6M including premium.
1955 a summer in provincetown
2016 sold for $ 3.6m including premium
Milton Avery was a factory worker and a self-taught in art. He brings together around him a group of young artists in New York City in the early 1930s. They are fifteen years younger than him and will become twenty years later the luminaries of abstract expressionism : Rothko, Gottlieb, Newman. They tirelessly discuss about French Fauvisme and German Expressionism.
Avery painted simple and intimate subjects such as his wife, his daughter, a beach, musicians. In the 1940s he gradually rids his art from all figurative details that are not strictly necessary. In 1950, behind March and Sally, terrace, trees and sky are forming a colored structure arranged in horizontal registers like an abstraction by Rothko. This oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm was sold for $ 5.7 million including premium by Sotheby's on May 21, 2014.
The US abstract art gets developed. Avery maintains relations and retains his influence. His themes remain nevertheless figurative. In 'Sea and sand dunes' painted in Provincetown MA in 1955 the realism of forms and colors has completely vanished.
The big shapeless mass of the dune cancels the right part of the image while providing the only information of perspective in front of the horizontal blocks of sky, sea and beach. The clouds have left the red sky for floating over the almost black sea, or perhaps they are waves.
This oil on canvas 102 x 154 cm is estimated $ 3M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 17, lot 42 estimated $ 3M.
Friendship and discussion continue despite the increasing fame of the younger artists now in their fifties. In 1957 Rothko and Gottlieb join Avery in Provincetown during their summer vacations.
Avery painted simple and intimate subjects such as his wife, his daughter, a beach, musicians. In the 1940s he gradually rids his art from all figurative details that are not strictly necessary. In 1950, behind March and Sally, terrace, trees and sky are forming a colored structure arranged in horizontal registers like an abstraction by Rothko. This oil on canvas 76 x 102 cm was sold for $ 5.7 million including premium by Sotheby's on May 21, 2014.
The US abstract art gets developed. Avery maintains relations and retains his influence. His themes remain nevertheless figurative. In 'Sea and sand dunes' painted in Provincetown MA in 1955 the realism of forms and colors has completely vanished.
The big shapeless mass of the dune cancels the right part of the image while providing the only information of perspective in front of the horizontal blocks of sky, sea and beach. The clouds have left the red sky for floating over the almost black sea, or perhaps they are waves.
This oil on canvas 102 x 154 cm is estimated $ 3M for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 17, lot 42 estimated $ 3M.
Friendship and discussion continue despite the increasing fame of the younger artists now in their fifties. In 1957 Rothko and Gottlieb join Avery in Provincetown during their summer vacations.
1955 The Electrified Cat
2019 sold for $ 3.13m including premium
The young Spanish artist Remedios Varo participates in the intellectual games of the surrealist circles in Barcelona, Paris and then Mexico City, with a deliberately logicophobic trend. She transfers to Latin America her impressions of the medieval Europe with its haunted castles and its atmospheres imbued with occultism and alchemy.
One of the surrealist fancies is to simulate metamorphoses. Their best known emanation is Max Ernst's Loplop bird. Leonora Carrington is the horse and Remedios Varo is the cat, an animal which she loves very much as a pet. In this essentially male brotherhood, Remedios develops an unprecedented humorous surrealism while preparing with the complicity of Leonora some magic potions for these gentlemen.
On May 22 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on masonite 96 x 85 cm painted in 1955 by Remedios Varo, lot 19 estimated $ 2M.
This work titled Simpatia or La rabia del gato is about the empathic assimilation between a woman and a big cat, in an exalted atmosphere close to an exorcism. The crazy cat is lying on the table, with the rear of its body raised like a scorpion tail. The seated woman scratches with one hand the back of the cat.
The cat's fur and the woman's hair are bristling in a similar way. The gazes are mesmerizing. Each of them emits beams of sparks that hit the ceiling and the walls but their electric potential is so close that no spark occurs between them. On the floor, three cat tails protrude under the long dress, as if some metamorphosis of the woman had already begun.
After the sudden death of Remedios Varo in 1963, Breton pays tribute to her as "the witch who left too early".
One of the surrealist fancies is to simulate metamorphoses. Their best known emanation is Max Ernst's Loplop bird. Leonora Carrington is the horse and Remedios Varo is the cat, an animal which she loves very much as a pet. In this essentially male brotherhood, Remedios develops an unprecedented humorous surrealism while preparing with the complicity of Leonora some magic potions for these gentlemen.
On May 22 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on masonite 96 x 85 cm painted in 1955 by Remedios Varo, lot 19 estimated $ 2M.
This work titled Simpatia or La rabia del gato is about the empathic assimilation between a woman and a big cat, in an exalted atmosphere close to an exorcism. The crazy cat is lying on the table, with the rear of its body raised like a scorpion tail. The seated woman scratches with one hand the back of the cat.
The cat's fur and the woman's hair are bristling in a similar way. The gazes are mesmerizing. Each of them emits beams of sparks that hit the ceiling and the walls but their electric potential is so close that no spark occurs between them. On the floor, three cat tails protrude under the long dress, as if some metamorphosis of the woman had already begun.
After the sudden death of Remedios Varo in 1963, Breton pays tribute to her as "the witch who left too early".
1955 SOULAGES IN VERSAILLES
2008 SOLD 525 K€ INCLUDING PREMIUM
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Before starting this daily chronicle last February, I was interested in national artists. They are, in my definition, artists getting good prices at auction in their own country, but generally not seen anywhere else.
For the French, Soulages is a typical example. Interest in this excellent abstract painter did a jump on July 6, 2006, when, quite unexpectedly, a painting for the first time crossed the threshold of one million Euros at Sotheby's. Since then, several other works came to confirm this interest by buyers.
These artists are not in international sales. Soulages is a little better placed than his Frenh contemporaries, since one painting sold in London is at the eighth place of the results recorded by Artvalue.
The corollary which makes so interesting to study this category of artists is that good results are often obtained in auction houses outside major groups. These operators know to keep a loyal customer base for sale and purchase on a narrow perimeter. This is the case with Dinet, for example, whom I just looked for this group about the history of his sales by the Drouot auction house of Gros et Delettrez.
Over the past twenty years, Maître Perrin at Versailles is the specialist of abstract painting of the 1950s, to the extent that this statement appears when entering the site of Versailles Enchères, although this otherwise traditional auction house also makes regular sales in all specialties.
Three times a year in April, June and December, Versailles Enchères offers significant works of French abstract and contemporary painting.
On December 16, a painting made by Soulages in 1959, 125 x 202 cm, won 1.5M € fees included at Versailles Enchères. On this occasion, La Gazette de l'Hotel Drouot noted that his works of 1959, marking an evolution in the art of the painter, are particularly appreciated.
On April 13, at the same place, a painting of 1954, 92 x 65 cm, also got a very good result: 715 K € fees included.
The painting that the auction house will sell on July 6 at number 76, dated 1955, is small: 81 x 60 cm. It is typical, with its small luminous center surrounded by various flat blacks. It should be able to exceed slightly its estimate of 350 K €.
POST SALE COMMENT
My prediction was right: this painting would exceed the estimate without reaching the prices of other works that I had indicated. That is what happened: 525 K € fees included.
Before starting this daily chronicle last February, I was interested in national artists. They are, in my definition, artists getting good prices at auction in their own country, but generally not seen anywhere else.
For the French, Soulages is a typical example. Interest in this excellent abstract painter did a jump on July 6, 2006, when, quite unexpectedly, a painting for the first time crossed the threshold of one million Euros at Sotheby's. Since then, several other works came to confirm this interest by buyers.
These artists are not in international sales. Soulages is a little better placed than his Frenh contemporaries, since one painting sold in London is at the eighth place of the results recorded by Artvalue.
The corollary which makes so interesting to study this category of artists is that good results are often obtained in auction houses outside major groups. These operators know to keep a loyal customer base for sale and purchase on a narrow perimeter. This is the case with Dinet, for example, whom I just looked for this group about the history of his sales by the Drouot auction house of Gros et Delettrez.
Over the past twenty years, Maître Perrin at Versailles is the specialist of abstract painting of the 1950s, to the extent that this statement appears when entering the site of Versailles Enchères, although this otherwise traditional auction house also makes regular sales in all specialties.
Three times a year in April, June and December, Versailles Enchères offers significant works of French abstract and contemporary painting.
On December 16, a painting made by Soulages in 1959, 125 x 202 cm, won 1.5M € fees included at Versailles Enchères. On this occasion, La Gazette de l'Hotel Drouot noted that his works of 1959, marking an evolution in the art of the painter, are particularly appreciated.
On April 13, at the same place, a painting of 1954, 92 x 65 cm, also got a very good result: 715 K € fees included.
The painting that the auction house will sell on July 6 at number 76, dated 1955, is small: 81 x 60 cm. It is typical, with its small luminous center surrounded by various flat blacks. It should be able to exceed slightly its estimate of 350 K €.
POST SALE COMMENT
My prediction was right: this painting would exceed the estimate without reaching the prices of other works that I had indicated. That is what happened: 525 K € fees included.
1955 the mural education of mexican people
2014 unsold
One of the root causes of the Mexican Revolution was the need to create a social identity that autocratic regimes could not offer.
In 1921, José Vasconcelos creates the Secretariat of Public Education. The population is mostly illiterate. Vasconcelos is developing the project to decorate public buildings with large murals promoting revolution and atheism as well as an egalitarian Mestizoism.
The participation of Vasconcelos in the government was short-lived but the best specificity of Mexican art in the twentieth century is a result of this initiative, not only through the social frescoes by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, but also with the surrealism by Kahlo and Carrington which benefited from this tendency to stylize for educating.
On November 24 in New York, Sotheby's sells a painting by Rivera, lot 23, consisting of four oils on canvas 1.52 m high aligned on panels for a total length approaching 9 m. This is the study for a fresco in mosaic executed circa 1955 for a private client.
Titled Rio Juchitan, this mural displays men, women and children in their daily lives at the edge of a river in south-eastern Mexico, with the innocence of the characters of Gauguin or of the art of Bali.
The painting is not exhibited in New York before sale and cannot be permanently exported from Mexico.
In 1921, José Vasconcelos creates the Secretariat of Public Education. The population is mostly illiterate. Vasconcelos is developing the project to decorate public buildings with large murals promoting revolution and atheism as well as an egalitarian Mestizoism.
The participation of Vasconcelos in the government was short-lived but the best specificity of Mexican art in the twentieth century is a result of this initiative, not only through the social frescoes by Rivera, Orozco and Siqueiros, but also with the surrealism by Kahlo and Carrington which benefited from this tendency to stylize for educating.
On November 24 in New York, Sotheby's sells a painting by Rivera, lot 23, consisting of four oils on canvas 1.52 m high aligned on panels for a total length approaching 9 m. This is the study for a fresco in mosaic executed circa 1955 for a private client.
Titled Rio Juchitan, this mural displays men, women and children in their daily lives at the edge of a river in south-eastern Mexico, with the innocence of the characters of Gauguin or of the art of Bali.
The painting is not exhibited in New York before sale and cannot be permanently exported from Mexico.
1955 THE fLOATING FORMS BY MARK ROTHKO
2012 WITHDRAWN
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
No artist can match Rothko. By his totally abstract and not really geometric works, he achieved his goal of attractingan intense emotion. The oil on canvas, 176 x 157 cm, for sale by Christie's in London on February 14, is again a masterly example.
We have already discussed in this group a case where this artist immersed the viewer in the light of his painting. Thenew example is another tour de force. It is dated 1955, when that magician of color displayed his utmost virtuosity.
Here he relies upon the disturbed distance provided in the perception of reds and ochers to remove the viewing of the actual position of the canvas, actually wrapping the viewer into his two floating rectangles. The artist took care of everything: only the colors are visible, the edges of the rectangles are not sharp enough to attract attention.
I invite you to play the audio shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Rothko was withdrawn from the sale, apparently for a private sale. It had been introduced as a masterpiece and its estimate, £ 9M, seemed low.
No artist can match Rothko. By his totally abstract and not really geometric works, he achieved his goal of attractingan intense emotion. The oil on canvas, 176 x 157 cm, for sale by Christie's in London on February 14, is again a masterly example.
We have already discussed in this group a case where this artist immersed the viewer in the light of his painting. Thenew example is another tour de force. It is dated 1955, when that magician of color displayed his utmost virtuosity.
Here he relies upon the disturbed distance provided in the perception of reds and ochers to remove the viewing of the actual position of the canvas, actually wrapping the viewer into his two floating rectangles. The artist took care of everything: only the colors are visible, the edges of the rectangles are not sharp enough to attract attention.
I invite you to play the audio shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Rothko was withdrawn from the sale, apparently for a private sale. It had been introduced as a masterpiece and its estimate, £ 9M, seemed low.
1956 De Medici by Kline
2012 SOLD for $ 11M by Christie's
The art of Franz Kline is viewed as the archetype of the Action painting of the American abstract expressionism of the 1950s. Nevertheless his gesture is not spontaneous. It is the result of a painstaking preparation, as Clyfford Still was also doing.
His theme is the city, now driven by industrial life. He indeed prefers the right angles of the constructed structures to the delicacy of nature, but his beams look worn out with their jagged edges.
His signature technique is a confrontation on the canvas of black and white, both in a thick brilliant impasto. He is well aware that the Chinese calligraphy is also an art of black on white. A typical example is an oil on canvas 132 x 94 cm painted in 1955 where the pseudo calligraphic figure has an extremely wide line. This Untitled was sold for $ 6.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 21.
Two oils on canvas painted in 1956 display the opposite consequences of that trend.
In Shenandoah, 145 x 205 cm, sold for $ 9.3M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2012, lot 8, the black form cancels all but one of the white voids in the upper part, in a style that certainly influenced Soulages.
In De Medici, 210 x 290 cm, sold for $ 11M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 26, the black forms are complemented by fragile wire-like lines.
His theme is the city, now driven by industrial life. He indeed prefers the right angles of the constructed structures to the delicacy of nature, but his beams look worn out with their jagged edges.
His signature technique is a confrontation on the canvas of black and white, both in a thick brilliant impasto. He is well aware that the Chinese calligraphy is also an art of black on white. A typical example is an oil on canvas 132 x 94 cm painted in 1955 where the pseudo calligraphic figure has an extremely wide line. This Untitled was sold for $ 6.5M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 21.
Two oils on canvas painted in 1956 display the opposite consequences of that trend.
In Shenandoah, 145 x 205 cm, sold for $ 9.3M by Sotheby's on November 13, 2012, lot 8, the black form cancels all but one of the white voids in the upper part, in a style that certainly influenced Soulages.
In De Medici, 210 x 290 cm, sold for $ 11M by Christie's on November 14, 2012, lot 26, the black forms are complemented by fragile wire-like lines.
1956 Borduas in Black and White
2018 SOLD for $ 3.6M CAD including premium
Inspired by the surrealist poems of André Breton, Paul-Emile Borduas developed from 1941 an abstract automatic art for which composition and gesture are not preconceived. A teacher at Montreal's Ecole du meuble, he led the hostility of his students against the conservative and clerical policy of Prime Minister Duplessis, a period mocked as the Grande Noirceur. His creativity influences Riopelle.
After three years in New York where he met the abstract expressionists, Borduas set up his studio in Paris in 1955. Abandoning the colors, he staged black shapes whose distribution on a white background reflected his emotions between the anguish of the explosion and the construction of a better civilization.
Borduas is a very good connoisseur in the history of art, influenced by Malevich for the primacy of support over image and by Cézanne's still life for the balanced disposition of objects. His cohorts do not seem static : they enter or leave the canvas as did the unlimited colors of Mondrian.
There is no perspective in Borduas' paintings. A relief is however present with the rolls created from the thick paint by the accumulations of the spatula. His white backgrounds anticipate by a few months the folds reinforced with kaolin in Manzoni's Achromes.
On May 30 in Toronto, Heffel sells Figures Schématiques, oil on canvas painted in 1956. At 130 x 195 cm it is one of the largest formats executed by the artist. It is estimated $ 3M CAD, lot 018.
Black continued to invade the spaces of Borduas. He died of a heart attack in 1960 beside his just completed Composition 69. This composition in intense black is crossed at the top of the image by white slashes, in a last act of hope that reminds the zips by Barnett Newman and anticipates by two decades the Outrenoir by Soulages.
After three years in New York where he met the abstract expressionists, Borduas set up his studio in Paris in 1955. Abandoning the colors, he staged black shapes whose distribution on a white background reflected his emotions between the anguish of the explosion and the construction of a better civilization.
Borduas is a very good connoisseur in the history of art, influenced by Malevich for the primacy of support over image and by Cézanne's still life for the balanced disposition of objects. His cohorts do not seem static : they enter or leave the canvas as did the unlimited colors of Mondrian.
There is no perspective in Borduas' paintings. A relief is however present with the rolls created from the thick paint by the accumulations of the spatula. His white backgrounds anticipate by a few months the folds reinforced with kaolin in Manzoni's Achromes.
On May 30 in Toronto, Heffel sells Figures Schématiques, oil on canvas painted in 1956. At 130 x 195 cm it is one of the largest formats executed by the artist. It is estimated $ 3M CAD, lot 018.
Black continued to invade the spaces of Borduas. He died of a heart attack in 1960 beside his just completed Composition 69. This composition in intense black is crossed at the top of the image by white slashes, in a last act of hope that reminds the zips by Barnett Newman and anticipates by two decades the Outrenoir by Soulages.
1956 Alice from Down Under
2019 SOLD for AUD 1.65M including premium
In the early 1950s Charles Blackman looks for a surrealist theme. He paints morbid scenes of Schoolgirls and Schoolboys in the sad occupations of childhood.
His wife Barbara is an avid reader despite her almost complete blindness. In 1956 she borrows a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Charles is thrilled by this extravagant story. In addition, in her fall, Alice believes that she is on her way to down under.
Charles immediately begins a series of scenes inspired by the adventures of Alice in Wonderland, as his friend Sidney Nolan was doing with the bushranger Ned Kelly. In the following year Arthur Boyd will take as theme the forbidden marriage of the half castes.
Blackman's Alice is a little girl with a haggard gaze and circled eyes, not even interested in the scale variations of furniture and objects. The morose rabbit is a witness to the action, to which it sometimes deigns to participate.
The four examples below were painted in tempera and oil on board in 1956.
The Game of Chess, 107 x 122 cm, was sold for AUD 1.8M including premium by Sotheby's Australia on November 23, 2016. Mad Hatter's tea party, 105 x 121 cm, was sold for AUD 1.9M including premium by the same auction house on November 21, 2017.
Alice on the table, 121 x 112 cm, is estimated AUD 1.5M for sale on April 10 in Sydney by Deutscher and Hackett, lot 9. A scene by night without the rabbit titled Dreaming Alice, 97 x 136 cm, is estimated AUD 1M for sale by Sotheby's Australia on April 9, lot 24, also in Sydney.
RESULTS :
Alice on the table : SOLD for AUD 1.65M including premium
Dreaming Alice : unsold
His wife Barbara is an avid reader despite her almost complete blindness. In 1956 she borrows a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Charles is thrilled by this extravagant story. In addition, in her fall, Alice believes that she is on her way to down under.
Charles immediately begins a series of scenes inspired by the adventures of Alice in Wonderland, as his friend Sidney Nolan was doing with the bushranger Ned Kelly. In the following year Arthur Boyd will take as theme the forbidden marriage of the half castes.
Blackman's Alice is a little girl with a haggard gaze and circled eyes, not even interested in the scale variations of furniture and objects. The morose rabbit is a witness to the action, to which it sometimes deigns to participate.
The four examples below were painted in tempera and oil on board in 1956.
The Game of Chess, 107 x 122 cm, was sold for AUD 1.8M including premium by Sotheby's Australia on November 23, 2016. Mad Hatter's tea party, 105 x 121 cm, was sold for AUD 1.9M including premium by the same auction house on November 21, 2017.
Alice on the table, 121 x 112 cm, is estimated AUD 1.5M for sale on April 10 in Sydney by Deutscher and Hackett, lot 9. A scene by night without the rabbit titled Dreaming Alice, 97 x 136 cm, is estimated AUD 1M for sale by Sotheby's Australia on April 9, lot 24, also in Sydney.
RESULTS :
Alice on the table : SOLD for AUD 1.65M including premium
Dreaming Alice : unsold
1956 Alberto Burri ravaged by War
2009 SOLD 820 K£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
The Second World War made the Italian Alberto Burri one of the most original artists of his generation. Prisoner in the United States, he spends time painting burlap bags.
After the war, this doctor manages his art to denounce the horrors of war. He resumes his favorite material, burlap, in shapeless subjects that display the ravages of injury. We may compare with Fautrier.
Then, before Klein, Burri experimented burned material. He produces black and white artworks based on a thin layer of acrylic and plastic. The result is inhuman, as he wished. Here, we also compare with Manzoni getting his kaolin dried to generate forms. Manzoni may have been influenced by his compatriot.
We have for sale at Christie's London on February 11 an example of Combustione Plastica of Burri, with a nice balance between black and white areas. It is dated 1956, sizing 85 x 100 cm.
It is estimated £ 800 K. From the same estimate, a work of similar inspiration, Grande Bianco Plastica, was sold £ 1.27 million inclusive by Sotheby's on 1 July 2008. It was larger (143 x 242 cm) but later (1965). Repeating another parallel with Manzoni, I observe that the price for this type of work does not necessarily depend on the size.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good: 820 K £ including premium. However, we remain well below the price of the artwork sold by Sotheby's last year.
The Second World War made the Italian Alberto Burri one of the most original artists of his generation. Prisoner in the United States, he spends time painting burlap bags.
After the war, this doctor manages his art to denounce the horrors of war. He resumes his favorite material, burlap, in shapeless subjects that display the ravages of injury. We may compare with Fautrier.
Then, before Klein, Burri experimented burned material. He produces black and white artworks based on a thin layer of acrylic and plastic. The result is inhuman, as he wished. Here, we also compare with Manzoni getting his kaolin dried to generate forms. Manzoni may have been influenced by his compatriot.
We have for sale at Christie's London on February 11 an example of Combustione Plastica of Burri, with a nice balance between black and white areas. It is dated 1956, sizing 85 x 100 cm.
It is estimated £ 800 K. From the same estimate, a work of similar inspiration, Grande Bianco Plastica, was sold £ 1.27 million inclusive by Sotheby's on 1 July 2008. It was larger (143 x 242 cm) but later (1965). Repeating another parallel with Manzoni, I observe that the price for this type of work does not necessarily depend on the size.
POST SALE COMMENT
Good: 820 K £ including premium. However, we remain well below the price of the artwork sold by Sotheby's last year.
1956 land in provence
2018 unsold
Sayed Haider Raza arrives in Paris in 1950 to finish his art studies and to immerse himself with modern Western painting. He is very early attracted by the charm of Provence. After van Gogh he expresses the relationship between humans and ground.
Gradually the juxtaposition of colors cancels the line and the atmosphere supersedes the topography. The artist likes these landscapes half in the shade that reveal the varieties of colors of the agrarian plots in contrast with the first or last sun rays on churches and houses. In this early phase of his art the specific structure of the villages in the hills of Provence is easily identifiable.
On March 19 in New York, Sotheby's sells as lot 33 a view of a village in Provence in front of a glowing sky.
This large scale oil on canvas 105 x 200 cm was painted in a heavy impasto in 1956 and exhibited in the same year at the Internazionale Biennale d'Arte di Venezia where it highly contributed to demonstrate the quality of Raza's artistic vision.
In a later phase Raza pushes up to abstraction his illustration of La Terre from Provence. An 189 x 189 cm oil on canvas painted in 1973 was sold for $ 3.1 million including premium by Christie's on March 18, 2014.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Gradually the juxtaposition of colors cancels the line and the atmosphere supersedes the topography. The artist likes these landscapes half in the shade that reveal the varieties of colors of the agrarian plots in contrast with the first or last sun rays on churches and houses. In this early phase of his art the specific structure of the villages in the hills of Provence is easily identifiable.
On March 19 in New York, Sotheby's sells as lot 33 a view of a village in Provence in front of a glowing sky.
This large scale oil on canvas 105 x 200 cm was painted in a heavy impasto in 1956 and exhibited in the same year at the Internazionale Biennale d'Arte di Venezia where it highly contributed to demonstrate the quality of Raza's artistic vision.
In a later phase Raza pushes up to abstraction his illustration of La Terre from Provence. An 189 x 189 cm oil on canvas painted in 1973 was sold for $ 3.1 million including premium by Christie's on March 18, 2014.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1956 the french experiments of joan mitchell
2015 unsold
Joan Mitchell is one of the best figures of the second generation of abstract expressionism. She is inspired by the colors of nature in works that seem violent and impulsive but are in fact highly architected.
In two subsequent years, 1955 and 1956, she has her summer time in France. She joins the important Parisian artistic community and her style changes, renouncing to use a geometric grammar. The 'experiment' (in her own words) is successful as she will move permanently in Paris in 1959.
The violence of the hand, the zigzags, the desire to express the nature through abstraction make her art close to Pollock's, but Mitchell's strong temperament does not necessarily accepts models. Unlike Pollock, she uses a wide brush to perform her long lines of bright and pure colors. She develops an obsession against the drippings of paint that she takes away as soon as she sees them.
On November 10 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on canvas 195 x 185 cm painted in 1956, lot 30B estimated $ 6M.
This abstract painting is dominated by her favorite color, green, increasingly inspired by the French forests. The diversity and brilliance of the other colors anticipate her angers of the following years. The white background, which she considers necessary, provides the contrast.
In two subsequent years, 1955 and 1956, she has her summer time in France. She joins the important Parisian artistic community and her style changes, renouncing to use a geometric grammar. The 'experiment' (in her own words) is successful as she will move permanently in Paris in 1959.
The violence of the hand, the zigzags, the desire to express the nature through abstraction make her art close to Pollock's, but Mitchell's strong temperament does not necessarily accepts models. Unlike Pollock, she uses a wide brush to perform her long lines of bright and pure colors. She develops an obsession against the drippings of paint that she takes away as soon as she sees them.
On November 10 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on canvas 195 x 185 cm painted in 1956, lot 30B estimated $ 6M.
This abstract painting is dominated by her favorite color, green, increasingly inspired by the French forests. The diversity and brilliance of the other colors anticipate her angers of the following years. The white background, which she considers necessary, provides the contrast.
1956 BY PARK SOO-KEUN
2010 UNSOLD
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
We already know Park Soo-keun. In August 2008, I introduced him in this group as a Korean pointillist artist whose uncommon personal style attracted the enthusiasm of collectors. A small oil painting, 17 x 34 cm, showing an outdoor scene typical of the artist, was sold $ 800K including premium at Christie's.
Today the Korean press is excited by the portrait of a woman sitting in front of a basket of fruit, for sale by John McInnis in Ogunquit, Maine, on July 16. Such theme is also typical of the work of Park. Christie's sold $ 1.2 million including premium on 23 March 2004 a woman with jar, 65 x 53 cm, close to abstraction.
The oil and mixed media on board dated 1956, 26 x 21 cm, for sale at McInnis has a more classic design, and is estimated $ 200K. Another painting of the same artist was sold for $ 460 K in the same auction house in October 2008.
We already know Park Soo-keun. In August 2008, I introduced him in this group as a Korean pointillist artist whose uncommon personal style attracted the enthusiasm of collectors. A small oil painting, 17 x 34 cm, showing an outdoor scene typical of the artist, was sold $ 800K including premium at Christie's.
Today the Korean press is excited by the portrait of a woman sitting in front of a basket of fruit, for sale by John McInnis in Ogunquit, Maine, on July 16. Such theme is also typical of the work of Park. Christie's sold $ 1.2 million including premium on 23 March 2004 a woman with jar, 65 x 53 cm, close to abstraction.
The oil and mixed media on board dated 1956, 26 x 21 cm, for sale at McInnis has a more classic design, and is estimated $ 200K. Another painting of the same artist was sold for $ 460 K in the same auction house in October 2008.
1957 The Intense Light of Sam Francis
2016 SOLD for $ 11.8M including premium
Sam Francis had been a sensitive teenager inspired by music. During the war, he becomes an aviator but a crash in military maneuvers immobilizes him in hospital for many months. He finds a psychological comfort in the illusion of infinity. He will be an artist.
He lives in California where he is lucky to meet Still and Rothko in the early phase of definition of abstract expressionism. Sam Francis considers his own art as a healing glare and uses the brightest colors to express the light. Colors are fighting together with the arbitration of the blue, as often with Rothko. Like with Still, their balance gets rid of any geometric structure.
Sam Francis soon finds his own style, positioning his colors on large canvases with a freedom comparable to Kline's Action painting. America is not enough for him. He immerses himself in Asian culture and Zen and set up his studio in Paris where he is considered as a leader of tachisme. With another inspiration, Joan Mitchell is painting explosions of pure colors in the same violence.
On May 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells Summer # 1, lot 17estimated $ 8M, oil on canvas 243 x 183 cm painted by Sam Francis in 1957.
He lives in California where he is lucky to meet Still and Rothko in the early phase of definition of abstract expressionism. Sam Francis considers his own art as a healing glare and uses the brightest colors to express the light. Colors are fighting together with the arbitration of the blue, as often with Rothko. Like with Still, their balance gets rid of any geometric structure.
Sam Francis soon finds his own style, positioning his colors on large canvases with a freedom comparable to Kline's Action painting. America is not enough for him. He immerses himself in Asian culture and Zen and set up his studio in Paris where he is considered as a leader of tachisme. With another inspiration, Joan Mitchell is painting explosions of pure colors in the same violence.
On May 11 in New York, Sotheby's sells Summer # 1, lot 17estimated $ 8M, oil on canvas 243 x 183 cm painted by Sam Francis in 1957.
1957 Surrealist Music
2013 SOLD 5 M£ including premium
Music maintained an ambiguous relationship with surrealism. On one hand it is accessible to everyone, but it is also performed in the quiet salons of the bourgeoisie hated by the young artists.
On June 19 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas, 84 x 115 cm, painted by Dali in 1957, entitled La Musique, estimated £ 4.5 M. Here is the link to the catalog.
This painting was made on an order from Billy Rose, one of the top entertainers of Broadway, songwriter and owner of theaters and nightclubs. Dali had painted in 1943 for Rose's Ziegfeld Theater a set of seven paintings symbolizing the seven arts, but all were burned in 1956 and Dali agreed to redo them.
The composition displays a perfect Dalinian complexity. A curtain in aggressive red occupies almost the entire surface, symbolizing the world of theater, but it turns off into a landscape.
The curtain is also the stage that supports the pianist and the cellist, both expressing their passion. The disintegrated pianist is reduced to head and limbs. The open lid of his instrument is decorated with bats. The cello turns into a human being held by his musician like in a diabolic waltz.
Everything is hot in the atmosphere of this image for Broadway. The subtitle, L'Orchestre Rouge, is also ambiguous: it may be an allusion to the Jewish origins of Billy Rosenberg.
POST SALE COMMENT
This disturbing painting by Dali remained in the region of its lower estimate. It was sold for £ 5M including premium.
On June 19 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas, 84 x 115 cm, painted by Dali in 1957, entitled La Musique, estimated £ 4.5 M. Here is the link to the catalog.
This painting was made on an order from Billy Rose, one of the top entertainers of Broadway, songwriter and owner of theaters and nightclubs. Dali had painted in 1943 for Rose's Ziegfeld Theater a set of seven paintings symbolizing the seven arts, but all were burned in 1956 and Dali agreed to redo them.
The composition displays a perfect Dalinian complexity. A curtain in aggressive red occupies almost the entire surface, symbolizing the world of theater, but it turns off into a landscape.
The curtain is also the stage that supports the pianist and the cellist, both expressing their passion. The disintegrated pianist is reduced to head and limbs. The open lid of his instrument is decorated with bats. The cello turns into a human being held by his musician like in a diabolic waltz.
Everything is hot in the atmosphere of this image for Broadway. The subtitle, L'Orchestre Rouge, is also ambiguous: it may be an allusion to the Jewish origins of Billy Rosenberg.
POST SALE COMMENT
This disturbing painting by Dali remained in the region of its lower estimate. It was sold for £ 5M including premium.
1957 Soulages ready for America
2020 SOLD for € 4.4M including premium
1957 was a key year in the career of Pierre Soulages. Americans do not like the intellectual narrative that prevails in French art, and the monochromes by Yves Klein have not yet left Europe. They like the apparent simplicity of Soulages.
In New York, the Kootz Gallery is organizing its fourth solo exhibition of paintings by Soulages. The MoMA, the Guggenheim museum and Nelson Rockefeller are appealed by his work. In November he makes his first trip to the United States where he is impressed by the skyscrapers and meets Motherwell and Rothko. In Paris he moves to a new, larger workshop, more conducive to the development of his art.
On June 24 in Paris, Sotheby's sells Peinture 130 x 162 cm 14 avril 1957, lot 7 estimated € 3M. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
Painted before his trip, this oil on canvas is however already under the influence of abstract expressionism, which it joins by the absence of narration and of perspective but from which it stands out by its quiet harmony.
Seen from afar, this work structured in three slightly rising registers could be an imitation of the gestural occupation of space by Franz Kline. It is not so. The blue and black elements aligned on the three bars are not violent brushstrokes but careful stackings including refined transparencies. The composition is very airy, bringing an illusion of musicality.
In New York, the Kootz Gallery is organizing its fourth solo exhibition of paintings by Soulages. The MoMA, the Guggenheim museum and Nelson Rockefeller are appealed by his work. In November he makes his first trip to the United States where he is impressed by the skyscrapers and meets Motherwell and Rothko. In Paris he moves to a new, larger workshop, more conducive to the development of his art.
On June 24 in Paris, Sotheby's sells Peinture 130 x 162 cm 14 avril 1957, lot 7 estimated € 3M. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
Painted before his trip, this oil on canvas is however already under the influence of abstract expressionism, which it joins by the absence of narration and of perspective but from which it stands out by its quiet harmony.
Seen from afar, this work structured in three slightly rising registers could be an imitation of the gestural occupation of space by Franz Kline. It is not so. The blue and black elements aligned on the three bars are not violent brushstrokes but careful stackings including refined transparencies. The composition is very airy, bringing an illusion of musicality.
1957 The Cynical Laughter of FN Souza
2015 SOLD for Rs 16.8 crore including premium
The art of FN Souza is a revolt against the incurable hypocrisy of society. His characters form a personal universe that meets the world of Wifredo Lam by the recurrence of forms, the efficiency of the line and the third-world violence.
Souza has not supported his Christian education. The artistic avant-garde movements that start in Bombay in 1947 were however premature. He goes into exile in London in 1949 and lives in near poverty, fortunately avoided by the help of his communist friends and an occupation in activist journalism.
A paltry autobiography published in 1955 in a magazine draws the attention to his art that begins to circulate. The American collector Harold Kovner discovered the originality and strength of Souza's artistic message. He immediately became his patron.
The artist has no longer limits to express his energy and aggressiveness, like Basquiat in a New York basement a quarter of a century later. His style does not fundamentally change, inspired by the grotesque features in Christian hagiographic portraits, but the attitudes are becoming more varied and less directly anti-religious.
Laughter is an extreme of hypocrisy for this artist who can not or will not be cool or funny. On September 10 in New Delhi, Saffronart sells Man and Woman laughing, oil on masonite 152 x 122 cm painted in 1957, lot 34 estimated Rs 15 crore equivalent to US $ 2.3M.
Souza has not supported his Christian education. The artistic avant-garde movements that start in Bombay in 1947 were however premature. He goes into exile in London in 1949 and lives in near poverty, fortunately avoided by the help of his communist friends and an occupation in activist journalism.
A paltry autobiography published in 1955 in a magazine draws the attention to his art that begins to circulate. The American collector Harold Kovner discovered the originality and strength of Souza's artistic message. He immediately became his patron.
The artist has no longer limits to express his energy and aggressiveness, like Basquiat in a New York basement a quarter of a century later. His style does not fundamentally change, inspired by the grotesque features in Christian hagiographic portraits, but the attitudes are becoming more varied and less directly anti-religious.
Laughter is an extreme of hypocrisy for this artist who can not or will not be cool or funny. On September 10 in New Delhi, Saffronart sells Man and Woman laughing, oil on masonite 152 x 122 cm painted in 1957, lot 34 estimated Rs 15 crore equivalent to US $ 2.3M.
1957 A Wedding from Down Under
2012 SOLD 1.68 MA$ including premium
The young Australian intellectuals are shocked by World War II. They react by a social criticism closer to Dada than to Surrealism, exacerbating the nonsense of modern society.
The magazine Angry Penguins, which is a cleverly chosen name, is the fer-de-lance of this movement. In literature, its most famous act was a hoax when they invented the poet Ern Malley.
The Ned Kelly series by Sidney Nolan, glorifying one of the worst adventurers of the bush, opens up an entirely new and deeply original Australian art, figurative, narrative and sarcastic.
Arthur Boyd was close to Nolan, who will later become his brother-in-law, and also of John Brack, one of the harshest critics of the established society.
In 1957, Boyd made a series of paintings on the theme of love, marriage and death of the half castes. The groom is shaggy and bearded, somehow a brother of Ned Kelly. He is sometimes presented dead in his too tight coffin.
On August 14 in Melbourne, Sotheby's Australia sells Bride running away by Boyd, an oil and tempera 91 x 121 cm in the style of a child's drawing. The bride escapes her ugly man, who tends his arms in vain to restrain her.
This is an important artwork of the maturity of this young artist who will thereafter make a successful career. It is estimated AUD 1.4 M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The estimate was ambitious for a work of this artist, but the sale of this lot is successful: AUD 1.4 million excluding costs, 1.68 million including premium, exactly matching the lower estimate.
The magazine Angry Penguins, which is a cleverly chosen name, is the fer-de-lance of this movement. In literature, its most famous act was a hoax when they invented the poet Ern Malley.
The Ned Kelly series by Sidney Nolan, glorifying one of the worst adventurers of the bush, opens up an entirely new and deeply original Australian art, figurative, narrative and sarcastic.
Arthur Boyd was close to Nolan, who will later become his brother-in-law, and also of John Brack, one of the harshest critics of the established society.
In 1957, Boyd made a series of paintings on the theme of love, marriage and death of the half castes. The groom is shaggy and bearded, somehow a brother of Ned Kelly. He is sometimes presented dead in his too tight coffin.
On August 14 in Melbourne, Sotheby's Australia sells Bride running away by Boyd, an oil and tempera 91 x 121 cm in the style of a child's drawing. The bride escapes her ugly man, who tends his arms in vain to restrain her.
This is an important artwork of the maturity of this young artist who will thereafter make a successful career. It is estimated AUD 1.4 M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The estimate was ambitious for a work of this artist, but the sale of this lot is successful: AUD 1.4 million excluding costs, 1.68 million including premium, exactly matching the lower estimate.
1957 Australia features John Brack
2008 SOLD 1.5 MA$ including premium
Deutscher and Hackett sells in Melbourne on 27 and 28 August an oil on canvas by John Brack titled The Boucher Nude and dated 1957 (81 x 146 cm, lot 20).
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald dated August 16 tells us that the price of 1.4 MA$ waited on this work is not high when we consider the recent auction results on this artist.
Indeed, the value of Brack has climbed sharply on April 11, 2006 when Sotheby's sold a painting in Melbourne for 3.1 MA$. In 2007, four results in the million Australian dollars were obtained, one of which slightly exceeding the 2006 record price. The Sydney Morning Herald considers that the latter price, at 3.3 MA$ at Sotheby's, represents the highest bid for an Australian painting.
The theme of The Boucher Nude is a naked woman lookink like a housewife, lying on her stomach, legs up, on a sofa in a room located in the suburbs. The character and her colors, with an aggressive yellow skin, are voluntarily incongruous. She raises her shoulders and looks reluctant.
A double nude of similar inspiration, much larger but much more recent, was sold at $ 1.3 MA$ by Deutscher-Menzies on December 5, 2007 in Sydney.
POST SALE COMMENTS
Lot 20 was sold for 1.5 MA$ including premium.
An article in the Sydney Morning Herald dated August 16 tells us that the price of 1.4 MA$ waited on this work is not high when we consider the recent auction results on this artist.
Indeed, the value of Brack has climbed sharply on April 11, 2006 when Sotheby's sold a painting in Melbourne for 3.1 MA$. In 2007, four results in the million Australian dollars were obtained, one of which slightly exceeding the 2006 record price. The Sydney Morning Herald considers that the latter price, at 3.3 MA$ at Sotheby's, represents the highest bid for an Australian painting.
The theme of The Boucher Nude is a naked woman lookink like a housewife, lying on her stomach, legs up, on a sofa in a room located in the suburbs. The character and her colors, with an aggressive yellow skin, are voluntarily incongruous. She raises her shoulders and looks reluctant.
A double nude of similar inspiration, much larger but much more recent, was sold at $ 1.3 MA$ by Deutscher-Menzies on December 5, 2007 in Sydney.
POST SALE COMMENTS
Lot 20 was sold for 1.5 MA$ including premium.
1957 OSKAR KOKOSCHKA, ANXIOUS LANDSCAPE PAINTER
2008 SOLD 17.5 M CZK BEFORE FEES BY 1.ART CONSULTING
2009 UNSOLD
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Expressionism is a translation of anxiety, and Kokoschka is one of the most famous artists of this trend. His nervous and swirling line makes strange and hostile the landscapes of major cities. He was a sort of Soutine of topographic cityscapes, and felt that his art is political.
He likes big cities and their animation. In 1957, he painted the harbour of Chelsea in London. The horizon is very rounded, and the vessels are oriented in all directions, ready to face. The sky and the river are interspersed with spots of color that leave no gap.
On 4 February 2008 in Prague, the auction house 1.Art Consulting was selling this oil on canvas, 75 x 100 cm, at 17.5 million CZK excluding fees. The Czech press happily indicated that it was the highest hammer price recorded in an art auction sale in that country.
I have not found any difference between this work and the one that will be for sale by Bonhams in London on June 23. It is certainly the same, although the catalog does not provide such information: it is hard to imagine that the nervous brush stroke of the artist could produce an exact copy of one of his paintings. After all, selling in London, first art place in the world in 2008, a painting that shows that city is quite logical.
It is estimated £ 700 K, i.e. K £ 130 more than the price reached in Prague.
Expressionism is a translation of anxiety, and Kokoschka is one of the most famous artists of this trend. His nervous and swirling line makes strange and hostile the landscapes of major cities. He was a sort of Soutine of topographic cityscapes, and felt that his art is political.
He likes big cities and their animation. In 1957, he painted the harbour of Chelsea in London. The horizon is very rounded, and the vessels are oriented in all directions, ready to face. The sky and the river are interspersed with spots of color that leave no gap.
On 4 February 2008 in Prague, the auction house 1.Art Consulting was selling this oil on canvas, 75 x 100 cm, at 17.5 million CZK excluding fees. The Czech press happily indicated that it was the highest hammer price recorded in an art auction sale in that country.
I have not found any difference between this work and the one that will be for sale by Bonhams in London on June 23. It is certainly the same, although the catalog does not provide such information: it is hard to imagine that the nervous brush stroke of the artist could produce an exact copy of one of his paintings. After all, selling in London, first art place in the world in 2008, a painting that shows that city is quite logical.
It is estimated £ 700 K, i.e. K £ 130 more than the price reached in Prague.
1957 Post-War Combustions
2018 unsold
Shocked by the horrors of war, Alberto Burri saw that no pre-existing art fits his new vision. Before developing a personal art, he visited Miro and Dubuffet in Paris in 1948. He understands the assassination of the painting promulgated by Miro in 1930 : art must come out of all conventional practices.
Like Dubuffet, Burri uses burlap. He goes further than Dubuffet by using this ordinary material not like a canvas but as the essential element of his art to which he adds large monochrome areas in the most aggressive colors, very bright red, black and sometimes ochre.
In the mid-1950s, Burri adds fire to his process. He tries in parallel the rapid burning of plastics and the slow burning of wood veneer which is easier to control by the operator.
By their automatic evolution after the firing, his combustions of plastics will open the way to the flows of kaolin by Manzoni and to the epic combustions by Yves Klein. The cosmic effect in his use of painting is subsequent to Barnett Newman but stimulates Fontana.
On November 15 in New York, Phillips sells Grande Legno e Rosso which is his largest artwork to include a wood burning, 150 x 250 cm. Exhibited as early as 1957, it is however dated 57-59. This wood, acrylic and combustion on canvas is estimated $ 10M, lot 6. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
Like Dubuffet, Burri uses burlap. He goes further than Dubuffet by using this ordinary material not like a canvas but as the essential element of his art to which he adds large monochrome areas in the most aggressive colors, very bright red, black and sometimes ochre.
In the mid-1950s, Burri adds fire to his process. He tries in parallel the rapid burning of plastics and the slow burning of wood veneer which is easier to control by the operator.
By their automatic evolution after the firing, his combustions of plastics will open the way to the flows of kaolin by Manzoni and to the epic combustions by Yves Klein. The cosmic effect in his use of painting is subsequent to Barnett Newman but stimulates Fontana.
On November 15 in New York, Phillips sells Grande Legno e Rosso which is his largest artwork to include a wood burning, 150 x 250 cm. Exhibited as early as 1957, it is however dated 57-59. This wood, acrylic and combustion on canvas is estimated $ 10M, lot 6. Please watch the video prepared by the auction house.
1957 THE CONTROL TOWER OF POP ART
2011 UNSOLD
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In 1957, we still do not know Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein. In the entourage of the dealer Leo Castelli, Jasper Johnsand Robert Rauschenberg are pioneering a new approach to art. Their workshops are in the same building in New York.
Rauschenberg's breakthrough is the introduction into art of the accumulation of miscellaneous objects. In the spirit ofDuchamp's ready mades, he uses resolutely contemporary artefacts. He goes further by the variety of materials andnot rejecting waste. Rauschenberg is not only an immediate predecessor of pop art, but he is also the earliestprecursor of installation art.
On May 11 in New York, Christie's sells The Tower, direct from the former collection Ganz.
3 meters high on a 114 x 89 cm base, estimated $ 12M, this assembly is a monument. It is illustrated in the articleshared by Art Market Monitor. Two adjacent elements rise to the ceiling: kitchen shelves topped by an open umbrella, and a board on which the artist placed a broom. A lamp illuminates the times: the 1950s.
In 1957, we still do not know Andy Warhol or Roy Lichtenstein. In the entourage of the dealer Leo Castelli, Jasper Johnsand Robert Rauschenberg are pioneering a new approach to art. Their workshops are in the same building in New York.
Rauschenberg's breakthrough is the introduction into art of the accumulation of miscellaneous objects. In the spirit ofDuchamp's ready mades, he uses resolutely contemporary artefacts. He goes further by the variety of materials andnot rejecting waste. Rauschenberg is not only an immediate predecessor of pop art, but he is also the earliestprecursor of installation art.
On May 11 in New York, Christie's sells The Tower, direct from the former collection Ganz.
3 meters high on a 114 x 89 cm base, estimated $ 12M, this assembly is a monument. It is illustrated in the articleshared by Art Market Monitor. Two adjacent elements rise to the ceiling: kitchen shelves topped by an open umbrella, and a board on which the artist placed a broom. A lamp illuminates the times: the 1950s.
1957-1958 The Impossible Marriage of the Half-Castes
2015 SOLD for A$ 1.6M including premium
Born into a family of artists, Arthur Boyd discovers in 1951 the shocking misery of the half-castes while traveling in the deserts of central Australia.
This wording refers to illegitimate children of white colonials and Aboriginals. The Australian government, in several official documents from 1886, did not provide a satisfactory political solution to their plight. Under the excuse of protecting the races, they were removed from their families on both sides and subjected to an almost absolute apartheid.
Heavy restrictions on marriage inspired to Boyd from 1957 a series of paintings depicting various scenes of love, marriage and death of a half-caste. The white dress of the bride brings a shiny contrast to the physical and moral distress of the husband. This set altogether narrative and activist is conceived with much humor.
Bride running away, 92 x 122 cm, painted in 1957, shows the bride seeking to escape the bridegroom who desperately tends his arms. This work was sold for AUD 1.68 million including premium by Sotheby's Australia on August 14, 2012.
On The frightened bridegroom, 62 x 63 cm, painted in 1958, the blue skinned Aboriginal man is alone, curled up in a gloomy surrounding yet illuminated by a ghostly light which is like a souvenir of the wedding. This work was sold for AUD 1.2 million including premium by the same auction house on August 23, 2011.
On November 24 in Sydney, Sotheby's Australia sells Sleeping Bride, oil and tempera on canvas 92 x 122 cm painted in 1957 or 1958, lot 17 estimated AUD 1M. The bride is alone, her blue face and her bouquet on the ground. Birds are watching. The veils are bright white, but an insect is walking therein.
This wording refers to illegitimate children of white colonials and Aboriginals. The Australian government, in several official documents from 1886, did not provide a satisfactory political solution to their plight. Under the excuse of protecting the races, they were removed from their families on both sides and subjected to an almost absolute apartheid.
Heavy restrictions on marriage inspired to Boyd from 1957 a series of paintings depicting various scenes of love, marriage and death of a half-caste. The white dress of the bride brings a shiny contrast to the physical and moral distress of the husband. This set altogether narrative and activist is conceived with much humor.
Bride running away, 92 x 122 cm, painted in 1957, shows the bride seeking to escape the bridegroom who desperately tends his arms. This work was sold for AUD 1.68 million including premium by Sotheby's Australia on August 14, 2012.
On The frightened bridegroom, 62 x 63 cm, painted in 1958, the blue skinned Aboriginal man is alone, curled up in a gloomy surrounding yet illuminated by a ghostly light which is like a souvenir of the wedding. This work was sold for AUD 1.2 million including premium by the same auction house on August 23, 2011.
On November 24 in Sydney, Sotheby's Australia sells Sleeping Bride, oil and tempera on canvas 92 x 122 cm painted in 1957 or 1958, lot 17 estimated AUD 1M. The bride is alone, her blue face and her bouquet on the ground. Birds are watching. The veils are bright white, but an insect is walking therein.
1958 From Monochrome to Achrome
2016 SOLD for £ 5.6M including premium
Yves Klein challenges the relationship of the artwork with the artist and with the viewer. His Monochromes can not evoke any kind of figuration. As with Mondrian, the perfectly applied layer is not disturbed by an effect from the brush.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his exhibition choose the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is shocked by this interpretation. Henceforth, all his monochromes shall be in Klein's blue. Klein patents his IKB. The artist has become a color engineer.
Piero Manzoni visits in Milan in 1957 an exhibition of eleven identical IKB monochromes. Manzoni's own surrealist Genus in oil and tar were already almost multiples, like the IKBs. Manzoni is now inspired by Klein while suppressing the color. His Achromes will exist by and for themselves. They are a culmination of the intuition by Malevich of the depersonalization of art and of the supremacy of texture.
Manzoni pleats his canvas before pouring the liquid kaolin. He does not control the blisters and drippings brought to his artwork during the final drying phase. This approach anticipates Klein's other practices by which the hand of the artist does not touch the hardware support: works made with the flamethrower or by bodies of women. An artist was formerly a painter, he is now a designer, an operator and a master of ceremonies. The happening has penetrated the art.
The Achromes by Manzoni are somehow made in multiple series. The most spectacular in their apparent simplicity show a network of smoothly undulating horizontal folds between two plain areas. One of them, 80 x 100 cm, made in 1958, is estimated £ 5M for sale by Phillips in London on February 9, lot 14. I invite you to watch the video shared by the auction house.
Klein was too ahead of his time. Visitors to his exhibition choose the colors as if they were in a decorator's shop. The artist is shocked by this interpretation. Henceforth, all his monochromes shall be in Klein's blue. Klein patents his IKB. The artist has become a color engineer.
Piero Manzoni visits in Milan in 1957 an exhibition of eleven identical IKB monochromes. Manzoni's own surrealist Genus in oil and tar were already almost multiples, like the IKBs. Manzoni is now inspired by Klein while suppressing the color. His Achromes will exist by and for themselves. They are a culmination of the intuition by Malevich of the depersonalization of art and of the supremacy of texture.
Manzoni pleats his canvas before pouring the liquid kaolin. He does not control the blisters and drippings brought to his artwork during the final drying phase. This approach anticipates Klein's other practices by which the hand of the artist does not touch the hardware support: works made with the flamethrower or by bodies of women. An artist was formerly a painter, he is now a designer, an operator and a master of ceremonies. The happening has penetrated the art.
The Achromes by Manzoni are somehow made in multiple series. The most spectacular in their apparent simplicity show a network of smoothly undulating horizontal folds between two plain areas. One of them, 80 x 100 cm, made in 1958, is estimated £ 5M for sale by Phillips in London on February 9, lot 14. I invite you to watch the video shared by the auction house.
1958 A Pope in Tangier
2019 SOLD for $ 6.6M including premium
Since 1952 Francis Bacon is madly in love with Peter Lacy. Europe is not favorable to homosexuality and Peter settles in Tangier. From 1956 Francis visits him frequently. He works a lot despite the sadistic violence of his lover. Disillusioned by these increasingly insupportable conditions and by Peter's lack of interest in his art, Francis breaks up in 1959 and destroys almost all his Tangier paintings.
Throughout this decade, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together, obviously, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father, over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world.
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The throne no longer hides that it is nothing but a filiform cage. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite. The cheeks are emaciated. The gaze is increasingly divergent. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
An oil on canvas 190 x 148 cm painted during the Tangier period was sold for € 4.6M including premium by Sotheby's on May 26, 2008.
On November 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells a very similar composition, lot 23 estimated $ 6M, on behalf of the Brooklyn Museum to support the museum collection. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This oil on canvas 196 x 142 cm probably painted in 1958 is one of the very rare examples for which the Moroccan origin is indisputable. When he closed his workshop in Tangier, Francis presented it with four other works to a friend whom he invited to recover the canvases for his own use. The friend preferred to keep the paintings.
Throughout this decade, his two major themes are the portraits of the ordinary man and the reinterpretations of the Velazquez pope. The two series match together, obviously, nourished by the Freudian horror of the abusive authority of the father, over the great question of the meaning of life in a hostile world.
The popes of the Moroccan period have a very limited resemblance with Innocent X and lost the scream of the Potemkin. The throne no longer hides that it is nothing but a filiform cage. The mouth is open on a sharp set of teeth ready to bite. The cheeks are emaciated. The gaze is increasingly divergent. The face is painted in a thick impasto that reveals the violence of the gesture of the artist.
An oil on canvas 190 x 148 cm painted during the Tangier period was sold for € 4.6M including premium by Sotheby's on May 26, 2008.
On November 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells a very similar composition, lot 23 estimated $ 6M, on behalf of the Brooklyn Museum to support the museum collection. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
This oil on canvas 196 x 142 cm probably painted in 1958 is one of the very rare examples for which the Moroccan origin is indisputable. When he closed his workshop in Tangier, Francis presented it with four other works to a friend whom he invited to recover the canvases for his own use. The friend preferred to keep the paintings.
1958 Gospel according to Stanley Spencer
2018 SOLD for £ 3.4M including premium
A painter of Christian allegories, Stanley Spencer had a good career. He was knighted in 1958. In Cookham, his hometown along the Thames river, he is an eccentric figure, wearing pyjamas under his suit to keep warm and pushing the old pram that carries his painting equipment.
With fame having come, Spencer is restarting around 1950 his very ancient Church House project that will bring together anything that he loves or has lost, or rather the synthesis of his innumerable mystical, social and sexual obsessions.
In the wake of William Blake, he conceives the Resurrection as a future reality. Eden, inaccessible to lower class mortals, is symbolized by Cookham regattas and the frustration of his childhood when he did not have enough money to access the punts.
His marital life is messy. He married Hilda in 1925 after three years of hesitation and later divorced to marry Patricia, a lesbian who had involuntarily caused in her youth the drowning of a poet. Patricia refuses both heterosexual relations and divorce and Spencer paints and draws her figure in obscene portraits that upset the Royal Academy.
He had remained in love with Hilda, the mother of his two daughters. When she dies in 1950, Spencer begins to write to her for informing the deceased about the progress of the Church House.
The main theme of the project is Christ preaching at Cookham regatta, for which the artist makes six preparatory paintings showing mainly the crowd waiting in the punts for the Resurrection. From this series, Conversation Between Punts, 107 x 92 cm painted in 1955, was sold for £ 6M including premium by Christie's on November 20, 2013.
In a similar inspiration The bathing pool - dogs, 92 x 61 cm painted in 1957, was sold for £ 4.2M including premium by Sotheby's on June 15, 2011. This artwork joins the themes of social spare time with water and of the ghostly appearance of the artist as a young man.
On June 12 in London, Sotheby's sells the last of the six preliminary canvases of Christ preaching, subtitled Punts by the river, 100 x 153 cm made in 1958, lot 12 estimated £ 3M.
Four young women in light summer dresses talk nicely on the boat. Their intertwined arms and legs create a desirable accumulation of flesh. In the background a naked angel is docking to their boat in an impossible floating position. He is another self-portrait of the artist in his rejuvenating fantasies.
The result of all this preparation is a 5.20 m wide painting where Christ will finally appear. This monumental work is interrupted forever by the death of the artist in 1959.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
With fame having come, Spencer is restarting around 1950 his very ancient Church House project that will bring together anything that he loves or has lost, or rather the synthesis of his innumerable mystical, social and sexual obsessions.
In the wake of William Blake, he conceives the Resurrection as a future reality. Eden, inaccessible to lower class mortals, is symbolized by Cookham regattas and the frustration of his childhood when he did not have enough money to access the punts.
His marital life is messy. He married Hilda in 1925 after three years of hesitation and later divorced to marry Patricia, a lesbian who had involuntarily caused in her youth the drowning of a poet. Patricia refuses both heterosexual relations and divorce and Spencer paints and draws her figure in obscene portraits that upset the Royal Academy.
He had remained in love with Hilda, the mother of his two daughters. When she dies in 1950, Spencer begins to write to her for informing the deceased about the progress of the Church House.
The main theme of the project is Christ preaching at Cookham regatta, for which the artist makes six preparatory paintings showing mainly the crowd waiting in the punts for the Resurrection. From this series, Conversation Between Punts, 107 x 92 cm painted in 1955, was sold for £ 6M including premium by Christie's on November 20, 2013.
In a similar inspiration The bathing pool - dogs, 92 x 61 cm painted in 1957, was sold for £ 4.2M including premium by Sotheby's on June 15, 2011. This artwork joins the themes of social spare time with water and of the ghostly appearance of the artist as a young man.
On June 12 in London, Sotheby's sells the last of the six preliminary canvases of Christ preaching, subtitled Punts by the river, 100 x 153 cm made in 1958, lot 12 estimated £ 3M.
Four young women in light summer dresses talk nicely on the boat. Their intertwined arms and legs create a desirable accumulation of flesh. In the background a naked angel is docking to their boat in an impossible floating position. He is another self-portrait of the artist in his rejuvenating fantasies.
The result of all this preparation is a 5.20 m wide painting where Christ will finally appear. This monumental work is interrupted forever by the death of the artist in 1959.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1958 The Gorgeous Dark of Pierre Soulages
2014 SOLD for £ 2.66M including premium
The abstract art by Pierre Soulages is entirely related to his own inspiration. As a teenager, he had admired how the black trunks and leafless branches increased the beauty of a snow scenery.
All his work shows the power relation between dark and colors. The black also manages to reflect light. It confronts the other colors but is not homogeneous and accepts flashes or spots. The shape of these dark areas is developed in a gradual brushwork without preconceived drawing, only achieved when the artist is happy with the result.
Of course, we may compare Soulages with the abstract expressionists of the United States. His search for the absolute reflects Newman but the tensions between colors rather refers to Still.
In 1958, while Yves Klein is experimenting with new colors, Soulages improves his palette. If the background color is gorgeous, the contrast offered by the black areas will be even brighter.
On October 17 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas titled 'Peinture 125 x 202 cm 30 Octobre 1958', lot 29 estimated £ 2M.
The dark structure perforated or transparent in places invades a golden yellow background with a shadow at its outline which is reminiscent of the lavish transitions by Rothko or Zao Wou-ki.
All his work shows the power relation between dark and colors. The black also manages to reflect light. It confronts the other colors but is not homogeneous and accepts flashes or spots. The shape of these dark areas is developed in a gradual brushwork without preconceived drawing, only achieved when the artist is happy with the result.
Of course, we may compare Soulages with the abstract expressionists of the United States. His search for the absolute reflects Newman but the tensions between colors rather refers to Still.
In 1958, while Yves Klein is experimenting with new colors, Soulages improves his palette. If the background color is gorgeous, the contrast offered by the black areas will be even brighter.
On October 17 in London, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas titled 'Peinture 125 x 202 cm 30 Octobre 1958', lot 29 estimated £ 2M.
The dark structure perforated or transparent in places invades a golden yellow background with a shadow at its outline which is reminiscent of the lavish transitions by Rothko or Zao Wou-ki.
1958 RAM KUMAR ALONE IN THE CITY
2010 SOLD 170 K£ BEFORE FEES
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Alone in his head among the multitude of the city: it was a recurring theme throughout the twentieth century.
Ram Kumar was originally a figurative artist. Student of Lhote, he was particularly influenced by his flatly geometric post-Cubism.
His masterpiece at auction is an oil on board, 121 x 61 cm, made in 1956, sold $ 1.16 million including premium at Christie's on March 20, 2008. Its title, Vagabond, is significant: the two characters, as anonymous as the Berliners of Kirchner, are not misers but ordinary citizens wearing suit and tie.
On July 29 in Penzance, David Lay sells an oil on canvas made in 1958 titled In the City, illustrated in a page shared by This Is Cornwall. The urban landscape is as repellent as that around the Vagabond, but the main character is more discreet.
Less strong psychologically, this work will not reach the price of Vagabond. Conversely, I do not copy the estimate reported in This Is Cornwall, which is too low in the opinion of the auctioneer himself.
POST SALE COMMENT
Success. In the City was sold 170 K £ before fees. The buyer is a collector of New Delhi.
With 67 x 89 cm, it was both smaller and less interesting than the painting sold at Christie's in 2008, but it was obviously better than its estimate of £ 30K.
Alone in his head among the multitude of the city: it was a recurring theme throughout the twentieth century.
Ram Kumar was originally a figurative artist. Student of Lhote, he was particularly influenced by his flatly geometric post-Cubism.
His masterpiece at auction is an oil on board, 121 x 61 cm, made in 1956, sold $ 1.16 million including premium at Christie's on March 20, 2008. Its title, Vagabond, is significant: the two characters, as anonymous as the Berliners of Kirchner, are not misers but ordinary citizens wearing suit and tie.
On July 29 in Penzance, David Lay sells an oil on canvas made in 1958 titled In the City, illustrated in a page shared by This Is Cornwall. The urban landscape is as repellent as that around the Vagabond, but the main character is more discreet.
Less strong psychologically, this work will not reach the price of Vagabond. Conversely, I do not copy the estimate reported in This Is Cornwall, which is too low in the opinion of the auctioneer himself.
POST SALE COMMENT
Success. In the City was sold 170 K £ before fees. The buyer is a collector of New Delhi.
With 67 x 89 cm, it was both smaller and less interesting than the painting sold at Christie's in 2008, but it was obviously better than its estimate of £ 30K.
1958 HAPPY AS RAZA IN FRANCE
2012 UNSOLD
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
Sayed Haider Raza arrived in France in 1950 to pursue his art studies. He stayed there. Art critics use to draw a parallel between his work and that of Zao Wou-ki. Both have evolved from a barely sketched figuration to lyricalabstraction in bright colors.
Raza's painting for sale by Sotheby's in New York on March 19 was realized in 1958. It shows a typical Frenchmountain village nestled in a valley.
The houses and the church are outlined but brightly lit, and a very thin strip of horizon is suggesting that the artistexpressed the morning light. The rest of the landscape is in shadow, except a few large spots of color in the foreground representing vegetation or fields.
This superb work with a happy contrast is a Western landscape treated through the vision of an artist from India. It is estimated $ 1.5 M. Here is the link to the release shared by AuctionPublicity.
Raza already seeks to interpret the forces that govern the planet. Later, his abstract works are powerful, and hisgeometric paintings are masterpieces of balanced proportions and colors.
Here is the link to the catalogue.
The size of this oil on canvas is 161 x 130 cm.
Sayed Haider Raza arrived in France in 1950 to pursue his art studies. He stayed there. Art critics use to draw a parallel between his work and that of Zao Wou-ki. Both have evolved from a barely sketched figuration to lyricalabstraction in bright colors.
Raza's painting for sale by Sotheby's in New York on March 19 was realized in 1958. It shows a typical Frenchmountain village nestled in a valley.
The houses and the church are outlined but brightly lit, and a very thin strip of horizon is suggesting that the artistexpressed the morning light. The rest of the landscape is in shadow, except a few large spots of color in the foreground representing vegetation or fields.
This superb work with a happy contrast is a Western landscape treated through the vision of an artist from India. It is estimated $ 1.5 M. Here is the link to the release shared by AuctionPublicity.
Raza already seeks to interpret the forces that govern the planet. Later, his abstract works are powerful, and hisgeometric paintings are masterpieces of balanced proportions and colors.
Here is the link to the catalogue.
The size of this oil on canvas is 161 x 130 cm.
1959 Skittle Set in Bowler Hats
2021 SOLD for £ 10M including premium
Magritte's art is a permanent opposition between the simplicity of the figures and the complexity of their relationships. He enjoys when the viewer seeks and finds some meaning where there is none. At the end of the 1950s, he manages to retain an increasingly demanding and jaded public by adding more mystery. The titles of the works are assigned collegially in Sunday meetings between friends.
Since 1926, the basic elements have not much changed. At the very beginning, the watcher of the world was the skittle, better for this role than chess because the pins are not differentiated. The skittle early gave way to the man in suit, tie and bowler hat, most often seen from behind. When seen from the front, he looks like the artist. Or, it is the artist himself who plays to resemble him.
Painted in 1959, Le Mois des Vendanges is emblematic of the diversification of interpretation : it is only the second example of an infinite multiplication of the man with the bowler hat, after the flying men of Golconde in 1953. This oil on canvas 128 x 160 cm is a very large format for the artist. The selection of the title by Magritte and his friends was filmed.
The scene is built around an open window in a dark gray wall. Under the cloudy sky, the men in bowler hats are lined up in three tight rows interrupted by the edges of the window. They are all the same. Each individual is looking at us, but he is nothing more than a pin. The wavy line of the horizon is not a landscape : it is only formed by the upper edges of the hats. That's all. Ceci n'est pas l'humanité.
Le Mois des Vendanges is estimated £ 10M for sale by Christie's in London on March 23, lot 107.
Since 1926, the basic elements have not much changed. At the very beginning, the watcher of the world was the skittle, better for this role than chess because the pins are not differentiated. The skittle early gave way to the man in suit, tie and bowler hat, most often seen from behind. When seen from the front, he looks like the artist. Or, it is the artist himself who plays to resemble him.
Painted in 1959, Le Mois des Vendanges is emblematic of the diversification of interpretation : it is only the second example of an infinite multiplication of the man with the bowler hat, after the flying men of Golconde in 1953. This oil on canvas 128 x 160 cm is a very large format for the artist. The selection of the title by Magritte and his friends was filmed.
The scene is built around an open window in a dark gray wall. Under the cloudy sky, the men in bowler hats are lined up in three tight rows interrupted by the edges of the window. They are all the same. Each individual is looking at us, but he is nothing more than a pin. The wavy line of the horizon is not a landscape : it is only formed by the upper edges of the hats. That's all. Ceci n'est pas l'humanité.
Le Mois des Vendanges is estimated £ 10M for sale by Christie's in London on March 23, lot 107.
1959 The Healer of Burlap
2016 SOLD for £ 9.1M including premium
Alberto Burri is a medical officer. Taken prisoner, he is interned in Texas. Burlap is everywhere: sturdy and cheap, it is used for tents and sacks. The surgeon is aimless: he sews burlap to create pieces of art. Without knowing it at that time, this self-taught artist opens the way to Arte Povera and Neo-Dadaism: artistic expression can be effective without using luxurious materials.
Burri is a doctor and he is hypersensitive. Disgusted by the horrors of war he no longer wants to go back to his job but wishes to continue to heal through his art. He adds in acrylic the deep red of blood and the black of soot to the ochre of the sack sewn on the canvas, so offering an unprecedented artistic message.
Around 1955, he leaves his bleeding burlap for experiencing the combustion of wood and plastic, creating forms looking like pustules of flesh that are new invitations to the doctors to combat the effects of the wounds.
Yet in 1959, Burri realizes again a Sacco e Rosso in large size, 150 x 130 cm, which is indeed a synthesis and an achievement of the first period of his artistic career and also perhaps a tribute to the abstract expressionism of Rothko.
This artwork was sold for £ 1,92M including premium by Christie's on February 8, 2007, at a time when the extreme originality of post war Italian art had not yet excited the market. It is estimated £ 9M for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 10, lot 12.
Burri is a doctor and he is hypersensitive. Disgusted by the horrors of war he no longer wants to go back to his job but wishes to continue to heal through his art. He adds in acrylic the deep red of blood and the black of soot to the ochre of the sack sewn on the canvas, so offering an unprecedented artistic message.
Around 1955, he leaves his bleeding burlap for experiencing the combustion of wood and plastic, creating forms looking like pustules of flesh that are new invitations to the doctors to combat the effects of the wounds.
Yet in 1959, Burri realizes again a Sacco e Rosso in large size, 150 x 130 cm, which is indeed a synthesis and an achievement of the first period of his artistic career and also perhaps a tribute to the abstract expressionism of Rothko.
This artwork was sold for £ 1,92M including premium by Christie's on February 8, 2007, at a time when the extreme originality of post war Italian art had not yet excited the market. It is estimated £ 9M for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 10, lot 12.
1959 Takao by Shiraga
2018 SOLD for € 8.7M by Sotheby's
Kazuo Shiraga places the canvas flat on the floor as Pollock had done. He pours the paint from big buckets, clings to a rope that hangs from the ceiling and pushes the color with his bare feet, creating shapes and waves until his physical exhaustion. He now uses large canvases that allow him to amplify the free movement of his legs and feet, for the extreme expression of mythical martial energies.
This method is personal and unique. It comes at the right time in the history of art, now open to all gestural expressions and happenings such as the action of the arm of Franz Kline and the knife of Lucio Fontana, and just before the Anthropométries of Yves Klein.
Painted in black and red in 1959 on the theme of a Japanese mountain with an ascetic tradition, Takao, oil on canvas 182 x 273 cm, was sold for € 8.7M by Sotheby's on June 6, 2018 from a lower estimate of € 1.8M, lot 9.
This method is personal and unique. It comes at the right time in the history of art, now open to all gestural expressions and happenings such as the action of the arm of Franz Kline and the knife of Lucio Fontana, and just before the Anthropométries of Yves Klein.
Painted in black and red in 1959 on the theme of a Japanese mountain with an ascetic tradition, Takao, oil on canvas 182 x 273 cm, was sold for € 8.7M by Sotheby's on June 6, 2018 from a lower estimate of € 1.8M, lot 9.
1959 California through the Window
2020 SOLD for $ 9M including premium
Richard Diebenkorn spent his youth in San Francisco. He completed his training at the California School of Fine Arts where he was a student of Clyfford Still. Throughout his career, he manages to be inspired by abstract expressionism while transmitting his admiration for the landscapes of the West coast, of which he displays the subtle color hues.
Painted in 1955, Berkeley # 32 is a landscaped work, with a succession of fields and woods leading to the sea. This oil on canvas 150 x 145 cm was sold for $ 10M including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2019 over a lower estimate of $ 6M.
Diebenkorn finds in the landscapes painted by Matisse the solution of his research. The view through a window brings an illusion of proximity. The effect of distance is not necessary, minimizing the topographic details. Painted in 1959, Ocean through the Window was sold for $ 4M including premium by Sotheby's on November 17, 1998.
On June 29 in New York, Sotheby's sells View from a Porch, oil on canvas 177 x 168 cm also painted in 1959, lot 113 estimated $ 9M. The veranda partially hides the foreground of the landscape and its central post brings a symmetry which trivializes the rest of the image.
From 1967 to 1985 in Santa Monica, Diebenkorn paints his series of 140 opuses titled Ocean Park. California is now only expressed by its colors and the landscape is replaced by a setting of triangles and quadrilaterals, but part of the window is often visible.
For example, in Ocean Park # 20, the central post separates in a surreal way the light blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. This oil on canvas 236 x 203 cm painted in 1969 was sold for $ 10.2M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2014.
Painted in 1955, Berkeley # 32 is a landscaped work, with a succession of fields and woods leading to the sea. This oil on canvas 150 x 145 cm was sold for $ 10M including premium by Christie's on May 15, 2019 over a lower estimate of $ 6M.
Diebenkorn finds in the landscapes painted by Matisse the solution of his research. The view through a window brings an illusion of proximity. The effect of distance is not necessary, minimizing the topographic details. Painted in 1959, Ocean through the Window was sold for $ 4M including premium by Sotheby's on November 17, 1998.
On June 29 in New York, Sotheby's sells View from a Porch, oil on canvas 177 x 168 cm also painted in 1959, lot 113 estimated $ 9M. The veranda partially hides the foreground of the landscape and its central post brings a symmetry which trivializes the rest of the image.
From 1967 to 1985 in Santa Monica, Diebenkorn paints his series of 140 opuses titled Ocean Park. California is now only expressed by its colors and the landscape is replaced by a setting of triangles and quadrilaterals, but part of the window is often visible.
For example, in Ocean Park # 20, the central post separates in a surreal way the light blue of the sky and the deeper blue of the sea. This oil on canvas 236 x 203 cm painted in 1969 was sold for $ 10.2M including premium by Sotheby's on May 13, 2014.
1959 Achromes by Manzoni
2012 SOLD 2.6 M£ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
On 20 October 2008, Christie's sold £ 1.6 million including premium an Achrome 100 x 80 cm made circa 1959 by Manzoni. This artwork, which was discussed in this group, comes back to auction in London on October 11, estimated £ 1.8 million, again by Christie's. Here is the link to the new catalog.
I largely reused my text from 2008 to reintroduce this lot, with a few additions.
Piero Manzoni died at age 30 in 1963 of a heart attack. The world of art suddenly lost one of its most disturbing personalities. Scandal lovers remember his greatest hoax : his exhibition of 90 "merda d'artista" in 1961, in sealed cans whose actual content has not been analyzed!
His important works on the art market are the Achromes, made in 1958 and 1959. Going further than Suprematism and beyond the monochromists, Manzoni sought to create an art in which creativity would disappear.
For this purpose, he coated his canvases with a thick paste made from kaolin, chosen for its total absence of color.Forms are created on the surface when this sort of plaster freezes, and then the artist can admire a work of which he designed the technique but not the lines. The example which is specifically discussed here is a curious opposition of horizontal and vertical lines that had definitely needed a complex process.
The date and size are important for Manzoni's Achromes. On 14 May 2008, Sotheby's sold $ 10 million including premium a large Achrome from the earliest group, 114 x 145 cm. Another one, 81 x 101 cm, with an interesting effect of horizontal stripes, was sold £ 3.3 million including premium by Christie's on 14 October 2011.
POST SALE COMMENT
The sale of October 2008 coincided with the beginning of the crisis in the art market. It is logical that the new result is better: £ 2.6 million including premium.
On 20 October 2008, Christie's sold £ 1.6 million including premium an Achrome 100 x 80 cm made circa 1959 by Manzoni. This artwork, which was discussed in this group, comes back to auction in London on October 11, estimated £ 1.8 million, again by Christie's. Here is the link to the new catalog.
I largely reused my text from 2008 to reintroduce this lot, with a few additions.
Piero Manzoni died at age 30 in 1963 of a heart attack. The world of art suddenly lost one of its most disturbing personalities. Scandal lovers remember his greatest hoax : his exhibition of 90 "merda d'artista" in 1961, in sealed cans whose actual content has not been analyzed!
His important works on the art market are the Achromes, made in 1958 and 1959. Going further than Suprematism and beyond the monochromists, Manzoni sought to create an art in which creativity would disappear.
For this purpose, he coated his canvases with a thick paste made from kaolin, chosen for its total absence of color.Forms are created on the surface when this sort of plaster freezes, and then the artist can admire a work of which he designed the technique but not the lines. The example which is specifically discussed here is a curious opposition of horizontal and vertical lines that had definitely needed a complex process.
The date and size are important for Manzoni's Achromes. On 14 May 2008, Sotheby's sold $ 10 million including premium a large Achrome from the earliest group, 114 x 145 cm. Another one, 81 x 101 cm, with an interesting effect of horizontal stripes, was sold £ 3.3 million including premium by Christie's on 14 October 2011.
POST SALE COMMENT
The sale of October 2008 coincided with the beginning of the crisis in the art market. It is logical that the new result is better: £ 2.6 million including premium.
1959 The Endless City of Akbar Padamsee
2012 SOLD 1.32 M$ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In 1951, Akbar Padamsee aged 23 joined Syed Haider Raza in Paris. The beginning of their careers shows similarities of researches and inspirations. Like De Staël they act out their feelings without resorting to realism.
Back in Mumbai, Padamsee realizes in 1959 a cityscape, which is contemporary of Raza's villages. He is then in his very short gray period, and the absence of color invites for a vision of all the shades of a moonlit night. This artwork will be sold by Christie's in New York on March 21. Here is the link to the catalog.
The city, certainly Mumbai, spreads over an endless horizontal format, 3.48 m long for a height of 1.12 m. This very lengthened travelling is even exceeding the proportions of the Cinemascope, which is the wonder of that time.
On March 25, 2011, Sotheby's sold $ 1.4 million including premium a gray monochrome painting of 1960 showing a reclining nude with equally confusing proportions: 91 x 232 cm.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good price, $ 1.32 million including premium for this painting of the most original period of the art of Padamsee.
In 1951, Akbar Padamsee aged 23 joined Syed Haider Raza in Paris. The beginning of their careers shows similarities of researches and inspirations. Like De Staël they act out their feelings without resorting to realism.
Back in Mumbai, Padamsee realizes in 1959 a cityscape, which is contemporary of Raza's villages. He is then in his very short gray period, and the absence of color invites for a vision of all the shades of a moonlit night. This artwork will be sold by Christie's in New York on March 21. Here is the link to the catalog.
The city, certainly Mumbai, spreads over an endless horizontal format, 3.48 m long for a height of 1.12 m. This very lengthened travelling is even exceeding the proportions of the Cinemascope, which is the wonder of that time.
On March 25, 2011, Sotheby's sold $ 1.4 million including premium a gray monochrome painting of 1960 showing a reclining nude with equally confusing proportions: 91 x 232 cm.
POST SALE COMMENT
Very good price, $ 1.32 million including premium for this painting of the most original period of the art of Padamsee.
1959 By Colin McCahon
2009 SOLD for AUD 942K including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
New Zealand is passionate about an artwork of Colin McCahon. Sold in 1995 for 700 KNZ$ by Webb's in Auckland, it arrived afterwards in Australia where Deutscher and Hackett presents it on sale on August 26 in Melbourne.
Proponent of abstract expressionism, McCahon includes words in a mystical intention. The work for sale is entitled "Let be, let be." Made in 1959, this enamel and sand on board 183 x 122 cm is estimated 800 KA$. It could also overcome its own record as the most expensive New Zealander modern artwork at auction.
From the biography of McCahon, remember that he wanted to create a national modern art and that he was influenced by the works of Mondrian, Pollock, Rothko and Newman.
In a beautiful wave of proselytizing enthusiasm, the art lover who had purchased it at Webb's said on the Stuff.co.nz website: "The works with text on are the kinds of works that McCahon is renowned for beyond New Zealand. Internationally, that's where his importance lies." Let us be more cautious than this expert. Rather say that this sale is an opportunity to discover McCahon, who will be also highlighted with two other works.
August sales of Deutscher and Hackett are interesting for understanding the art of Oceania. It is through this auction house that I discussed John Brack last year.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Australian press has given the result, without waiting for it to be available at the auction house: 785 KAus$ before fees, 942 KAus$ including premium.
It is a good result, but that does not represent a significant added value compared to 1995 (A$ 1 is worth about NZ$ 1.2).
New Zealand is passionate about an artwork of Colin McCahon. Sold in 1995 for 700 KNZ$ by Webb's in Auckland, it arrived afterwards in Australia where Deutscher and Hackett presents it on sale on August 26 in Melbourne.
Proponent of abstract expressionism, McCahon includes words in a mystical intention. The work for sale is entitled "Let be, let be." Made in 1959, this enamel and sand on board 183 x 122 cm is estimated 800 KA$. It could also overcome its own record as the most expensive New Zealander modern artwork at auction.
From the biography of McCahon, remember that he wanted to create a national modern art and that he was influenced by the works of Mondrian, Pollock, Rothko and Newman.
In a beautiful wave of proselytizing enthusiasm, the art lover who had purchased it at Webb's said on the Stuff.co.nz website: "The works with text on are the kinds of works that McCahon is renowned for beyond New Zealand. Internationally, that's where his importance lies." Let us be more cautious than this expert. Rather say that this sale is an opportunity to discover McCahon, who will be also highlighted with two other works.
August sales of Deutscher and Hackett are interesting for understanding the art of Oceania. It is through this auction house that I discussed John Brack last year.
POST SALE COMMENT
The Australian press has given the result, without waiting for it to be available at the auction house: 785 KAus$ before fees, 942 KAus$ including premium.
It is a good result, but that does not represent a significant added value compared to 1995 (A$ 1 is worth about NZ$ 1.2).
1959 Mister by Franz Kline
2021 UNSOLD
On May 12, 2021 in New York, Sotheby's sells Mister, oil on canvas 242 x 200 cm painted by Franz Kline in 1959, lot 10 estimated $ 15M.
This fully abstract figure displays the signature figures in black and white by the artist, but the central black form cancels the usual impression of an architectural structure.
Mister is a typical example of the modern art at the time of the American dream. It was long hanging in full visibility in the Chicago home of the womanizer Hugh Hefner, the founder and editor of Playboy magazine, who had purchased that painting in 1963.
Also painted in 1959, Sawyer, 208 x 170 cm, displays a similar abstraction except that the background is improved by pale colors. It was sold for $ 10M by Phillips on November 16, 2017, lot 15.
This fully abstract figure displays the signature figures in black and white by the artist, but the central black form cancels the usual impression of an architectural structure.
Mister is a typical example of the modern art at the time of the American dream. It was long hanging in full visibility in the Chicago home of the womanizer Hugh Hefner, the founder and editor of Playboy magazine, who had purchased that painting in 1963.
Also painted in 1959, Sawyer, 208 x 170 cm, displays a similar abstraction except that the background is improved by pale colors. It was sold for $ 10M by Phillips on November 16, 2017, lot 15.
1959 Origins of Painting
2020 unsold
The abstract paintings by Pierre Soulages were admired in the United States. He stayed in New York in 1957 and met Rothko and Motherwell. In France, he is a friend of Zao Wou-Ki. For the public his art has affinities with these artists, and with Kline and Shiraga.
Yet Soulages wants to maintain his independence. He considers that each of his works expresses an emotion, and thwarts the desires of art critics to establish a chronology of his creativity. The techniques evolve but not the inspiration.
However, he accepts an influence. Man is the animal that invented painting. Soulages admires without limit the art in the Neolithic caves : Lascaux, the bison of Altamira, later Chauvet. The prehistoric man painted in the dark, with colored pigments and black charcoal. He used white very little despite the ease of finding chalk. The black highlights all the other colors by contrast. The neolithic man also invented mysticism and poetry.
Soulages' art is not easy to appreciate, especially since he does not comment on specific works. A painting is often understandable only by himself.
He produced his masterpieces between November 1959 and March 1960. His technique consisted in tearing off small surfaces on a bulky black shape, so that the observer could see a brightly colored underlayer, or else in other places see the white canvas. The underlayer is not complete but only the artist can know where its limits are under the unharmed part of the black.
With a light blue underlayer, Peinture 195 x 130 cm 21 novembre 1959 was sold for £ 4.3M including premium by Sotheby's on June 26, 2013. With a blood red underlayer which is one of the colors of Lascaux, Peinture 186 x 143 cm 23 décembre 1959 was sold for $ 10.6M including premium by Christie's on November 15, 2018. With an underlayer of several shades of ocher, Peinture 200 x 162 cm 14 mars 1960 was sold for € 9.6M including premium by Tajan on November 27, 2019. In all these examples, the colored underlayer is confined under the black bulk.
Created with the same technique, Peinture 128,5 x 128,5 cm 16 décembre 1959 is a decidedly different composition. On the perfect square of the canvas, the black bulk approaches the edges without reaching them, with a kind of symmetry which reminds a Rorschach blot inviting to all psychological interpretations. The background around the black is bordeaux (claret red). This color appears within the black only through a tiny square window while very long cuts reveal the white.
Peinture 128,5 x 128,5 cm 16 décembre 1959 is estimated £ 5.5M for sale by Bonhams in London on March 12, lot 8.
Yet Soulages wants to maintain his independence. He considers that each of his works expresses an emotion, and thwarts the desires of art critics to establish a chronology of his creativity. The techniques evolve but not the inspiration.
However, he accepts an influence. Man is the animal that invented painting. Soulages admires without limit the art in the Neolithic caves : Lascaux, the bison of Altamira, later Chauvet. The prehistoric man painted in the dark, with colored pigments and black charcoal. He used white very little despite the ease of finding chalk. The black highlights all the other colors by contrast. The neolithic man also invented mysticism and poetry.
Soulages' art is not easy to appreciate, especially since he does not comment on specific works. A painting is often understandable only by himself.
He produced his masterpieces between November 1959 and March 1960. His technique consisted in tearing off small surfaces on a bulky black shape, so that the observer could see a brightly colored underlayer, or else in other places see the white canvas. The underlayer is not complete but only the artist can know where its limits are under the unharmed part of the black.
With a light blue underlayer, Peinture 195 x 130 cm 21 novembre 1959 was sold for £ 4.3M including premium by Sotheby's on June 26, 2013. With a blood red underlayer which is one of the colors of Lascaux, Peinture 186 x 143 cm 23 décembre 1959 was sold for $ 10.6M including premium by Christie's on November 15, 2018. With an underlayer of several shades of ocher, Peinture 200 x 162 cm 14 mars 1960 was sold for € 9.6M including premium by Tajan on November 27, 2019. In all these examples, the colored underlayer is confined under the black bulk.
Created with the same technique, Peinture 128,5 x 128,5 cm 16 décembre 1959 is a decidedly different composition. On the perfect square of the canvas, the black bulk approaches the edges without reaching them, with a kind of symmetry which reminds a Rorschach blot inviting to all psychological interpretations. The background around the black is bordeaux (claret red). This color appears within the black only through a tiny square window while very long cuts reveal the white.
Peinture 128,5 x 128,5 cm 16 décembre 1959 is estimated £ 5.5M for sale by Bonhams in London on March 12, lot 8.
