1948
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Art on paper Abstract art II Giacometti 1947-54 Femme debout Magritte Still Pollock Picasso 1940-60 Modern China Mountains in China Zhang Daqian Zhang Daqian < 1965
See also : Art on paper Abstract art II Giacometti 1947-54 Femme debout Magritte Still Pollock Picasso 1940-60 Modern China Mountains in China Zhang Daqian Zhang Daqian < 1965
masterpiece
1948 Christina's World by Wyeth
MoMA
Trained by his father the illustrator N.C. Wyeth, Andrew Wyeth had an early interest in the landscape and people of his very immediate vicinity in a village of Pennsylvania. This regionalist artist added another focal point in and around a family home in a village of Maine. His realistic pictures are characterized by the use of egg tempera.
His paintings look like a reality show. Over a span of 77 years he maintained the theme of the life of one neighboring family in Pennsylvania. He said : "I didn't think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally."
His breakthrough picture, Christina's World, painted in 1948, features a day dreaming neighbor from Maine. She is semi-reclining in a white dress in an open field. The pathetic thing is that the 55 year old woman was in real life crippled from a genetic neuropathy and unable to walk.
Andrew's art is unconventional. Asked in 1977 to identify the most overrated and underrated artists, an art critic provided the same name for both categories : Andrew Wyeth.
His paintings look like a reality show. Over a span of 77 years he maintained the theme of the life of one neighboring family in Pennsylvania. He said : "I didn't think it a picturesque place. It just excited me, purely abstractly and purely emotionally."
His breakthrough picture, Christina's World, painted in 1948, features a day dreaming neighbor from Maine. She is semi-reclining in a white dress in an open field. The pathetic thing is that the 55 year old woman was in real life crippled from a genetic neuropathy and unable to walk.
Andrew's art is unconventional. Asked in 1977 to identify the most overrated and underrated artists, an art critic provided the same name for both categories : Andrew Wyeth.
1948 POLLOCK
1
Number 19
2013 SOLD for $ 58M by Christie's
In 1946 Lee Krasner pushes Jackson Pollock to a secluded barn on Long Island. Thus freed from the bustle of the big city, Pollock has the luck to live his artistic Passion, in the strongest meaning of that word.
He did not consider himself as an abstract artist. In the first months after his arrival in Long Island, he developed two series of paintings titled 'Sounds in the grass' and 'Accabonac Creek', reflecting his desire to commune with the earth for expressing its richness.
Pollock improves his technique throughout 1946, and abandons his stylized figuration. Wanting to work on a hard surface, he uses the masonite. He begins to apply the pigment in impasto directly at the outlet of the tube and gradually gives up the brush. For convenience, he lays directly on the floor the surface to be painted instead of using an easel.
The use of sprayed or flowing liquid paint is made possible by that position of the support. His hand acquires an unprecedented freedom. Pollock's art conveys his subconscious energy, just as Chinese calligraphy is a direct transcription of an artist's emotion. Masson is referred with Miro among Pollock's surrealist influences, but it will be noted that Michaux's automatic drawings were influenced by Chinese calligraphy.
The very first work using dripping was painted at the end of 1946. The surface is bright red and the contributions are black and white. Named Free form, this 49 x 36 cm oil on canvas is kept at the MoMA. There is no horizon and no framing even when the work is small, and there is also no longer a figuration.
The next step is the diversification of colors. The lines of pure colors of various widths form infinite and meticulous tangles. The regularity of the final mesh is spectacular without being total, so that certain areas are breathing or vibrating such as an organic matter. Richter's squeegee will generate similar effects.
An oil on masonite 48 x 60 cm dated 1946 is painted in bright yellow, bright blue and black by dripping and splashing on a background of the same red. It was sold for $ 13M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 5. Its first owner had been Peggy Guggenheim. It was de-accessioned by the Everson Art Museum in Syracuse NY to refocus their collection on the fight against racial and sexual inequalities.
Pollock's musicalist dances around large-scale works came soon after.
The works on paper prepared with a white primer are promising and the small formats make it more possible to obtain in a lesser time a full covering of the surface with the desirable entangled lines of high density.
In 1948, Pollock stops giving titles to his works, now designated by numbers. One of his largest boards, Number 5, 1948, 2.4 x 1.2 m, reached $ 140M in a private sale in 2006.
On May 15, 2013, Christie's sold for $ 58M from a lower estimate of $ 25M Number 19, 1948. This oil and enamel on paper mounted on canvas is small, 78 x 57 cm, but the fineness of the pours and drips is superb. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
He did not consider himself as an abstract artist. In the first months after his arrival in Long Island, he developed two series of paintings titled 'Sounds in the grass' and 'Accabonac Creek', reflecting his desire to commune with the earth for expressing its richness.
Pollock improves his technique throughout 1946, and abandons his stylized figuration. Wanting to work on a hard surface, he uses the masonite. He begins to apply the pigment in impasto directly at the outlet of the tube and gradually gives up the brush. For convenience, he lays directly on the floor the surface to be painted instead of using an easel.
The use of sprayed or flowing liquid paint is made possible by that position of the support. His hand acquires an unprecedented freedom. Pollock's art conveys his subconscious energy, just as Chinese calligraphy is a direct transcription of an artist's emotion. Masson is referred with Miro among Pollock's surrealist influences, but it will be noted that Michaux's automatic drawings were influenced by Chinese calligraphy.
The very first work using dripping was painted at the end of 1946. The surface is bright red and the contributions are black and white. Named Free form, this 49 x 36 cm oil on canvas is kept at the MoMA. There is no horizon and no framing even when the work is small, and there is also no longer a figuration.
The next step is the diversification of colors. The lines of pure colors of various widths form infinite and meticulous tangles. The regularity of the final mesh is spectacular without being total, so that certain areas are breathing or vibrating such as an organic matter. Richter's squeegee will generate similar effects.
An oil on masonite 48 x 60 cm dated 1946 is painted in bright yellow, bright blue and black by dripping and splashing on a background of the same red. It was sold for $ 13M by Christie's on October 6, 2020, lot 5. Its first owner had been Peggy Guggenheim. It was de-accessioned by the Everson Art Museum in Syracuse NY to refocus their collection on the fight against racial and sexual inequalities.
Pollock's musicalist dances around large-scale works came soon after.
The works on paper prepared with a white primer are promising and the small formats make it more possible to obtain in a lesser time a full covering of the surface with the desirable entangled lines of high density.
In 1948, Pollock stops giving titles to his works, now designated by numbers. One of his largest boards, Number 5, 1948, 2.4 x 1.2 m, reached $ 140M in a private sale in 2006.
On May 15, 2013, Christie's sold for $ 58M from a lower estimate of $ 25M Number 19, 1948. This oil and enamel on paper mounted on canvas is small, 78 x 57 cm, but the fineness of the pours and drips is superb. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
2
White on Black
2024 SOLD for $ 15.3M by Phillips
The drippings by Pollock somehow follow the same basics as Chinese calligraphy : the artist manages to transfer his emotion to the viewer through the movement of his hand. The theme does not matter and may go abstract. Pollock is a fan of musical improvisation and jazz.
Color may help but can also be avoided. Reversely, Pollock made an ephemeral trial to mixed media. An Untitled painted on paper ca 1948 in white on black incorporates pebbles, like Klein one decade later, and cut-outs like Matisse in his later period. The dripping is a pseudo-writing through variations of his width, anticipating Twombly's loops by one decade. Black and white offer the maximum possible contrast.
This oil and enamel on paper mounted on masonite 79 x 58 cm was sold for $ 15.3M by Phillips on November 19, 2024, lot 9.
Color may help but can also be avoided. Reversely, Pollock made an ephemeral trial to mixed media. An Untitled painted on paper ca 1948 in white on black incorporates pebbles, like Klein one decade later, and cut-outs like Matisse in his later period. The dripping is a pseudo-writing through variations of his width, anticipating Twombly's loops by one decade. Black and white offer the maximum possible contrast.
This oil and enamel on paper mounted on masonite 79 x 58 cm was sold for $ 15.3M by Phillips on November 19, 2024, lot 9.
ZHANG DAQIAN
1
1948 Landscape after Wang Ximeng
2022 SOLD for HK$ 370M by Sotheby's
Zhang Daqian permeated his art with the best antique pictorial traditions, including the blue and green paintings from the Sui, Tang and Song. This practice was vilified by Western observers as plagiarism after the second world war. Yet it fits perfectly in the spirit of continuity that governs the Chinese art for three millennia.
A landscape of rivers and mountains after Wang Ximeng painted in January and February 1948 is a fair example of a transformation performed by Zhang while keeping the spirit and the style of an antique painting. It had not been shown in public since 1983.
Wang was a prodigy artist under the Northern Song dynasty who was taught and commissioned by the Huizong emperor himself. He died in 1119 CE at 23 years old. The unique artwork attributed to him is a handscroll 52 x 1200 cm painted in ink and blue and green colors on silk when he was not yet 18 years old. It is now kept in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The work by Zhang was to transfer the significant elements of that masterpiece into a 134 x 73 cm hanging scroll of a similar technique. He did not keep the original composition, changing the multi point classical scenery into a modern perspective from a shore while preserving the vastness of the mountain range.
He led the perfection into even copying the seagulls and geese half hidden in the waves. Zhang's make is in fine line and exquisite color including gold flecks that shimmer in the sunlight. The distant mountains are colored in Mogu style.
Landscape after Wang Ximeng was sold for HK $ 370M by Sotheby's on April 30, 2022, lot 3073. Please watch the video shared by the auction house, providing a significant juxtaposition of elements of the antique and modern pictures.
A landscape of rivers and mountains after Wang Ximeng painted in January and February 1948 is a fair example of a transformation performed by Zhang while keeping the spirit and the style of an antique painting. It had not been shown in public since 1983.
Wang was a prodigy artist under the Northern Song dynasty who was taught and commissioned by the Huizong emperor himself. He died in 1119 CE at 23 years old. The unique artwork attributed to him is a handscroll 52 x 1200 cm painted in ink and blue and green colors on silk when he was not yet 18 years old. It is now kept in the Palace Museum in Beijing.
The work by Zhang was to transfer the significant elements of that masterpiece into a 134 x 73 cm hanging scroll of a similar technique. He did not keep the original composition, changing the multi point classical scenery into a modern perspective from a shore while preserving the vastness of the mountain range.
He led the perfection into even copying the seagulls and geese half hidden in the waves. Zhang's make is in fine line and exquisite color including gold flecks that shimmer in the sunlight. The distant mountains are colored in Mogu style.
Landscape after Wang Ximeng was sold for HK $ 370M by Sotheby's on April 30, 2022, lot 3073. Please watch the video shared by the auction house, providing a significant juxtaposition of elements of the antique and modern pictures.
2
later 1940s Copy of a Juran's Landscape
2016 SOLD for RMB 103M by China Guardian
Juran was a landscape painter in the 10th century CE at the court of the Southern Tang in Nanjing when they were overwhelmed by the Northern Song.
His 145 x 55 cm hanging scroll in ink on silk Storied Mountains and Dense Forests is kept at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
A replica made by Zhang Daqian in the later 1940s, ink and color on paper 170 x 85 cm, was sold for RMB 103M from a lower estimate of RMB 68M by China Guardian on November 12, 2016, lot 724. It is illustrated in the post sale release shared by China Daily.
His 145 x 55 cm hanging scroll in ink on silk Storied Mountains and Dense Forests is kept at the National Palace Museum in Taipei.
A replica made by Zhang Daqian in the later 1940s, ink and color on paper 170 x 85 cm, was sold for RMB 103M from a lower estimate of RMB 68M by China Guardian on November 12, 2016, lot 724. It is illustrated in the post sale release shared by China Daily.
1948 STILL
1
1948-No.1
2021 SOLD for $ 31M by Sotheby's
PH-125, also titled 1948-No.1, oil on canvas 187 x 173 cm by Clyfford Still, was sold for $ 31M by Sotheby's on May 12, 2021, lot 8. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Its unlimited massive form is made of a richly saturated texture in various deep hues from gold to amber with a yellow jagged interstice. In the opposite of many other works by Still, it looks static and swelling except for its overlap by a deep red form on its right side.
A color photo in the catalogue shows it on the wall of a 1990 exhibition beside the fully static and larger opus PH-91, 240 x 200 cm, painted in the same year with the same pigments. Both appear like a demonstration of the artist's capability to offer an unprecedented mingle of rare colors, anticipating and possibly inspiring Rothko's rectangular forms.
It is one of the early works which were included in the 1969 selling exhibition at the Marlborough gallery in New York.
Its unlimited massive form is made of a richly saturated texture in various deep hues from gold to amber with a yellow jagged interstice. In the opposite of many other works by Still, it looks static and swelling except for its overlap by a deep red form on its right side.
A color photo in the catalogue shows it on the wall of a 1990 exhibition beside the fully static and larger opus PH-91, 240 x 200 cm, painted in the same year with the same pigments. Both appear like a demonstration of the artist's capability to offer an unprecedented mingle of rare colors, anticipating and possibly inspiring Rothko's rectangular forms.
It is one of the early works which were included in the 1969 selling exhibition at the Marlborough gallery in New York.
2
PH-234
2016 SOLD for $ 28M by Christie's
On May 10, 2016, Christie's sold for $ 28M PH-234, oil on canvas 175 x 151 cm painted in 1948, lot 28B.
1948 Femme au Chignon dans un Fauteuil by Picasso
2015 SOLD for $ 30M by Sotheby's
Once again in the search of another love partner and muse, Picasso, aged 61, met Françoise Gilot, aged 21, in 1943. They moved to Antibes in 1946. A son, Claude, was born in 1947.
In the opposite of his unfair representation of Dora in distress, Françoise was the Femme fleur worthy of his admiration. He attributed to her a saturated emerald green color which is also a symbol of rebirth after the war.
In the summer of 1948 Picasso, who was since 1944 a member of the Parti Communiste Français, attended a peace congress in Wroclaw while Françoise was just becoming pregnant again. She went angry for that abandonment. Picasso, who desired to maintain peace in their couple, gifted to her a Polish peasant coat brightly embroidered in red, blue and yellow.
The next period was happy. Picasso, who had been busy in ceramics and lithography, resumed painting by a small series of portraits of Françoise seated in an armchair, wearing the Polish garment. Every muse of Picasso is different from her predecessors. The strong headed Françoise, a skilled artist in her own right, is proud with a gentle smile.
Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on November 1, 1948, was
sold for $ 30M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Sotheby's on May 5, 2015, lot 21. It had been acquired in 1956 the Warsaw born Samuel Goldwyn, arguably impressed by the unexpected Polish element in Picasso's cmposition.
Within the series of portraits of the pregnant Françoise in an armchair with the Polish coat, Femme dans un fauteuil was begun and left unfinished on October 30, 1948, and completed on Christmas day. Picasso did not part of it. This oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm was sold for HK $ 93M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1032. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In the opposite of his unfair representation of Dora in distress, Françoise was the Femme fleur worthy of his admiration. He attributed to her a saturated emerald green color which is also a symbol of rebirth after the war.
In the summer of 1948 Picasso, who was since 1944 a member of the Parti Communiste Français, attended a peace congress in Wroclaw while Françoise was just becoming pregnant again. She went angry for that abandonment. Picasso, who desired to maintain peace in their couple, gifted to her a Polish peasant coat brightly embroidered in red, blue and yellow.
The next period was happy. Picasso, who had been busy in ceramics and lithography, resumed painting by a small series of portraits of Françoise seated in an armchair, wearing the Polish garment. Every muse of Picasso is different from her predecessors. The strong headed Françoise, a skilled artist in her own right, is proud with a gentle smile.
Femme au chignon dans un fauteuil, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on November 1, 1948, was
sold for $ 30M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Sotheby's on May 5, 2015, lot 21. It had been acquired in 1956 the Warsaw born Samuel Goldwyn, arguably impressed by the unexpected Polish element in Picasso's cmposition.
Within the series of portraits of the pregnant Françoise in an armchair with the Polish coat, Femme dans un fauteuil was begun and left unfinished on October 30, 1948, and completed on Christmas day. Picasso did not part of it. This oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm was sold for HK $ 93M by Sotheby's on April 5, 2023, lot 1032. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1948 La Voix du Sang by Magritte
2022 SOLD for $ 26.7M by Christie's
After the War René Magritte revisits his typical Surrealist themes. The series La Voix du Sang is a remake of L'Arbre savant from 1935.
The trunk of the 1935 leafless tree is hollowed like a tall dresser of several compartments one over the other. Each of them has a door curved in alignment to the trunk. L'Arbre Savant had four sections. From bottom to top, a candle, a pyramid, a mingled mass of metal wire and an undefined object behind a nearly closed door. The surrealist play is between the visible and the hidden.
In 1947 the first version of La Voix du Sang, staged in twilight, brings some improvement. The cabinets are reduced to three, whose full front view reveals the impossible balance of the handsome leafy tree. The tree is displayed against a grassy valley instead of a wall. The lower compartments have a lit doll's house and a sphere. The half closed top compartment may be empty. This oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm was sold for $ 3.6M by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 77.
Two finished versions follow in 1948 with the same title, one with and one without a red curtain.
The no curtain Voix du Sang, 79 x 59 cm oil on canvas, was sold for $ 26.7M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 20.
The trunk of the 1935 leafless tree is hollowed like a tall dresser of several compartments one over the other. Each of them has a door curved in alignment to the trunk. L'Arbre Savant had four sections. From bottom to top, a candle, a pyramid, a mingled mass of metal wire and an undefined object behind a nearly closed door. The surrealist play is between the visible and the hidden.
In 1947 the first version of La Voix du Sang, staged in twilight, brings some improvement. The cabinets are reduced to three, whose full front view reveals the impossible balance of the handsome leafy tree. The tree is displayed against a grassy valley instead of a wall. The lower compartments have a lit doll's house and a sphere. The half closed top compartment may be empty. This oil on canvas 65 x 54 cm was sold for $ 3.6M by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 77.
Two finished versions follow in 1948 with the same title, one with and one without a red curtain.
The no curtain Voix du Sang, 79 x 59 cm oil on canvas, was sold for $ 26.7M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 20.
1948 GIACOMETTI
1
La Main
2010 SOLD for $ 26M by Christie's
In 1946, Alberto Giacometti is not satisfied with his own art. His plaster figurines are expressive but too small. Haunted by the conjunction of death memories and of nightmares, he abandons the realistic figure of the body for a new wire-drawn disproportion.
1947 is his great year of creativity, including L'homme qui marche (walking man) who was to remain his most powerful work, the masterpiece of the derision of man in his loneliness.
The flesh is a mystery that has no meaning after death. All organs may contribute to the expression. The mouth in his Head on rod is wide open in the agony. The sculpture entitled La Main is actually a hand with long opened fingers at the end of a complete folded arm also mounted on a rod.
A hand does not require the rest of the body for expressing a passion. This asexual hand holds nothing. Fingers crave but the wide opening of the elbow is a gesture of hope.
Pierre Matisse appreciates that Alberto has become one of the most important artists of his time. With the financial participation of Matisse, Giacometti can commission bronzes of his new works to the best foundry in Paris, the Alexis Rudier workshop.
The serial number 1 of the first edition cast by Rudier in 1947 was part of the seminal exhibition of the new art of Giacometti opened by Matisse in New York on January 19, 1948. This bronze with brown patina 57 x 72 x 3.5 cm passed at Christie's on June 24, 2014, from a lower estimate of £ 10M.
A bronze of La Main in the same dimension with brown and green patina cast by Rudier in March 1948 was sold for $ 26M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on May 4, 2010, lot 30.
1947 is his great year of creativity, including L'homme qui marche (walking man) who was to remain his most powerful work, the masterpiece of the derision of man in his loneliness.
The flesh is a mystery that has no meaning after death. All organs may contribute to the expression. The mouth in his Head on rod is wide open in the agony. The sculpture entitled La Main is actually a hand with long opened fingers at the end of a complete folded arm also mounted on a rod.
A hand does not require the rest of the body for expressing a passion. This asexual hand holds nothing. Fingers crave but the wide opening of the elbow is a gesture of hope.
Pierre Matisse appreciates that Alberto has become one of the most important artists of his time. With the financial participation of Matisse, Giacometti can commission bronzes of his new works to the best foundry in Paris, the Alexis Rudier workshop.
The serial number 1 of the first edition cast by Rudier in 1947 was part of the seminal exhibition of the new art of Giacometti opened by Matisse in New York on January 19, 1948. This bronze with brown patina 57 x 72 x 3.5 cm passed at Christie's on June 24, 2014, from a lower estimate of £ 10M.
A bronze of La Main in the same dimension with brown and green patina cast by Rudier in March 1948 was sold for $ 26M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Christie's on May 4, 2010, lot 30.
2
Grande Figure
2017 SOLD for £ 18M by Sotheby's
In 1946 L'Homme au doigt points the finger to show the way to the other two sculptures in the primordial trilogy, L'Homme qui marche and his opposite the everlasting Femme debout. This horizontal finger is a sign of authority, hope and renewal. L'Homme au doigt emits the founding message before disappearing from Alberto's creations, unlike the other two figures that will accompany his whole career,
The attitude of the frail and stoic woman will remain unchanged as if this perfectionist artist had at first found how to express the timeless woman. With her strictly joined legs she is inspired from the Egyptian anthropomorphic coffins. Gilt or perched on a chariot to be worshiped, she is the mother goddess of Alberto's existentialist pantheon.
On June 21, 2017, Sotheby's sold for £ 18M Grande Figure, a bronze 1.30 m high in a patina of dark gold color, lot 57. Cast as a unique copy by the Alexis Rudier company in Paris in 1948 from a plaster dated 1947, it is one of the earliest large size examples of Alberto's standing woman.
The attitude of the frail and stoic woman will remain unchanged as if this perfectionist artist had at first found how to express the timeless woman. With her strictly joined legs she is inspired from the Egyptian anthropomorphic coffins. Gilt or perched on a chariot to be worshiped, she is the mother goddess of Alberto's existentialist pantheon.
On June 21, 2017, Sotheby's sold for £ 18M Grande Figure, a bronze 1.30 m high in a patina of dark gold color, lot 57. Cast as a unique copy by the Alexis Rudier company in Paris in 1948 from a plaster dated 1947, it is one of the earliest large size examples of Alberto's standing woman.
