Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale - New York, 2 November 2011
Sotheby’s fall Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale will be held in New York on 2 November 2011, featuring paintings and sculpture by important artists across a range of styles and genres, including Impressionism, Surrealism, Expressionism and Fauvism. A selection of works from the sale is currently on view in London and will also travel to Moscow and São Paulo, before returning for exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 28 October.
Over the course of the next year, Sotheby’s will have the honor of offering at auction a cast of each of Henri Matisse’s spectacular bas-relief nudes, known collectively as Les Nus de dos (The Backs). The unprecedented sale of the four monumental bronze sculptures will begin in the November Evening Sale with the artist’s first incarnation of the form, Nu de dos (1er état) (est. $20/30 million). Conceived in 1908-09 at the culmination of Matisse’s involvement with the Fauves, the sculpture exemplifies the fluidity of line that dominated his paintings from this era. Separate release attached
The sale will also be led by Pablo Picasso’s romantic L’Aubade from 1967 (est. $18/25 million). Picasso painted three monumental works in June 1967 that focused on the dialogue between a flautist and a nude. The present and final iteration of this theme is among the most masterful depictions of lovers from the artist’s late oeuvre. The work is on offer from a private North American collection, having been purchased by the current owner at Sotheby’s London in April 1979.
