“This is a treasure-trove of Modernism. Collections rarely explore a theme with such power and unity. Each work adds a distinct chapter, showing artists’ engagement with a radically transforming universe – mass communication, the automobile and airplane, technology, photography and cinema. Just as today’s world was born in those years, many more recent movements such as Pop Art, Minimalism, Conceptual Art and Abstraction also have their roots in the artists represented here.”
     Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department in New York

The fourteen pictures, estimated to sell for $67.2/95.1 million, represent perhaps the finest group of Modernist masterpieces to appear at auction since Sotheby’s landmark sale of the Malbin Collection in 1990. Sotheby’s will debut the collection in its London galleries from 12 – 17 October, before returning to New York for exhibition in its York Avenue galleries beginning 1 November. Highlights will also be shown in Hong Kong and Moscow this autumn.

Juan Gris, Tabac, journal et bouteille de vin rosé, Papier collé, oil and charcoal on canvas Painted in June 1914, Estimate $7/10 million

“These extraordinary selections reflect the vision of Alain Tarica, who helped form the collection during the late 1960s and early 70s, and is celebrated for creating the collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé, and several others. M. Tarica explained how these remarkable works were brought together: “In the same way that the Italian Renaissance was an exceptionally rich period of radical cultural renewal, breaking with long-held traditions, the first half of the 20th Century in Europe also marked a major revitalization in the arts. This couple wanted to build a collection centered on the avant- garde of the first half of the 20th Century, when the artists were working, as they were during the Renaissance, as genuine innovators.”
Simon Shaw, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department in New York

Futurist painting burst into the consciousness of the international art world with the opening of the exhibition Les Peintres futuristes italiens at the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune in Paris in February 1912, and the following month with a group exhibition at Herwarth Walden’s Galerie der Sturm in Berlin. Automobile in corsa, which dates from the movement’s crescendo in 1913-14, is one of the greatest examples of their aesthetic principles. It belongs to a groundbreaking group of works that Balla executed in 1913-14 on the theme of cars in movement, exploring the Futurist themes of dynamism, speed and light. This series took Futurism to the brink of Abstraction. Supremely rare, Automobile in corsa is one of the most spectacular of the series.