Sotheby’s annual fall Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York will be held on 5 November 2012, featuring a significant group of works by Pablo Picasso that includes two examples of his acclaimed and sought-after portraits of Marie-Thérèse Walter. The auction is further distinguished by a strong offering of important Impressionist pictures, as well as works from both prominent estates and important American museum collections. Select pieces from the sale have traveled to Hong Kong, London and Moscow, and will return for exhibition in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries beginning 1 November.
Pablo Picasso
Painted in March 1932, the year that is recognized as the pinnacle of Pablo Picasso’s near-century long production, Nature morte aux tulipes is one of the artist’s most powerful representations of his iconic muse (est. $35/50 million*). The work is a synthesis of the two main media – painting and sculpture – that Picasso utilized in depicting his young lover, in which he transforms her image into a divine object of adoration. The sharp color palette and boldness of form seen in Femme à la fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) (est. $15/20 million) may reflect what was an intense period in Picasso’s personal life: painted in the spring of 1936, the work followed the birth of his daughter Maya the previous fall with Marie-Thérèse, as well as his separation from his wife Olga and the beginnings of a passionate affair with another important muse, Dora Maar.
In total, nine works by Picasso will be offered in the November auction, including three pieces that the artist created amid the volatility of World War II: symbolic of victory in Europe, Plant de tomate from 1944 is from a series depicting a tomato plant in bloom that is considered to be some of the most important work that Picasso produced during the war years (est. $10/15 million); Femme assise (Dora Maar) is a daring portrait of Dora Maar that dates from the climax of her relationship with Picasso in 1943 (est. $4/6 million); and Le Viol is one of the artist’s most provocative portrayals of the sexual act, created in May 1940 just before the Nazis invaded France (est. $4/6 million). Le Viol is on offer from the estate of George Embiricos.
Property from Prominent Estates
Paintings, drawings and sculpture on offer from important estate collections are highlighted by a group of seven works from the celebrated collection of Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos. The works are led by Paul Cézanne’s La femme à l’hermine, d’après le Greco, a striking depiction of a woman in an ermine shawl (est. $5/7 million). The painting is an imaginative reworking of El Greco’s 16th-century composition Lady in a Fur Wrap, and was itself later copied by Alberto Giacometti.
The evening auction will offer five sculptures in total by Henry Moore ranging from intimate to monumental pieces, including two works from the Embiricos estate: Two Piece Reclining Figure No. 1 is the first large-scale work by the artist in which the torso is completely separate from the remainder of the figure (est. $3/5 million), and Working Model for Two Piece Reclining Figure: Points is another example that employs the elements of sculptural separation and the creation of negative space (est. $2/3 million).
Also leading the prominent estate collections in the November sale is property from the collection of Stella Fischbach, who was instrumental to the founding and development of the Israel Museum and its collection. Paintings and sculpture by Joan Miró and Henry Moore lead the selection on offer: Miró’s Personnages, étoiles is a jewel-like picture populated by Surrealist figures that evoke the constellations of the night sky (est. $1.5/2 million), and Figure on Steps: Working Model for Draped Seated Woman belongs to a series of seated figures that Moore created in conjunction with a commission from UNESCO headquarters in Paris ($1.8/2.5 million).
Property from American Museums
Pictures by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Pierre-Auguste Renoir are being sold by American museums to benefit future acquisitions. Monet’s Champ de blé, sold by the Cleveland Museum of Art, is a sweeping view of a wheat field that is among the classic Impressionist landscapes from the early 1880s (est. $5/7 million). Mousquetaire au chapeau. Buste. was completed by Picasso towards the end of his life in 1967, and is on offer by the Order of the Trustees of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. (est. $3/5 million). And Renoir’s Vase de roses et dahlias is a lush and abundant floral still life on offer from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (est. $400/600,000).
Important Impressionist Pictures
In addition to the Cleveland Museum of Art’s landscape, the November sale will include Claude Monet’s Iris – one of two major canvases by the artist exhibited at the New York Botanical Gardens earlier this year in conjunction with a major floral recreation of Monet’s garden at Giverny (est. $4/6 million). And in addition to Paul Cézanne’s portrait from the Embiricos estate, Femme nue debout is a monumental picture – perhaps the greatest female nude by Cézanne remaining in private hands – that numbers among the artist’s most radical and groundbreaking (est. $4/6 million). Painted in 1898-99, the iconic nude encapsulates the shocking modernity that would inspire younger avant-garde artists such as Picasso and Matisse. Further highlights of the Impressionist works on offer include Vase de fleurs avec figure, which represents a daring approach to pictorial arrangement within Pierre Bonnard’s still-lifes (est. $3/5 million).
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