By Michele Leight
"The Modern Age," a landmark evening sale will take place at Christie's on November 5, 2008, featuring two single-owner collections of very fine quality: Property from The Hillman Family Collection and The Collection of Alice Lawrence, and will be followed by Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on November 6, and the Post War & Contemporary Art Evening sale on November 12. Organized by Guy Bennett, International co-head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Robert Manley, Head of Department, New York, Post-War and Contemporary Art, and Eric P. Widing, American Paintings, "The Modern Age" encompasses painting, sculpture and the decorative arts spanning a century, by artists as diverse as Manet, Renoir, Toulouse Lautrec, Tiffany, Arthur Dove, Henri Matisse, Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, Mark Rothko, Lucien Freud, Isamu Noguchi and Morris Louis. Both collections are dominated by outstanding portraits, and are expected to realize in the region of $130 million dollars.
Of the 58 offered lots, 41 sold for a total of $47,039,500, a reflection of the current economic crisis, and loss of investor confidence with the downturn on Wall Street. That said, several auction records were set tonight, and they are posted at the end of the story. Many of the paintings that passed at this sale would have sold for at least their low estimates in the Spring.
Mrs. Lawrence was the widow of Sylvan Lawrence, a major developer and owner of office buildings in Lower Manhattan.
The Hillman and the Lawrence families were patrons of the arts and extremely philanthropic. In 1989 The Alex Hillman Foundation used the proceeds of the sale of Pablo Picasso's "Mere et Enfant," $18,700,000, to start the Hillman/Penn Nursing Scholars Program at the University of Pennsylvania to facilitate the careers of over 1,000 nurses. Mrs. Lawrence contributed generously to medical care and cultural institutions through the Alice Lawrence Foundation, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, Carnegie Hall and The National Gallery of Art in Washington, and to community-based organizations like City Meals on Wheels and Visiting Nurses.
The Modern Age evening sale kicks off with Property from The Alex Hillman Family Foundation, with Lot 1, a bold conte crayon drawing by Georges Seurat "Maison Caree," executed between 1882-84. It has an estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000. It sold for $1,082,500 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article, a world auction record for a work on paper by the artist.
Lot 3, "La Cathedral d'Aix vue de l'atelier des Lauves" by Paul Cézanne, a gorgeous watercolor and pencil on paper, painted in his studio that offered him a panoramic view of Les Lauves in Aix en Provence during the last four years of his life. It has an estimate of $4,000,000 to $6,000,000. It was passed at $2,800,000. This beautiful work of art would have fetched at least its low estimate in the Spring. It will undoubtedly return to auction when the economy recovers, and receive the bid it deserves.
Lot 26, a superb painting by Henri de Toulouse Lautrec, illustrated at the top of this story, is a "Portrait de Henri Nocq," a Belgian artist, whose stance emulates the self-assured dandies found in the works of Lautrec's peers, notably Whistler, Degas and Manet. Their purpose in life seemed to be that of well dressed, upper class foils for an endless stream of working class prostitutes, dancers, waitresses and laundresses that served as their models. This elegant, full length portrait is a bourgeois urban "gent" is simultaneously non-judgmental and brutally honest, leaving the viewer in no doubt as to Lautrec's opinion of him. It has an estimate of $6,000,000 to $9,000,000. It sold for $4,450,500.
Edouard Manet's beautiful young girl seated on a park bench, "Fillette sur un banc," Lot 15, has all the painterly characteristics that made Manet so important to his peers, like the "head-on" lighting instead of the more conventional chiaroscuro favored by the staid academicians, the simplification of the planes of the image, and the multitude of lines and marks that form a pattern around the sitter's charming young face. This entirely new approach to painting paved the way for the next phase of modern artists, like Matisse, and continues to the present time. Manet was a genius and he completed thiswork in 1880, and it is hard to imagine what he might have continued to do with his gift had he lived longer than 51. Fortunately, the artists around him knew his worth, and emulated him. Lot 15 has an estimate of $12,000,000 to $18,000,000. It was passed at $10,500,000, which would not have happened in the spring.
Lightness in palette but not in wall power is captured in an early, (1944), jewel-toned, Post-War painting by Jean Dubuffet "Vue de Paris, quatiers residentiels," which celebrates the sights of Paris "in his instantly recognizable style." The 1944 work, Lot 7, has an estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It sold for $3,200,000. Similarly buoyant is Henri Matisse's "La Danseuse," a deliciously fresh gouache and paper collage created between 1948-49 in the last decade of his life when he was 82, described by the artist as "form filtered to its essentials." John Elderfield has called Matisse's last cut-outs "an irrefutable flowering of Matisse's art of such authority that they can stand beside the best of his paintings," (in "The Cut Outs of Henri Matisse," New York, page 10). Lot 22 has an estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It was passed at $1,400,000. Lot 5, Fernand Léger's bold and radical "Etude pour Le Modele nu dans l'atelier," illustrated above, is a masterpiece, painted almost 100 years ago, with an estimate of $3,500,000 to $4,500,000. It sold for $3,330,500.
Georges Braque's "Nature Morte a la Corbeille des Fruits," Lot 12, is a connoisseur's painting, with an estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,800,000. It sold for $842,500. An oil on panel, it was executed in 1927 and measures 21 1/8 by 36 1/4 inches.
A collection of similarities and contrasts, The Alice Lawrence Estate includes two memorable "dark" paintings, in predominantly black tinged with purple and lavender/mauve, that create a definite change in mood. Rothko's magnificent "No. 43 (Mauve)" evokes twilight, which the artist described as having the air of mystery, threat and frustration. The oil on canvas, Lot 46, was painted in 1960 and measures 91 by 70 inches. It has an estimate of $20,000,000 to $30,000,000. It was passed at $16,000,000. This more than any other work of art this evening would have easily cleared its low estimate in brighter economic times.
Those same feelings that are echoed in Lucian Freud's somberly moving "Head of a Man,"a portrait of Francis Bacon's lover and companion, George Dyer, a petty criminal who had been in and out of prison throughout his life. Bacon described Dyer as someone who loved to be with children and animals: "I think he was a nicer person than me. He was more compassionate. He was much too nice to be a crook. That was the trouble. He only went in for stealing because he had been born into it." Freud, who was a friend of both men, has captured Dyer's sensitive nature in this beautifully rendered, compelling portrait. It has an estimate of $1,800,000 to $2,500,000. It sold for $2,098,500.
Two luminous, glowing paintings evoke the sun and glorious light, yet they are painted in totally different styles. Arthur Dove's "Sunday," Lot 33, has the intensity of a Nolde and is one of the artist's masterworks. It has an estimate of $900,000 to $1,200,000. It sold for $578,500.
Morris Louis' magnificent "Untitled," Lot 45, is soaked in pigment, colors bleeding into each other on unprimed canvas, the composition achieved by staining the canvas from all sides converging on the center. Regarded as the leader of the Color Field movement, Louis was looking for an alternative to the gestural, heavily impastoed style of the Abstract Expressionists. In the 10 years he devoted to being a painter, he found it, leaving room for much speculation about what he might have achieved if he had not died so young - like Manet. It has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It sold for $2,098,500.
Another luscious, warm weather painting, "Kiefer," by Paul Klee, Lot 54, was inspired by the artist's memories of Sicily. The 1932 oil and sand on board is almost 20 inches square and has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It was passed at $1,500,000.
Lot 35, is a small but powerful oil on canvas by René Magritte entitled "La Parole Donnee." Painted in 1950, it measures 16 7/8 by 23 3/4 inchesand has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It sold for $1,426,500. It was one of his works that are often referred to as his "stone age pictures and have a contemporary "special effects" quality about them.
Another Magritte, Lot 21, "L'Empire des lumieres," a gouache on paper from 1947, sold for $3,554,500, a world auction record for a work on paper by the artist.
To a certain extent its "stone age" quality is echoed in the bold and elegant basalt sculpture, Lot 50, by Isamu Noguchi. Entitled "Shiva Rock," it has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It was passed at $420,000.
The Collection of Alice Lawrence includes gorgeous furniture, lamps, jewelry and object d'art by reknowed designers Louis Comfort Tiffany and Emile Jacques Ruhlmann, among others.
The Alice Lawrence Collection continued with a day sale on November 6th which achieved an additional $17,690,725, bringing the grand total for The Hillman and Lawrence Collections to approximately $64,690,725. At the press conference after the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening sale on November 6, (which served for both evening sales), Christopher Burge was asked by a member of the press why the reserves were kept so high: "Collectors make the decisions about the reserves. They have the right to take it back if it doesn't reach its price," he said, adding that "the estimates had been set in June, and clearly prices have changed." Refusing to be pessimistic when asked about the "slump" in sales, Mr. Burge said: "Do you mean how does this compare to other slumps by virtue of my enormous age? In overall terms, over the last two nights Christie's (sold $193 million) and our friends across the street, Sotheby's, (sold $200 million) have sold about $400 million dollars worth of art, not counting the day sales, in a difficult financial time for the world, so I am stunned and elated."
Lot 43, "Robert Smithson," a 1962 oil on canvas by Alice Neel (1900-1984), sold for $698,500, a world auction record for the artist.
Lot 51, "Pittsburgh," an oil on canvas circa 1922 by Louis Lozowick (1892-1973), sold for $386,500, a world auction record for the artist.
Lot 59, an adjustable walnut "MF 75" armchair by Pierre Chareau (1883-1950) , sold for $782,500, a world auction record for the artist.
The two collections and a collection of 20th Century Design by George and Frayda Lindemann were exhibited this year in Paris, Hong Kong, Mosow, London and Abu Dhabi before being shown here.