PARIS.- In October, Paris will be the art market’s global epicenter: the contemporary art world meets in Paris with Art Basel, Moderne Art Fair, Internationale, Design Miami, Also Known As Africa, Offscreen and Asia Now. Located just a stone’s throw from the Grand-Palais, Christie’s is at the heart of this international occasion and is participating in the flurry of activity with a series of events that will set the tone for the 2024 auction season.

The Collection Danute et Alain Mallart, Bruxelles-Paris-Vilnius will open – and set the tone of – the contemporary art week. Accumulated with precision and discretion, and jealously kept from prying eyes, the Danute and Alain Mallart Collection is the kind of collection 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 Feathered Stola (€1million - €1.5 million), 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.

The next day, the flagship sale of the Paris auction season will be held just a stone’s throw from the Grand Palais, which is making a major comeback on the world art scene. A prestigious evening sale, Avant-Garde(s) including Thinking Italian, will once again pay tribute to the great names in 20th and 21st century art, with a limited selection of a few dozen major works. To mark the centenary of Surrealism, Christie’s is presenting Myrte (€1million - €1.5 million), the exceptional rediscovery of a surrealist work by Francis Picabia, a perfect example of Picabia’s Transparency series, which had been kept in the same European collection since the 1970s. It will be auctioned alongside one of the very rare paintings by Alberto Giacometti, Buste sur la selle de l’atelier (€2 million - €3 million). Painted in 1964, it is the work of an artist at the peak of his artistic powers, and was successively owned by Pierre Matisse and Ernst Beyeler – which gives it a provenance that is among the most significant in the history of 20th- century art. The same is true of Joan Mitchell’s work Untitled (€3.2 million - €5 million) acquired directly from the artist, and carefully preserved in the private collection of Jacques Dubourg – a key figure in the art market.

Works by Zao Wou-Ki (€4 million – €6 million), Kazuo Shiraga (€1.5 million - €2.5 million), Toyen (€600,000 – €900,000), Simon Hantaï (€600,000 – €800,0000), François Xavier Lalanne (€1 million - €1.5 million) and many others complete this historic panorama.

An event within an event, Thinking Italian will, for the third consecutive year, feature a section dedicated to the best of Italian art, led this year by an exceptional Concetto spaziale by Lucio Fontana (estimate available on request) and an Achrome by Piero Manzoni (estimate available on request), from two prestigious private collections. Domenico Gnoli’s La Robe Rouge (€1 million – €1.5 million) -- a pivotal work in the artist’s career, exhibited at the Centre Pompidou, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and the Boijmans Museum in Rotterdam -- will play a star role in the sale. It will be closely followed by a group of four works by Alighiero Boetti from the same collection, including one from the highly sought-after Aerei series (€800,000 - €1 million). Their auction in Paris is one of a series held in New York, London and Paris in which Christie’s is selling a group of works that were displayed in a major retrospective organized to mark the 30th anniversary of Boetti’s death. The sale will also include two significant examples of metaphysical paintings by Giorgio de Chirico.

Coinciding with the exhibition programmed at the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, the auction will spotlight l’Arte Povera, with a rare and exceptional collection of eight works from 1969-1979, of historical importance in the careers of Giovanni Anselmo, Luciano Fabro, Mario Merz, Giuseppe Penone, Vettor Pisani, Emilio Prini, Gilberto Zorio and Giulio Paolini. It will also include two major works by Giuseppe Penone from the Grafite series, in positive and negative forms: Pelle di grafite (scuro) and Pelle di grafite (chiaro). In addition, rare works from the 1960s by Mario Schifano, (Insegna 7E 8E, 1961, €600,000 - €800,000) and Enrico Castellani (Dittico nero-argento €500,000-€800,000) will complete this remarkable group of works.

The next day, the 20/21 Century Art Day Sale will bring together some of these great names in a broader and more accessible range, with estimates ranging from €2,000 to €600,000. Giuseppe Penone, Mario Merz and Alighiero Boetti will be center stage once again, in a follow-up to the Italian chapter started the day before. Works by Simon Hantaï, Kazuo Shiraga, Jean Dubuffet and Alberto Giacometti will be presented with estimates ranging from €20,000 to €300,000. The sale of the day is also broader from a historical perspective. Closing a year of 150th anniversary celebrations, Impressionism and the movements it spawned will be present with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (L’enfant à la capuche €200,000-€300,000), André Derain (Paysage de Martigues €150,000-€250,000), Édouard Vuillard (Madame Vuillard €200,000-€300,000) and Félix Vallotton (Les grands arbres €400,000-€600,000) – the showpiece of the auction. A very fine example of a reclining nude painting from 1927 by Moïse Kisling, Nu étendu sur un divan rouge, along with others will complete the modern works on sale. A bronze Tête by Joan Miró (€300,000-€500,000) will complete Week 20/21’s rich sculpture section. Christie’s will also have the honor of being associated with an exceptional project in support of contemporary creation by selling 12 works generously donated by major artists, from Raymond Pettibon to Paul McCarthy and William Kentridge, in support of the “Imprimerie d’Art de Montparnasse” Endowment Fund.

Following the success of Chagall et la Musique in 2023, and other monographic sales in London and Hong Kong in 2022, the online sale Marc Chagall: Entre Ciel et Terre Œuvre provenant de la succession de l’artiste will offer a new series of previously unseen works that come directly from the artist’s studio. The 72 works on offer on this particular occasion will provide an opportunity to explore the renewed synergy that permeates the creative and imaginary dimensions that transcend all pictorial spaces.