A Yachtie’s Daydream

A Yachtie’s Daydream

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Hi, I’m writing in your blog about a new sensation; surfing your blog whilst listening to the Eagles. After several tries; I’ve found the perfect artist whose works are almost descriptive of the Eagles’ lyrics; enjoy!

“New Kid In Town”

St Juin de BRUNEVAL

There's talk on the street; it sounds so familiar
Great expectations, everybody's watching you
People you meet, they all seem to know you
Even your old friends treat you like you're something new

Johnny come lately, the new kid in town
Everybody loves you, so don't let them down

You look in her eyes; the music begins to play
Hopeless romantics, here we go again
But after awhile, you're lookin' the other way
It's those restless hearts that never mend

Johnny come lately, the new kid in town
Will she still love you when you're not around?
There's so many things you should have told her,
but night after night you're willing to hold her,
Just hold her, tears on your shoulder

There's talk on the street, it's there to
Remind you, that it doesn't really matter
which side you're on.

You're walking away and they're talking behind you
They will never forget you 'til somebody new comes along
Where you been lately? There's a new kid in town
Everybody loves him, don't they?
Now he's holding her, and you're still around
Oh, my, my
There's a new kid in town
Ooh, hoo
just another new kid in town
Ooh, hoo

Everybody's talking 'bout the new kid in town,
Everybody's walking' like the new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
I don't want to hear it
There's a new kid in town
I don't want to hear it
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town
There's a new kid in town

"Hotel California" – The EAGLES

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

“Long Road Out Of Eden” – The EAGLES

Moon shining down through the palms
Shadows moving on the sand
Somebody whispering the twenty-third Psalm
Dusty rifle in his trembling hands
Somebody trying just to stay alive
He got promises to keep
Over the ocean in America
Far away and fast asleep.

Silent stars blinking in the blackness of an endless sky
Cold silver satellites, ghostly caravans passing by
Galaxies unfolding; new worlds being born
Pilgrims and prodigals creeping toward the dawn
But it's a long road out of Eden.

Music blasting from an SUV
On a bright and sunny day
Rolling down the interstate
In the good ol' USA
Having lunch at the petroleum club
Smoking fine cigars and swapping lies
"Gimme 'nother slice of that barbecued brisket!"
"Gimme 'nother piece of that pecan pie"

Freeways flickering, cell phones chiming a tune
We're riding to Utopia; road map says we'll be arriving soon
Captains of the old order clinging to the reins
Assuring us these aches inside are only growing pains
But it's a long road out of Eden

Back home, I was so certain; the path was very clear
But now I have to wonder - what are we doing here?
I'm not counting on tomorrow and I can't tell wrong from right
But I'd give anything to be there in your arms tonight

Weaving down the American highway
Through the litter and the wreckage, and the cultural junk
Bloated with entitlement, loaded on propaganda
Now we're driving dazed and drunk

Went down the road to Damascus, the road to Mandalay
Met the ghost of Caesar on the Appian Way
He said, "It's hard to stop this binging once you get a taste
But the road to empire is a bloody, stupid waste"

Behold the bitten apple - the power of the tools
But all the knowledge in the world is of no use to fools
And it's a long road out of Eden

If you resonate with my suggestion ; you guys could find out more from the following sites:-

· The EAGLES - www.eaglesband.com

· St Juin de BRUNEVAL - www.stjuindebruneval.monsite.orange.fr

· Gallery – www.autour-de-lart.com

The Stadel Museum Presents Today A Comprehensive Exhibition of Lucas Cranach the Elder

The Stadel Museum Presents Today A Comprehensive Exhibition of Lucas Cranach the Elder artlover344667888878

Lucas Cranach the Elder, The Judgement of Paris, ca. 1512-14. Oil on beechwood, 43 x 32,2 cm. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. Courtesy: Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas.

FRANKFURT, GERMANY.- In a comprehensive exhibition which will open its doors to the public on 23 November 2007, the Städel Museum will be assembling more than a hundred masterpieces by Lucas Cranach the Elder, the great painter of the Reformation period. More popular and economically more successful than his contemporary Albrecht Dürer, it was Lucas Cranach who presumably exerted the longest-lasting influence on the world of German imagery. His early landscape depictions were trailblazing, he inspired old religious themes with completely new life, as well as inventing entirely new pictorial types for the reformed faith. His portraits of Martin Luther, Frederick the Wise, Philipp Melanchthon and others have shaped our conception of these personages to this very day. Another of his specialties were exquisitely painted erotic depictions. In them he created a timeless ideal of female beauty which was still inspiring such artists as Pablo Picasso and Alberto Giacometti in the early twentieth century. In addition to offering a superb cross-section of Cranach’s oeuvre, the exhibition will endeavour to shed more light on the secret of his success. The lenders include numerous national and international private collections and museums, among them the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, the National Gallery, Washington, the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, the National Gallery, London, the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York and others. Following its presentation in Frankfurt, this exhibition – a Städel Museum production – will be shown at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The exhibition is receiving support from the Commerzbank Foundation and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., as well as additional funding from the Fraport AG, the FAZIT Foundation and Alnatura. In the past decades, selections have been made from the enormous fund of works executed by Cranach and his workshop for a wide range of exhibitions on various specific aspects. The show at the Städel, however, is pursuing a different goal: Taking our own superb Cranach holdings as a point of departure, we would like to draw particular attention to the hand of the master. By assembling outstanding “masterpieces” from all phases of the artist’s oeuvre – placed on loan by numerous renowned Cranach collections in many different countries – the focus will be directed once again towards authenticity with regard to the works’ production. The exhibition will thus endeavour to address a central question left unanswered by every one of the other recent presentations: What made Lucas Cranach so successful? On the one hand, Lucas Cranach is distinguished by the high quality of his works. He was an entrancing portraitist and the author of new pictorial inventions, whether hunting scenes, genre paintings or erotica. On the other hand, however, his quality is founded in the certainty with which he set his sights on various patrons, reaching a public among the adherents to the old Catholic faith while at the same time advancing to become the chief propagandist of the Protestant doctrine. At one critical point, the workshop even seems to have owed its continued existence solely to this diversification, which, incidentally, went above and beyond the visual arts: in addition to the house and workshop, Cranach’s ‘empire’ encompassed the only apothecary in Wittenberg with a wine pub as well as – for a while – a share in a printing press. Cranach’s entrepreneurial skills thus constitute yet another aspect which make him stand out among his contemporary fellow artists. We know quite a lot about the most prolific German painter of early modern times – but certainly not everything. It is an established fact that he came from Kronach in Franconia (and had himself named “Cranach” after his native town) and that his father was likewise a painter. But where he learned his profession, and where his travels as a journeyman took him, are as deeply shrouded in mystery as ever. In any case, shortly after 1500, at the age of thirty, he comes into view in Vienna with stunning works that combine inventiveness, painterly verve and meticulous technique in a unique manner. He was active in Humanist circles as a portraitist capable of uniting suspenseful renditions of persons with atmospherically charged landscape depictions executed in a manner that would soon be adopted by painters of the “Danube School”. Other works of his early Viennese period are likewise distinguished by a frenetic expressive will in which form and colour mutually enhance one another to brilliant effect. This phase was followed in 1505 by a decisive career move: entry into employment at an electoral court. For in that year Luther’s regional sovereign Frederick the Wise appointed Cranach as his court painter. The latter would hold this position for the rest of his life, even under Frederick’s successors John the Steadfast and Frederick the Magnanimous. Only a small number of works have survived from the initial years of this activity, but Cranach’s painting style changes radically. His investigation of Dürer as well as Italian and Dutch influences leave their mark and reveal an artist in search of “his” style. Cranach establishes himself quickly in Wittenberg and organizes a workshop which soon leads the market for altarpieces and wall paintings in the eastern part of the imperial realm. It is the serpent signet – the shield figure of the coat of arms awarded him by the elector – which serves him as a signature and becomes his trademark. Moreover, Cranach succeeds in developing a style which lends itself to imitation by his employees with such perfection that in many cases it is impossible to distinguish between the hands that participated. Individual motifs are ‘recycled’ and recomposed in ever new variations, as seen, for example, in the many versions of the ill-matched couple, several of which will be assembled in the exhibition. Other pictorial themes are also executed repeatedly with slight deviations. The workshop’s output was enormous: Paintings on wood of the type presented by the show represent only a small fraction of the production. Cranach also supplied his employer with decorations for festivities, room furnishings, wall paintings, painted cloths and the like, most of which have been lost. Yet the conditions under which he worked were anything but favourable: A notoriously empty imperial treasury, the Reformation and witch-hunting, the Peasants’ War and iconoclasm formed the historical parameters which drove many another fellow artist of the period, for example Hans Holbein the Younger, from the land. The quality already revealed by the portraits of the early period in Vienna applies as well to Cranach’s later likenesses: In his best works, his achievements as a portrait painter are equal to those of Albrecht Dürer and Hans Holbein, the two most important German portraitists of the sixteenth century. At the same time, it is not so much a striving for strictly objective “photographic” rendition that distinguishes Cranach’s likenesses, as the attempt to incorporate psychological characterization into the depiction. Cranach’s significance as the “painter of the Reformation” is uncontested – his portraits of Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora are produced serially in the artist’s workshop and used for the reformer within the framework of a veritable image campaign. In addition, Cranach makes a decisive contribution to the development of genuinely Protestant pictorial themes propagated by Luther’s doctrine and capable of surviving widespread iconoc

Contemporary art in New-York – Confidence reigns…

Contemporary art in New-York – Confidence reigns…

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Art market players had been worried by the idea of a market downturn after the mixed results from the impressionist and modern art sales in New York on 6 and 7 November. However, one week later, the strong sales in the contemporary art sector proved that the market remains buoyant.

On 13 November, the 325 million achieved in 67 lots at the Christie's contemporary art auction set the tone: the market is still very firm and prices for contemporary art continue to reach new highs. Following the disappointing outcome of the Impressionist and Modern art sale at Sotheby's on 7 November, their contemporary art sale on 14 November cut short talk of a slowdown in the art market. At this evening event, Sotheby's achieved its best-ever sale proceeds with USD 315.9 million compared with the expected USD 298.7 million, a high accompanied by a flood of records. The strongest results from these two days came from Untitled (Red Blue Orange) by Mark ROTHKO, which achieved USD 30.5 million at Christie’s, and from Second version of study for bullfight N°1 (1969) by Francis BACON, sold for USD 45,961,000 at Sotheby’s, an level approaching the USD 47 million paid last May at the same auction house for Study from Innocent X. Amongst the most awaited works, the two auction houses competed with each other in each presenting a monumental work from Jeff KOONS' Celebration series. The first, entitled Blue Diamond found a buyer for USD 10.5 million (on 13 November)… a new record for the artist which was to last only a few hours, since Hanging Heart, which had been expected to raise between USD 15 million and 20 million at Sotheby’s, doubled the Blue Diamond high when the bidding culminated at USD 23.5 million! Koons, who occupies 56th position in the contemporary artist ranking by 2006 sale proceeds (source Artprice), is seeing spectacular price growth: last year, he achieved USD 16.9 million…a figure surpassed this year in just one sale.

Another contemporary art strar, Andy WARHOL,supported by 440% growth in his price index over 10 years, is still setting the auction room alight. On 13 November, Christie’s notably sold Muhammad Ali for USD 8.2 million (EUR 5.6 million), well ahead of an optimistic pre-sale estimate of USD 3 million. His Elvis 2 Times, which had been expected to raise between USD 15 and 20 million, found a buyer for USD 14 million, while the sale of his portrait of Elizabeth Taylor, Liz (1963), heralded on the catalogue cover, achieved USD 21 million (EUR 14.3 million, Christie’s)…a result while below its estimated range (USD 25–35 million) was still well above the USD 3.25 million (EUR 3.6 million) paid for the work at Sotheby’s NY just six years previously! On 14 November, the best result for Warhol came from a self portrait in the camouflage series, which sold for USD 12 million (Sotheby’s)… In 48 hours, the king of Pop Art had 14 more million-ticket sales in his favour (in dollars)! Another highlight of these sales was the market for Chinese artists, which confirmed its robust health in reaching new highs. Each auction house sold a canvas by Xiaogang ZHANG and another by Fanzhi ZENG. A new record was set for Zhang Xiaogang at Christie’s at USD 3.5 million (EUR 2.4 million) for Bloodline Series: Mother With Three Sons (The Family Portrait)… Then came Three comrades, auctioned for USD 4,969,000 at Sotheby’s, beating the record announced the previous evening by one million dollars. Sotheby’s set two other records in the sector: one for Lijun FANG, who quadrupled his estimate with a successful bid of USD 4,073,000, and the other for Pei-Ming YAN whose Mao, painted in broad brush strokes, found an admirer at USD 1,609,000. If western art, despite its good results, does not always achieve its objectives in terms of prices at auction, the price explosion continues, sale after sale, in the Chinese

Christie's Realizes $937.4 Million For November Sales of Impressionist & Modern Sales

Christie's Realizes $937.4 Million For November Sales of Impressionist & Modern Sales artlover6554888688

Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Mercedes-Benz 300 SL Coupé, 1954, signed and dated 'Andy Warhol 1986' (on the overlap), synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas, 60 1/8 x 50¼ in. (152.5 x 127.5 cm.), Painted in 1986. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2007.

NEW YORK.- Christie’s, the world’s leading art business, concluded its Autumn Sales of Impressionist & Modern and Post-War & Contemporary Art in New York with a grand total of $937,463,050, the most monumental figure ever in art auction history, far surpassing the previous record sales total of $866 million which was set by Christie’s in November 2006. Market watchers were on alert but without fail, all sales at Christie’s showed tremendous strength and energy, with results that resolutely contradicted speculations about a softening of the market. Evening as well as Day Sales were carried by a confident, committed and eager audience, which included a plethora of new buyers, whose activities were clearly sparked by the strong presence of the seasoned collectors. Fifty-seven new world auction records were set for masters including Henri Matisse, Paul Signac and Camille Pissarro in Impressionist and Modern Art and Lucian Freud, Ed Ruscha, Richard Prince, Wayne Thiebaud and Gerhard Richter in Post-War and Contemporary Art. “Christie's Autumn Sales Season, which totaled $937,463,050, is continuing proof that the art market is stronger, deeper, more global and more confident than ever before. This record total was produced by seven sales only, each one of which performed exceedingly well and above pre-sale expectations. Of the 136 works we sold in our two evening sales, 97% sold above one million dollars; 17% sold above ten million dollars; and 94% of all sold lots went for prices within or above their estimate,” said Marc Porter, President Christie’s Americas. “We were especially delighted that despite shifts in the financial and currency markets, American clients continued to collect passionately and comprised 50% of the buyers in our evening sales. Works of art at all price levels continue to increase in value and we believe that the market will further expand.” Christie’s sales of Impressionist and Modern Art took place on November 6 and 7 and realized a total of $472,972,100, which was composed of $394,977,200 for the Evening Sale and $77,994,900 as a combined total for the Works on Paper Sale and the Day Sale. The Evening Sale total was the second highest ever for a sale in art auction history, only second to the legendary November 2006 Evening Sale which offered the Bloch Bauer Klimts and made $491.5. Approximately half of the buyers were American, and the rest was equally divided between European and others. 57 works sold above $1 million, 93% of the lots sold within and above their pre-sale estimate, and the sale was 85% sold by value. The auction offered two spectacular examples of Odalisque-inspired paintings, one by Picasso, Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline), 1955, which achieved $30.8 million and L’Odalisque, harmonie bleue, painted in 1937 by Henri Matisse, which realized $33.6 million, was the evening’s most expensive work and set a new world auction record for the artist. The most expensive work sold during the day sales was also a Matisse: Figure Assise, tapis rayé, 1920, which fetched $3.2 million. Post-War and Contemporary Art was offered during three consecutive days. November 12 presented Selections from the Allan Stone Collection, November 13 was dedicated to the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale and November 14 offered the Morning and Afternoon Sessions. The combined total was $464,490,950. The Stone Collection totaled $46,412,300*, was 94% sold by value and set 12 new world auction records for Post-War and Contemporary artists including John Chamberlain and Wayne Thiebaud. The Evening Sale realized $325,006,000, the highest total of the season for Post-War and Contemporary and the second highest result for a sale in this category at Christie’s. It was 94% sold by value and buyers were 51% American, 26% European, and 23% others. Sixteen world auction records were set, 95% of the lots were sold within or above their pre sale estimate and 51 lots sold above one million. Mark Rothko’s Untitled (Red Blue Orange) at $34.2 million was the highest selling lot of the sale. The Morning and Afternoon Sessions accrued $93,072,650 and the highlight of the Morning Session was Robert Indiana’s Love, 1998 which sold for a record $3.5 million while Jean-Michel Basquiat’s In the Wings, 1986 became the highest selling lot in the Afternoon Session at $2.4 million.

Signes d´essoufflement sur le marché

Signes d´essoufflement sur le marché

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Le 7 novembre 2007, après une incroyable hausse des prix de +78,8% sur trois ans, le marché de l´art new-yorkais montre ses premiers signes d´essoufflements. La médiatique vacation « Impressionist and modern art » a essuyé les effets d´une correction de marché, puisque son produit de vente n´a atteint que 269,7 millions de dollars. Un chiffre honorable il y a encore deux ans, mais qui cette année prend des allures de catastrophe, eu égards aux attentes de l´auctioneer. En effet, les 76 lots présentés devaient rapporter pas moins de 355,6 à 494,2 millions de dollars si on s´en réfère aux fourchettes d´estimations.

L´histoire du marché semble portée par l´une de ses icônes : Vincent Van Gogh. En 1990, il crevait l´écran avec un Portrait du Dr Gachet qui devenait alors le tableau le plus cher du monde, symbole du pic de la bulle spéculative de l´époque ( Télécharger les Indices des prix Artprice - fichier xls). Cette année, les médias risquent de se concentrer sur une autre œuvre de Van Gogh, un paysage, pour mettre en évidence cette fois la fébrilité du marché. En effet, intitulée >«the Fields», 1890, l´œuvre, réalisée 15 jours avant le suicide de l´artiste et présentée chez Sotheby´s pour 28 – 35 million de dollars n´a fait l´objet d´aucune enchère ! Un signe ? Dans tous les cas, l´absence d´acheteur pour cette pièce historique, présentée en numéro 9 de la vente, fut suivi de plusieurs invendus. Ainsi, L´Echo, une toile de George Braque, lot numéro 32, estimée 15 - 20 millions de dollars a elle aussi été ravalée. Au total 20 pièces n´ont pas trouvé acheteur. La plus haute enchère du 7 novembre revient à "Te Poipoi (Le Matin)" de Paul Gaugin. La pièce a été adjugée à 35 millions de $ à Joseph Lau, mais estimée à l´origine 40 – 60 millions de $.

La vente Christie´s, orchestrée la veille, se montrait pourtant rassurante, puisque la maison de vente enregistrait un produit de vente 395 millions de $, soit 46 millions de $ au dessus de son prévisionnel plancher. Lot phare de la vente, L'Odalisque, harmonie bleue, 1937, d´Henri Matisse a trouvé preneur pour 30 millions de $ chez établissant un nouveau record pour l´artiste.

Mais au delà des chiffres, ce qui inquiète les observateurs, ce sont les risques pris par les deux auctioneers. Notamment, Sotheby´s avait garanti aux vendeurs des tableaux de Van Gogh et de Braque des prix minimums. Puisque ces derniers n´ont pas été atteint, l´auctioneer en a désormais la propriété. Dans tous les cas, il lui faudra en assurer la revente pour limiter les pertes.

Alors que le cours baril d´or noir flirte avec les 100$, que la bourse vibre aux annonces des effets des subprimes et que la récession économique se profile aux Etats-Unis, ces résultats de ventes mitigés peuvent prendre des allures de correction et donnent le ton pour la suite. Traditionnellement plus spéculatives, les ventes d´art contemporain du 12 et 13 novembre, avec notamment des pièces monumentales de Jeff Koons, vont nous dire si l´échec du Van Gogh est un accident, ou le début d´une tragédie.

ART MARKET WATCH

ART MARKET WATCH artlover65544588878

Egon Schiele Standing Nude with Large Hat 1910 $1,833,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Vincent van Gogh The Fields 1890 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Claude Monet Le palais Dario 1908 $10,401,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Femmes dans un jardin 1873 $12,249,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Paul Gauguin Te poipoi (Le matin) 1892 $39,241,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Enfant assis en robe bleue 1889 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Paul Gauguin Paysage aux trios arbres 1892 $39,241,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Pablo Picasso Tête de femme (Dora Maar) ca. 1950-59 $29,161,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Henri Matisse Feuille noire sur fond rouge 1952 $1,721,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Joan Miró Le fermier et son epousé 1936 $10,401,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Pablo Picasso La lampe 1931 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Georges Braque L’Écho 1953-56 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Paul Cézanne Maisons dans la verdure 1881 $6,761,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Kees van Dongen Femme à la cigarette (Cepue) 1905-08 $5,417,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Franz Marc Der Wasserfall 1912 $20,201,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Lyonel Feininger The Green Bridge 1909 $10,121,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Henri Matisse Une rue à arcueil 1903-04 $3,065,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Henri Matisse Nu sur fond rouge 1922 $4,521,000 Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Henri Matisse Le repos de la danseuse 1942 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

Henri Edmond Cross L’Épave 1899 bought in Sotheby’s New York Nov. 7, 2007

There has seemed, of late, to be no end of art, or money -- but both proved to be finite at Sotheby’s New York evening sale of Impressionist and modern art on Nov. 7, 2007. The auction was a surprise, and a not unhappy one, though Sotheby’s may differ. It was a much smaller sale than Christie’s the evening before, 76 lots opposed to 91. It did not have Christie’s range; instead it had a number of high-profile lots where the house expected to make a killing. The estimates were high, good material was larded sparingly in with the mediocre, but it was not a palatable mixture and 25 percent of the lots did not find buyers. It was still fun, though the shortfall was richly deserved: Sotheby’s tried to sell seven Kees van Dongen paintings in one evening sale. C’mon.

The sale totaled $269,741,600 (with premium), below Sotheby’s presale low estimate of $355,000,000 and rather less than Christie’s total of $394,977,200 the night before. With only 56 of 76 lots finding buyers, Cassandras in the press were quick to call an end to the five-year-old art-market boom. Indeed, Sotheby’s stock dropped from about $50 a share on Wednesday to $35 a share on Thursday morning. Now that’s volatility.

Prices given below are at the hammer; typically, Sotheby’s adds on a buyer’s premium of 25 percent of the first $20,000, 20 percent of the amount up to $500,000, and 12 percent of anything above that.

Lot 1, Egon Schiele, Standing Nude with Large Hat (1910) (est. $1,200,000-$1,800,000) is a provocative charcoal portrait of a woman. Her camisole has been dropped to expose her breasts, her arms wrap suggestively around her supple body and, haloed by the brim of a large hat, one knowing eye looks back at the artist. It is Gertrude Schiele, not the artist’s wife but his sister; Schiele was 20 at the time, and she was his only available nude model. The equally lubricious Kneeling Half Nude Bending to the Left, same outfit, similar body, is thought to be his sister-in-law. It sold at Christie’s one year ago for $10,000,000. Standing Nude with Large Hat sold for $1,600,000. Turn-of-the-century family values.

Lot 3, Schiele, Self Portrait with Checked Shirt (1917) (est. $4.5 million-$6.5 million) was the main event of the four Schiele lots that opened the sale. It was a reptilian Schiele slinking across a page, more iconic than ravishing. Sold for $10,100,000. The other Schieles, a portrait of a demented-looking male and a drawing of a woman with a big behind, did well enough, but started no stampede.

Lot 9, Vincent van Gogh, The Fields (1890) (est. $28 million-$35 million), painted in Auvers sur Oise, where van Gogh moved to be closer to Theo after the latter’s marriage. In the last 70 days of his life, van Gogh painted 70 paintings, 68 of which are masterworks, arguably the longest run of brilliant painting in the history of art, after which he shot himself. This work was painted two and a half weeks before his death, and is quintessential van Gogh. Two oligarchs should have duked it out. Sotheby’s guaranteed the lot. Christie’s sold L’Arlessiene, Madame Ginoux in May 2006 for $40.3 million. This was more abstract and better. Fish in a barrel, right? Wrong. Passed - though wait a sec, David Norman said it sold directly after the auction.

Lot 13, Claude Monet, Le palais Dario (1908) (est. $8 million-$12 million), in spite of its saccharine palette slowly reveals itself as a beautiful Monet. It was offered at Christie’s in 1995 and failed to sell over an estimate of $3 million-$4 million. It was reoffered in 1997 over an estimate of $2 million-$3 million and barely sold at $2 million. Monet painted this palais four times. It seems it had been overshadowed by more ambitious Venetian pictures, but it’s in the sunlight now. Sold for $9.2 million.

Lot 15, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Femmes dans une jardin (1873) (est. $8 million-$12 million). A pretty picture of two women in shadowed background, with a foreground of Giverny-like abundance. Bewilderingly, this picture sold at Sotheby’s London in June 2006, just a year and a half ago, for $9.1 million. Perhaps compulsion or greed sent it back to the block so soon. Sotheby’s auctioneer Tobias Meyer was like a Chinese water clock, ticking out the bids drip by drip, until the lot finally sold for $10.9 million.

Lot 18, Paul Gauguin, Te Poipoi (1892) (est. $40 million-$60 million). A Tahitian-period Gauguin in one illustrious collection for the last 60 years, the Charles S. Payson family, who also sold the van Gogh Irises, not cutting-edge van Gogh, but lovely, and sold it at the top of the market. The compositionally more direct, and perhaps more desirable, L’homme à la hache sold last November for $40 million over an estimate of $35 million-$45 million in slow, labored bidding. The Paysons did not buy cutting-edge pictures, but neither do Russian oligarchs, so Sotheby’s set an estimate reflecting the Payson imprimateur and possibly a wistful hope, inasmuch as the picture features a tahitienne squatting unpleasantly in the river, stage left. On the verge of passing, a telephone bidder made one bid. Sold for $35 million. The buyer was later revealed to be Hong Kong collector Joseph Lau.

Lot 19, Renoir, Enfant assis en robe bleue (1889) (est. $9 million-$12 million), which, as noted, once belonged to Greta Garbo and is the most expensive picture ever sold from Renoir’s "Insipid Children Series." It sold in 1990 at Sotheby’s for $7 million. In May 2007, Christie’s sold Grande baigneuse aux jambes croisees contemplant la carte du jour for $9 million, sustaining at least theoretically the high estimate. The best of them, Leontine et Coco (1909), a painting of a demure Leontine reading to Renoir’s son, Claude, sold for $5.7 million in 1990, back in the day. This child looks as if she might have some cognitive issues. Passed.

Lot 21, Gauguin, Paysage aux trois arbres (1892) (est. $9 million-$12 million), another Tahitian-period picture, though without the bare-breasted maidens of Te Poipoi. It has the comfortable surface both pictorially and texturally of his Brittany landscapes. With the clothed women and specific flora, the picture was initially titled Paysage de la Martinique, dated 1887, and ascribed to his stay in Martinique. Wildenstein & Co., however, generously catalogued the work as a first-visit Tahitian painting. Whatever the date it looked quite clean at the previews. Only a few Tahitian landscapes have sold at auction. This wasn’t one of them. Passed.

Lot 22, Pablo Picasso, Tête de femme, (Dora Maar) (1941) (est. $20 million-$30 million), a not-especially-lovely but appetizing bronze, inasmuch as it appears to be made of chocolate, and is colossal. In this sculpture, Dora Maar looks puffy and squirrel-cheeked but worlds better than Marie-Thérèse, who Picasso turned into elephant girl, and Fernande, who got the full Cubist treatment. It is large and rare; only two were cast. Le guenon et son petit, a car-headed ape holding a baby, sold for $6.7 million in 2002, the most expensive sculpture in an edition of six. This one sold for $26 million to Franck Giraud of the New York and Paris power dealership Giraud Pissarro Ségalot.

Lot 23, Henri Matisse, Feuille noire sur fond rouge (1952) (est. $1.5 million-$2 million). One might wonder if this was a leaf fallen to the floor, shed from the tree, that Heinz Berggruen stooped to pick up, then sold or gave to Dominique de Menil. Another sold at Christie’s London in 2005 for $1.1 million. This one is prettier. Sold for $1.5 million.

Lot 24, Joan Miró, Le fermier et son épousé (1936) ($9 million-$12 million), sold out of the Billy Wilder collection in 1989 for $2.7 million. In June of 2007, Christie’s London sold Miró’s Le Coq (1940) for $13.1 million, well above the high estimate, giving substance to this lot’s value. It is among the most desirable of Mirós outside of the 23 Constellations gouaches. Sold for $9.25 million.

Lot 28, Picasso, La Lampe (1931) (est. $25 million-$35 million). "I am telling you dear, it is a bargain at $35 million." Overheard as two ladies strolled the preview. Definitely a top-of-the-line, high-estimate, 1931 Cubist model, highly contented, but did not do much for me. Nor for anyone else apparently. Passed.

Lot 31, Fernand Léger, La femme couchée (1920) (est. $2.5 million-$3.5 million) is a second-tier picture from a first-tier part of Léger’s oeuvre. It sold June 2005 in London for $1.4 million. And again tonight for $3 million.

Lot 32, Georges Braque, L’Echo (1953) (est. $15 million-$20 million). Braque is undervalued, overshadowed by his collaboration with Picasso. Which Braque would you have, a fauve picture, a Cubist picture or a late picture? The most expensive Braque was a 1911 high Cubist work that sold for $9.5 million in 1986; the second was a late 1952-55 picture from the McCarty-Cooper collection that brought $7.7 million in 1992. In May 2006, Christie’s sold a 9 x 13-inch Cubist work for $2.8 million and another in February for $2.7 million. The evening’s work had appeared in 1996 and sold for $2.5 million. It is beautiful, well, really nice anyway. Wrong. Passed.

Lot 33, Paul Cézanne, Maison dans le verdure (1881) (est. $7 million-$9 million), sold at Christie’s in June 2006 for $7.5 million. There have not been any woodsy landscapes to appear at auction in six years save the Maison above, Les grands arbres Le Jas de Bouffan, which sold in May 2005 at Christie’s for $11.8 million, and Le Jas de Bouffan, which passed at Christie’s last night, ominously, because it is a good picture. Les grands arbres Le Jas de Bouffan is ethereal and divine and very Cézannesque, but it sold a hairs-breadth above its reserve, and only by the legerdemain of Christie’s auctioneer Christopher Burge. Maison dans le verdure sold this evening at Sotheby’s for $6 million, a little below its earlier value once the buyer’s premium is added.

Lot 36, Kees van Dongen, Femme a la Cigarette (1905-08) (est. $3 million-$4 million), looks a bit like an imagined ad for an escort service at the back of New York magazine. With the smoke streaming from the mouth of a slattern, it was the nicest van Dongen at the sale. Sold for $4.8 million. Sotheby’s sold four out of the seven van Dongen works in the sale, all from the same European collection, which was no mean accomplishment.

Lot 37, Chaim Soutine, Le Rouquin (1917) (est. $2.5 million-$3.5 million). An intensely variegated background sets off a pleasant portrait of a man. It sold in 2001 for $770,000. The Soutine portrait L’homme au foulard rouge (1921), later, better, sold for $17 million this February in London. Le Rouquin sold for $2 million tonight, which was an excellent return, but below Sotheby’s absurd expectation.

Lot 41, Franz Marc, The Waterfall (1912) (est. $20 million-$30 million). Marc died at the age of 36 in 1916 in action during WWI, hence there is not a lot of Marc to share. Marc believed fervently in the spirituality of animals, and this morphed into a fundamentalist Futurism with Orphist overtones, half Cubist fracture, half Fauve color. There is no precedent in the records for this painting except this painting itself, which Sotheby’s sold in London in 1999 a little shy of $8.5 million. But Sotheby’s also sold a little tiny horse picture in tempera for $2.7 million this June, so the firm’s high valuation had some basis. Sold for $18 million.

Lot 46, Lyonel Feininger, The Green Bridge (1909) (est. $12.5 million-$15 million). A very buoyant estimate for a picture that sold for $3.1 million in 2001, but look no further back than last May when the big news was the candy-box-cover Feininger, Jesuiten III (1915), estimated at $7 million-$9 million, sold for a record $20,750,000 at the hammer to one of two phone bidders. Sotheby’s has mistaken the anomaly for the norm. It did not help Christie’s, however, when last night’s early Feininger passed. Both houses speculated that all you need is one $20-million Feininger to change things forever. The Green Bridge sold for $9 million, beneath expectation but more than it deserved.

Is Matisse the new Monet? There were nine lots offered this season between the two houses.

Lot 34, Matisse, Une rue à arcueil (1903) (est. $3 million-$4 million), an early transitional work that introduces Fauve color into his palette. Few have traded and none more than $5 million. Sold for $2.7 million.

Lot 44, Matisse, Espagnole (1922) (est. $12 million-$16 million). A richly patterned portrait of a woman in front of lavish floral wallpaper, in a check-patterned shawl leaning on a red-and-white striped tablecloth -- it sounds as if it would leave you bilious. It’s ravishing. He pulls it together for a third the money of Christie’s Odalisque: Harmonie Bleue, a 1937 picture which seemed pat, but sold for $30 million Tuesday night. In light of that sale one expected this painting to be equally costly. It was not. Sold for $9 million over the phone to one bidder and one bid.

Lot 51, Matisse, Nu sur fond rouge (1922) (est. $5 million-$7 million), is a very pink nude woman standing with her hands held behind her neck, full frontal nudity, a red Moroccan screen behind and a reddish Persian carpet on the floor. Passed back in 1998 over an estimate of $2 million-$3 million, it had been widely offered prior to that sale. Tonight was another story -- if a pretty nice, 1937 picture sells at Christie’s for a record $30 million, then an okay 1922 Matisse ought to bring $4 million the next evening at Sotheby’s. It did.

Lot 59, Matisse, Le repos de la danseuse (1942) (est. $6 million-$8 million). Auctioned in 1990 for $1.6 million. A faceless woman in a skirted, strapless maillot, reclining on an acid yellow-green fauteuil with red arms, set upon black-and-white parquet. Very Matisse-like, but hardly a "comfort to a tired businessman," Matisse’s mission statement. Passed.

Lot 67, Henri Edmond Cross, L’Épave (1899) (est. $700,000-900,000). This picture sold in 1989 for $467,000. A more recent sale for a same-period work brought $1 million at Christie’s in May 2006, for a bunch of naked boys frolicking in the river. Cross always seemed undervalued, but then again, maybe not. Passed.

Lot 73, Monet, Aiguille d’Éntretat, Marée Basse (1883) (est. $1.8 million-$2.2 million). It must have felt cleansing to paint on the beaches of the English Channel then walk back, in the fading light, to the nearby fishing settlements. Not a particularly special picture but lovely all the same, it sold in November 2005 for $1.9 million, but not tonight. Passed.

After Christie’s excess on Tuesday no one expected Sotheby’s to do anything less on Wednesday. But the room never caught fire until the final third of the sale, when the recognition dawned that many of the lots were not all that they could be, that the passing of major works, flawed or no, was not a catastrophe, and that Tobias Meyer was actually selling lots well below the low estimate and at approximate market value. Then people started bidding in earnest. It may have been too little too late to save Sotheby’s evening, but it was a pleasant note to end the sale.

ART MARKET WATCH Nov '07

ART MARKET WATCH Nov '07 artlover87766588798

Pablo Picasso Pomme 1918 $825,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Pablo Picasso Homme à la pipe 1968 $16,841,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Claude Monet Chrysanthèmes 1897 $3,177,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Jeune fille au chapeau noir à fleurs rouges 1898 $2,169,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Paul Signac Cassis. Cap Canaille 1889 $14,041,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Nature morte au melon et au vase de fleurs 1883 $2,505,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Henri Matisse L’odalisque, harmonie bleue 1937 $33,641,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Paul Cézanne Compotier et assiette de biscuits 1877 $12,641,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Paul Cézanne Portrait de Vallier 1904-1906 $17,401,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Paul Cézanne Le Jas de Bouffan 1890-1894 Bought In Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Fernand Léger Dessin pour contraste de formes, composition II 1913 $4,745,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Pablo Picasso Tête de femme, Dora Maar 1941 $16,281,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Fernand Léger Etude pour les constructeurs, fond bleu 1950-1951 $11,801,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Fernand Léger La roue rouge, composition à la roue I 1920 $4,521,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Amedeo Modigliani Jeune fille assise en chemise 1918 $16,841,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Alexej Jawlensky Mädchen mit zopf 1909 $5,193,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

August Macke Paar im wald 1912 Bought In Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Lyonel Feininger Die werbung, the proposal 1907 Bought In Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Pablo Picasso Femme nue 1965 $6,089,000 Christie’s New York Nov. 6, 2007

Two Russian oligarchs are sitting in a café. "Nice shirt," says the first. "I bought it at that new boutique for $4,000," says the second. "Oh, Sergei," says the first, "you’re an idiot, I bought the same one and I paid $8,000." A joke? No, a parable about art auctions.

Christie’s New York got the big-ticket November auctions off to a good start with its evening sale on Nov. 6, 2007. The sale totaled $394,977,200 (with premium), with 74 of 91 lots finding buyers, or 81 percent. Prices given below are at the hammer; typically, Christie’s adds on a buyer’s premium of 25 percent of the first $20,000, 20 percent of the amount up to $200,000, and 12 percent of anything above that.

Lot 1, Pablo Picasso, Pomme (1918) (est. $200,000-300,000). It is an apple painted on an 8 x 10 in. piece of canvas -- not brilliant, try charming. The bidding starts at $400,000 -- $100,000 above the high estimate! -- and it sells for $700,000. A lot of the sale was like that and it was a long sale.

These are some points of interest:

Lot 5, Picasso again, Homme à la pipe (1968) (est. $12 million-$16 million). The work was purchased in 1987 for $880,000. It is a late, large, over-the-top picture. It built on the momentum of the first lot, the apple. It represents Picasso as a meretricious pasticheur of himself. Think ‘60s Cadillac with lots of chrome, ghastly -- but it sold for $15 million. Tonight, Picasso is a heavy industry. The buyer was Larry Gagosian, a cell phone to his ear.

Lot 8, Claude Monet, Chrysanthémes (1897) (est. $1.8 million-$2.5 million). Sold for $1.4 million in 2002. Never a well-loved series, it is, however, a brilliant, quietly evolving picture that foreshadows the illusive surface of the water lilies in the softer, demure format of chrysanthemums. Most recently, Massif de Chrysanthemes sold for $2.3 million at Christie’s, in 2004. Last night it went for $2.8 million.

Lot 10, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Jeune fille au chapeau noir des mujahidéne (1897) (est. $1.5 million-$2.5 million). Did Renoir really paint this portrait? He did. What seemed so uncharacteristically straightforward in the catalogue turned out to be in person a small head crushed between a big black hat and a bondage fetish collar. Sold for $1.9 million.

Lot 11, Camille Pissarro, Les Quatre Saisons (1872-1873) (est. $12 million-$18 million). Four panels, sold as a group for $6.8 million in 1991 and more recently for $9 million in 2004, at their low estimate. They are a matched set of faintly awkward, elongated rectangles in a subdued palette and a dry sensibility. In the three intervening years since they last came to auction they don’t seem to have become more exciting. Christie’s guaranteed the lot and housed it like a peep show in a small sanctum at the west end of the showroom. A lot of marketing thought went into that, particularly in view of the efflorescent Pissarro, lot 28, which got stuck in a corner. Les Quatre Saisons sold for $13 million in the same palsied bidding it sold for last time. It is a new auction record for the artist.

Lot 15, Paul Gauguin, Nature Morte aux fruits et piments (1892) (est. $10 million-$15 million). Christie’s contribution to Tahitian Gauguin week. Prettier but not as ambitious as the painting that up at Sotheby’s on Nov. 7. It is a small, 12 x 26 in. picture of lemons and oranges in a bowl and a few small peppers. Sold for $11 million.

Lot 19, Paul Signac, Cassis. Cap Canaille (1889) (est. $8 million-$12 million). Signac has been inching into eight-figure prices this year. Constantinople - Corne d’or sold for $9.5 million in June 2007 and Arriere du tub for $11.7 million in May. Cap Canaille is a beautiful picture and Christie’s expected it to hit a record, as it is debatably better to own a first-rate work by a second-tier master than vice versa. Christie’s guaranteed the lot. It sold for $12.5 million -- a record for Signac.

Lot 21, Marc Chagall, L’evenement (1978) (est. $5 million-$7 million) -- garish, large, late Chagall that migrated from the last-minute end of the sale to prime time. Grim but guaranteed. Passed.

Lot 23, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Nature mort au melon et au vase de fleurs (1883) (est. $1 million-$1.5 million). A picture that will make someone happy for a very long time. Fabulous, early example of his rare still-lifes, restrained, colorful and cheap. . . ish. Went for $2.2 million. The buyer was Daniella Luxembourg, the art consultant and former auction-house hand.

Lot 24, Henri Matisse, L’odalisque, harmonie bleue (1937) (est. $15 million-$20 million). If the catalogues were not sufficiently weighty, this lot comes with its own. There are so many great Matisses -- alas you cannot buy them, nor is this one of them. However, it is for sale. It comes from a period when war was imminent and Matisse’s production was sporadic; it has anemones, fruit, an odalisque -- and its own catalogue. At $22 million, the bidding paused. . . and ascended slowly in $500,000 increments. "One more sir?" says auctioneer Christopher Burge, eyebrows aloft, with a sympathetic, boyish grin, "Yes?" It went on until he admonished, "I’m going slowly, but at some point I am going to have to sell it." It sold for $30 million, a new record.

Lot 28, Pissarro, Les Peupliers, après midi à Eragny (1899) (est. $4.5 million-$6.5 million). It sold in 1989 for $2.4 million. It may not be the best Pissarro but is alive on so many levels that it made Les quatre saisons look like nuclear winter. It scintillated. Its first cousin, Les peupliers, matin, Eragny, sold in June 2006 for $4.5 million, and was sufficient warranty for Christie’s to guarantee this lot. It sold for $4.8 million.

Lot 29, Paul Cézanne, Compotier et assiette de biscuits (1877) (est. $10 million-$15 million), seemed heavy rather than weighty in the catalogue, but in person it was self-assured, with a mounting gravitas. Can one say that about a picture? Most recently at Christie’s in November 2005, Pommes et gateaux sold for $10.3 million over the modest estimate of $3.5 million-$4.5 million -- hence the strong financial projection for this bowl of fruit and dodgy-looking biscuits. It may, however, be the Ur-picture of both sales. It sold for $11.25 million in slow bidding, barely clearing the low estimate.

Lot 31, Cézanne, Portrait de Vallier (1904-1906) (est. $15 million-$25 million). Cézanne’s aging gardener. Cézanne took his time doing it, as well. The most expensive Cézanne watercolor had sold this past spring at Sotheby’s New York for $25.5 million with the premium. That work was part of the British Rail Pension Fund, a prototypical still-life, but it also seemed labored and dreary. Christie’s intended last night’s Portrait de Vallier to be its rival, and guaranteed the lot -- it is an extraordinary work, delicate and radiant. It sold at a very plausible $15.5 million.

Lot 32, Cézanne, Route tournante (1902-1906) (est. $5 million-$7 million) is nearly as good as the portrait, or better -- more abstract and a third the price. These are new values for Cezanne watercolors; this one sold for $6 million. According to the press, these two and a third Cézanne watercolor were all being sold by Museum of Modern Art trustee Donald Marron,

Lot 39, yet another Cézanne, Le Jas de Bouffan (1890-1894) (est. $12 million-$16 million), which would make it a record for woodsy Cézannes without a mountain. It is the 37-acre estate of Cézanne’s father. It sold in 1990 for $7.1 million (the picture, not the farm), which makes it a best-of-breed kind of picture. It is the archetypal Cézanne, red roofs, brushy trees and sky. In May 2005 Les Grand Arbres au Jas de Bouffan, too delicate and less straight-forward, hammered out at $10.5 million over an estimate of $12-16 million, barely escaping its reserve at the time. Tonight, Le Jas de Bouffan. . . passed.

Lot 41, Fernand Léger’s early Cubist abstraction, Dessin pour contraste de formes (1913) (est. $1.8 million-$2.5 million) shimmers from across the room. It is a study that competes favorably with the paintings it planned. One, similar, not as good, sold at Lempertz in June 2007 for $1.4 million. In this sale the work sold in frenzied bidding for $4.2 million. The winning bidder, according to observers in the room, was Dominique Levy of L&M Arts.

Lot 42, Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme (1909) (est. $2 million-$3 million) and Lot 49, Pablo Picasso, Nu debout (1908) (est. $9 million-$12 million). Two brilliant, slightly awkward, early Cubist Picassos, still rough, but approximately the same size, date and quality. Both works are austere, vital and appeared more interesting than the horrible Homme a la pipe. Both passed.

Lot 43, Pablo Picasso, Tete de femme (Dora Maar) (1941) (est. $6.5 million-$8.5 million). A small, 16 x 13 in., bug-eyed Cubist Dora Maar -- not a pretty thing nor a great one, but an iconic image. Sold for $14.5 million.

Lot 44, Léger, Etude pour les constructeurs (1951) (est. $10 million-$15 million) is a large, late Leger that should have been better and sold for $10.5 million.

Lot 51, Léger, La roue rouge (1920) (est. $4 million-$6 million), a quiet, small picture that seemed nearly as compelling and surprising as the Cézanne fruit bowl. It was everything the previous Léger lot was not. Sold, with only two bids, at $4 million.

Lot 47, Amedeo Modigliani, Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Meistchninoff (1916) (est. $18 million-$25 million). Clothed portraits bring higher prices where once nudes held sway. Is that a byproduct of politics? The surface of this picture is a paradigm of perfect touch, with no false stroke. The blue blouse carries the emotional content. It sold in 1995 for $9.35 million. The Fils du concierge, a portrait of a delicate-looking boy, sold one year ago for an epic $31 million, over estimates of $14 million-$18 million. Tonight’s portrait sold in strong, steady bidding for $27.5 million.

Lot 54, Amedeo Modigliani, Jeune fille assise en chemise (1918) (est. $9 million-$12 million). A painting of a young woman, looking a little postcoital with her chemise fallen off her shoulder and her eyes without pupils, that sold in 1998 for $4.8 million. Not an epic value at the time. Sotheby’s posted the qualitatively similar Jeune fille en bleu last spring at $12 million-$15 million and failed to find a buyer. Christie’s sold Venus, Nu debout in November 2006 for $16 million, but that was an engaging portrait of a woman covering her sex with her left hand and offering her breast with her right -- typical, but also of vastly more interest. Plus she had eyes. Perhaps they thought no one would notice. No one did. It sold for $15 million, and she looked a lot better after the sale.

Lot 62, Alexej Jawlensky, Madchenmit Zopf (1909) (est. $3.8 million-$4.5 million). Christie’s must have been wondering, as they set the estimate, how an abstract Jawlensky would fare. Most of them have the paint-by-numbers simplicity of a Russian icon, école de Novgorod. This one is a beautiful picture. Most recently, Thinking Woman (1912) sold at Sotheby’s London for $4.25 million in June of 2007. In June 2006, Lola bought $4.5 million. Both works were a departure from Jawlensky’s death-mask portraits. Sold for $4.6 million.

Lot 64, August Macke, Paar im Wald (1912) (est. $15 million-$25 million). An artist who died in 1914, in action in WWI, at the age of 27, Macke visited Paris in his early 20s and came away with an étouffeé of Orphism and Fauvism. In 1910 he met up with Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc and joined them in the Blaue Reiter. The last major painting to appear at auction sold at Sotheby’s in London for $3 million in 2004. The most expensive sold, same venue, in 2002 for $4.3 million. Christie’s believed it had floated the Uber-Macke in a buoyant sea of Euros. By the micro-asterisk preceding the entry in their catalogue, Christie’s declined responsibility in regard to authorship. I think that’s interesting for $20 million worth of strudel. The picture looked tired in spite of its rarity. See the Marc at Sotheby’s tomorrow. Last night, the Macke passed.

Lot 65, Lyonel Feininger, The Proposal (1907) (est. $4 million-$6 million). Inasmuch as Feininger made brilliant Cubist-like paintings, transparent and ethereal from 1914, the current vogue for his heavy, earlier work is mystifying. In 1994, this picture hammered down for $350,000 (its reserve?) over an estimate of $450,000-$650,000. It was a dull picture and even the $20-million sale of Feininger’s Jesuiten III last May couldn’t save it. Passed.

Lot 68, Pablo Picasso, Femme nue (1965) (est. $3.5 million-$4.5 million). One searches for language to describe something that is immediately and unremittingly awful. Did someone say, "Pablo, I think the face is nice, why don’t we just crop that?" Crop the whole thing. Wrong -- it sold, in laborious $100,000 increments, until it reached $5.4 million.

Lot 69, Chaim Soutine, Paysage (1923) (est. $3.5 million-$5.5 million), a beautiful Cagnes landscape. Portraits are more valuable, but this May, Christie’s sold L’escalier rouge à Cagnes for $7.8 million, a record for a Cagnes picture. In February, it sold L’homme au foulard rouge, a perfect portrait, for $17 million. Between the two, one would expect. . . one would expect wrong. It passed.

Lot 73, Pablo Picasso, Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline) (1955) (est. only on request!). Not exactly a flattering portrait of Jacqueline, with her mid-section folding over itself and a faintly farbissina expression on her viz, but high ‘50s Picasso all the same. It sold in 1995, at Sotheby’s, at the end of a sale where they isolate fractious pictures, for $2.35 million at the hammer -- on an estimate of $3 million-$4 million. It must have just escaped its reserve. Six months later, a prettier femmes d’Algier picture, Femme au costume turc dans un fauteuil, sold for $4.6 million.

Now, it has its own catalogue and an estimate reputed to be $20 million. The lot opened at $20 million and sold for $27.5 million.

The sale went to 91 lots. Packed tight in the salesroom, it was like going to Miami in coach. Christie’s guaranteed or had an interest in about one third of the lots, including some that were passed. Christie’s took in somewhere in the neighborhood of $395,000,000, which is a record for any one sale, save for last year’s blow-out with the four Gustav Klimt paintings.

The material was not that exceptional, yet still values escalated, and some in a very short span. Do buyers actually go to sales rooms to look at the work or just shop online? They’re going to be surprised. Post-war and contemporary sales are yet to come, and we hear there is even more substantial and expensive material there. See you next Tuesday.

For complete, illustrated auction results, see Artnet’s signature Fine Art Auctions Database.

Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art at Christie's

Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art at Christie's artlover46577888688

Ming blue and white flask, Yongle Period [1403-25]. Estimate: £150,000-200,000. Realised £1,140,500. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2007.

LONDON.- The Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art including Export Art sale realised £4,113,250 and was 92% sold by value at Christie’s. The top lot was Yongle (1403 - 1425), a very rare early Ming blue and white flask, Bianhu which realised £1,140,500. Ruben Lien, Head of Sale stated, “We are extremely pleased with the excellent results of today's sale, which indicate a strong and buoyant market. In a packed sale room with spirited bidding from clients in the room, on the telephone and on the internet, competition was fierce across the board, with many pieces exceeding their pre-sale estimates. The top lot, an extremely rare 15th century blue and white ewer, sold for £1,140,500, multiples of its pre-sale estimate. The front cover, lot 180 - a pair of exquisite black and green-enamelled dishes, was bought by the eminent collector Mr. Robert Chang for £412,500. Jade carvings also performed extremely well, with many new clients bidding in the room. A small collection of jades from a Swiss family was the highlight of this category, with the top lot, the white jade dragon vase selling for £216,500. Strong results were also achieved in cloisonne enamels and Buddhist sculptures. We look forward to our sale of Chinese and Ceramic Works of Art at Christie’s South Kensington on Friday 9 November.”

The Hon. Simon Sainsbury Bequeaths Masterpieces to the National Gallery and Tate

The Hon. Simon Sainsbury Bequeaths Masterpieces to the National Gallery and Tate artlover765588878

Edgar Degas, After the Bath, about 1896. Private collection. © Christie’s Images/Corbis.

LONDON.-The National Gallery and Tate jointly announced one of the most significant bequests of paintings ever to the nation. The collector, Simon Sainsbury (1930-2006), has generously bequeathed 18 paintings from his outstanding international and British art collection to the National Gallery and Tate. Five paintings by artists Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Claude Monet and Henri Rousseau will go to the National Gallery, and Tate will receive 13 works by artists Francis Bacon, Balthus, Pierre Bonnard, Lucian Freud, Thomas Gainsborough, Victor Pasmore, John Wootton and Johan Zoffany. Martin Wyld, Acting Director, The National Gallery said: “Simon Sainsbury’s legacy at the National Gallery is truly remarkable. He was both a devoted trustee and a guiding force in the successful completion of the Sainsbury Wing. He long intended that major works from his distinguished collection should come to the National Gallery and these outstanding paintings will greatly enrich our Impressionist and Post-Impressionist collection.” Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate, said: “Simon Sainsbury was one of the UK’s most private but generous philanthropists, giving his wealth, time and experience to numerous and varied causes especially in the cultural sector. I am extremely grateful that he chose to bequeath so many remarkable works to the nation. This is one of the most important gifts in the history of Tate and bears comparison with the Frank Stoop Bequest in the 1930s. The sheer variety of works gifted will enhance many different areas of the Tate Collection.” Works donated to the National Gallery are: Snow Scene at Argenteuil, 1875 by Claude-Oscar Monet (1840-1926) Monet was an incomparable painter of snow and this canvas is the largest and most atmospheric of some 18 snow scenes the artist painted in the town of Argenteuil during the winter of 1874-5, famous for its heavy snowfall. Water-Lilies, Setting Sun, about 1907 by Claude-Oscar Monet (1840-1926). This vibrant and colourful scene, full of dramatic light effects, depicts a corner of Monet’s water garden at Giverny. Joining twelve other works by Monet in the National Gallery’s collection, it greatly enhances its representation of his audacious late works. Bowl of Fruit and Tankard before a Window, probably 1890 by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is a statement of Gauguin’s desire to move beyond Impressionism to an art of greater visual complexity and structural vigour. Here he confronts still-life elements in the foreground with a distant view out over a Breton town. Portrait of Joseph Brummer, 1909 by Henri Rousseau (1844 – 1910). Joseph Brummer was an early champion of Rousseau’s art, commissioning this monumental portrait soon after meeting the artist. It has long been admired as a masterpiece of European portraiture. The National Gallery’s only other work by Rousseau, Surprised!, 1891, remains a firm favourite with visitors. After the Bath, about 1896 by Edgar Degas (1834 – 1917). Among the most colourful and visually complex of Degas’ late female nudes, this painting profoundly deepens the Gallery’s representation of works by the artist. Works donated to Tate are: Study for a Portrait 1952 by Francis Bacon (1909-1992). Tate holds some of Bacon’s most important paintings but there are no works by the artist of comparative style and subject in the Collection. The Snack 1940, Nude on a Chaise Longue 1950 and The Golden Fruit 1956 by Balthus (Count Balthasar Klossowski de Rola) (1908-2001). This is a substantial gift of three major paintings by the artist and will transform Tate’s Balthus holdings. Nude in the Bath 1925, and The Yellow Boat c.1936-8 by Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) further strengthens his representation making it one of the highlights of the Tate. Although Tate already holds Bonnard's The Bath 1925, Nude in the Bath 1925 is a radically different work, by virtue of the inclusion of a self-portrait and its extreme cropping and dynamic vertical format. It provides a greater depth of understanding to the development of this particularly significant theme in his work, while The Yellow Boat is a fine example of his late style. Girl with a Kitten 1947, Boy Smoking 1950-1 and The Painter’s Mother 1972 by Lucian Freud (born 1922). This group of works complements and adds to Freud’s representation in a way that allows the psychological and stylistic shifts in his work during these key years to be traced more adequately. Boy Smoking, though little known or reproduced, is one of the finest examples of his incisive approach to portraiture in this period and The Painter’s Mother is the first painting of the artist’s mother to enter the Collection. Mr and Mrs Carter c.1747-8 by Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) is an important document of the artist’s early career and patronage. It is the earliest painting by Gainsborough to enter the Collection. The Hanging Gardens of Hammersmith, No. 1 1944-7 by Victor Pasmore (1908-1998) complements the more abstract and later The Hanging Gardens of Hammersmith, No. 2 1949 already in the Collection and serves to illuminate the full complexity of his investigation of abstraction. Life-size Horse with Huntsman Blowing a Horn c.1732 by John Wootton (?1682-1784) is arguably one of the artist’s masterpieces. It is more monumental than the other hunting scenes in the Collection by the artist Colonel Blair and his Family and Indian Ayah in an Interior 1789 by Johan Zoffany (1733-1810). This is the first conversation piece by the artist to enter the Collection. A display of the works donated to the National Gallery and Tate Collection will open at Tate Britain on 9 June 2008.

Gustave Courbet – Entre réalisme et scandale

Gustave Courbet – Entre réalisme et scandale

artlover766578888

Né à Ornans en 1819, Courbet a absorbé les courants picturaux de son époque avant de s´émanciper de l´académisme et du romantisme de la première heure. Ses premières œuvres sont empruntes de sentimalisme puis imposent une vision réaliste, parfois austère, aux abords de 1848. Dès lors, le regard de l´artiste gagne en franchise, ne cède plus à l´idéalisation et privilégie la nature au sens large.

Gustave COURBET est une valeur sure et sa cote pourrait être galvanisée par l´exposition monographique qui lui est dédiée, ouverte dans les galeries nationales du Grand Palais de Paris jusqu´au 28 janvier 2008, avant d´être présentée au Metropolitan Museum of Art du 27 février 2008 au 18 mai 2008. Malgré tout, les acheteurs demeurent exigeants : prêts à faire flamber les prix pour une œuvre aboutie, ils opèrent cependant un tri sévère. Entre 15 et 30 toiles sont proposées annuellement aux enchères, des paysages pour l´essentiel, dont les plus austères trouvent difficilement preneur (près de 30% d´œuvres sont restées invendues en 2006). Les dessins sont plus rares : une dizaine seulement furent proposés depuis 1997. Dernière surprise en date : Le veau blanc de 1873, une toile restée en main privée pendant 25 ans qui fut proposée le 23 octobre dernier chez Sotheby´s NY et a explosé sa fourchette d´estimation de 320 000 - 380 000 dollars pour s´envoler à 2,2 millions de dollars (1,543 millions de dollars)… Voilà près de 10 ans qu´un paysage animalier de l´artiste n´avait culminé à plus d´un million de dollars ! En 1998, Le Coup de Vent, un paysage magistral de plus de deux mètres, doubla son estimation pour une enchère gagnante de 2,05 millions de dollars (plus de 1,85 millions d´euros). Lors de la dispersion new-yorkaise du 23 octobre, Sotheby´s présentait trois autres toiles de qualité hétérogène dont une clairière très austère qui resta invendue pour une fourchette d´estimation de 100 000 – 150 000 dollars.

Le lendemain chez Christie´s, c´est un Paysage de mer aux tonalités terreuses qui fut boudé (est. 150 000 - 250 000 dollars). Les estimations étaient trop optimistes… les amateurs du genre pouvant acquérir des paysages dans cette veine pour moins de 50 000 dollars en dehors du faste des vacations new-yorkaises. En juin dernier, par exemple, l´antenne parisienne de Sotheby´s adjugeait Adieu au Jura pour 22 000 euros … une œuvre qui fut mieux vendue à Londres 10 ans plus tôt (26 000 livres sterling, soit 37 677 euros).

Plus rares que les paysages, les portraits, et notamment ceux des femmes, souffrent de la même amplitude de prix : en 2006 par exemple, la très sage Femme au missel proposée par la maison de vente genevoise Rosset décrocha seulement 20 000 francs suisses, soit 12 680 euros, tandis qu´en juin denier, la sensualité de la Femme nue proposée décrocha 1,450 million de livres sterling (plus de 2,1 millions d´euros)… L´œuvre fait partie de la série controversée des nus réalisés entre 1865 et 1966. Les amateurs n´auront pas souvent l´occasion d´enchérir sur des autoportraits, faisant la fierté de quelques grands musées ou encore en mains privées comme le fameux Autoportrait en «désespéré» (vers 1843) tête d´expression stéréotypée dans la veine romantique. Les dernières têtes vendues, dans la veine réaliste cette fois, furent dispersées en 2003 : un portrait de Madame Frond adjugé 70 000 dollars ( environ 63 800 euros) et un autre portrait, plus grand, d´Urbain Cuenot parti pour 200 000 dollars (182 000 euros, Sotheby´s NY). Le chantre du réalisme fit scandale à de nombreuses reprises, par ses engagements politiques d´une part mais aussi par le choix de certains sujets. Il est l´auteur de l´une des œuvres les plus sulfureuses de l´histoire de la peinture L'Origine du monde (1866). Ce corps de femme tronqué, d´un érotisme brutal, fut la propriété du psychanalyste Jacques Lacan de 1955 à 1981.

À l´époque de la réalisation du tableau, le modèle préféré de Courbet fut une jeune femme, Joanna Hiffernan, dite Jo. Lorsqu´un portrait de la jeune femme apparu en vente publique en 1998 sous le titre Portrait de Jo, la belle Irlandaise, elle emporta tous les suffrages et devint son œuvre la plus chèrement acquise : 2,7 millions de dollars, soit plus de 2,4 millions d´euros (Sotheby´s NY). Trois ans plus tard, son nouveau propriétaire choisit de s´en séparer et perdit 1 million de dollars dans cet aller-retour… l´effet de surprise passé, la toile ne réveilla pas les premiers engouements et partie pour 1,7 million de dollars chez le même auctioneer. Le réalisme de Courbet est affaire d´amateurs avertis : les œuvres sont hétérogènes et les velléités spéculatives dangereuses sur ce terrain.

Lush Shades of Gray Explored in Major Jasper Johns Exhibition at Art Institute

Lush Shades of Gray Explored in Major Jasper Johns Exhibition at Art Institute artlover677588878898

Jasper Johns, False Start, 1959, Oil on canvas, 67 1/4 x 54 in. Kenneth and Anne Griffin. Art © Jasper Johns/Licensed by VAGA, New York, NY. Photo: Jamie M. Stukenberg / Professional Graphics Inc., Rockford, Illinois.

CHICAGO.-One of the most important and prolific American artists of the 20th century, Jasper Johns is best known as the creator of the flags, maps, targets, and alphabets now recognized as iconic modern American works. Not surprisingly, Johns is also one of the most studied American artists, the subject of exhibitions and books as well as a major influence on artists, writers, and composers. But despite all of this scrutiny, a signal aspect of his production has never before been the subject of an exhibition—his use of the color gray. Gray is just as central to his work as targets and flags, and it has been a consistent thread in his practice for decades. Johns has worked through all of his series in gray; he produced many paintings only in gray; he translates paintings from color into gray; he experiments with gray materials such as Sculp-metal, lead, and silver; and he worked from gray paintings to color versions of the same theme. Jasper Johns: Gray, which open at the Art Institute of Chicago, is a radical new take on the work of an American master. Viewers of the exhibition will see, for the first time, how gray functioned for Johns over time as its own material, as a philosophy, as a mood, as a concept or indication of a concept. They will also see the wide range and mood of Johns’s gray—warm and cold, light and dark, disciplined and lush, closed and expansive—across many different media. The exhibition, consisting of 138 works—including paintings, sculptures, prints, and drawings—encompasses all periods of Johns’s production, beginning in 1955 and running up through the present, including several works never publicly exhibited before. Jasper Johns: Gray sheds light on an aspect of the artist’s career that has been hiding in plain sight for decades. “I think viewers of this exhibition will be able to experience the great potential and meaning that gray has for Jasper Johns,” said James Rondeau, Frances and Thomas Dittmer Chair of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago and co-curator of the exhibition. “Gray is much more than a color to him. It is an analytical tool, a measure of distance and separation, and a means of getting to the heart of his practice as an artist. Through such a close exploration of a subtle and restricted range, Johns is able to make abundant and commodious discoveries. We are honored to be able to bring these discoveries together for the first time.” Johns (b. 1930) emerged in the 1950s as one of the leading artists of the generation that followed the Abstract Expressionists in New York. Eschewing the highly subjective and expressive themes and techniques of artist such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock, Johns, along with his contemporaries such as Robert Rauschenberg, turned to a more conceptual approach to painting, incorporating elements of popular culture, language, and everyday objects into his work. Widely recognized for his long series of encaustic (wax) works using the American flag, the alphabet, maps, and numbers, Johns used these emblematic forms and shapes as vehicles to investigate representation, the act of cognition, and the nature of language. But, as this exhibition convincingly demonstrates, while Johns is best known for his imagery executed in color, monochrome works—particularly those in gray—are critical to his practice. That color, for Johns, is a means of stripping his ideas down to their essentials and finding infinite variety within a formal limit. Johns was working in gray as early as 1955, but it was a few years later that the full implications of the color assumed a central role in his career. Thus the exhibition begins with an early and definitive statement: the pairing of the lavish work False Start (1959) and Jubilee (1959), two visitations on the same theme. False Start, recently purchased by Chicago collectors Kenneth and Anne Griffin and rarely exhibited, announces a major new direction for Johns, evident in its non-referential title, its medium (oil rather than encaustic), its exuberant brushwork, and its text, in which colors are named but not labeled. Jubilee, executed shortly after False Start, appears to be a gray interpretation of the earlier painting. Here, at the juncture between False Start and Jubilee, Johns’s lifelong exploration of this color—as concept, as means, as practice—emerges on a monumental scale, and the pairing of the paintings sets the themes that are traced through a dozen sections devoted to Johns’s work. Creatively and vigorously investigating Johns’s use of gray, these sections elucidate the ideas that occupied the artist and their different manifestations: signs and symbols; paintings that function as objects; crosshatch paintings; autobiographical (and more representational) works; parts of his recent Catenary series, one of his largest self-contained series and an emphatic declaration of his commitment to the color; Johns’s sculpture; new works; and more. Jasper Johns: Gray includes a number of paintings that are very rarely exhibited as well as many of the artist’s signature works, such as his images of maps and targets, alphabets and numbers. Viewers will find here the first “map” work Johns created as well as the rarely seen 4 Leo (1970), which has been in the private collection of dealer Leo Castelli. Johns’s works Coat Hanger (1959) and Portrait—Viola Farber (1961), included here, have not been shown publicly in decades, and several works from 2007 have never before been exhibited. In addition to bringing many of these works on view, the exhibition also features such defining pieces as Tennyson (1958), In Memory of My Feelings—Frank O’Hara (1961), Winter (1986) from The Seasons series, and the Art Institute’s own Near the Lagoon (2002–03). Thirty-six works in the exhibition, including many prints and drawings, are from the Art Institute’s permanent collection, and twenty-four works are from Johns’s personal collection. In a recent interview published in the exhibition catalogue, Johns remarks, “I don’t know how much I’ve used [gray]. I mean, I guess I’m going to learn, from this exhibition.” Jasper Johns: Gray reveals this undiscovered aspect of the work of this landmark American artist with a dazzling collection of paintings, drawings, prints, and sculpture. The exhibition brings together both monuments of Johns’s career and intimate experiments, complementing the familiar with the newly uncovered, and offering viewers a new lens through which to see some of the most iconic works of modern art. Jasper Johns: Gray is organized by The Art Institute of Chicago, in cooperation with The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The exhibition is made possible by Kenneth and Anne Griffin. Major funding is generously provided by the Harris Family Foundation in memory of Bette and Neison Harris. The project is also supported by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. An indemnity is provided by the Federal Council for the Arts and the Humanities. The exhibition is curated by James Rondeau and Douglas Druick with the assistance of Mark Pascale and Maureen Pskowski. James Rondeau is the Frances and Thomas Dittmer Chair of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. Douglas Druick is the Searle Chair of the Department of Medieval to Modern European Painting and Sculpture and the Prince Trust Chair of the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. Mark Pascale is associate curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago. Maureen Pskowski is departmental exhibitions manager in the Department of Contemporary Art at the Art Institute of Chicago. A stunning exhibition catalogue, including essays by James Rondeau, Douglas Druick, Mark Pascale, Barbara Rose, Richard Shiff, and conservators Kristin Lister and Kelly Keegan, and an interview with the artist by Nan Rosenthal, is available through the Museum Shop.

Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso To Lead Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Sale

Cezanne, Matisse and Picasso To Lead Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art Sale artlover765588878868

Henri Matisse, L’Odalisque, harmonie bleue, $15 – 20 million. © Christie's Images Ltd. 2007.

NEW YORK.- Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 6, with previews in New York starting on November 2, will be the quintessential ‘museum of an instant,’ showcasing a tightly edited ensemble of paintings and sculpture that are among the most riveting and cardinal artistic creations of the late 19th/early 20th century. Works by Cézanne, Matisse, Modigliani, Signac and Picasso will be highlighting the sale alongside paintings by Balthus, Beckmann, Toulouse-Lautrec and Léger. “I’m still going to the Cézanne room … the puzzlement and insecurity of one’s confrontation with his work… and then suddenly one has the right eyes.” (Rainer Maria Rilke, October 10, 1907) Paul Cézanne, the father of modernism to many, is represented in the sale with an extraordinary group of five watercolors and two paintings. Of these, Portrait de Vallier, 1904/06 (estimate: $15 – 25 million) is arguably the finest watercolor to have come to market in recent memory. The work portrays Vallier, the gardener who tended the property surrounding Cézanne’s studio in the Chemin des Lauves. Vallier, who consented to pose for portraits on a regular basis during the last years of his life, is seen against a network of undulating tree trunks and verdant foliage. The Vallier portrait fits into the series of peasant and laborers portraits which Cézanne had begun in the late 1880s but it transcends these works in its powerful emotional charge. In fact, the work may even be considered a metaphorical self-portrait, emblematic of the close identification of the artist with his model. Cézanne’s depiction of la Montagne Sainte-Victoire, set in a rocky and rugged landscape dotted with prehistoric caves and Celtic, Roman and medieval ruins, is widely regarded as one of the major catalysts in the development of cubism. During the last years of his life, the artist frequently painted the vast, isolated terrain east of Aix-en-Provence, and the sale offers two exquisite drawings of the subject, La Montagne Sainte Victoire vue des Lauves, 1902/06 and the double-sided Route tournante with a recto depicting La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves (estimate: $5 – 7 million each). In total Cézanne painted seventeen watercolors in 1902/06 which depict the craggy peak of the Montagne Sainte-Victoire from the slopes of Les Lauves. Although these can not be regarded as an ensemble, they do represent the last and most important series of landscapes the artist painted of this seminal motif. Les Jas de Bouffan, painted in 1890/94 (estimate: $12 – 16 million), depicts the ornamental pool which stood in front of the house and which was one of the artist’s favorite motifs on the property. Jas de Bouffan, its house and gardens, was the site of some of Cézanne’s earliest artistic explorations in the 1860s when he began exploring outdoors paintings and would remain his main source of inspiration for decades to come. The present painting, which has been described as ‘Cézanne’s farewell to the Jas’ is both the artist’s final view of the pool as well as the very last view Cézanne executed of his family’s home near Aix and occupies a very critical place in his oeuvre. Compotier et assiette de biscuits (estimate: $10 – 15 million), painted circa 1877, is one of several still-lives of fruit and sweets that Cézanne painted in 1877/79. In this painting, Cézanne, who had been compared by Roger Fry to Rembrandt for his mastery of the still-life genre and famously said “With an apple, I want to astonish Paris,” renders red and yellow apples nestling in a bed of dark green leaves which sets off the table cloth and the fruit bowl. Interestingly, the wallpaper shown in the background of the painting provides a clue as to its dating as it has been associated with the apartment on rue de l’Ouest where Cézanne and his wife lived from the end of 1876 through March of 1878 and again in the spring of 1879. In vibrancy, color-harmony and expressiveness, few portraits reach the heights Modigliani conquered with his Portrait du sculpteur Oscar Miestchaninoff, 1916 (estimate: $18 – 25 million). He depicts his subject seated with his hands firmly planted on his lap, and views him frontally. Although linear rhythms, reminiscent of African art and of Modigliani’s own work as a sculptor, are clear, Miestchaninoff is very much a real-life person with real-life traits running through the work. Head and neck are slightly tilted, the position of the hands reveals confidence as well as a shimmer of awkwardness, and the striking rosy-red cheeks transform the mask-like features into living flesh. This is the portrait of a sympathetic friend, a fellow emigre artist – Miestchaninoff had arrived in Paris from Vitesbk in 1906 – and someone Modigliani felt affectionate toward. The second Modigliani portrait in the sale, is of an entirely different nature, and depicts an unnamed young girl in peasant clothes. She is one of the sitters the artist worked with in Cagnes-sur-Mer, a village in the South of France where he worked after having been evacuated from Paris by his dealer Leopold Zborowski in the spring of 1918. From 1917 onwards, Modigliani’s style had changed – he had become increasingly focused on naturalism and in the heightened sense of solidity and mass, one recognizes the influence of Cezanne. This move toward the more natural, away from the affected culminated in his Cagnes-sur-Mer stay where he was far away from the Parisian coterie which normally surrounded him. Jeune fille assise en chemise (estimate: $9 – 12 million) was executed in 1918 and belongs to a group of at least three paintings, which all depict the same model. ‘Picasso form, Matisse color’ were Kandinsky’s painterly ideals, and the sale offers a spectacular example by each of these two fabulous masters. Interestingly enough, both paintings have as a subject the exotic and sensuous odalisque, a recurrent favorite focus in art history ever since 18th century Vienna surrendered to the alla turca theme and the highly mysterious qualities of the Ottoman Empire inspired composers and artists alike. Matisse painted odalisques as the mainstay of his art for more than two decades while he was at the height of his career. Picasso claimed to have inherited the odalisque from Matisse upon the latter’s death in 1954 and in one form or another, this subject dominated the work of his final years, until his death in 1973. L’Odalisque, harmonie bleue, 1937 (estimate: $15 – 20 million) by Henri Matisse, portrays Lydia Delectorskaya, a blond Russian émigrée who served as a model for several of his paintings. She is attired in a chiffon jacket with translucent lace sleeves and green billowing silk pants. The contours of her figure dovetail with the curving stems of the flowers, accentuating Matisse’s femme-fleur idea, the woman as epitome of beauty, sensuality and fertility. “I do Odalisques in order to do nudes,” Matisse declared in 1929. However, for the viewer who is observing the atmosphere of idleness and fantasy which hovers over L’Odalisque, while losing oneself completely in the exotic and luxuriant décor of the secluded environment which is so attractive to the voyeuristic gaze and which creates such strong seductively sensual impressions, this simple phrase represents nothing if not a monumental understatement. Picasso’s Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline), painted on 26 November 1955, is the crowning, definitive painting in a group of ten portraits of his companion Jacqueline Roque which the artist painted toward the end of 1955, and which all depict the odalisque, the exotically robed or nude figure of an alluring young woman. When Matisse died in 1954, Picasso, then in his early 70s, was virtually

PULSE London Debuts with a Strong Program

PULSE London Debuts with a Strong Program artlover349876889878

Ling Jian, Shut up Revolution, 2007. Courtesy of Galerie Volker Diehl.

LONDON.- PULSE London took place from 11-14 October, with a very strong program of international galleries that attracted many of the world’s most important and emerging collectors. The manageable size of the fair, combined with the quality of works on show, made PULSE London a highlight during the busiest week in the city’s art calendar. The fair is the newest in the PULSE brand, which also produces fairs in Miami and New York. “We were delighted to bring PULSE to London this year. PULSE brought a needed addition to the city’s thriving art scene, by presenting several galleries who had never exhibited in London before. Observed Helen Allen, Founder of PULSE Contemporary Art Fair “With this years success we envision greater potential for the years to come.” Important collectors from both the UK and US were joined at the fair by scores of curators and museum professionals. Many of the works sold were bought by major collections, with gallerists commenting on the “exceptional” contacts made. The cross section of art world luminaries who toured the stands included: London-based collectors Anita Zabludowicz and David Roberts, both of whom have recently launched their own art foundations along with New York-based collectors Michael and Susan Hort and Beth Rudin de Woody, among many others. Donna de Salvo from the Whitney and curators from the Hayward Gallery and Tate Modern were also in attendance. Among the sales highlights, gallerist Ernst Hilger from Vienna was delighted with the sales of Moonshine, a painting by Allen Jones, for £59,000 and an animation work by John Gerrard that was a huge hit, selling for £42,000 to a significant New York collector. Leigh Conner of Conner Contemporary Art in Washington, D.C. had a sell out success with Erik Sandberg’s delicate drawings and selling another oil-on-wood panel painting by the artist. Lukas Feichtner, a gallerist from Austria, noted remarkable results selling paintings by Bianca Regl (£4,200) and Martin Schnur (£12,500), as well as a series of five works in charcoal on paper by Petar Mirkovic for £2000 each. Jack Shainman Gallery had serious interest in their artists, selling a work by Jonathan Selliger, The Birthday Present (one of an edition of 10), for £7,870 and a bronze sculpture by Claudette Schreuders for £7,370. The recent interest in Chinese art from collectors during the week’s big auction house sales was mirrored at PULSE London with a wall mounted sculpture, 1949, by Zhang Huan selling rapidly for £69,000 at Galerie Volker Diehl. There was a buzz at White Space (from Beijing) with works by Wang Mei and Fang Lijun sold within the first day and a steady flow of collectors to their space. There was also great interest in the British artists at the fair, represented by both US and European galleries. For Mark Moore of Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, CA, British artist Kim Rugg’s work sold extremely well, with collectors snapping up her comic book pages which are meticulously reconfigured to look like 3D images. One of the show stoppers, a larger than life-sized cardboard sculpture of Queen Victoria by Chris Gilmour at the Italian Padova-based perugi artecontemporanea’s space, sold for £12,500 to a major London art foundation.