PARIS.- On Thursday, 17 October 2024, with the auction of the Danute and Alain Mallart, Brussels – Paris – Vilnius the epicenter of which will be Art Basel, at the recently restored Grand Palais in Paris. Long kept confidential and only known to the personal and professional network of collectors, the Danute and Alain Mallart Collection is of the kind that dreams are made of. The fruit of more than 30 years of painstaking research, reflecting two very strong personalities, this art and design collection is both deeply rooted in European history and completely open to the very best of contemporary design. Its strength, richness and scope have already given the collection the status of exceptional provenance. Led by a major painting by Marlène Dumas – one of today’s most influential artists – the hundred or so works in the auction are estimated at between 8 million and 12 million euros.

As the title of the auction shows, Vilnius is, alongside Paris and Brussels, an essential location in the careers of these two exceptional collectors. That the Lithuanian Season in France should coincide with this auction is not just a happy coincidence.

The collection: The boldness and sophistication of a truly European taste

The collection brings together young artists and established international figures seamlessly and with the same rigor across three cultural capitals. Displayed by Danute Mallart with a sense of scenography and space that underlines the strength and cohesion of the ensemble, the works of art stand alongside furniture from the 1930s to the present day (Zsolnay, Georges de Feure, Jean-Michel Frank, Jean Dunand, Eugène Printz, Marc du Plantier, Jean Dunand, Diego Giacometti).

Sharing the visions of artists who have made history an essential part of their work, the collection focuses on German artists, from Sigmar Polke to Anselm Kiefer, and from Georg Baselitz to A.R. Penck.

Featuring works by Anish Kapoor, Yayoi Kusama, Francois Morellet and El Anatsui, the collection explores the different facets of contemporary abstraction with complete freedom and without blinkers or boundaries. The question of the body – and in particular the female body – is one of the main themes of the collection. Marlène Dumas, Antony Gormely, Martial Raysse, Tom Wesselmann, Barbara Kruger: each in their own way have used painting, sculpture and photography to express the body’s relationship with space and question the canons of representation.

Feathered Stola, an oil on canvas painted in 2000, is emblematic of the work of Marlène Dumas. Confronting the cliché, this portrait deconstructs the ideological structure of representation with a powerful dose of radicalism. The key work in Stripping Girls – one of the exhibitions that made S.M.A.K. Gent internationally famous in 2000 – Feathered Stola is a spectral figure with a sharp title and one of the major works in the Danute and Alain Mallart Collection, Brussels – Paris – Vilnius auction. It is estimated at between 1 million and 1.5 million euros.