1942
See also : Picasso from 1940 Matisse Orientalism Central and South Americas Musical instrument Movies II Sciences from 1800
1942 A Throne for Dora Maar
2018 SOLD for £ 19.4M including premium
It appears that Picasso did not know how to control his emotions. His apparent self-indulgence would therefore be a mask. He bravely chose to stay in Paris during the German occupation but he suffocates psychologically. He feels awkward in self-portraits. Dora once again plays the role of intercessor between the artist and the world.
Dora is a committed intellectual, probably fully aware of her role as a mirror. Eccentric and provocative, she accepts to see her image disfigured by the fantasies of Pablo. In real life she was not the crying woman, despite her political hypersensitivity. Yet she painted self-portraits in this role to give reason to Pablo.
Dora Maar au chat, painted by Picasso in 1941, must be considered in relation to the war. She is locked in her armchair without access to the outside world, as later Francis Bacon's pope. Hope is weak but still exists, marked by the coquetry of the hat and nails and by the freedom of a microscopic cat.
In the following year the atmosphere in Paris is even more painful. Attacks on degenerate art become insistent. Pablo needs Dora but she is threatened by her past as an anti-fascist activist. He locks her back in her chair but equip her with the nose of his Afghan dog so that she is no more recognizable by their persecutors. He will take care much later to state that there was no sadism in his portraits of Dora Maar.
Portrait de femme (Dora Maar), oil on panel 100 x 80 cm painted on August 5, 1942, was sold for $ 22.6M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2014. On June 20 in London, Christie'ssells as lot 20 B Femme dans un fauteuil (Dora Maar), oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on April 24, 1942.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Dora is a committed intellectual, probably fully aware of her role as a mirror. Eccentric and provocative, she accepts to see her image disfigured by the fantasies of Pablo. In real life she was not the crying woman, despite her political hypersensitivity. Yet she painted self-portraits in this role to give reason to Pablo.
Dora Maar au chat, painted by Picasso in 1941, must be considered in relation to the war. She is locked in her armchair without access to the outside world, as later Francis Bacon's pope. Hope is weak but still exists, marked by the coquetry of the hat and nails and by the freedom of a microscopic cat.
In the following year the atmosphere in Paris is even more painful. Attacks on degenerate art become insistent. Pablo needs Dora but she is threatened by her past as an anti-fascist activist. He locks her back in her chair but equip her with the nose of his Afghan dog so that she is no more recognizable by their persecutors. He will take care much later to state that there was no sadism in his portraits of Dora Maar.
Portrait de femme (Dora Maar), oil on panel 100 x 80 cm painted on August 5, 1942, was sold for $ 22.6M including premium by Christie's on May 6, 2014. On June 20 in London, Christie'ssells as lot 20 B Femme dans un fauteuil (Dora Maar), oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on April 24, 1942.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1942 The Goddess with a Hound Nose
2014 SOLD 22.6 M$ including premium
Dora Maar succeeded Marie-Thérèse Walter in the heart of Picasso during one of the worst periods in the history of the twentieth century. During the Spanish Civil War, Pablo saw in her the Weeping Woman. Despair caused by the Second World War once again changed the image of Dora.
In 1941, Dora is an Enthroned Madonna. Stiff and impassive, she presides over the tragic events from her high armchair. The kitten on the top bar of the seat finds that this goddess is not hostile, but it is a black cat. Dora Maar au Chat, 128 x 95 cm, was sold for $ 95M including premium by Sotheby's on 3 May 2006.
Months pass and Europe plunges deeper into war. On May 6 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on panel painted by Pablo on August 5, 1942, 100 x 80 cm, estimated $ 25M.
This is undoubtedly a new portrait of Dora, identifiable by her seat and her tricorn hat. Pablo deliberately deconstructed her face with a savagery generated by the accumulation of his anxieties.
For Marie-Thérèse and for the beginnings of Dora, the offset position of the eyes had been an impulse of the artist expressing his adoration through a Cubist research of the third dimension. The elephantine nose in profile of the new portrait cannot have a similar cause and also has a complex interpretation.
It is a semaphore warning of the dangers of war. It is also the long thin nose of Pablo's Afghan hound, his other favorite model at that time. If its shape generates a phallic interpretation, this war painting becomes the tragic echo of Le Rêve of Marie-Thérèse, that ultimate expression of happiness painted by Pablo on January 24, 1932.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
Dora's war nose did not generate excessive passions. This painting was sold for $ 22.6 million including premium, well below its estimate.
In 1941, Dora is an Enthroned Madonna. Stiff and impassive, she presides over the tragic events from her high armchair. The kitten on the top bar of the seat finds that this goddess is not hostile, but it is a black cat. Dora Maar au Chat, 128 x 95 cm, was sold for $ 95M including premium by Sotheby's on 3 May 2006.
Months pass and Europe plunges deeper into war. On May 6 in New York, Christie's sells an oil on panel painted by Pablo on August 5, 1942, 100 x 80 cm, estimated $ 25M.
This is undoubtedly a new portrait of Dora, identifiable by her seat and her tricorn hat. Pablo deliberately deconstructed her face with a savagery generated by the accumulation of his anxieties.
For Marie-Thérèse and for the beginnings of Dora, the offset position of the eyes had been an impulse of the artist expressing his adoration through a Cubist research of the third dimension. The elephantine nose in profile of the new portrait cannot have a similar cause and also has a complex interpretation.
It is a semaphore warning of the dangers of war. It is also the long thin nose of Pablo's Afghan hound, his other favorite model at that time. If its shape generates a phallic interpretation, this war painting becomes the tragic echo of Le Rêve of Marie-Thérèse, that ultimate expression of happiness painted by Pablo on January 24, 1932.
I invite you to play the video shared by Christie's.
POST SALE COMMENT
Dora's war nose did not generate excessive passions. This painting was sold for $ 22.6 million including premium, well below its estimate.
1942 A Real Princess for Matisse
2015 SOLD for £ 15.8M including premium
Matisse's orientalist approach was the excuse for lush compositions where the balance of colors dominated over the detailed line. However, he was working with European and Slavic models.
Matisse certainly appreciated this gap in his art. In the summer of 1940, seeing by chance a young Turkish woman, he is seduced by the regularity of her oriental face. Nézy is 21 years old. Great-granddaughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid, she lives in exile in Nice with her grandmother who accepts that she sits for the artist.
Matisse became seriously ill. Emerging from a long hospitalization in May 1941, he returned to his workshop at the Hôtel Régina. Considering his healing as an unexpected luck, he goes back to an intense work, realizing many drawings of his two muses of that time, Lydia and Nézy.
Painted in January 1942, the Odalisque au fauteuil noir is a portrait of Nézy. This oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm is the culmination of the oriental theme by Matisse. The realistic depiction is limited to the face and arm along with a vase of flowers on a small table. Clothing and decor are a symphony of colors that anticipates the researches of the abstract expressionism.
The Odalisque was sold for £ 6.6M including premium at Christie's on 22 June 2004. It is estimated £ 9M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 3, lot 7.
Matisse certainly appreciated this gap in his art. In the summer of 1940, seeing by chance a young Turkish woman, he is seduced by the regularity of her oriental face. Nézy is 21 years old. Great-granddaughter of Sultan Abdul Hamid, she lives in exile in Nice with her grandmother who accepts that she sits for the artist.
Matisse became seriously ill. Emerging from a long hospitalization in May 1941, he returned to his workshop at the Hôtel Régina. Considering his healing as an unexpected luck, he goes back to an intense work, realizing many drawings of his two muses of that time, Lydia and Nézy.
Painted in January 1942, the Odalisque au fauteuil noir is a portrait of Nézy. This oil on canvas 38 x 46 cm is the culmination of the oriental theme by Matisse. The realistic depiction is limited to the face and arm along with a vase of flowers on a small table. Clothing and decor are a symphony of colors that anticipates the researches of the abstract expressionism.
The Odalisque was sold for £ 6.6M including premium at Christie's on 22 June 2004. It is estimated £ 9M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on February 3, lot 7.
1942 The Come Back of the Egyptian Beauty
2018 SOLD for € 5.5M including premium
Max Beckmann is in exile in Amsterdam after fleeing the Nazi Germany. After a sarcastic phase he gets worried and bored. One night this esthete sees in a dream a woman's head. On July 27, 1942 he writes in his diary: "A lot of rain but it is very good for my self-portrait and for the woman's head lit from below, done. Good mood, chicken at dinner, and rain, rain, rain".
He had realized the portrait of a primordial woman in an unusual off-centered composition. Her eyes are too large and heavily made up as in the funeral portraits of the Fayum. The attitude is solemn. The angle of illumination leaves the face half in the shadows and reinforces the mystical illusion : it is recommended to raise this little image above a candle.
The entourage of Beckmann is not mistaken. The title is found : Die Ägypterin, the Egyptian. The artist has met his Nefertiti. This famous name meant "beauty has come".
This oil on canvas 60 x 30 cm is immediately bought by a friend who will later start the catalogue raisonné of Beckmann. The list is finished by his widow and this painting now comes from her estate, 76 years after the original acquisition. It is estimated € 1.5M for sale by Grisebach in Berlin on May 31, lot 20. Here is the link to the website of the auction house.
This theme born of a hallucination pleased the artist. Italienerin is very similar excepted for the light that is flat. This 55 x 22 cm oil on canvas painted in 1946 was sold for £ 1.15M including premium by Christie's on June 23, 2010 over a lower estimate of £ 400K.
He had realized the portrait of a primordial woman in an unusual off-centered composition. Her eyes are too large and heavily made up as in the funeral portraits of the Fayum. The attitude is solemn. The angle of illumination leaves the face half in the shadows and reinforces the mystical illusion : it is recommended to raise this little image above a candle.
The entourage of Beckmann is not mistaken. The title is found : Die Ägypterin, the Egyptian. The artist has met his Nefertiti. This famous name meant "beauty has come".
This oil on canvas 60 x 30 cm is immediately bought by a friend who will later start the catalogue raisonné of Beckmann. The list is finished by his widow and this painting now comes from her estate, 76 years after the original acquisition. It is estimated € 1.5M for sale by Grisebach in Berlin on May 31, lot 20. Here is the link to the website of the auction house.
This theme born of a hallucination pleased the artist. Italienerin is very similar excepted for the light that is flat. This 55 x 22 cm oil on canvas painted in 1946 was sold for £ 1.15M including premium by Christie's on June 23, 2010 over a lower estimate of £ 400K.
1942 A Bunch of Owls
2018 SOLD for £ 4.7M including premium
Les compagnons de la peur, oil on canvas 71 x 93 cm painted by Magritte in 1942 during the German occupation of Belgium, was sold for £ 4.1M including premium by Christie's in London on February 4, 2015, lot 117. It is now estimated £ 3.5M for sale in the same auction room on June 20, lot 12.
Times are hard for everybody in Europe in 1942. Magritte is deeply questioning his own art, soon to enter a new phase of mocking Impressionism and Fauvism. Les compagnons de la peur is a singular painting based of Magritte's classical style of the artist but with a very rare political message supported by its title.
I discussed it as follows before the 2015 sale.
In front of a mountain scenery, a group of five owls occupies a dominant position from where they scan their environment with the severity of Gestapo. The arid mountain and the heavy sky increase the anxiety. In Magritte's usual rendering of the contraries the night birds look well awake in day light.
The power of these birds is an illusion. They are not birds but leaf-bird hybrids planted in their eagle's nest from where they will never take flight. The harm suggested by their uncompromising attitude will not be enforced. Some young leaves are nevertheless ready for their metamorphosis.
The leaf-bird is thus the opposite of Miro's free bird. It is following the mineral-human hybrids with which Magritte was already questioning the deep nature of beings.
Times are hard for everybody in Europe in 1942. Magritte is deeply questioning his own art, soon to enter a new phase of mocking Impressionism and Fauvism. Les compagnons de la peur is a singular painting based of Magritte's classical style of the artist but with a very rare political message supported by its title.
I discussed it as follows before the 2015 sale.
In front of a mountain scenery, a group of five owls occupies a dominant position from where they scan their environment with the severity of Gestapo. The arid mountain and the heavy sky increase the anxiety. In Magritte's usual rendering of the contraries the night birds look well awake in day light.
The power of these birds is an illusion. They are not birds but leaf-bird hybrids planted in their eagle's nest from where they will never take flight. The harm suggested by their uncompromising attitude will not be enforced. Some young leaves are nevertheless ready for their metamorphosis.
The leaf-bird is thus the opposite of Miro's free bird. It is following the mineral-human hybrids with which Magritte was already questioning the deep nature of beings.
1942 A Mexican Howl
2018 SOLD for $ 5.9M including premium
Unlike Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros, Tamayo does not want to illustrate the revolution. Relying on his Zapotec heritage, he seeks to express in his art the roots and peculiarities of the Mexican people. Like Lam in Cuba his origins are mixed. Like Lam he finds the solution in an adaptation of modern art to his own message.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
Picasso's Guernica had been sheltered away from political censorship at the MoMA since 1939. Tamayo is in New York since 1937. The war in Europe cannot leave him indifferent. Guernica inspires his own cry of anguish, in his signature style of colors.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Perro aullando a la Luna, oil on canvas 112 x 86 cm painted in 1942, lot 25 estimated $ 5M.
The dark red dog is sitting larger than life in the blue night. He screams like the horse in Guernica although no threat is apparent. The stretched throat reveals the veins swollen by the howl. The beautiful bones placed before him as offerings do not calm him.
However Tamayo's dog is not a Guernica dog. There were representations of screaming dogs in pre-Columbian America that Tamayo knew well : he had begun his career in Mexico City in 1921 in the ethnographic drawing department of the archeology museum.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
Picasso's Guernica had been sheltered away from political censorship at the MoMA since 1939. Tamayo is in New York since 1937. The war in Europe cannot leave him indifferent. Guernica inspires his own cry of anguish, in his signature style of colors.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Perro aullando a la Luna, oil on canvas 112 x 86 cm painted in 1942, lot 25 estimated $ 5M.
The dark red dog is sitting larger than life in the blue night. He screams like the horse in Guernica although no threat is apparent. The stretched throat reveals the veins swollen by the howl. The beautiful bones placed before him as offerings do not calm him.
However Tamayo's dog is not a Guernica dog. There were representations of screaming dogs in pre-Columbian America that Tamayo knew well : he had begun his career in Mexico City in 1921 in the ethnographic drawing department of the archeology museum.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
(1927)-1942 The Moroccan Piano of Casablanca
2014 SOLD for $ 3.4M including premium
Casablanca, produced by Warner Bros in 1942, is one of the most outstanding and beloved movies of romantic action, offering the emotional meeting of Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. A basic part of the scenario is played around the piano in the night club.
The instrument was made in 1927 and stored by the First National Pictures (FNP) of which it bears an inventory mark. When it was chosen for the film, it was painted with orientalist patterns.
This instrument has a unique feature related to the requirements of the film: the lid is detached from the case in order to enable the gesture of the actor who hides inside it some coveted papers.
This piano with its original stool is lot 83 in the sale of souvenirs of the American cinema organized on November 24 by Bonhams in New York with the participation of Turner Classic Movies.
There is another Casablanca piano, screen used in a flashback scene located in Paris. This instrument of the "Belle Aurore" was sold for $ 600K including premium by Sotheby's on December 14, 2012.
The instrument was made in 1927 and stored by the First National Pictures (FNP) of which it bears an inventory mark. When it was chosen for the film, it was painted with orientalist patterns.
This instrument has a unique feature related to the requirements of the film: the lid is detached from the case in order to enable the gesture of the actor who hides inside it some coveted papers.
This piano with its original stool is lot 83 in the sale of souvenirs of the American cinema organized on November 24 by Bonhams in New York with the participation of Turner Classic Movies.
There is another Casablanca piano, screen used in a flashback scene located in Paris. This instrument of the "Belle Aurore" was sold for $ 600K including premium by Sotheby's on December 14, 2012.
1942 Volcanic Matta
2009 SOLD 2.5 M$ including premium
Paintings by Matta are outbreaks of bright colors mixed with indefinable forms which may be mineral. Can we speak of abstraction? The artist from the Surrealist group provides a synthesis of earth and man, of the fury of the elements and that of thought.
In 1942 he exhibited in New York at Pierre Matisse gallery some artworks inspired by the volcanoes of Mexico, a country he had visited the previous year. Endless Nudes, oil on canvas 72 x 91 cm, expresses the explosive rise of lava to a stormy sky, with a title that links with mankind and psychology.
In May 2003, Christie's recorded $ 1.5 million hammer price on Endless Nudes. On November 18, the work comes back, at Sotheby's in New York. It is becoming more expensive: $ 2 million, but it is one of the masterpieces of the artist.
The image of this lot is shared by AuctionPublicity.
POST SALE COMMENT
I expected a successful sale, and I had hinted it in the last words of my article.
This is the case: $ 2.5 million including premium, just above the low estimate.
In 1942 he exhibited in New York at Pierre Matisse gallery some artworks inspired by the volcanoes of Mexico, a country he had visited the previous year. Endless Nudes, oil on canvas 72 x 91 cm, expresses the explosive rise of lava to a stormy sky, with a title that links with mankind and psychology.
In May 2003, Christie's recorded $ 1.5 million hammer price on Endless Nudes. On November 18, the work comes back, at Sotheby's in New York. It is becoming more expensive: $ 2 million, but it is one of the masterpieces of the artist.
The image of this lot is shared by AuctionPublicity.
POST SALE COMMENT
I expected a successful sale, and I had hinted it in the last words of my article.
This is the case: $ 2.5 million including premium, just above the low estimate.
1942 The Wrist of the Champions
2016 SOLD for CHF 2.4M including premium
Founded in 1905, the Rolex company is early specializing in wristwatches. The developments include miniaturization and sealing. Rolex will be a brand of sport watches and the company will sponsor the events. Thus in 1927 there is a Rolex on the wrist of a young woman who swims across the Channel. In 1935, another unit accompanies Malcolm Campbell in his automobile speed record at 482 km/h in Daytona.
The 4113 model 'antimagnétique' in stainless steel, made in twelve units in 1942, is far ahead of all other models of the brand with its split seconds chronograph and the superb readability of its oversized dial in a very narrow bezel 44 mm in diameter.
This watch is also the most mysterious : it was never published by Rolex and was not available for sale. The informations about the provenance rely on their appearances on the second market : they converge to the assumption of a gift to racing car champions and officials in the Giro Automobilistico di Sicilia.
One of the twelve was sold for CHF 1,03M including premium by Christie's on May 16, 2011. To understand the enigma, I had then assumed that they had been presented to test in competition this highly efficient model that will finally not enter into a phase of commercial production. This hypothesis seems indeed plausible : the discretion surrounding that operation was probably necessary for blocking the information to the competing watch brands.
Another 4113 was sold for CHF 1.1 million including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2013. It returns to Geneva to be sold by Phillips on May 14, lot 56 estimated CHF 800K.
The 4113 model 'antimagnétique' in stainless steel, made in twelve units in 1942, is far ahead of all other models of the brand with its split seconds chronograph and the superb readability of its oversized dial in a very narrow bezel 44 mm in diameter.
This watch is also the most mysterious : it was never published by Rolex and was not available for sale. The informations about the provenance rely on their appearances on the second market : they converge to the assumption of a gift to racing car champions and officials in the Giro Automobilistico di Sicilia.
One of the twelve was sold for CHF 1,03M including premium by Christie's on May 16, 2011. To understand the enigma, I had then assumed that they had been presented to test in competition this highly efficient model that will finally not enter into a phase of commercial production. This hypothesis seems indeed plausible : the discretion surrounding that operation was probably necessary for blocking the information to the competing watch brands.
Another 4113 was sold for CHF 1.1 million including premium by Christie's on May 13, 2013. It returns to Geneva to be sold by Phillips on May 14, lot 56 estimated CHF 800K.
1942 Alan Turing, Theoretician of Logic
2015 SOLD for $ 1.02M including premium
The great mathematicians desired to determine whether logic could be sufficient to explain the world. By analyzing the most abstract and difficult problems with his innovative thinking, Alan Turing managed his research so far that real applications have emerged.
He was a visionary in artificial intelligence at the time when the first modern computers were developed around John von Neumann. During the war, working on the logic of algorithms, he broke the encryption of German Enigma machines previously considered as inviolable.
On April 13 in New York, Bonhams sells a highly rare notebook, lot 1. The scientific thoughts by Turing, written after 1942, are laid at the start and end of the book, while the intermediate pages were used for personal notes by his eminent student Robin Gandy after the ignominious death of Turing (who was pardoned posthumously in 2013 by Queen Elizabeth II).
Both autographs by Turing are unpublished developments. They bring a new vision on the thinking process of one of the most profound scientists of our time, who found through a method of enforcing simplifications the solutions of problems that his illustrious predecessors had just managed to define.
The first of them is a review of Peano's axioms concerning the completeness and consistency of mathematics. After Hilbert, Turing also addresses the third problem of Peano on decidability, meaning the possibility of establishing an algorithm to decide whether a mathematical proposition is true or false. This text is anticipating his involvement with Enigma but certainly helps to understand the thinking process that enabled the deciphering.
The second scientific text of the book is a study of the role of the mathematical notation. Turing appreciated that a complex formulation makes it more difficult to find the solution. His approach is based on the search for a universal language of mathematics by Leibniz. Such researches make him a precursor of computer programming.
He was a visionary in artificial intelligence at the time when the first modern computers were developed around John von Neumann. During the war, working on the logic of algorithms, he broke the encryption of German Enigma machines previously considered as inviolable.
On April 13 in New York, Bonhams sells a highly rare notebook, lot 1. The scientific thoughts by Turing, written after 1942, are laid at the start and end of the book, while the intermediate pages were used for personal notes by his eminent student Robin Gandy after the ignominious death of Turing (who was pardoned posthumously in 2013 by Queen Elizabeth II).
Both autographs by Turing are unpublished developments. They bring a new vision on the thinking process of one of the most profound scientists of our time, who found through a method of enforcing simplifications the solutions of problems that his illustrious predecessors had just managed to define.
The first of them is a review of Peano's axioms concerning the completeness and consistency of mathematics. After Hilbert, Turing also addresses the third problem of Peano on decidability, meaning the possibility of establishing an algorithm to decide whether a mathematical proposition is true or false. This text is anticipating his involvement with Enigma but certainly helps to understand the thinking process that enabled the deciphering.
The second scientific text of the book is a study of the role of the mathematical notation. Turing appreciated that a complex formulation makes it more difficult to find the solution. His approach is based on the search for a universal language of mathematics by Leibniz. Such researches make him a precursor of computer programming.
