Amedeo Modigliani
Nu couché (Reclining Nude)
Sold for $170,405,000 / £113,000,663 / €157,861,926
Roy Lichtenstein
Nurse
Sold for $95,365,000 / £63,239,390 / €88,345,428
Modigliani’s Nu Couché makes $170 million at Christie’s Christie’s sold Amedeo Modigliani’s ‘Nu couché (Reclining Nude)’ for $170,4 million, the second highest price ever paid for a painting at auction. Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Nurse’ fetched $95,4 million, an auction record for the artist.]]>
November 11, 2015, source: Christie’s
Jussi Pylkkänen, Christie’s Global President and Chief Auctioneer commented about the Modigliani: “This is quite simply one of the most important paintings I have handled in my long career at Christie’s. There are a very small number of masterpieces that we dream of handling: this magnificent Modigliani has always been one of them.”
The painting is one of a series of great female nudes made for Léopold Zborowski that famously caused a scandal nearly a century ago when they were exhibited at Modigliani’s first and only one-man show at the Galerie Berthe Weill in Paris. Outraged by the content of this show — which caused a crowd to form outside the gallery window where one of Modigliani’s nudes was openly on display — the police demanded the immediate closure of the exhibition.
Roy Lichtenstein’s ‘Nurse’ fetched $95,4 million, an auction record for the artist. The work is a dazzling celebration of the bold new imagery that uniquely defined Roy Lichtenstein. The subject of this painting stands alongside the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jacqueline Kennedy as one of a distinguished group of female icons who came to define this radical new movement. The subject of Nurse is a quintessential Lichtenstein heroine. His signature Ben-Day dots, her strong features and flawless skin are stylized modes of graphic imagery that create visual perfection. Her imposing uniform—as defined by the striped fabric of her dress, the stiff white collar and her starched white hat—clearly indicate that she is a member of the nursing profession. Yet her piercing blue eyes, blond hair, and luscious red lips also lend the work a frisson of latent sexuality—less heavenly angel and more femme fatal. Roy Lichtenstein challenges the feminine stereotype by re-presenting these appropriated images, invites a reconsideration of women and their role’s as defined in the early 1960’s.
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Amedeo Modigliani’s ‘La Belle Romaine’ sells for $68.9 million (November 2010)
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