BACON – FONTANA – MAGRITTE – MATISSE – PICASSO – ROCKEFELLER – VALADON – WARHOL
TEN THINGS TO SEE & DO DURING 20TH CENTURY SPRING SEASON OF AUCTIONS AT CHRISTIE’S LONDON
Andy Warhol, Six Self Portraits (1986, estimate on request), Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction
Pablo Picasso, Mousquetaire et nu assis (1967, estimate: £12,000,000-18,000,000), Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale
Rene Magritte, La recherche de l’absolu (1948, estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000), The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale
Henri Matisse, Femme assise à la robe de taffetas (1938, estimate: £400,000-600,000), Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale
Francis Bacon, Three Studies for a Portrait (1976, estimate: £10,000,000-15,000,000), Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction
1. Pablo Picasso
Get ahead of the curve before Picasso’s exhibition opens at Tate Britain in March. From the Rose period Fillette à la corbeille fleurie in the Rockefeller Collection to Mousquetaire et nu assis in our Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, Figure in our Art of the Surreal Evening Sale and a dedicated Picasso Ceramics online sale, spend time with works that span Picasso’s career in our King Street Galleries.
On View: 19 February-8 March, King Street
Auctions: 27 February, Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, King Street | 27 February, The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale, King Street | 28 February, Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale, King Street | 28 February, Impressionist and Modern Day Sale, King Street | 7-11 May, The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, New York
2. René Magritte
René Magritte was a great friend of Henri Matisse, and at Matisse’s request Magritte would photograph each still life composition that Matisse was painting, due to Matisse’s tendency to eat the fruit from the bowl he was painting as he worked. These photographs can be found in the archive of Matisse but you can step into Magritte’s world in the Art of the Surreal Evening Sale. Seven of his paintings hang together in a room where you enter through a torn canvas doorway.
On View: 19-27 February, King Street
Auctions: 27 February, The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale, King Street
3. Henri Matisse
Femme assise à la robe de taffetas in our Impressionist Works on Paper Sale is a clear example of how the artist worked – follow the line of his pencil before moving on to admire his Odalisque couchée aux magnolias in the Rockefeller Collection. The fabrics in this painting still remain in Matisse’s archive: the green material his model reclines on was bought in Africa, while her pillow is in fact a piece of Italian silk.
On View: 19 February-8 March, King Street
Auctions: 28 February, Impressionist and Modern Works on Paper Sale, King Street | 7-11 May, The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, New York
4. The Eye of the Architect
This collection of works includes a triptych by Francis Bacon of his great muse and friend Henrietta Moraes, who also sat for Lucian Freud. Also included are a machine-like portrait by Giorgio de Chirico and still lifes by Giorgio Morandi. Each of the works are intimate in scale, allowing you can get up close to a masterpiece.
On View: 19 February-6 March, King Street
Auctions: 27 February, Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, King Street | 27 February, The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale, King Street | 6 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, King Street
5. Andy Warhol
One of the most iconic artists of the 20th Century, Andy Warhol’s Six Self Portraits takes on the grand tradition of self-depiction in a manner unprecedented within art history. Assembling six distinct variations of his iconic 1986 ‘fright wig’ self-portrait, Warhol created a unique sequence that stands alone within his oeuvre. He also looked back at art history, borrowing imagery from the old masters including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, whose Birth of Venus becomes saturated in vibrant oranges, reds and yellows in Birth of Venus (After Botticelli).
On View: 2-6 March, King Street
Auctions: 6 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, King Street
6. Syri-Arts: Saving A Generation Through Education
The proceeds of a selection of artworks in Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction will be given to Friends of Kayany, a U.S. public charity that supports schools for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon. Titled Syri-Arts: Saving A Generation Through Education, this selection includes artworks from influential Middle Eastern artists such as Huguette Caland, Etel Adnan and Shafic Abboud, as well as British artists Tony Cragg, Antony Gormley, David Hockney, Idris Khan and Yinka Shonibare MBE.
On View: 2-6 March, King Street
Auctions: 7 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction, King Street
7. Female Artists
Before becoming known as an artist in her own right, Suzanne Valadon first posed as a model for famous artists such as Renoir and Toulouse-Lautrec and can be seen in some of their best-known compositions. In Nu assis sur un canapé in the Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, Valadon celebrates the female form through sensually articulating the contours and shape of the female body, a different approach to many of her male contemporaries. You can also see work by the pioneering Dada artist Hannah Höch, an iconic spider sculpture by Louise Bourgeois, electronic LED signs by Jenny Holzer, and portraits by Turner-nominated Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
On View: 19 February-6 March, King Street
Auctions: 27 February, Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, King Street | 28 February, Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale, King Street | 6 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, King Street | 7 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Auction, King Street
8. Italian Modernism
Executed at the dawn of the space age, Concetto Spaziale, Attese is completely unique in Lucio Fontana’s oeuvre. Fontana famously sought the fourth dimension by piercing his canvases, in spiritual union with the astronauts who were making bold new steps into space. Here, he has not only slashed through the pristine white canvas with twenty-four of his iconic cuts, the greatest number that he would ever commit to one canvas, but has also added a further dimension to the work by enshrouding it in a black lacquer frame, which glistens with reflections of the world around it. You can also view work by Italian masters such as Alberto Burri, who used fire as a material, Alighiero Boetti and Giorgio Morandi.
On View: 19 February-6 March, King Street
Auctions: 27 February, Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale, King Street | 6 March, Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, King Street
9. Rockefeller Collection
The collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller will be offered for sale at Christie’s Rockefeller Center Galleries in New York from 7-11 May 2018. The collection sale will be the most significant philanthropic auction ever presented, with all the Estate sale proceeds destined to benefit selected charities. The highlights include masterpieces of Impressionist and Modern Art, including a Rose Period Picasso selected by Peggy and David Rockefeller from Gertrude Stein’s collection, Claude Monet’s Nymphéas en fleur and a reclining nude by Matisse that is poised to reset the artist’s record high price at auction.
On View: 21 February-8 March, King Street
Auctions: 7-11 May, The Collection of Peggy and David Rockefeller, New York
10. Christie’s Coffee Bar
After you’ve explored what’s on view in our King Street Galleries, sit down and recharge with a cup of tea or coffee served just as you like it by one of our baristas. Our free coffee bar remains open throughout the day and it’s sponsored by Ralph Lauren.
Open daily, King Street
