1955
See also : Top 10 Painting Groups Bust Nude Mountains in China Orientalism Rothko Early Rothko Picasso Picasso 1940-1960 Germany Germany II Cars Cars II Cars 1950s Cars 1955 Mercedes-Benz De Kooning Giacometti Femme debout China Modern China Sanyu
1955 The Homage by Picasso to his own Art
2015 SOLD for $ 180M including premium
The Femmes d'Alger by Delacroix, by inspiring Picasso, had a role in the genesis of modern painting. Executed in Paris in 1907, the painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon shows a group of women. Unlike in Delacroix, they are naked. They are not in the hot atmosphere of a harem but their offering is venal.
It is difficult to recognize the influence of Delacroix upon the Demoiselles because the tribal art that inspired the deconstruction of forms is the real origin of Cubism. Other influences have also been identified for this painting which is one of the most important breakthroughs of Western art : el Greco, Cézanne, Gauguin.
Matisse died in 1954. His Odalisques were famous. Picasso had not used this theme which exacerbated the colors and he was somehow jealous of his late friend. He disguises Jacqueline but this is not enough to equal the glory of his rival. To resume his place in the history of art, he resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O.
The series is an imitation of the styles of Picasso's career starting from his invention of Cubism. The latest version, O, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm achieved on 14 February 1955, appears as a synthesis of this rather disparate set, like the ultimate completion of Pablo's art on that date.
It takes much imagination to see Delacroix's influence in the Version O, but the comparison with the Demoiselles is obvious. The women are naked or half dressed but in a later cubism style that excites the imagination by blurring the vision. The standing woman on the left displays a much better readability that joins the then recent art of Pablo.
Pablo has always enjoyed to confront himself with the great masters. The large mirror anticipates his series of Las Meninas painted two years later.
Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold for $ 32M including premium by Christie's on 10 November 1997. It is for sale on May 11 at Christie's in New York, lot 8A. The press release of March 25 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 140M.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
It is difficult to recognize the influence of Delacroix upon the Demoiselles because the tribal art that inspired the deconstruction of forms is the real origin of Cubism. Other influences have also been identified for this painting which is one of the most important breakthroughs of Western art : el Greco, Cézanne, Gauguin.
Matisse died in 1954. His Odalisques were famous. Picasso had not used this theme which exacerbated the colors and he was somehow jealous of his late friend. He disguises Jacqueline but this is not enough to equal the glory of his rival. To resume his place in the history of art, he resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O.
The series is an imitation of the styles of Picasso's career starting from his invention of Cubism. The latest version, O, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm achieved on 14 February 1955, appears as a synthesis of this rather disparate set, like the ultimate completion of Pablo's art on that date.
It takes much imagination to see Delacroix's influence in the Version O, but the comparison with the Demoiselles is obvious. The women are naked or half dressed but in a later cubism style that excites the imagination by blurring the vision. The standing woman on the left displays a much better readability that joins the then recent art of Pablo.
Pablo has always enjoyed to confront himself with the great masters. The large mirror anticipates his series of Las Meninas painted two years later.
Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold for $ 32M including premium by Christie's on 10 November 1997. It is for sale on May 11 at Christie's in New York, lot 8A. The press release of March 25 indicates an estimate in the region of $ 140M.
The low resolution image below is shared by Wikimedia for fair use :
1955 Mercedes-Benz Uhlenhaut Coupé
2022 SOLD for € 135M by RM Sotheby's
Two special adaptations of the 3 litre 300 SLR coupé were made by Mercedes-Benz in 1955. Designed by Rudolf Uhlenhaut, they are known as the Uhlenhaut coupés. Capable of reaching 290 km/h, this model was the fastest road going car of its time.
Employed by Mercedes-Benz since 1931, Uhlenhaut had been a lead designer of the Silver Arrows, of the Formula One highly successful W196 of JM Fangio fame and of the open top Rennsport 300 SLR of Stirling Moss fame. He was also behind the scene of the Le Mans winner W194 and of the road going 300 SL gullwing.
The Uhlenhaut coupés were assembled as two seaters with gullwing doors on two W196 chassis left unused after the 1955 Le Mans crash and the subsequent withdrawal of the brand from motor sport.
Both prototypes were retained by Mercedes-Benz from new. Uhlenhaut had one as a company car. He once drove the 230 km on the autobahn between Stuttgart and Munich in less than an hour.
The first one is on display in the museum of the brand. The second car was used as a demonstration car and was restored in 1986. It was sold for € 135M on May 5, 2022 by RM Sotheby's in a private auction, lot 1. The proceeds help to create a Mercedes-Benz fund for young researchers in environmental science and carbon dioxide reduction.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, featuring with the hammer Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby's Europe.
Employed by Mercedes-Benz since 1931, Uhlenhaut had been a lead designer of the Silver Arrows, of the Formula One highly successful W196 of JM Fangio fame and of the open top Rennsport 300 SLR of Stirling Moss fame. He was also behind the scene of the Le Mans winner W194 and of the road going 300 SL gullwing.
The Uhlenhaut coupés were assembled as two seaters with gullwing doors on two W196 chassis left unused after the 1955 Le Mans crash and the subsequent withdrawal of the brand from motor sport.
Both prototypes were retained by Mercedes-Benz from new. Uhlenhaut had one as a company car. He once drove the 230 km on the autobahn between Stuttgart and Munich in less than an hour.
The first one is on display in the museum of the brand. The second car was used as a demonstration car and was restored in 1986. It was sold for € 135M on May 5, 2022 by RM Sotheby's in a private auction, lot 1. The proceeds help to create a Mercedes-Benz fund for young researchers in environmental science and carbon dioxide reduction.
Please watch the video shared by the auction house, featuring with the hammer Oliver Barker, chairman of Sotheby's Europe.
1955 Woman as Landscape by de Kooning
2018 SOLD for $ 69M by Christie's
Close to the avant-gardes in New York, Willem de Kooning nevertheless does not want his art to be assimilated with any school. He understood, as Miro before him, that it is to the viewer to identify the subject of the work, and the ambiguity in the interpretation generates emotion.
For him, woman is an obsessive and ambiguous theme. In 1950 he begins painting a larger-than-life woman on a canvas 197 x 147 cm. He reworks it for months with his brushes and his knives and considers it as finished in June 1952 thanks to the intervention of a friend.
His characters are figurative but excessively misshapen and grotesque. Color prevails over form. He said : "Flesh is the reason oil paint was invented".
In late 1952 and in 1953 he makes new versions of his woman. This ideal woman is a synthesis between the opulent Paleolithic statuettes of fertility and a grotesque vixen of modern time. The spectators see in that 'Woman' series the expression at best of an annoyance, at worst of an aggressive sexual impulse, in a feverish brush work. Woman III was sold for $ 137.5M in 2006 in a private sale.
This task resulted in the side-by-side exhibition of six paintings titled Woman I to Woman VI. They are standing in similar frontal positions. The bright and varied colors of the clothes could simulate according to the artist the evolution of the fashions. De Kooning demonstrates here that Action painting was not incompatible with a figurative theme.
I to VI are not the only artworks on this theme. This series did not include a Woman with Bicycle painted in 1952 in the same style but in a slightly different attitude. Oils on paper are made in smaller sizes.
De Kooning carries out new experiments in 1955. The drift of abstraction also generates the landscape, which can be entangled with the body of the woman.
Woman as Landscape, started in 1954, begins a new phase in de Kooning's desire to break down the boundaries between figurative themes. This 166 x 125 cm oil and charcoal on canvas completed in 1955 was sold for $ 69M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 7 B.
The colors of a landscape with its blue sky and green ground surround the woman. The title is significant with 'as landscape' and not 'in landscape' to indicate that the artist is ready to mix the genres.
In the same year with Interchange, a bird's eye landscape remains perceptible, centered on a river. When the viewer realizes that the river has the shape of a female body, this painting considered as one of the very first examples of abstract landscape becomes a masterpiece of hidden erotic art, alongside Picasso's Le Rêve. Police Gazette is an abstract landscape in a vertical perspective.
Interchange, oil on canvas 200 x 175 cm, was sold for $ 20.7M by Sotheby's on November 8, 1989, the highest auction result at that time for a work by a living artist. A private transaction for $ 500M between two billionaires was announced in February 2016. It involved only two paintings. The piece of choice, whose contribution was announced at $ 300M in the press releases, was Interchange. The other item, thus worth $ 200M, was a 1948 dripping by Pollock numbered 17A.
At the end of the year he returns to abstract compositions in which his figurative intentions, when they exist, are intertwined and can only be deciphered by him.
For him, woman is an obsessive and ambiguous theme. In 1950 he begins painting a larger-than-life woman on a canvas 197 x 147 cm. He reworks it for months with his brushes and his knives and considers it as finished in June 1952 thanks to the intervention of a friend.
His characters are figurative but excessively misshapen and grotesque. Color prevails over form. He said : "Flesh is the reason oil paint was invented".
In late 1952 and in 1953 he makes new versions of his woman. This ideal woman is a synthesis between the opulent Paleolithic statuettes of fertility and a grotesque vixen of modern time. The spectators see in that 'Woman' series the expression at best of an annoyance, at worst of an aggressive sexual impulse, in a feverish brush work. Woman III was sold for $ 137.5M in 2006 in a private sale.
This task resulted in the side-by-side exhibition of six paintings titled Woman I to Woman VI. They are standing in similar frontal positions. The bright and varied colors of the clothes could simulate according to the artist the evolution of the fashions. De Kooning demonstrates here that Action painting was not incompatible with a figurative theme.
I to VI are not the only artworks on this theme. This series did not include a Woman with Bicycle painted in 1952 in the same style but in a slightly different attitude. Oils on paper are made in smaller sizes.
De Kooning carries out new experiments in 1955. The drift of abstraction also generates the landscape, which can be entangled with the body of the woman.
Woman as Landscape, started in 1954, begins a new phase in de Kooning's desire to break down the boundaries between figurative themes. This 166 x 125 cm oil and charcoal on canvas completed in 1955 was sold for $ 69M by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 7 B.
The colors of a landscape with its blue sky and green ground surround the woman. The title is significant with 'as landscape' and not 'in landscape' to indicate that the artist is ready to mix the genres.
In the same year with Interchange, a bird's eye landscape remains perceptible, centered on a river. When the viewer realizes that the river has the shape of a female body, this painting considered as one of the very first examples of abstract landscape becomes a masterpiece of hidden erotic art, alongside Picasso's Le Rêve. Police Gazette is an abstract landscape in a vertical perspective.
Interchange, oil on canvas 200 x 175 cm, was sold for $ 20.7M by Sotheby's on November 8, 1989, the highest auction result at that time for a work by a living artist. A private transaction for $ 500M between two billionaires was announced in February 2016. It involved only two paintings. The piece of choice, whose contribution was announced at $ 300M in the press releases, was Interchange. The other item, thus worth $ 200M, was a 1948 dripping by Pollock numbered 17A.
At the end of the year he returns to abstract compositions in which his figurative intentions, when they exist, are intertwined and can only be deciphered by him.
1955 The Drama of the Blue
2014 SOLD 56 M$ including premium
Cézanne sought to express the relations of forces of the tragedy through the disposition of his fruit. The art of Mark Rothko does the same by the opposition of the fields of color.
Rothko endeavored to reach the primitive force of the myth and was studying Nietzsche. He consciously conceived his art as a drama. At the same time, Barnett Newman wanted to express a mystical vision of the origin of the world. For both artists, the total abstraction is a means to reach the absolute by discarding any narrative illusion.
Do not say that Rothko's abstract art is empty of characters. By captivating the viewer, the artist incorporates him into the work.
In this battle of the color fields, the vivid blue plays a fundamental role in the abstract beginnings of Rothko. The blue area is not predominant in the No. 1 (Royal red and blue) painted in 1954 but it is in the lower part, ready to pounce. This canvas 289 x 172 cm was sold for $ 75M including premium by Sotheby's on November 13, 2012.
Smaller, 169 x 125 cm, the Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange) oil on canvas painted in 1955 can be seen as a continuation of the Royal red and blue. Its navy blue, underlined on all sides by an azure border, has won the top side and is towering over the viewer. More timid, the orange field protects itself by a slightly darker thin line.
Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange) was sold for $ 34M including premium at Christie's on November 13, 2007. It comes back to New York to be sold by Phillips on May 15, lot 18 in the catalog.
I invite you to play the video shared by Phillips.
POST 2014 SALE COMMENT
This fascinating Rothko painting has far exceeded its 2007 result. It has been sold for $ 56M including premium.
Rothko endeavored to reach the primitive force of the myth and was studying Nietzsche. He consciously conceived his art as a drama. At the same time, Barnett Newman wanted to express a mystical vision of the origin of the world. For both artists, the total abstraction is a means to reach the absolute by discarding any narrative illusion.
Do not say that Rothko's abstract art is empty of characters. By captivating the viewer, the artist incorporates him into the work.
In this battle of the color fields, the vivid blue plays a fundamental role in the abstract beginnings of Rothko. The blue area is not predominant in the No. 1 (Royal red and blue) painted in 1954 but it is in the lower part, ready to pounce. This canvas 289 x 172 cm was sold for $ 75M including premium by Sotheby's on November 13, 2012.
Smaller, 169 x 125 cm, the Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange) oil on canvas painted in 1955 can be seen as a continuation of the Royal red and blue. Its navy blue, underlined on all sides by an azure border, has won the top side and is towering over the viewer. More timid, the orange field protects itself by a slightly darker thin line.
Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange) was sold for $ 34M including premium at Christie's on November 13, 2007. It comes back to New York to be sold by Phillips on May 15, lot 18 in the catalog.
I invite you to play the video shared by Phillips.
POST 2014 SALE COMMENT
This fascinating Rothko painting has far exceeded its 2007 result. It has been sold for $ 56M including premium.
1955 Grande tête mince by Giacometti
2010 SOLD 53 M$ including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2020
The head and the bust, portrait or imaginary, with or without a base, is a major theme in the sculpture of Alberto Giacometti. This theme is interrupted when the artist reconstructs his universe with his existentialist triad in 1947, but returns beside the standing woman with La Cage in 1949. Inspired by his threadlike characters, he begins to reduce the width of the heads.
In 1954 Alberto refocuses on the portraits of his family and friends his sculpted and painted art. His brother Diego complacently becomes his preferred model. At the same time Alberto rediscovers his fascination for the famous bust of Nefertiti.
The graphic art of ancient Egypt used a flat profile figuration by which the two sides of the head cannot be seen simultaneously. A bust of Diego on a base, 38 cm high overall, is subtitled Amenophis. The head is a blade. On each side Alberto kneaded an Egyptian portrait of his brother. A bronze copy was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.4M including premium on June 24, 2009.
At 65 cm high overall, Grande Tête Mince, also known as Grande Tête de Diego, will remain until 1960 the largest bust created by Alberto. Like Amenophis, it was designed in 1954 and edited in bronze by Susse in 1955.
Grande Tête Mince is the most daring of all compositions by Alberto. Since the two sides of the face are not seen simultaneously, they can be dissimilar. Indeed the portrait of Nefertiti has no pupil in the left eye, probably from its conception. Alberto's face is more wrinkled than Diego's. The left side is undoubtedly a portrait of Diego. The right side, kneaded in clay with deeper relief, could be a self-portrait of Alberto.
The bronze 3/6 of the Grande Tête Mince, with a dark brown patina, was sold for $ 53M including premium by Christie's on May 4, 2010, lot 13. The bronze 6/6 was sold for $ 50M including premium by Sotheby's on November 6, 2013.
In 1954 Alberto refocuses on the portraits of his family and friends his sculpted and painted art. His brother Diego complacently becomes his preferred model. At the same time Alberto rediscovers his fascination for the famous bust of Nefertiti.
The graphic art of ancient Egypt used a flat profile figuration by which the two sides of the head cannot be seen simultaneously. A bust of Diego on a base, 38 cm high overall, is subtitled Amenophis. The head is a blade. On each side Alberto kneaded an Egyptian portrait of his brother. A bronze copy was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.4M including premium on June 24, 2009.
At 65 cm high overall, Grande Tête Mince, also known as Grande Tête de Diego, will remain until 1960 the largest bust created by Alberto. Like Amenophis, it was designed in 1954 and edited in bronze by Susse in 1955.
Grande Tête Mince is the most daring of all compositions by Alberto. Since the two sides of the face are not seen simultaneously, they can be dissimilar. Indeed the portrait of Nefertiti has no pupil in the left eye, probably from its conception. Alberto's face is more wrinkled than Diego's. The left side is undoubtedly a portrait of Diego. The right side, kneaded in clay with deeper relief, could be a self-portrait of Alberto.
The bronze 3/6 of the Grande Tête Mince, with a dark brown patina, was sold for $ 53M including premium by Christie's on May 4, 2010, lot 13. The bronze 6/6 was sold for $ 50M including premium by Sotheby's on November 6, 2013.
1955 Alberto and his Double
2013 SOLD 50 M$ including premium
Already famous for his threadlike sculpture of bodies, Alberto Giacometti wants to push further his research of total art. In 1954, in his kneaded statues, he breaks with the tradition of classical sculpture which had been a way to offer to the viewer a realistic three-dimensional vision of the selected theme.
He used to say that he did not make a difference between sculpture and drawing. He then takes as model only his family and close friends, especially his brother Diego younger than himself by only thirteen months. People outside his narrow circle would probably hardly support to be so scrutinized by this artist in search of a new ideal.
The tall thin head 65 cm high is the masterpiece from this series which was cast in bronze in 1955 by Susse. The head is reduced to a blade but the view of each profile is as realistic as a drawing, with the frank gaze and the mouth opened for speaking.
This step forward revolutionized the modern sculpture, but Alberto's view of art history went much farther up to the flat figures in ancient Egyptian art, as it is evidenced by another bust of Diego subtitled Amenophis in the same series.
The two brothers had a strong physical resemblance and there is no doubt that Alberto sought also to reach the truth about himself. He voluntarily maintained this ambiguity in an exhibition in 1962 when he chose to name this sculpture the Grande tête mince rather than Grande tête de Diego.
The bronze 3/6 of the Grande tête mince was sold for $ 53M including premium at Christie's on May 4, 2010. The serial number 6/6 is estimated $ 35M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 6. Here is the link to the catalog.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, $ 50M including premium, is consistent with the price recorded on another copy in 2010.
Grande Tête Mince is a masterpiece of sculpture of the twentieth century. The assumption that one side is a portrait of Diego and the other side a self-portrait is fascinating and shows that this work will never deliver the whole of its mystery, the real mystery of mankind that is behind all Alberto's post-war art.
He used to say that he did not make a difference between sculpture and drawing. He then takes as model only his family and close friends, especially his brother Diego younger than himself by only thirteen months. People outside his narrow circle would probably hardly support to be so scrutinized by this artist in search of a new ideal.
The tall thin head 65 cm high is the masterpiece from this series which was cast in bronze in 1955 by Susse. The head is reduced to a blade but the view of each profile is as realistic as a drawing, with the frank gaze and the mouth opened for speaking.
This step forward revolutionized the modern sculpture, but Alberto's view of art history went much farther up to the flat figures in ancient Egyptian art, as it is evidenced by another bust of Diego subtitled Amenophis in the same series.
The two brothers had a strong physical resemblance and there is no doubt that Alberto sought also to reach the truth about himself. He voluntarily maintained this ambiguity in an exhibition in 1962 when he chose to name this sculpture the Grande tête mince rather than Grande tête de Diego.
The bronze 3/6 of the Grande tête mince was sold for $ 53M including premium at Christie's on May 4, 2010. The serial number 6/6 is estimated $ 35M, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on November 6. Here is the link to the catalog.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
The result, $ 50M including premium, is consistent with the price recorded on another copy in 2010.
Grande Tête Mince is a masterpiece of sculpture of the twentieth century. The assumption that one side is a portrait of Diego and the other side a self-portrait is fascinating and shows that this work will never deliver the whole of its mystery, the real mystery of mankind that is behind all Alberto's post-war art.
1955 The Ultimate Ink of Huang Binhong
2017 SOLD for RMB 345M including premium
Chinese graphic art was not a monopoly for the professional artists. The literati had other occupations and did not need to sell their art. Still better : they have contributed by their appreciation of ancient cultures to the remarkable homogeneity of Chinese art throughout the historical period and almost to present day. In this sense the old man who brought to an unprecedented perfection in the early 1950s the very traditional landscape in ink on hanging scroll was not an artist.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll is estimated RMB 80M for sale by China Guardian in Beijing on June 19, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M including premium by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period. The lower estimate that had been announced at RMB 12M attests a posteriori that the extreme quality of the ultimate art of Huang was rediscovered at that sale.
Native from Zhejiang province, Huang Binhong had many passions centered on letters and ancient arts including calligraphy. He collected and carved seals, practiced fencing and played guqin. He made drawings since his youth and his favorite theme was the sublime Huangshan mountains which he visited nine times from 1883 to 1935.
Huang worked as an editor and illustrator and also as an art professor. In 1948, aged 85, he settled in Hangzhou where his teaching activity certainly left him more free time. It was from that point that he perfected the art of landscape.
He no longer travels in the mountains and works with memory and imagination, favoring the expression instead of the realism. Like the greatest masters, he does not need a preparatory drawing and does not erase. His full mastery of the width of the line generates superb contrasts enhanced by a skillful use of the voids to show mist and brook. The density of the lines reminds the Dürer hare and the overall composition is well balanced.
Huang had the nice practice of dating some of his works by his age. A view in Huangshan is dated to his 92 years, corresponding to 1955 just before his death. This 171 x 96 cm scroll is estimated RMB 80M for sale by China Guardian in Beijing on June 19, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M including premium by China Guardian on May 18, 2014. It remembers the emotion of the artist comparing in an earlier trip the real view of the mountain with its interpretation by an artist of the Yuan period. The lower estimate that had been announced at RMB 12M attests a posteriori that the extreme quality of the ultimate art of Huang was rediscovered at that sale.
1955 Five Demoiselles
2019 SOLD for HK$ 304M including premium
When he quarreled with Roché in 1932, Sanyu lost his chances of a commercial recognition of his art. After the second world war, his works become more experimental, in search of a perfection that would mix the pictorial traditions of East and West. Most of his paintings from this period are made on masonite, which had the advantage of being cheap.
Cinq Nus, oil on masonite 120 x 172 cm, is one of the largest formats painted by the artist. The style is recognizable with its flat colors delimited by simplified curves. The nonchalant atmosphere is confirmed by a dog and a cat, both sleeping. This work, however, has several unique features.
The five women form the largest group painted by Sanyu in his career, and the only example with more than two characters in standing position. They are displayed side by side with a different attitude of the legs that evokes four successive phases of a dance before a final turning back. The bodies are not deformed although the heads are small.
The four hair colors of European women are displayed : blond, black, brunette, red. The faces are different from each other. Otherwise, nothing prevents from imagining five images in a row from a single model.
The exceptional size suggests that Sanyu wanted to make it a reference work that could be compared to the most famous paintings of modern art. The Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso and La Danse by Matisse are the two historical examples that stage five naked women, impossible to differentiate from each other in Matisse's case.
The Cinq Nus by Sanyu are made in three colors, pale for the flesh, dark red for the background and bright yellow for the carpet, which also evoke the work of Matisse on the expression of colors. Matisse died in 1954. Antoine Chen, author of a monograph on Sanyu, dates the Cinq Nus of 1955.
Cinq Nus was sold for HK $ 128M including premium by Ravenel on May 30, 2011. I had discussed it before that sale in this column. It is estimated HK $ 250M for sale by Christie's in Hong Kong on November 23, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
Cinq Nus, oil on masonite 120 x 172 cm, is one of the largest formats painted by the artist. The style is recognizable with its flat colors delimited by simplified curves. The nonchalant atmosphere is confirmed by a dog and a cat, both sleeping. This work, however, has several unique features.
The five women form the largest group painted by Sanyu in his career, and the only example with more than two characters in standing position. They are displayed side by side with a different attitude of the legs that evokes four successive phases of a dance before a final turning back. The bodies are not deformed although the heads are small.
The four hair colors of European women are displayed : blond, black, brunette, red. The faces are different from each other. Otherwise, nothing prevents from imagining five images in a row from a single model.
The exceptional size suggests that Sanyu wanted to make it a reference work that could be compared to the most famous paintings of modern art. The Demoiselles d'Avignon by Picasso and La Danse by Matisse are the two historical examples that stage five naked women, impossible to differentiate from each other in Matisse's case.
The Cinq Nus by Sanyu are made in three colors, pale for the flesh, dark red for the background and bright yellow for the carpet, which also evoke the work of Matisse on the expression of colors. Matisse died in 1954. Antoine Chen, author of a monograph on Sanyu, dates the Cinq Nus of 1955.
Cinq Nus was sold for HK $ 128M including premium by Ravenel on May 30, 2011. I had discussed it before that sale in this column. It is estimated HK $ 250M for sale by Christie's in Hong Kong on November 23, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by Christie's.
1955 Femme accroupie au Costume Turc by Picasso
2007 SOLD for $ 31M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2014 before the sale of another painting by Christie's (see below)
Matisse's death in November 1954 deprives Picasso of a friend with whom he liked to compare his ideas about the essentials of art. Little interested so far by Orientalism, Pablo begins on December 13 his series of fifteen paintings titled Les Femmes d'Alger.
The theme is ostensibly following Delacroix but Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by declaring not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. Remind that Les Femmes d'Alger is a project probably unique in the history of art where the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself during his long career.
A new series of paintings beginning on November 19, 1955 combines this orientalist fantasy with the exploration of the face and body of his new muse Jacqueline Roque, shown in clothes and attitudes of a Turkish harem from Pablo's imagination. The style resumes the normal course of evolution of Picasso's art.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 17M including premium the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic.
Another oil on canvas of the same series, 116 x 89 cm, dated 26 November 1955 is titled Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline). It was sold for $ 31M including premium by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 73. Drawing attention to the body rather than to the face, this figure is more erotic.
The theme is ostensibly following Delacroix but Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by declaring not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. Remind that Les Femmes d'Alger is a project probably unique in the history of art where the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself during his long career.
A new series of paintings beginning on November 19, 1955 combines this orientalist fantasy with the exploration of the face and body of his new muse Jacqueline Roque, shown in clothes and attitudes of a Turkish harem from Pablo's imagination. The style resumes the normal course of evolution of Picasso's art.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 17M including premium the half length portrait in an armchair, oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm painted on 20 November 1955, where Jacqueline is adorned with multicolored turban and vest. Her face is almost realistic.
Another oil on canvas of the same series, 116 x 89 cm, dated 26 November 1955 is titled Femme accroupie au costume turc (Jacqueline). It was sold for $ 31M including premium by Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 73. Drawing attention to the body rather than to the face, this figure is more erotic.
1955 Femme qui marche by Giacometti
2022 SOLD for € 27M by Christie's
The post war masterpieces by Alberto Giacometti have their root in Surrealism. In 1932 he prepares a life size plaster of a headless Femme qui marche, without arms like a sort of fashion mannequin. He then uses it to try some surrealist figures by adding non human artifacts in the place of the missing limbs and head. Breton broke with Alberto in 1935.
That Femme qui marche is in a full nudity. The elongated profile with a leg slightly ahead of the other for walking may be a reminiscence of the antique Egyptian art. The smooth texture does not anticipate the hectic post war kneading. She is altogether a precursor of the femme debout, of the homme qui marche and of the woman on the chariot.
Four bronzes plus one artist's proof of that seminal Femme qui marche (I) 150 cm high were cast in 1955 in an english foundry at the request of a gallery owner in London. The number III/IV, 150 cm high with a dark brown patina, was sold for € 27M by Christie's on June 14, 2022, lot 20 in the sale of the Givenchy collection.
That Femme qui marche is in a full nudity. The elongated profile with a leg slightly ahead of the other for walking may be a reminiscence of the antique Egyptian art. The smooth texture does not anticipate the hectic post war kneading. She is altogether a precursor of the femme debout, of the homme qui marche and of the woman on the chariot.
Four bronzes plus one artist's proof of that seminal Femme qui marche (I) 150 cm high were cast in 1955 in an english foundry at the request of a gallery owner in London. The number III/IV, 150 cm high with a dark brown patina, was sold for € 27M by Christie's on June 14, 2022, lot 20 in the sale of the Givenchy collection.
