By Carter B. Horsley This evening auction May 7, 2003 of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie's is surprisingly small given the generally high quality of the second part of the auction that will on the block the next morning and afternoon. But if the quantity is limited only 31 lots the quality is quite high and includes a very strong self-portrait by Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), a major "grid" painting by Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), and a fine still life and a very intriguing abstract painting by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) and two good paintings by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894). The Cézanne, Lot 10, is an oil on canvas that measures 21 ¾ by 18 ¼ inches. Painted circa 1895, it has an estimate of $15,000,000 to $20,000,000. It sold for $17,367,500 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article. The buyer was Steve Wynn, the Las Vegas gaming entrepreneur who the previous night bought a major Renoir portrait, "Dans les Roses," at Sotheby's, for $23,528,000. Before the auction began, Mr. Wynn talked with friends on the street outside the auction house, pawing the sidewalk with his shoes, which he explained were new, and taking one practice stroke with an imaginary golf club before being joined by Donald Trump, the real estate developer who also is a gaming entrepreneur in Atlantic City. Cézanne painted 26 self-portraits but only four in the last 15 years of his life and this work, his penultimate self-portrait, is the only late one not in a museum collection. The catalogue notes that Lionello Venturi, the art historian, wrote that this painting "is perhaps the most human image of himself that he produced," adding that "The meetings of the facial planes are as energetic as those of the planes of the rocks in The Montagne Saint-Victoire, and yet they faithfully depict the impression made by Cézanne's face in reality, his moral nature and his sharp, penetrating glance. The image is perfectly framed in the space, out of which its volume looms like a sudden, impressive apparition." The catalogue observes that this work is "the only one related to a watercolor study." It also quotes Dr. Albert Barnes and Violette de Mazia as describing the painting as a "a very powerful portrait, one of Cézanne's best; [it] compares with the most successful characterizations of Titian, Tintoretto, El Greco and Rembrandt, and is realized by a legitimate use of the plastic means. The figure is alive, the volumes are solid and real, the drawing is neither stiff nor rigid, and the modeling is done without obvious recourse to sharp contrasts or to blocks and facets." The catalogue also provides the following quotation by Steven Platzman: "There is a perhaps a glint of mischief in the eye under the cocked brow that harkens back to his Bohemian youth. But most significantly, in the same way that the artist could discern, amid the chaotic transience of nature, certain immutable and enduring forms, he must have been aware that in this picture of himself, with all its worldly cares and appearances, there resides an inner self that is heroic, indomitable and timeless, and that in these qualities people would discover and understand the achievement of his art."
This sale was a little more successful with 82 percent of the 31 offered lots selling as compared to about 72 percent sold at Sotheby's.
Lot 23, "Composition in White, Blue and Yellow":C, is a 28 3/8-by-27 ¼-inch oil on canvas by Piet Mondrian. Executed in 1936, this "grid" picture has an estimate of $6,000,000 to $8,000,000. It sold for $8,071,500 to an anonyomous buyer. The catalogue describes the painting as "an exceptional example of Mondrian's work from the mid-1930s, adding that "While the paintings from the late 1920s and early1930s are celebrated for their spare and reductive purity, Mondrian's compositions from 1932 onward are characterized by a new freedom and vitality, with more complex rhythms steadily supplanting the meditative calm of the earlier canon. This revolution in Mondrian's work was inaugurated by the introduction of a single new compositional strategy: the double line."
Although the Cezanne and Mondrian are major works, some connoisseurs may be much more fascinated by a very dramatic work by Paul Gauguin, Lot 17, "Les Oies," which depicts three geese viewed by a woman who is only visible in her reflection in the water. This 23 ½-by-28 ¾-inch oil on canvas, is exceeding vibrant and very unusual. Painted in 1889, it has an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. It sold for $1,127,500. It is quite an astounding work that has the fiery colors of Nolde, the cosmic visions of Turner and the pyrotechnics of the Fauves. This work, the catalogue maintains, "is one of the most haunting and abstract of Gauguin's entire career." "It was in Brittany that Gauguin finally broke free of earlier tradition and emerged as an intensely original modern master. With its unconventional viewpoint and brilliant swirls of anti-naturalistic color, the present painting vividly illustrates this development...."
Lot 4 is a beautiful still life by Paul Gauguin that was executed in 1888. An oil on canvas, it measures 12 ½ by 21 7/8 inches and has an estimate of $2,500,000 to $3,500,000. It sold for $3,143,500. The catalogue provides the following commentary: "Both an overt homage to Cezanne and an early indication of Gauguin's interest in Japanese prints, the present still-life occupies an important place in the artist's oeuvre. Executed in January, 1888, the painting is one of just three or four that Gauguin made during a ten-week stay in Paris following his return from Martinique. In June of 1888, despite considerable financial hardship, the artist refused an offer of three hundred francs for this picture, writing to Schuffenecker, `It's the apple of my eye, and except in the case of dire necessity, I'll keep it until my last shirt's gone."
Another striking still-life is Lot 3, "Gâteaux," by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894), which foreshadows some of those by Wayne Thiebaud. The 21 ½-by-29-inch oil on canvas was painted in 1881 and has an estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000. The catalogue notes that Caillebotte produced a handful of still-lifes between 1879 and 1885 "employing daring compositional formats, of which Gâteaux may be considered one of the finest." It sold for $1,351,500.
Another excellent Caillebotte painting is Lot 16, "La Rue Halévy, vu d'un Balcon," an oil on canvas that measures 23 ¾ by 28 7/8 inches. Painted in 1878, it has an estimate of $1,200,000 to $1,600,000. It is a very strong and luminous work. It sold for $1,407,500.
Lot 5, "Vagues à la Manneporte," by Claude Monet (1840-1926) is a very strong seascape that is extremely free in its brushwork. The painting was once owned by John Singer Sargent who wrote Monet that "I could remain in front of it for hours on end in a state of voluptuous stupor, or of enchantment if you prefer." An oil on canvas, it measures 29 by 36 ½ inches and was executed circa 1885.The Etretat scene has a very modest estimate of $600,000 to $800,000, which is very surprising since it is much more painterly than Lot 8, "Poste de douaniers a Dieppe," another Monet, which is smaller, much less exciting and has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. Lot 5 sold for $669,500 and Lot 8 sold for $1,799,500.
Lot 9, "Quai Malaquais, Matin, Soleil," is a very fine and luminous urban scene by Camille Pissarro (1830-1903). The 21 ½-by-25 ¾-inch oil on canvas was painted in 1903 and has an estimate of $2,000,000 to $3,000,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $1,800,000. Nice companion pieces to the Pissarro are Lots 10 and 18, very lush landscapes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Painted between 1903 and 1905, Lot 10, entitled "Jeune Fille dans un Jardin, Cagnes," is an oil on canvas that measures 18 ¼ by 21 ¾ inches and has an estimate of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000. It sold for $1,234,649. Lot 18, "La Baie d'Alger," is a richly colored bay scene. An oil on canvas that measures 20 by 20 5/8 inches, it was painted in 1881 and has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. It sold for $612,300.
There are two good works by Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) (see The City Review article on a retrospective on the artist at the Museum of Modern Art) in the auction: Lots 21 and 25. The former is a 23 ½-inch high painted bronze that was cast in 1950 and is numbered 1/6. It is entitled "La Clarière" and was once in the collection of Frederick R. Weisman of Beverly Hills. The work has 9 figures of different heights on different small pedestals on a large flat base. It has an ambitious estimate of $8,000,000 to $12,000,000. It failed to sell and was passed $7,200,000. Other coasts are in the Alberto Giacometti Foundation and the Fondation Maeght. The catalogue notes that the artist's inspiration for the work may have come from landscape near his hometown of Stampa, or from Cycladic Art that he admired in the Louvre or from his experiences in Le Sphinx, a Parisian brothel in which prostitutes lined up for the customer. A similar work is also up for auction this spring at Sotheby's (see The City Review article) and it too failed to sell and had a slightly lower estimate because it had not been painted by the artist. Lot 25, "Homme Qui Marche III," is an 18-inch-high painted bronze figure by Alberto Giacometti that was conceived in 1950 and cast shortly thereafter. It has an estimate of $3,000,000 to $4,000,000. It sold for $4,039,500. Another sculpture in the auction is Lot 11, "Petite Danceuse de Quatorze Ans," by Edgar Degas (1834-1917). The 38 ½-inch-high bronze statue of a young ballerina has a muslin skirt and a satin hair ribbon. It was executed in wax circa 1879-1881 and this bronze version was cast in 1922. It was once in the collection of Mr. and Mrs. William Goetz of Los Angeles. It has an estimate of $8,000,000 to $12,000,000. It sold for $10,311,500 to the Richard Gray Gallery. It has been consigned by François Pinault, the owner of Christie's who purchased it for $12.3 million in 1999 at Sotheby's.
He noted in his post-auction remarks that the auctions "couldn't have been at a worse time and the results should give people confidence that great art sells at any time. He observed that the firm's London major sale already has 50 lots of which 20 had been consigned in the last 10 days, an indication that attitudes are becoming more relaxed and less nervous.