Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
Salvador Dali’s Printemps nécrophilique will be part of Sotheby’s evening sale this coming Wednesday evening. It has not appeared on the market in nearly 15 years. This work was painted by the master at the height of his most creative years in Paris. The canvas exemplifies Dali’s unique aesthetic at its most refined and sensational.
Legends & Icons – Vyna’s Top Picks
Prolific
Andy Warhol, Double Elvis [Ferus Type], 1963
Estimation: $30/50 Million
This is the first Double Elvis to appear on the market since 1995. This is a seminal piece from the iconic series devoted to the singer and actor that was first seen at the Ferus gallery in Los Angeles that very same year. The celebrities of Warhol’s portraits – Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, among others – were presented as glamorous and powerful icons whose image was imprinted on the public consciousness.
Iconic Beauty
Roy Lichenstein, Sleeping Girl, 1964, Oil and Magna on canvas, Painted between 1961 and 1965
Signed and Dated
Estimated $30/40 Million
The beautiful women of Roy Lichenstein’s comic book series are not only one of the most instantly recognizable icons of the Pop Art movement but continue the long, rich tradition of artists’ celebrations of the sleeping female form. Paintings from this series are featured in teh collections of major institutions throughout the world such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Sleeping Girl has not appeared in the market since 1964.
Honoré Daumier, Ratapoil, Bronze
conceived in 1850, and cast circa 1892
Daumier was a prolific draftsman who produced well over 100 sculptures, and thousands of other paintings, lithographs, drawings and engravings. He was perhaps best known for his caricatures of political figures and satires on the behavior of his French countrymen.
Francis Bacon, Self Portrait, and Alexander Calder White Discs on a Pyramid
Painted metal and wire standing mobile, Executed in 1965
Sotheby’s will auction off Francis Bacon’s Figure Writing Reflected In Mirror (which will talk about later on this blog). I particular liked this self portrait of his (pictured in the left). Along with the Figure Writing Reflected In Reflected Mirror, this one was also included in the legendary 1977 exhibition at Galerie Claude Bernard, in Paris.
Collections sometimes reflect the collectors in some way. The work that they choose to put around them show the power, reflection, the confidence that they themselves manifest in their lives. Surrealism is an area which is very hot in the current market right now. It’s probably the last of the great ism of 20th century art that is truly appreciated. Maybe it’s because it crosses over very effectively from the beginning to the end of the 20th century. The great painters, René Magritte and Salvador Dali are two artists that are incredibly desirable. Dali’s best work is from his prime period – the late 1920s to the 1930s. The Printemps Nécrophilique is a rare find for any auction house. It will take a long post to talk about all of the beautiful art that is up on the auction block at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day and Evening Sale this coming Wednesday, May 2nd, but for the sake of brevity, I will only talk about one of Dali’s masterpiece. Look for other posts regarding the sale, at a later time on this blog.
Marc Chagall, Le Peintre en Jaune, circa 1978
Pastel, gouache, watercolor and oil on paper
Pastel, gouache, watercolor and oil on paper
Stamped with Signature Marc Chagall
Russian-French artist Marc Chagall was best known for several major artistic styles, was one of the most successful artists of the 20th century. His avant-garde paintings set him apart as an early modernist.
Willem De Kooning, Seated Woman, Executed 1969/1980
De Kooning was part of a group of artists that came to be known as the New York School. Other painters in this group included Jackson Pollock, Franz Kline, Arshile Gorky, Mark Rothko, Hans Hofmann, Adolph Gottlieb, Robert Motherwell, Philip Guston and Clyfford Still. The Seated Woman is one of his most extraordinary sculpture. A similar work, Seated Woman on a Bench, from 1972 (cast 1976), is at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
René Magritte, oil on canvas
Margritte was a Surrealist giant. His body of work challenged observers’ preconditioned perceptions of reality. His work displayed a collection of ordinary objects in an unusual context, giving new meanings to familiar things. Regarding the way he arranged seemingly unrelated objects together in juxtaposition, he once said “It is a union that suggests the essential mystery of the world. Art for me is not an end in itself, but a means of evoking that mystery.”
Alexander Calder Sculptures
Roy Lichenstein, Sailboats III, Oil and Magna on canvas
Executed in 1974
Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
After a design by Fernand Léger (1881-1955), La Femme au Perroquet
Mosaic executed by Heidi Melano after an original work by Fernand Léger
Mosaic executed by Heidi Melano after an original work by Fernand Léger
Property Of A Royal Collection
Diego Giacometti, Man Bust
Diego Giacometti (1902-1985)
Bronze, Tabouret en x a pair,
Bronze, Tabouret en x a pair,
Each stamped Diego and with the artist’s monogram
Salvador Dali, Printemps Nécrophilique, 1936
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), ELLES, Executed in 1896
Signed on the cover, each with the publisher’s stamp.
Signed on the cover, each with the publisher’s stamp.
Property from the Estate of Theodore J. Forstmann
Photos courtesy High End Weekly™
All rights reserved
Printemps Nécrophilique is from 1936, and it is one of the finest paintings on the market today. This piece doesn’t have some of the disturbing elements that you often get from Dali’s paintings. It is a beautiful image of a woman whose head is adorned in flowers, and the young boy on her side is a self portrait alter ego of Dali. They seem to be separated by this cypress tree, which is another element from Dali’s recurring paintings. The scale of the picture is unusual, perhaps because to find one that is quite as large from the 1930s is extremely rare. Salvador Dali is unbelievably brave in his use of space. Only the great Dali could say that I am going to paint this in a minimalistic, porcelain-like way, and leave the right part of this painting totally empty. Only Dali could do such a thing. During the press conference for this sale, one of the curators explained how the first owner of this work was a very interesting individual. She was an Italian couturier called Elsa Schiaparelli – the subject of an upcoming show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Elsa was an important figure in the 1920s and 1930s in Paris who collaborated with Dali quite allot. She made a version of this dress which represented what is fabric and what is flesh merged together as one. Printemps Nécrophilique is estimated between $8-10 Million.
