NEW YORK, NY.- One of Rodin’s most beautiful and expressive works, Eve, leads Impressionist and Modern Art at
Bonhams New York on May 11. The statue, with a remarkably rich brown patina and standing 30 inches high, is estimated at U.S. $1,000,000-1,500,000.
During the early 1880’s, Auguste Rodin (1840-1917) was commissioned by the French state to design a grand portal for the proposed Musée des Arts Decoratifs in Paris. The conception of La Porte d’Enfer (The Gates of Hell) dominated the sculptor’s creative output for the rest of his life. From it, sprang a small group of independent works – The Kiss, The Thinker and Eve – on which Rodin’s worldwide reputation is built.
Rodin initially conceived Eve as a pair to a figure of Adam which together he hoped would flank The Gates of Hell. The government rejected his proposal but he had already begun work on a life-size Eve in plaster and continued to work on it over the succeeding years. Rodin was so pleased with the form that he had it cast in bronze at the end of the 1880’s. The success of the figure encouraged him to produce two half-size versions, a cast of one of which is in the sale.
“Rodin is the father of 20th Century sculpture, and this beautiful cast of the Eve shows us why,” said Director of Impressionist and Modern Art William O’Reilly. “Although the subject is classical, the hyperrealism of the form and the pure expression of the isolation of the individual in the face of an implacable universe foreshadow Modernist concerns. It’s through works like Eve that Constantin Brancusi, Alberto Giacometti and even Francis Bacon saw Rodin as their pathfinder in their exploration of the human condition”
Other auction highlights include:
· Étude pour jeune fille endormie, Balthus (1906-2001), estimate U.S. $150,000-250,000
Étude pour jeune fille endormie by Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, known as Balthus, is one of the artist’s characteristic, even notorious, renderings of young girls lost in their thoughts. This example, drawn in 1943 and identified as a portrait of Jeannette Aldry, was made in connection with a painting now in the collection of the Tate, London.
· Sitzender bärtiger Mann (Seated bearded man), Oscar Kokoschka (1886-1980), estimate U.S. $70,000-100,000
Sitzender bärtiger Mann (Seated bearded man) is an early masterpiece on paper by Oskar Kokoschka. In 1907, while the artist was working on a series of figure drawings for Wiener Werkstätte projects, he privately made several studies of an old woman and an old man. In this latter series, he moved away from the more traditional silhouetted, frieze-like figures in favor of stark realism.
THE SWARZENKI FAMILY COLLECTION
The first section of the Impressionist and Modern Art sale features a selection of works from the Swarzenski Family Collection, a fine example of collecting tastes in the German-speaking world between and after the two World Wars.
Georg Swarzenski (1876-1957) was perhaps one of the most innovative and influential museum curators and administrators of his generation, as well as a key collector and tastemaker in Frankfurt. Swarzenski saw the pressing need to acquire works by painters from the Impressionists to the avant-garde of his own time, and set about building a collection. He was forced to leave Germany for the U.S. in 1938, moving first to Princeton, before accepting a curatorship at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Georg Swarzenski’s son Hanns was also a museum curator. In 1938, Hanns moved to Princeton, later going to the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and then to the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in his father’s old position.
Hanns’ brother, Wolfgang (1917-2008), married Regula Gubler, daughter of the Swiss writer and collector Friedrich Traugott Gubler. Gubler was a friend and correspondent of Oskar Kokoschka, and it is from him that two superb early drawings by the artist entered the Swarzenski Family Collections.
The Swarzenki Family Collection includes the exceptional Arbres près d'une rivière painted by French artist Jean Metzinger (1883-1956) around 1905 (estimate $80,000-120,000). Born and raised in Nantes, Metzinger moved to Paris in 1903 and was immediately drawn to the avant-garde prophets of the city. Barely 20 years-old, in Arbres près d'une rivière he rapidly absorbed the prevailing artistic influences; the pointilliste technique pioneered by Seurat and developed by Signac is overlaid by the vibrant colour palette of Matisse and the Fauves.
MEXICAN MODERNISM: PAINTING AND POLITICAL ENGAGEMENT
The auction also includes a special section dedicated to Mexican Modernism, led by Evelia sentada by Francisco Zúñiga (1912-1998) (estimate U.S. $ 200,000 - 300,000) and La Cantina by Diego Rivera (estimate U.S. $30,000-40,000).
Mexican art in the 20th century is sharply underscored by the revolution of 1910 and the tumultuous decade of civil war that followed. In the early 1920’s, art in Mexico was viewed as a rehabilitating, unifying force and was used as such in a series of ambitious public mural commissions that have become the defining works of Mexican Modernism. The three principal proponents of the muralist movement were David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974), José Clemente Orozco (1881-1949) and its self-appointed leader, Diego Rivera (1886-1957). Together they forged a unique and impressive aesthetic which heavily influenced subsequent painters in the country as well as having far-reaching effect on public art throughout the Americas.
Bonhams’ Impressionist and Modern Art sale includes pivotal artists from this movement, including Siqueiros and Rivera as well as pivotal artists less well-known outside Mexico such as Pablo O’Higgins and Xavier Guerrero.
The auction consists of 63 works in total and takes place at Bonhams, 580 Madison Avenue, New York, on May 11 at 4 p.m. EST.
