1920
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Women artists Furniture 20th century furniture Art Deco Chairs and seats Picasso 1907-1931 Qi Baishi
See also : Women artists Furniture 20th century furniture Art Deco Chairs and seats Picasso 1907-1931 Qi Baishi
masterpiece
1920 Rotes Oval by Kandinsky
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
From 1918 to 1921 Kandinsky collaborated in Russian art education and museum reform. He managed to develop a teaching program based on the psychological effects of the association between forms and colors, resolutely promoting non-objective art and accepting intuition in the process of composition.
Painted in 1920, Rotes Oval is centered with nearly biomorphic forms in full opposition with the Suprematism of Malevich.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Painted in 1920, Rotes Oval is centered with nearly biomorphic forms in full opposition with the Suprematism of Malevich.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
(1917)-1920 Olga by Picasso
2017 SOLD for $ 30.5M by Christie's
Times are hard. Pablo Picasso had provided a formidable boost to modern art with the Demoiselles and then with the analytical Cubism using or imitating collages. Competitors follow with enthusiasm but customers are rare for this art that is too intellectual, especially in that period of war. A return to classicism becomes vital but Picasso can not get rid of his avant-garde ambition.
Around 1916 he attempts a new approach by simplifying the geometric shapes and by reducing the number of elements. The readability remains difficult except perhaps in the still life. To convince his audience Picasso indeed needs to convince himself.
He realizes two portraits of Olga in the same format, based on the same photograph. One of them is realistic in the style of Ingres, the other is Cubist. The artist wants to demonstrate that the impression offered to the viewer by a work of art does not depend on the style.
Zervos considers that both paintings were started simultaneously in 1917. The Ingresque portrait is finished early. The Cubist portrait is continually reworked until 1920. The result is as luminous as a stained glass window with its solid colors enclosed in outlines of white stripes bordered by a black line. The woman maintains an identical attitude on both images.
The use of the Cubist portrait like a piece of laboratory for the development of a new style is at no doubt. Picasso kept this work throughout his life, certainly not in memory of Olga but as a demonstrator of the evolution of his art in that difficult period of his career.
The Cubist portrait, oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm, was sold for $ 30.5M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Christie's on May 15, 2017, lot 7 A offered along with seven other major artworks for the benefit of the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute. Please watch the video in which Christie's introduces the whole set.
Around 1916 he attempts a new approach by simplifying the geometric shapes and by reducing the number of elements. The readability remains difficult except perhaps in the still life. To convince his audience Picasso indeed needs to convince himself.
He realizes two portraits of Olga in the same format, based on the same photograph. One of them is realistic in the style of Ingres, the other is Cubist. The artist wants to demonstrate that the impression offered to the viewer by a work of art does not depend on the style.
Zervos considers that both paintings were started simultaneously in 1917. The Ingresque portrait is finished early. The Cubist portrait is continually reworked until 1920. The result is as luminous as a stained glass window with its solid colors enclosed in outlines of white stripes bordered by a black line. The woman maintains an identical attitude on both images.
The use of the Cubist portrait like a piece of laboratory for the development of a new style is at no doubt. Picasso kept this work throughout his life, certainly not in memory of Olga but as a demonstrator of the evolution of his art in that difficult period of his career.
The Cubist portrait, oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm, was sold for $ 30.5M from a lower estimate of $ 20M by Christie's on May 15, 2017, lot 7 A offered along with seven other major artworks for the benefit of the Cleveland Clinic Heart and Vascular Institute. Please watch the video in which Christie's introduces the whole set.
1920 Fauteuil aux Dragons by Gray
2009 SOLD for € 22M by Christie's
The estate sale of the collection of the fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent was jointly organized by Christie's and Pierre Bergé et Associés from 23 to 25 February, 2009. The furniture of the 20th century was led by an armchair made by Eileen Gray around 1920-1922, sold for € 22M from a lower estimate of € 2.5M.
This seat is only 61 cm high. The sitting height is normal, but the back is small. It is large (91 cm), making it a comfortable chair. It is named the Fauteuil aux Dragons for the sculptures of its armrests.
On June 1, 2005, Camard had separated a suite of six armchairs à la Sirène. They had belonged from 1923 to Damia, the music hall singer woman with whom Eileen had a love affair. From a very different model from the fauteuil aux dragons, their sculpture of the women fish was enhanced by an open back. The highest result was € 1.75M.
This seat is only 61 cm high. The sitting height is normal, but the back is small. It is large (91 cm), making it a comfortable chair. It is named the Fauteuil aux Dragons for the sculptures of its armrests.
On June 1, 2005, Camard had separated a suite of six armchairs à la Sirène. They had belonged from 1923 to Damia, the music hall singer woman with whom Eileen had a love affair. From a very different model from the fauteuil aux dragons, their sculpture of the women fish was enhanced by an open back. The highest result was € 1.75M.
1920 Ja Was? Bild by Schwitters
2014 SOLD for £ 14M by Christie's
The art of Kurt Schwitters is a direct consequence of the horrors of war. Along with Arp, he understands that the world has changed and that only a completely new vision may accompany the necessary rebirth.
Technically, Schwitters is very close to the Dada movement in which he had friends. In that defeated Germany promised to decadence, he built his art with fragments of everyday found objects nailed and glued on wood such as torn newspapers, posters, papier mâché, leather. However, he opted for a positive message that is the opposite of the Dada destruction. Unsurprisingly, Schwitters was later persecuted by the Nazis chasing the decadent art.
His creed is summed up in a few cleverly chosen statements.
Pioneer of installations nearly half a century ahead of his time, he introduces himself to his colleagues as a painter who nails his pictures together.
He promotes his Merz revolution, a word that appeared perhaps by chance in one of his works after he tore a paper of the Kommerz und Privatbank. Merz is in only four letters a remarkable anticapitalist and anti-industrial motto.
On June 24, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 14M from a lower estimate of £ 4M a 1920 Merzbild in large size, 109 x 80 cm including the artist's frame. Positively titled Ja Was? Bild, it anticipates the paintings-poems by Miro. The reverse side covered by newspaper fragments must be considered as a full part of the Bild.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Technically, Schwitters is very close to the Dada movement in which he had friends. In that defeated Germany promised to decadence, he built his art with fragments of everyday found objects nailed and glued on wood such as torn newspapers, posters, papier mâché, leather. However, he opted for a positive message that is the opposite of the Dada destruction. Unsurprisingly, Schwitters was later persecuted by the Nazis chasing the decadent art.
His creed is summed up in a few cleverly chosen statements.
Pioneer of installations nearly half a century ahead of his time, he introduces himself to his colleagues as a painter who nails his pictures together.
He promotes his Merz revolution, a word that appeared perhaps by chance in one of his works after he tore a paper of the Kommerz und Privatbank. Merz is in only four letters a remarkable anticapitalist and anti-industrial motto.
On June 24, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 14M from a lower estimate of £ 4M a 1920 Merzbild in large size, 109 x 80 cm including the artist's frame. Positively titled Ja Was? Bild, it anticipates the paintings-poems by Miro. The reverse side covered by newspaper fragments must be considered as a full part of the Bild.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1920 Flowers and fruits by QI BAISHI
1
ex Hu Egong
2018 SOLD for RMB 92M by China Guardian
Qi Baishi settled in Beijing in 1917, aged 53. His art based on his travels and on his observation of nature reached a new maturity, encouraged by Wu Changshuo. A Ming predecessor was Xu Wei. Under the guidance of Chen Shizeng, he developed his vigorous style of red flowers and ink leaves.
Keen to protect his art, Qi Baishi was remaining away from politics, but he also managed to have republican leaders as patrons.
He dedicated in 1920 a set of four 178 x 49 cm hanging scrolls to Rong Ming, also known as Hu Egong, on the theme of flowers and fruits.
These four screens reportedly took four days of effort to paint the flowers and fruits of the four seasons. Loquats, lychees, beans, peonies, hibiscus, osmanthus, golden chrysanthemums and other auspicious flowers and fruits were included one by one. The branches are spreading, the flowers and leaves overcome one another. The colors are gorgeous, dense and thick.
This ink and color on paper was sold for RMB 92M by China Guardian on November 20, 2018, lot 312.
Keen to protect his art, Qi Baishi was remaining away from politics, but he also managed to have republican leaders as patrons.
He dedicated in 1920 a set of four 178 x 49 cm hanging scrolls to Rong Ming, also known as Hu Egong, on the theme of flowers and fruits.
These four screens reportedly took four days of effort to paint the flowers and fruits of the four seasons. Loquats, lychees, beans, peonies, hibiscus, osmanthus, golden chrysanthemums and other auspicious flowers and fruits were included one by one. The branches are spreading, the flowers and leaves overcome one another. The colors are gorgeous, dense and thick.
This ink and color on paper was sold for RMB 92M by China Guardian on November 20, 2018, lot 312.
2
ex Cao Kun
2022 SOLD for HK$ 79M by Sotheby's
Soon afterward Qi Baishi dedicated a set of flowers and fruits to a Mr Zhongshan who was to be from 1923 to 1924 as Cao Kun the President of the Republic of China.
That latter set is made of four hanging scrolls in ink and color on paper 284 x 64 cm each. The four panels respectively display Peaches, Loquats with plantain lilies, Pomegranates with plumed cockscombs and Grapes, each panel with a critical statement. In the Chinese tradition, these elements symbolize abundance, longevity and family wealth. Qi's unprecedented style is a dense composition in free brushwork and bright colors that nearly fills the whole surface of the paper.
They had possibly constituted a set of eight with a set of four with other plants (chrysanthemums, gourds, hibiscus, pine tree), currently kept at the Boston Museum of Art. This monumental size may be compared with the 1925 set of twelve landscapes 180 x 47 cm each sold for RMB 925M by Poly in 2017.
Flowers and fruits was sold for HK $ 79M from a lower estimate of HK $ 18M by Sotheby's on October 8, 2022, lot 9.
That latter set is made of four hanging scrolls in ink and color on paper 284 x 64 cm each. The four panels respectively display Peaches, Loquats with plantain lilies, Pomegranates with plumed cockscombs and Grapes, each panel with a critical statement. In the Chinese tradition, these elements symbolize abundance, longevity and family wealth. Qi's unprecedented style is a dense composition in free brushwork and bright colors that nearly fills the whole surface of the paper.
They had possibly constituted a set of eight with a set of four with other plants (chrysanthemums, gourds, hibiscus, pine tree), currently kept at the Boston Museum of Art. This monumental size may be compared with the 1925 set of twelve landscapes 180 x 47 cm each sold for RMB 925M by Poly in 2017.
Flowers and fruits was sold for HK $ 79M from a lower estimate of HK $ 18M by Sotheby's on October 8, 2022, lot 9.
1920 LEGER
1
Composition
2022 SOLD for £ 6.2M by Christie's
After the war the avant-garde artists feel a need for a new age. Back to Paris in 1918, Fernand Léger restarts in pure colors his avant-garde creativity. Cubism begins to become out of fashion due to the difficulty of interpretation of its images by the public. He had observed the mechanized warfare while serving as a sapper in the trenches.
He stated having discovered the reality of the objects therein. A full abstraction does not match his artistic conception any more. His mechanical period is a response still imbued with cubism to the craze of the Futurists for the machines as the symbol of modern life. The machine age had begun as a reaction to the destructions of war.
Léger views the poetry of the machine and never tries co copy it. He desires to extract from it a beauty like a landscape painter would do.
Le Moteur, oil on canvas 137 x 118 cm painted in 1918, was sold for $ 16.7M by Christie's on November 6, 2001, lot 9.
A Composition painted in 1920 by Fernand Léger is displaying a flattened interlocking of unrelated mechanical components in red, orange and yellow at the border of a new abstraction dominated by a flattened expression of vertical tubes. The surface is fully filled by these mingled elements.
This oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm was sold for £ 6.2M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 44.
He stated having discovered the reality of the objects therein. A full abstraction does not match his artistic conception any more. His mechanical period is a response still imbued with cubism to the craze of the Futurists for the machines as the symbol of modern life. The machine age had begun as a reaction to the destructions of war.
Léger views the poetry of the machine and never tries co copy it. He desires to extract from it a beauty like a landscape painter would do.
Le Moteur, oil on canvas 137 x 118 cm painted in 1918, was sold for $ 16.7M by Christie's on November 6, 2001, lot 9.
A Composition painted in 1920 by Fernand Léger is displaying a flattened interlocking of unrelated mechanical components in red, orange and yellow at the border of a new abstraction dominated by a flattened expression of vertical tubes. The surface is fully filled by these mingled elements.
This oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm was sold for £ 6.2M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Christie's on March 1, 2022, lot 44.
2
Les Femmes à la Toilette
2008 SOLD for $ 10.1M by Christie's
After the war Fernand Léger restarts in pure colors his avant-garde creativity. Cubism begins to become out of fashion due to the difficulty of interpretation of its images by the public. His mechanistic phase is a response still imbued with cubism to the craze of the Futurists for the machines.
The human figure returns into his art. His world is now flat : the juxtaposition of mingled figurative forms creates the emotion. In 1920 a series of eight paintings on the theme of the woman seated at the toilette table and looking at herself in the mirror starts that anti-Cubist period of one of the former Cubist pioneers. The Purisme developed in 1918 by Ozenfant and Jeanneret also known as Le Corbusier is a similar rejection of the Cubism.
The first five are titled Femme au miroir. The next two are Les Femmes à la toilette, and the last is a singular Femme à la toilette. The forms made of pictorial elements without femininity are so re-positioned and mingled that counting the characters becomes ineffective.
Les Femmes à la toilette 2ème état, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm, was sold for $ 10.1M by Christie's on May 6, 2008, lot 37.
The human figure returns into his art. His world is now flat : the juxtaposition of mingled figurative forms creates the emotion. In 1920 a series of eight paintings on the theme of the woman seated at the toilette table and looking at herself in the mirror starts that anti-Cubist period of one of the former Cubist pioneers. The Purisme developed in 1918 by Ozenfant and Jeanneret also known as Le Corbusier is a similar rejection of the Cubism.
The first five are titled Femme au miroir. The next two are Les Femmes à la toilette, and the last is a singular Femme à la toilette. The forms made of pictorial elements without femininity are so re-positioned and mingled that counting the characters becomes ineffective.
Les Femmes à la toilette 2ème état, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm, was sold for $ 10.1M by Christie's on May 6, 2008, lot 37.
1920 Tennis by Bellows
2012 SOLD for $ 7M by Sotheby's
George "Geo" Bellows is passionate about his country, America. The favorite theme of his art is the crowd, of which he captures the movement. Being himself an athlete, he is interested in sports, and of course in the crowds of the spectators.
On December 1, 1999, Sotheby's sold for $ 27.5M Polo Crowd, oil on canvas 115 x 161 cm, painted in 1910. The buyer, Bill Gates, was identified after the sale.
A tennis scene painted in 1920, oil on canvas 109 x 135 cm, was sold for $ 7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2012.
On vacation the previous year in Newport RI, the artist had attended a tournament won by Bill Tilden of which he wanted to recreate the atmosphere. The game of tennis is underway, and the crowd is dense around the players. The style is typical of this artist: almost impressionistic in the clothing of the crowd, realistic up to the border of naivety in the anecdotal part of the scene.
This dynamic and colorful work is a very interesting account of the atmosphere of the early Roaring Twenties. The image is shared on Wikiart :
On December 1, 1999, Sotheby's sold for $ 27.5M Polo Crowd, oil on canvas 115 x 161 cm, painted in 1910. The buyer, Bill Gates, was identified after the sale.
A tennis scene painted in 1920, oil on canvas 109 x 135 cm, was sold for $ 7M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2012.
On vacation the previous year in Newport RI, the artist had attended a tournament won by Bill Tilden of which he wanted to recreate the atmosphere. The game of tennis is underway, and the crowd is dense around the players. The style is typical of this artist: almost impressionistic in the clothing of the crowd, realistic up to the border of naivety in the anecdotal part of the scene.
This dynamic and colorful work is a very interesting account of the atmosphere of the early Roaring Twenties. The image is shared on Wikiart :
1920-1921 Sleeping Venus by Xu Beihong
2016 SOLD for HK$ 47M by Sotheby's
Son of an artist, Xu Beihong is fascinated since childhood by traditional Chinese graphic arts. He learns French in Shanghai and arrives in Paris in 1919 to study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts. He is 24 years old.
In Paris, Xu is one of the first Asian artists and perhaps even the first Chinese artist to practice oil painting. He temporarily abandons the figurative Chinese themes to bring his personal vision of the ancient European painting. At that time his name is spelled Jupeon.
Xu rightly observed that Western mythology provides an excuse to show the nude in erotic positions. A Sleeping Venus, oil on canvas 62 x 95 cm painted in Paris in 1920-1921 and signed in Chinese, was sold for HK $ 47M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 3, 2016, lot 1034.
The naked woman is lying on the grass in a lascivious attitude reminiscent of female positions by Courbet. The mythological inspiration for this ideal woman is confirmed by two little satyrs emerging away from a grove.
The mythological scenes painted by Xu in his Parisian period are extremely rare on the art market. A slave and lion of large size 123 x 153 cm painted in 1924 was sold for HK $ 54M by Christie's on November 26, 2006. This work anticipates the highly original specialization of the artist after his return to China, using animals for the expression of fiery sentiments.
The female nudes by Xu are also very rare and eagerly sought. In June 2010 in Beijing, a small auction house sold for the equivalent of US $ 11.2M the standing nude of a young woman thought to be Jiang Biwei who was Xu's wife in the 1920s. In September 2011, an artist recognized convincingly in this portrait a model who posed in the nude in a classroom in the 1980s.
In Paris, Xu is one of the first Asian artists and perhaps even the first Chinese artist to practice oil painting. He temporarily abandons the figurative Chinese themes to bring his personal vision of the ancient European painting. At that time his name is spelled Jupeon.
Xu rightly observed that Western mythology provides an excuse to show the nude in erotic positions. A Sleeping Venus, oil on canvas 62 x 95 cm painted in Paris in 1920-1921 and signed in Chinese, was sold for HK $ 47M from a lower estimate of HK $ 40M by Sotheby's on April 3, 2016, lot 1034.
The naked woman is lying on the grass in a lascivious attitude reminiscent of female positions by Courbet. The mythological inspiration for this ideal woman is confirmed by two little satyrs emerging away from a grove.
The mythological scenes painted by Xu in his Parisian period are extremely rare on the art market. A slave and lion of large size 123 x 153 cm painted in 1924 was sold for HK $ 54M by Christie's on November 26, 2006. This work anticipates the highly original specialization of the artist after his return to China, using animals for the expression of fiery sentiments.
The female nudes by Xu are also very rare and eagerly sought. In June 2010 in Beijing, a small auction house sold for the equivalent of US $ 11.2M the standing nude of a young woman thought to be Jiang Biwei who was Xu's wife in the 1920s. In September 2011, an artist recognized convincingly in this portrait a model who posed in the nude in a classroom in the 1980s.
1920-1921 Composition Triangulaire by Kupka
2023 SOLD for $ 5.1M by Christie's
Frantisek Kupka is a colorist, like Kandinsky or Mondrian. Living in Paris since 1896, he is passionate about the relationships between colors in post-impressionist painting. He will seek to express momentum, rotation, vibration. The bright blue, which always seeks to dominate, will have to be circumscribed.
For Kupka, synthetic cubism is not a lasting solution because it remains focused on the object. In 1910-1911, his masterpiece, showing his wife's head buried amidst vertical structures, redefined the relationship between the figurative and its environment, as Klimt was doing in Vienna.
The figurative aspects manage to disappear from his work. Nevertheless after the war some elements of biological forms resurface. A series of works are based on the reproductive elements of a flower, pistils and stamens, expressing the vitality.
Composition Triangulaire, oil on canvas 66 x 71 cm painted in 1920-1921, was sold for $ 5.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 2 B.
For Kupka, synthetic cubism is not a lasting solution because it remains focused on the object. In 1910-1911, his masterpiece, showing his wife's head buried amidst vertical structures, redefined the relationship between the figurative and its environment, as Klimt was doing in Vienna.
The figurative aspects manage to disappear from his work. Nevertheless after the war some elements of biological forms resurface. A series of works are based on the reproductive elements of a flower, pistils and stamens, expressing the vitality.
Composition Triangulaire, oil on canvas 66 x 71 cm painted in 1920-1921, was sold for $ 5.1M from a lower estimate of $ 2M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 2 B.
