Sotheby's Fall Sales of Impressionist and Modern Art Sotheby's Fall Sales of Impressionist and Modern Art To Be Held in New York on 4 & 5 November 2009
News-Antique.com - Oct 23,2009 - Masterworks by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, Kees van Dongen, Wassily Kandinsky, Fernand Léger, Joan Miró and others will be offered Sotheby’s fall Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York on 4 November 2009 presents a remarkable offering ranging from an exquisite group of classic Impressionist pictures by Renoir, Pissarro and Sisley from the family of legendary dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, to key works by modern masters such as Picasso, Giacometti, Derain and Miró. Many come from esteemed private collections and estates and are fresh to the market. Prior to the auction, the works will be on view in Sotheby’s 10th floor galleries from 30 October to 4 November 2009.
Icons of Modernism
Following the success of important late works by Pablo Picasso at auction so far this year Sotheby’s is thrilled to be offering one of the artist’s greatest monumental interpretations of the musketeer, Buste d’homme (est. $8/12 million).* In October 1969, Picasso executed several canvases on the theme of a man seated in an armchair and the present oil is the largest of the group (195 x 130 cm). The canvas was included in the 1970 exhibition of the artist’s recent work at the Palais des Papes in Avignon and has not been shown publicly since. The recent exhibitions Picasso et les maîtres at the Grand Palais in Paris, and Picasso: Challenging the Past at the National Gallery in London have been part of a critical reappraisal of Picasso’s late years which are now recognized as one the most fertile and inspired periods of the twentieth century’s greatest artist. The present work has been consigned by a Private European Collection and has never before been offered at auction. Alberto Giacometti's mesmerizing L’Homme qui chavire is an instantly recognizable icon of the modern era. Caught in the instant he loses his balance, the legendary Falling Man, as he is known in translation, exists in a state of perpetual instability and in a moment of transcendence as he hurls towards the future (est. $8/12 million). Giacometti's creation of this sculpture in 1950 coincided with his production of other career-defining bronzes, all featuring his signature attenuated figures. But the image of the man stumbling on the unsteady terrain of the modern world is perhaps Giacometti's most literal attempt to personify his own existential preoccupations in the years following the war. The cover lot of the Evening Sale is a powerful masterwork by Kees van Dongen from 1910, Jeune Arabe which comes from an Important European Collection (est. $7/10 million). This dazzling oil of a nonchalant North African boy exemplifies the artist’s reputation as the greatest figural painter of the Fauves. Matisse, Van Dongen, and Derain had earned this soubriquet in 1905 for their audacious brushwork and vibrant colors. Van Dongen painted Jeune Arabe at the height of his career and following a series of highly-successful exhibitions in Paris. His penchant for hot colors and dominant reds is well-known, and his use of impactful
colors to express emotion is evident in
