PARIS.- Christie's Post War and Contemporary Art department announced its 3 December sale, a rich selection of over hundred lots with a total estimate of €10 million. The sale features a selection of major works, including a Jean Paul Riopelle masterpiece never seen on the market, La Sombreuse (estimate €2,500,000-4,000,000), a superb Outrenoir by Pierre Soulages, Peinture 165 x 130cm, 19 March 2006, estimated at €700,000-1,000,000, a major work by Piero Manzoni, Achrome (1962, estimate €500,000-700,000) and a very large format typical of Anselm Kieffer, Lilith (estimate €250,000-350,000). L'Ogre, a sculpture by Germaine Richier (1949, estimate €250,000-300,000) and Jour et nuit, a large painting by Maria Helena Vieira Da Silva (estimate €250,000-300,000) will put women artists in the spotlight. A group of drawings by Yves Saint Laurent, each estimated at around €5,000, should also appeal to collectors.
Etienne Sallon, Head of evening Sales : « As the contemporary art market hits a number of records in 2021 and after the strong results achieved in Paris in October during the FIAC week and more recently in New York, we are looking forward to auctioning more high quality pieces, some of which have never been seen on the market before. ».
Top lot of the sale, La Sombreuse, by Jean Paul Riopelle, will be offered on auction for the first time. Exceptional in its size and ambition, this major canvas by the artist is a dazzling symphony of colors. La Sombreuse is a perfect illustration of Riopelle’s virtuosity in mastering the palette knife technique, his true signature (estimate € 2,500,000-4,000,000). For Riopelle, “the painting must work itself out”, a statement magnificently illustrated by this work. Undoubtedly, La Sombreuse is one of the most important paintings by this artist ever offered at auction. It belongs to the same category as the current world record set by Christie’s in 2017.
Dated from 1967, this superb Concetto Spaziale Attese by Lucio Fontana is a very fine example of the tagli initiated in 1958, estimatee €650,000-850,000. At the core of the artist's late life decades, this body of works completes years of radical aesthetic researches. Using cuts and slashes Fontana explores and creates space beyond the canvas. This three-dimensionality transcends the traditional space of the canvas providing it with an almost musical rhythm.
Conceived in 1949 and executed in 1951, l’Ogre by Germaine Richier, estimated at €250,000-300,000, is from a twelve proofs bronze casting, one of which was acquired in 2011 by the Centre Pompidou. This full-length portrait of a man with a massive body and a split face is a formidably poetic work. The present cast was exhibited in 1959 at the MoMA’s exhibition New Images of Man.
Born in the desolation of the Spanish Civil War’s aftermath, Saura's painting is made out of expressive brushstrokes. Throughout his life, Saura remains faithful to this specific atmosphere. The Three Graces expand this expressiveness to a monumental scale. An early version (from the1950s) of the same theme is kept at the Fine Arts Museum in Bilbao. As many of his portraits, The Three Graces stand out from the canvas like torn icons flayed by uncontrolled gestures. As art historian and curator Rainer Michael Mason comments, "Antonio Saura has long remained below the level of undisputed celebrity. [...] But, one day, the margins become the center." Collectors may consider The Three Graces offered for sale as a key work of this huge artist (estimate €150,000-250,000).
A child of the Fascist period and a contemporary of the 'Italian economic miracle', Piero Manzoni, always critical of mass production and consumerism, is one of the leading Italian artists of the second half of the 20th century. With its ironic approach to avant-garde art, Manzoni will strongly influence the entire Arte Povera generation, directly prefiguring Conceptual Art. Achrome (estimate €500,000-700,000) epitomizes Manzoni's desire to rid painting of any narrative content.
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva is a leading figure in post-war abstract painting. With its fragmented forms, spatial ambiguities and restricted palette, Jour et Nuit is emblematic of her maturity (estimate €250,000-350,000). This large-format canvas, dated 1967, seems to go on forever to the right, depicting the eternal recommencement of day and night. Jour et nuit remained for more than fifty years in the family of Jane and Herbert Oettinger, American collectors of the Grande École de Paris. In 1971, in New York, it was part of the last major exhibition devoted to the artist during her lifetime.
Other highlights the sale include a superb Outrenoir by Pierre Soulages should also attract collectors. From the mid-2000s, acrylics replaced oil in this body of works. Thus, the use of a particularly thick paste allowed the artist to experiment with the material at will, almost as a sculptor would, to imprint it with trenches, craters, grooves and ridges that are sometimes accentuated and sometimes blurred by the light that is projected onto it. Peinture 165 x 130 cm, 13 March 2006 (is an emblematic example of this intricate work on texture estimate (€700,000- 1,000,000).
Gabriel Orozco, an influential artist since the early 1990s, believes that "really great art regenerates the perception of reality. The reality becomes richer, better or not, just different”. Samurai Tree belongs to a body of works composed around abstract geometric forms resulting of years of pictorial researches first exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery in London in 2004 (estimate €150,000-300,000).
If circles are an integral part of Orozco's work, the cube is Invader’s instrument to conquer the world. To date, over thirty countries and a hundred cities have been invaded by the artist’s pixels. His mosaics are now world famous. In 2008, during a trip to Nepal, Kathmandu became his new target. In the foothills of the Himalayas, Buddhism resonates with his work, less as a physical space than as a spiritual quest anchored in meditation. This is how he takes on the radiant figure of the Dalai Lama. Inspired by video games, Invader's world is built in pixels. Embedded in Art History, Invader’s work revisits Cubism and gives birth to Rubikcubism. Produced in 2008, the portrait of the Dalai Lama 400 Chinese Cubes, estimated at €350,000-550,000, is made up of 400 Rubiks cubes making it the largest format in his "good man" and "bad man" series, which began in 2005.
The collection of Philippe Guimiot tells us the story of a singular life and a sharp eye on the arts. Both a dealer (one of the few to live in Africa) and a collector, he anticipated the affinities between contemporary and non western arts. The limits of his collection were never set by a style, a period or a continent but rather by a quest of spiritual nature. Penck shares a similar pursuit well embodied by his clear cut archaism. It is greatly exemplified by this large format canvas dated 1982 (estimate €150,000-200,000)
A Heart for Peace, a large watercolor (200 x 123 cm), generously donated by Barthelemy Toguo, an artist regularly exhibited in the world's greatest museums, will also be on offer. The sale of this work, estimated at €18,000-25,000, will benefit Football World Heritage. This Paris-based association is spearheading a worldwide campaign to have football officially recognized as a universal intangible cultural heritage. The artist will be present on Monday 29 November at Christie's to share this work and meet collectors.
Finally, as is customary for our contemporary art sales in Paris, the selection offered by Christie's will give a high profile to the French scene, with works by François Morellet, Hans Hartung, Serge Poliakoff, Georges Mathieu and Jean Fautrier to name but a few.
