Sotheby’s auction of impressionist & modern Art, November 2006

STUNNING STILL-LIFE BY PAUL CÉZANNE IS AMONG THE WORKS TO BE OFFERED ON THE EVENING OF NOVEMBER 7TH

ADDITIONAL WORKS BY PABLO PICASSO, AMEDEO MODIGLIANI, HENRI MATISSE, WASSILY KANDINSKY, HENRI DE TOULOUSE LAUTREC, VINCENT VAN GOGH, CHAIM SOUTINE, ALBERTO GIACOMETTI AND PIERRE BONNARD WILL ALSO BE OFFERED

Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art will be held on November 7, 2006 and will feature a number of key works of the period including an outstanding still-life by Paul Cézanne, Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre, which is estimated at $28/35 million. Claude Monet’s, La Plage à Trouville, a spectacular depiction of a seaside promenade, painted at the dawning of the Impressionist era which is estimated to bring $16.5/20 million will also be offered. Additionally, the sale will include works by Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Vincent van Gogh, Chaim Soutine, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, and others. Prior to their auction, the works will be on view in Sotheby’s expansive 10th floor galleries in New York from November 3rd through 1 pm on November 7th.

David Norman, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide, said, “The November sale is remarkably rich and diverse, with wonderful examples of the artists and movements that are most sought after in today’s market. Many of the key moments of the period are represented including a rare, early Impressionist work by Monet; a spectacular Cézanne still-life which heralds the birth of Modernism; a powerful series of German Expressionist works; examples from the School of Paris including the finest male portrait by Modigliani to appear on the market; bold, graphic works by Picasso from the 30s, 40s, 50s and post-1960s; and a great cross-section of sculpture which is crowned by one of Matisse’s most significant achievements in the medium. The sale also features a lovely section of works on paper including an early, Neoclassical drawing by Picasso, a Matisse charcoal and watercolors by Schiele.”

Highlighting the evening sale is Paul Cézanne’s Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre, one of only five or six important still-lifes by the artist remaining in private hands. Painted in 1895, when Cézanne’s radical experimentations with perspective and color were at their most sophisticated, the painting is estimated to sell for $28/35 million. Cézanne’s still-lifes of this period focus on the inherent geometry of objects and explore the spatial challenges of representing three-dimensional form on a two dimensional surface. His approach breathed new life into the time-honored tradition of still life painting at the turn of the century, and his aesthetic accomplishments would have a profound impact on artists for generations to come.

Painted in the summer of 1870, La Plage à Trouville is one of Claude Monet’s most important early beach scenes. In 1870, Monet took his new wife Camille and their son Jean to the coast to spend the summer months. The present work is one of three canvases executed that summer that mark a turning-point in Monet’s career. Although he had been rejected from the Salon only months before, and other contemporaries such as Degas, Renoir had been accepted, the present work shows Monet seemingly optimistic, employing bold colors and a daring compositional arrangement. The scene is characterized by its explosive sweep of beach, with the promenade on the right lined by the red-bricked, neo-Gothic grandeur of the Hötel des Roches Noires along the front. The flags that bring an aura of festivity to the composition are echoed in the billowing sails of the boats in the bay. Monet’s colleague Mary Cassatt was so taken by this painting that she bought it for her personal collection and in addition to being one of Monet’s first major canvases, the present work was also one of first Impressionist pictures ever to be seen in the United States when it was exhibited in New York in 1886. It is estimated to sell for $16.5/20 million.

Amedeo Modigliani’s Le Fils du Concierge was painted in Cagnes in 1918 and is not only one of the artist’s most famous male portraits, but one of his best known portraits of a child. Just as riveting and engaging as many of his female portraits, this arresting image of a lone little boy is one of the most transfixing in all of the artist’s portraits. In this intoxicatingly beautiful work, Modigliani captures the soulfulness and intensity of this green-eyed waif from the streets of Montparnesse. As opposed to the typically blank and opaque eyes, in this portrait, the artist fully painted the pupil and iris so that the boy’s gaze directly confronts the viewer. This painting was formerly in the collection of Modigliani’s great patron Roger Dutilleul and is estimated to sell for $14/18 million.

One of the three major oils by Pablo Picasso that will be offered in the evening sale is a painting from 1932, Le Sauvetage, a frenzied Surrealist depiction of a rescue on a beach. This picture is one from a group of similarly-themed works that Picasso painted in the 1932. Its cluster of acrobatic bathers, rendered with bold primary colors on a background of white, were an inspiration to Picasso’s Surrealist contemporaries. This picture is making its long-anticipated reappearance on the market since was sold to the present owner at the momentous Stanley J. Seeger sale at Sotheby’s in 1993 and is estimated to sell for $12/18 million.

Also by Picasso is Le Fumeur, painted on June 6, 1953 and considered by many to be a veiled self-portrait of the artist. In countless photographs from this era the artist was pictured wearing his striped sailor’s shirt or smoking a cigarette, and references to those two favorite accessories in the present work are considerable keys to the identity of the sitter. Painted around the time that Picasso’s relationship with Françoise Gilot was coming to an end, the present work is estimated to sell for $9/12 million.

Among the important sculptural highlights included in the sale is a rare example of Henri Matisse’s Figure décorative, a work recognized by collectors, curators, and art historians as one of the greatest achievements of Modern art. The bronze reflects not only the avant-garde movements of the time, such as Fauvism and Cubism, but also draws upon the anatomies of African art and the facial features of Etruscan art. Conceived in Paris in August 1908 and cast in 1950, this daring orchestration of mass, shapes and rhythms identify it as one of a handful of works created early in the century that influenced the course of modern sculpture. The present cast is estimated to sell for $12/16 million.

A Pair of Shoes, a poignant still-life by Vincent Van Gogh, is also among the highlights of the evening sale. Painted in 1886 when Van Gogh was living in Paris, the present work belongs to a series of five paintings executed between late 1886 and the spring of the following year, and is the only version remaining in private hands. These works appear to have been either a reference to his modest background or a reaction to the affluence of the city to which he had arrived only a few months before. These works were also a conscious tribute to Van Gogh’s artistic hero, Jean-François Millet, whose honest portrayal of peasants, including sketches of clogs, captivated Van Gogh. The present painting is estimated to sell for $8/12 million.

A spectacular vista of Starnberger See (Lake Starnberg) by Wassily Kandinsky was painted during the artist’s stay in Murnau in 1908. His weeks in this region south of Munich were among the most pivotal in the development of his art. The present work was executed when the artist, along with fellow Russian Alexej von Jawlensky, was a leader of an avant-garde Expressionist movement known as the Der Blaue Reiter. It is a synthesis of the explosive colors of Fauvism and presages the artist’s move towards pure abstraction several years later. The first owner of record was Fernand Clayeux, the artistic director of Galerie Maeght, where the picture was exhibited in 1951. Given his professional relationship with the artist’s widow, Clayeux most likely acquire the painting directly from Mme. Kandinsky, who had kept the picture in her private collection since the artist’s death in 1944. The painting is estimated to sell for $6/8 million.

An additional German Expressionist work included in the sale is Erich Heckel’s Akt (Dresden) (Nude-Dresden); Stilleben Mit Pflanzen (Still Life with Plants): a double sided painting. In 1909 and 1910, Heckel as well as his close companion Ernst Ludwig Kirchner painted a series of significant studies of nudes in their Dresden studio which have become icons of the Expressionist movement. In 1911 Heckel moved to Berlin and the present canvas, which was painted in 1910, is not only from the most important years of the Brücke movement (founded Heckel, Kirchner and Schmidt-Rottluff), it is also one of the last canvases executed in Dresden, it’s founding city. It is estimated to sell for $2.5/3.5 million.

Chaim Soutine’s Nature Morte à la Raie, painted circa 1923-24, is a depiction of drying stingrays hanging in a fishmonger’s shop. The raw and palpable imagery of this composition has made it an icon of Modern painting and its subject evokes the great legacy of French still-life painting and is a direct reference to a similar composition created by the great French Neo-classicist Chardin. Soutine painted four versions of this subject and the present canvas is the only one remaining in private hands. Residing in the prestigious Makler Family Collection since 1964, the present work is estimated to sell for $5/7 million.

Another iconic example of Modernism is Le Partie de cartes by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, whose images of cafés and bordellos cast light on the demi-monde of Paris at the turn of the century. The present oil of two women playing a hand of cards is among the most well-known of these scenes which belongs to the great series of the artist’s depictions of scenes from the maison closes or Parisian brothels. Le Partie de cartes sympathetically portrays a side of modern life that was otherwise overlooked or shunned by the bourgeoisie, and reveals the charm and humanity of women who populated this world. Appearing at auction for the first time, the present work is estimated to sell for $5/7 million.

Marc Chagall’s Jour de fệtes is a rare second version of a 1914 composition of the same title (now in the Nordrhein-Westfalen collection, Dusseldorf). Having left many of his early works behind in Russia, Chagall painted several replicas of his most important paintings while in Paris in the 1920s. The composition, which is estimated to sell for $5/7 million, represents the Feast of Tabernacles, the holiday of Succot. The crisp light that bathes the scene, the strong contrast between the figure and the monochromatic background, and the supernatural inclusion of the smaller figure perched upon the head of the rabbi, align this work with the international avant-garde movements its day, from Cubism to Surrealism.

Also included is Pierre Bonnard’s Faïnce normande, a beautifully rendered depiction of his country house kitchen, decorated by a Norman pitcher filled with wildflowers. It was completed a decade after the turn of the century, when radical experiments with cropping and perspective were the rage within avant-garde painting. This crisply executed composition has been in the same private collection since the 1960s and is making its debut at auction with an estimate of $2/3 million.

The November evening sale will also include works from the Collection of Charles and Rose Wohlstetter. Alberto Giacometti’s Grande Femme Assise (Annette Assise), a bold depiction of the artist’s wife, Annette Arm, whom he met in Geneva in the 1940s, is among the works that will be on view in London. Annette’s appearance in Giacometti’s work of the mid-1950s marked a shift in his art. In comparison to the spindly, anonymous female figures of the previous decade, the women of the 1950s are marked by a more expressive style. Although several strong females provided inspiration for Giacometti’s work, it was Annette who had the most profound and long-lasting effect on his oeuvre. The present work, which was conceived and cast in 1958, evolves from the height of this complex and deeply significant relationship and is estimated to sell for $3/5 million.

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