LONDON EVENING SALE Feb twenty eighth
Main highlights provide contrasting visions of the feminine type, together with Pablo Picasso’s Femme dans un rocking-chair (Jacqueline) and two masterpieces by Georg Baselitz from the Hess Artwork Assortment. Elsewhere, themes of nature and panorama unite works by Paul Cézanne and Lucian Freud. Tales entwine throughout the sale: the latter’s Scillonian Beachscape, notably, was impressed by a visit to the Isles of Scilly with John Craxton, who in flip was the proprietor of Alberto Giacometti’s vital and distinctive sculpture Chandelier for Peter Watson.
A wealthy group of German Expressionist work finds up to date echoes in works by Liu Ye and Amoako Boafo; portraits by Pierre Auguste Renoir and Gustave Klimt converse to these of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and Claire Tabouret. From works by Marc Chagall and Paul Gauguin to David Hockney and Cecily Brown, the sale gives a wealthy alternative to discover Impressionist, Trendy and Modern artwork in dialogue.
Georg Baselitz, Elke I (1975, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000)
Georg Baselitz, Frau Paganismus (1994, estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000)
London – Two masterpieces by Georg Baselitz will spotlight Christie’s 20th / 21st Century: London Night Sale on 28 February 2023. Elke I (1975, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000) and Frau Paganismus (1994, estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000) are being provided at public sale for the primary time from the celebrated Hess Artwork Assortment, who acquired them shortly after they had been created by the artist. Unveiled in New York, they are going to be exhibited in London from 22 to twenty-eight February. Elke I can be on view in Hong Kong till 10 February. This second precedes quite a lot of prestigious exhibitions which can happen internationally celebrating the artist’s profession on this milestone 12 months for Georg Baselitz.
Tessa Lord, Performing Head of Division, Submit-Battle and Modern Artwork London, and Edmond Francey, Worldwide Director, Submit-Battle and Modern Artwork: “Coinciding with the artist’s 85th birthday, we’re thrilled to supply two extraordinary masterpieces by Georg Baselitz from the distinguished Hess Artwork Assortment. Recognised internationally as a number one German artist, his sculptures and work have been a radical affect on up to date artwork follow because the Fifties. Elke I depicts the artist’s spouse, who has been one among Baselitz’s most enduring topics since he first painted her in 1969. It’s introduced alongside Frau Paganismus, a monumental sculpture born from a single colossal piece of wooden which challenges sculptural conference with the identical power Baselitz brings to portray. Each reimagining the feminine type, the 2 works will provide viewers perception into distinct components of the artist’s oeuvre and we look ahead to exhibiting them in our worldwide salerooms forward of the public sale on 28 February.”
Frau Paganismus represents a vital strand of Georg Baselitz’s follow: monumental sculpture. Towering over two metres excessive, a feminine torso looms like an historical idol. Carved utilizing a chainsaw, axe and chisel from a single colossal piece of wooden, the floor is hacked into tough planes and lacerated fissures. Frau Paganismus exudes an aura of indomitable energy. Daubs of vivid crimson pigment mark her face and breasts, heightening the sculpture’s uncooked, primal presence. Created in Baselitz’s studio within the citadel of Schloss Derneburg, whose cavernous area allowed him to work at an immense scale, she echoes the totems and fetishes of African sculpture, and in addition the mysterious, crude wood cult figures which have been discovered preserved in German peat bogs. Frau Paganismus was included within the artist’s landmark first US retrospective, which opened on the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, in 1995, and within the main exhibition ‘Baselitz – Sculpteur’ on the Musée D’Artwork Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 2011-12. The work is the biggest amongst a bunch of ten red-painted sculptures Baselitz created within the mid-Nineteen Nineties: associated heads and torsos from the sequence are in main museum collections, together with Männlicher Torso (1993, Nationalgalerie Berlin), Ding mit Arm (1993, Hamburger Kunsthalle), Sonderling (1993, Museum Küppersmühle, Duisburg) and Rautenkopf (1993, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich).
Elke I is a luminous portrait of Baselitz’s spouse, Elke Kretzschmar Baselitz, painted within the artist’s revolutionary upside-down type. Captured in expressive, glowing strokes of violet and umber in opposition to a pearlescent white floor, Elke is painted with heat and tenderness. This explicit work heralds a interval by which Baselitz, who had not too long ago moved with Elke to the liberating environs of Derneburg, developed a heightened concern for his compositions’ formal energy, dialoguing with the Summary Expressionists who had impressed him early in his profession. In opposition to the light-filled backdrop, Elke’s raised left arm and the brisk diagonals of her clothes create a dynamic painterly construction that matches the vigour and vibrancy of a piece by Kline or de Kooning. Elke I was included within the landmark devoted retrospective ‘Georg Baselitz: Portraits of Elke’ on the Trendy Artwork Museum of Fort Value, Texas, in 1997. Portraits of Elke from the mid-Nineteen Seventies are held in main museum collections, together with Elke (1976) (Trendy Artwork Museum of Fort Value, Texas) and Nude Elke (1977) (Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven).
