Works on Paper (Lots 101-215)
Day Sale (Lots 250-470)
Christie's New York
10 AM, November 12, 2018
Sale 15979
Lot 172, "Interieur, trois femmes en conversation," by Edouard Vuillard, oil on board, 14 5/8 by 23 1/8 inches, 1893
By
Carter B. Horsley
The November 12, 2018 auction of Impressionist & Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sale at Christie's New York is highlighted by several good Picassos, Vuillards, Lempicka and some fine works by Renoir, Signac, Sidaner, Ernst, Hepworth and Montezin.
Lot 172 is a very fine oil on board by Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). It measures 14 5/8 by 23 1/8 inches and was painted in 1893. It is entitled "Interieur, trois femmes en conversation." It was owned by Henry Moore of Much Hadham, the sculptor.
The catalogue entry provides the following commentary:
"Painted in 1893, Intérieur, trois femmes en conversation dates from an important period of Vuillard's association with the Nabi circle, during which he produced the most challenging, sophisticated, and affirmatively modern work of his long career. The Nabi group, which took its name from a Hebrew word meaning prophet, was founded by a band of young artists—Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Pierre Bonnard and Henri-Gabriel Ibels foremost among them—who objected to the conservative curriculum at the Académie Julien in Paris, where they had met. Denis, the most vocal proponent of Nabi ideas, dated the inception of the movement to the summer of 1888, when Paul Sérusier brought back from Pont-Aven a small landscape painted under Paul Gauguin's tutelage. Dubbed Le Talisman, the canvas used pure, unmixed colors to communicate the artist's emotions and sensations before the motif, rather than to transcribe the actual appearance of nature.
"Vuillard met Denis and his compatriots at the Académie Julien in 1889 and began his most intense experimentation with Nabi theories the following year, which he described in his journal as “the Sérusier year” (quoted in G.L. Groom, op. cit., p. 9)....
"The present work depicts three women in conversation—two standing with their hands on their hips, while the third enters the frame from the left, barely recognizable as a figure. While the figures’ identities remain undisclosed, it has been suggested that the women may be seamstresses or dressmakers, and the painting has often been referred to as Les Couturières. Vuillard explored the theme of the seamstress many times throughout the 1890s—in the majority of these works, the seamstresses are seen at work with tools in hand, but in the present scene, the viewer catches the women in a moment of leisure, during a short break from the working day.
"The painting is noteworthy for its sense of profound absorption, reminiscent of interior scenes by Johannes Vermeer and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, which the artist would have surely studied at the Louvre. The two standing women are depicted immersed in conversation, their heads angled towards one another and shoulders slightly hunched. The insistent flatness of the image, moreover, renders the two women inseparable from their environment; they seem not so much to inhabit the space as to merge with it. Elizabeth Easton has written: “The paintings of women sewing stand out in Vuillard's oeuvre for their decorative beauty, their complex construction, and their sense of intimacy. [They] are icons of the inwardness that informed Vuillard's personal approach to Symbolism...These pictures also serve as metaphors for Vuillard's concept of himself as a painter. In depicting women conjoined with their surroundings much like the patterns of the objects they sew, Vuillard in some way reflects the union between the artist and the work he creates...
"With its radical pictorial and spatial experiments, Intérieur, trois femmes en conversation heralds many of the most important artistic developments of the early twentieth century. Regarding the work of the Nabis, Claire Frèches-Thory has written: “The bold apposition of violent colors announces the Fauves; the juxtaposition of planes, seen from different angles, prefigures the geometric constructions of the Cubists; the forms are sometimes distorted to the point of being virtually Expressionist; details take on the force of emblems and blazons branded onto the surface of the painting...like a sort of collage. [The Nabis'] numerous inventions, discoveries, reflections and premonitions were extraordinary when we evaluate them in the context of the 1890s” (The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard, and their Circle, New York, 1990, p. 27).
"The present work was previously in the collection of sculptor Henry Moore, whose daughter Mary Danowski recalled: "He was the most tremendous teacher. He would use a Vuillard or a piece of African sculpture to make a visual point" (quoted in Independent, 15 May 1997)."
The lot has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $672,500.
Lot 112, "Formes animees," by Frantisek Kupka, gouache over pencil on paper, 10 1/4 by 9 inches, circa 1920
Lot 140, "American Navigation (Design for Mural, Marine Transportation Building, New York World's Fair, 1939-40), by Lyonel Feininger, watercolor, gouache , black conte crayon and pen and india ink on joined paper, 22 by 99 1/8 inches, 1938
Lot 193, "Nu au filet et arlequin," by Pablo Picasso, colored wax crayons and pencil on card, 8 1/4 by 11 1/8 inches, 1970
Lot 126, "Famile," by Pablo Picasso, pen and india ink on paper, 10 1/8 by 13 5/8 inches, circa 1920
Lot 104, "Banjo," by Pablo Picasso, pastel and brush and india ink on paper, 12 5/8 by 18 inches, 1926
Lot 406, "Petites filles spartiates provoquant des garcons," by Edgar Degas, oil on canvas laid down on board, 19 5/8 by 12 5/8 inches, 1860
Lots 288 and 289 by Tamara de Lempicka, "Composition abstraite aux tourbilons," 21 1/2 by 16 inches, above, and "Composition abstraite aux rectangles blancs," 24 by 20 inches, below. Both are oils on canvas and were painted in 1955.
Lot 454, "Marais de la Somme," by Pierre Eugene Montezin, oil on canvas, 27 7/8 by 33 inches
Lot 277, "Etude pour paysage avec Le Cap Negre," by Henri Edmond Cross, oil on canvas, 9 7/8 by 17 3/4 inches
Lot 307, "Vertical Form (St. Ives)," left, by Barbara Hepworth, polished bronze, 18 1/2 inches high, numbered 1/9, left; Lot 301, "Four Square (Four Circles), by Hepworth, bronze, 23 3/8 inches, 1966, numbered 2/7, right
Lot 299, "Un microbe vu a travers un temperament," by Max Ernst, wood and iron, 119 1/4 inches high, 1964
See The City Review article on the Fall 2018 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's New YorkThe November 12, 2018 auction of Impressionist & Modern Art Works on Paper and Day Sale at Christie's New York is highlighted by several good Picassos, Vuillards, Lempicka and some fine works by Renoir, Signac, Sidaner, Ernst, Hepworth and Montezin.
Lot 172 is a very fine oil on board by Edouard Vuillard (1868-1940). It measures 14 5/8 by 23 1/8 inches and was painted in 1893. It is entitled "Interieur, trois femmes en conversation." It was owned by Henry Moore of Much Hadham, the sculptor.
The catalogue entry provides the following commentary:
"Painted in 1893, Intérieur, trois femmes en conversation dates from an important period of Vuillard's association with the Nabi circle, during which he produced the most challenging, sophisticated, and affirmatively modern work of his long career. The Nabi group, which took its name from a Hebrew word meaning prophet, was founded by a band of young artists—Maurice Denis, Paul Ranson, Pierre Bonnard and Henri-Gabriel Ibels foremost among them—who objected to the conservative curriculum at the Académie Julien in Paris, where they had met. Denis, the most vocal proponent of Nabi ideas, dated the inception of the movement to the summer of 1888, when Paul Sérusier brought back from Pont-Aven a small landscape painted under Paul Gauguin's tutelage. Dubbed Le Talisman, the canvas used pure, unmixed colors to communicate the artist's emotions and sensations before the motif, rather than to transcribe the actual appearance of nature.
"Vuillard met Denis and his compatriots at the Académie Julien in 1889 and began his most intense experimentation with Nabi theories the following year, which he described in his journal as “the Sérusier year” (quoted in G.L. Groom, op. cit., p. 9)....
"The present work depicts three women in conversation—two standing with their hands on their hips, while the third enters the frame from the left, barely recognizable as a figure. While the figures’ identities remain undisclosed, it has been suggested that the women may be seamstresses or dressmakers, and the painting has often been referred to as Les Couturières. Vuillard explored the theme of the seamstress many times throughout the 1890s—in the majority of these works, the seamstresses are seen at work with tools in hand, but in the present scene, the viewer catches the women in a moment of leisure, during a short break from the working day.
"The painting is noteworthy for its sense of profound absorption, reminiscent of interior scenes by Johannes Vermeer and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, which the artist would have surely studied at the Louvre. The two standing women are depicted immersed in conversation, their heads angled towards one another and shoulders slightly hunched. The insistent flatness of the image, moreover, renders the two women inseparable from their environment; they seem not so much to inhabit the space as to merge with it. Elizabeth Easton has written: “The paintings of women sewing stand out in Vuillard's oeuvre for their decorative beauty, their complex construction, and their sense of intimacy. [They] are icons of the inwardness that informed Vuillard's personal approach to Symbolism...These pictures also serve as metaphors for Vuillard's concept of himself as a painter. In depicting women conjoined with their surroundings much like the patterns of the objects they sew, Vuillard in some way reflects the union between the artist and the work he creates...
"With its radical pictorial and spatial experiments, Intérieur, trois femmes en conversation heralds many of the most important artistic developments of the early twentieth century. Regarding the work of the Nabis, Claire Frèches-Thory has written: “The bold apposition of violent colors announces the Fauves; the juxtaposition of planes, seen from different angles, prefigures the geometric constructions of the Cubists; the forms are sometimes distorted to the point of being virtually Expressionist; details take on the force of emblems and blazons branded onto the surface of the painting...like a sort of collage. [The Nabis'] numerous inventions, discoveries, reflections and premonitions were extraordinary when we evaluate them in the context of the 1890s” (The Nabis: Bonnard, Vuillard, and their Circle, New York, 1990, p. 27).
"The present work was previously in the collection of sculptor Henry Moore, whose daughter Mary Danowski recalled: "He was the most tremendous teacher. He would use a Vuillard or a piece of African sculpture to make a visual point" (quoted in Independent, 15 May 1997)."
The lot has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $672,500.
Lot 112, "Formes animees," by Frantisek Kupka, gouache over pencil on paper, 10 1/4 by 9 inches, circa 1920
Lot
112 is an energetic and exciting gouache over pencil on paper by
Frantisek Kupka (1871-1957). It is entitled "Formes animees," and
measures 10 1/4 by 9 inches. It was painted circa 1920. It
has an estimate $25,000 to $35,000. It sold for $81,250.
Lot 140, "American Navigation (Design for Mural, Marine Transportation Building, New York World's Fair, 1939-40), by Lyonel Feininger, watercolor, gouache , black conte crayon and pen and india ink on joined paper, 22 by 99 1/8 inches, 1938
Lot
140 is a large study by Lyonel Feininger (1871-1956) for a mural for
the Marine Transportation Building at the New York World's Fair.
The watercolor, gouache, black conte crayon and pen and india ink on
jointed paper was created in 1938. It measures 22 by 99 1/8
inches. It has an estimate of $150,00 to $200,000. It sold for $187,500.
Lot 193, "Nu au filet et arlequin," by Pablo Picasso, colored wax crayons and pencil on card, 8 1/4 by 11 1/8 inches, 1970
Lot
193 is a great small colored wax crayons and pencil on a card by Pablo
Picasso (1881-1973). It measures 8 1/4 by 11 1/8 inches and was
painted in 1970. It has an estimate of $150,000 to
$200,000. It sold for $372,500.
Lot 126, "Famile," by Pablo Picasso, pen and india ink on paper, 10 1/8 by 13 5/8 inches, circa 1920
Lot
126 is another by fine Picasso drawing. Entitled "Famile," it is
a pen and india ink on paper that measures 10 1/8 by 13 5/8 inches and
is dated circa 1920. It has a modest estimate of $30,000 to
$50,000. It sold for $75,000.
Lot 104, "Banjo," by Pablo Picasso, pastel and brush and india ink on paper, 12 5/8 by 18 inches, 1926
Lot
104 is a very nice pastel and brush and india ink on paper by Picasso
entitled "Banjo." It measures 12 5/8 by 18 inches and was painted
in 1926. It has an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000. It sold for $150,000.
Lot 406, "Petites filles spartiates provoquant des garcons," by Edgar Degas, oil on canvas laid down on board, 19 5/8 by 12 5/8 inches, 1860
Lot
406 is a study by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) for his large oil painting in
the National Gallery in London entitled "Petite filles spartiates
provoquant des garcons," a work the artist spent 20 years on. In
the London work, which includes several more figures, the girls have
loin clothes. This lot, which is one of four studies for the
London painting, has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It sold for $1,452,500.
Lot 256, "Pont des arts, inondation," by Paul Signac, oil on panel, 13 3/4 by 10 5/8 inches, 1930
Lot 256, "Pont des arts, inondation," by Paul Signac, oil on panel, 13 3/4 by 10 5/8 inches, 1930
Lot 256
is a strong, small oil on panel by Paul Signac (1863-1935) entitled
"Pont des arts, inondation." It measures 13 3/4 gy 10 5/8 inches
and was painted in 1930. It has an estimate of $400,000 to
$600,000. It sold for $492,500.
Lot 273, "Le Port," by Henri Le Sidaner, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 by 28 3/4 inches, 1936
Lot 273, "Le Port," by Henri Le Sidaner, oil on canvas, 36 1/4 by 28 3/4 inches, 1936
Lot 273 is a lovely oil on
canvas by Henri Le Sidaner (1862-1939) entitled "Le Port." It
measures 36 1/4 by 28 3/4 inches and was painted in 1936. It has
an estimate of $350,000 to $550,000. It failed to sell.
Lots 288 and 289 by Tamara de Lempicka, "Composition abstraite aux tourbilons," 21 1/2 by 16 inches, above, and "Composition abstraite aux rectangles blancs," 24 by 20 inches, below. Both are oils on canvas and were painted in 1955.
Lot
288, "Composition abstraite aux tourbilons," is an oil on canvas by
Tamara de Lempicka (1898-1980) that measures 21 1/2 by 16 inches and
was painted in 1955. It has an estimate of $25,000 to
$35,000. It sold for $68,750.
Lot 289, "Composition abstraite aux rectangles blances," is another oil on canvas by Lempicka that measures 24 by 20 inches and was also painted in 1955. It has an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. It sold for $93,750.
Lot 289, "Composition abstraite aux rectangles blances," is another oil on canvas by Lempicka that measures 24 by 20 inches and was also painted in 1955. It has an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. It sold for $93,750.
Lot 454, "Marais de la Somme," by Pierre Eugene Montezin, oil on canvas, 27 7/8 by 33 inches
Lot
454 is a lovely oval oil on canvas landscape by Pierre Eugene Montezin
(1874-1946). It is entitled "Marais de la Somme" and measures 27
7/8 by 33 inches. It has an estimate of $25,000 to $35,000.
It sold for $52,500.
Lot 277, "Etude pour paysage avec Le Cap Negre," by Henri Edmond Cross, oil on canvas, 9 7/8 by 17 3/4 inches
Lot
277 is a handsome landscape oil on canvas sketch of Le Cap Negre by
Henri Edmond Cross (1856-1910). It measures 9 7/8 by 17 3/4
inches. It has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It sold for $35,000.
Lot 307, "Vertical Form (St. Ives)," left, by Barbara Hepworth, polished bronze, 18 1/2 inches high, numbered 1/9, left; Lot 301, "Four Square (Four Circles), by Hepworth, bronze, 23 3/8 inches, 1966, numbered 2/7, right
Barbara
Hepworth (1903-1975) has two very nice bronze sculptures in the
auction. Lot 307 is a polished bronze work entitled "Vertical
Form (St. Ives)" that is 18 1/2 inches high and is numbered
1/9. It has an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. It sold for $324,500.
Lot 310 is a 23 3/8 inch high bronze entitled "Four Square (Four Circles)." It is dated 1966 and numbered 2/7. It has an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. It sold for $285,500.
Lot 310 is a 23 3/8 inch high bronze entitled "Four Square (Four Circles)." It is dated 1966 and numbered 2/7. It has an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000. It sold for $285,500.
Lot 299, "Un microbe vu a travers un temperament," by Max Ernst, wood and iron, 119 1/4 inches high, 1964
Lot
299 is a wood and iron sculpture by Max Ernst (1891-1976) that was
created in 1964 and is entitled "Un microbe vu a travers un
temperament." It has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It failed to sell.
See The City Review article on the Fall 2018 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2018 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2018 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2017 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2017 evening auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's New York
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2016 evening auction of Impressionist
& Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2016 day auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2016 auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's New York
See The City Review article on the Spring 2016 auction at Sotheby's New York of Impressionist & Modern Art
See The
City Review article on the
Spring 2016 auction at Christie's New York of Impressionist &
Modern ArtSee The City Review article on the Fall 2016 day auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Sotheby's New York
See The City Review article on the Fall 2016 auction of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's New York
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See The City Review article of the Fall 2015 Impressionist and Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
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See The City Review article on the Spring 2014 Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Christie's New York
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See The City Review article on the Spring 2013 Impressionist & Modern Art evening auction at Sotheby's New York
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The City Review article on the
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See The
City
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City Review article on the Spring 2012 Impressionist & Modern
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City Review article on the Fall 2011 Impressionist & Modern Art
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City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
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See The
City Review article on the Spring 2011 Impressionist & Modern
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See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
evening auction at Sotheby's
See The
City Review article on the Fall 2010 Impressionist & Modern Art
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City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
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City Review article on the Spring 2010 Impressionist & Modern
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City Review article on the Fall 2009 Impressionist & Modern Art
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City Review article on the Spring 2009 Impressionist & Modern
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