1955
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
See also : Top 10 Groups Bust Nude Mountains in China Orientalism Rothko Early Rothko Picasso Picasso 1940-1960 Germany II Cars Cars 1950s Cars 1955 Mercedes-Benz De Kooning Giacometti China Modern China Sanyu
See also : Top 10 Groups Bust Nude Mountains in China Orientalism Rothko Early Rothko Picasso Picasso 1940-1960 Germany II Cars Cars 1950s Cars 1955 Mercedes-Benz De Kooning Giacometti China Modern China Sanyu
1955 PICASSO
1
Les Femmes d'Alger
2015 SOLD for $ 180M by Christie's
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's death in November 1954 deprives Picasso of a friend with whom he liked to compare his ideas about the essentials of art. Matisse's Odalisques were famous. Picasso had been little interested so far by Orientalism but he was somehow jealous of his late friend.
To overcome Matisse in the history of art, Picasso resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O in the chronological order of their execution. This project is unique in the history of art as the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself starting from his invention of Cubism.
Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by acknowledging not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. His new muse, Jacqueline, resembles one of the odalisques by Delacroix. Matisse's Nu bleu is another influence.
From December 13, 1954 to January 18, 1955, Picasso painted six sketches 46 x 55 cm, sometimes limited to one detail. The day before the end of this first phase, he made an oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm which foreshadows the final work by its overall composition, its brilliant colors and the post-Cubist interweaving of forms.
That F version was sold for $ 29M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 52. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The next phase is devoted to larger formats, including grisaille paintings which allow the details of the drawing to be worked out. The result meets what was undoubtedly Picasso's main objective : making a modern following to the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The Version J, painted on January 26, 1955, is the tenth opus in the series. It features the four women of the full compositions, one seated, one reclining, one smoking a narghile and one serving tea. This oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm was sold for $ 18.6M by Sotheby's on May 3, 2005, lot 12.
The Version L is a grisaille, 130 x 97 cm, dated February 9, 1955. The topic, centered on a figure of dominatrix woman, is executed in the manner of the experimental years of Cubism before the First World War. The cumulated experience of Picasso makes this painting a luminous work that exceeds in this respect many early Cubist paintings of the master. It was sold for $ 21.3M by Christie's on May 4, 2011.
The final iteration, 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.
The fifteen paintings are exhibited together to be sold as a batch. For that purpose, they should not be considered as fourteen sketches and a final painting but as fifteen versions on the same theme.
Thus the dispersion will not be made under the control of the artist or his dealers but by the Ganz couple who bought the set in 1956 for owning the final version (O). The Ganzs will also keep for their collection one of the most complete sketches (C), a style typical of the time of Marie-Thérèse (H) and two grisailles of the final phase (K and M).
The selection of the Ganzs is much judicious. It does not include the 54 x 65 cm complete version of the first phase (F), probably because it does not bring much beside the O version.
The Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold by Christie's for $ 32M on November 10, 1997 and for $ 180M on May 11, 2015, lot 8A.
Response by Grok :
Quote
ART FLAW @ART_FLAW
Jan 8, 2024
|LES RECORDS DU MARCHÉ DE L'ART 08/31| Pablo Picasso, Les femmes d’Alger Version O, 1955. Adjugée pour 179,4millions de dollars (frais compris) le 11 mai 2015 par Christie’s New York. L’œuvre fut acquise par la famille princière du Qatar. D'après les informations connues ce jour
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's death in November 1954 deprives Picasso of a friend with whom he liked to compare his ideas about the essentials of art. Matisse's Odalisques were famous. Picasso had been little interested so far by Orientalism but he was somehow jealous of his late friend.
To overcome Matisse in the history of art, Picasso resuscitates the Femmes d'Alger in a series of fifteen paintings numbered A to O in the chronological order of their execution. This project is unique in the history of art as the artist carefully imitated several styles used by himself starting from his invention of Cubism.
Picasso leaves no doubt about his real intention by acknowledging not without humor that he got the legacy of Matisse's odalisques. His new muse, Jacqueline, resembles one of the odalisques by Delacroix. Matisse's Nu bleu is another influence.
From December 13, 1954 to January 18, 1955, Picasso painted six sketches 46 x 55 cm, sometimes limited to one detail. The day before the end of this first phase, he made an oil on canvas 54 x 65 cm which foreshadows the final work by its overall composition, its brilliant colors and the post-Cubist interweaving of forms.
That F version was sold for $ 29M by Christie's on July 10, 2020, lot 52. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The next phase is devoted to larger formats, including grisaille paintings which allow the details of the drawing to be worked out. The result meets what was undoubtedly Picasso's main objective : making a modern following to the Demoiselles d'Avignon.
The Version J, painted on January 26, 1955, is the tenth opus in the series. It features the four women of the full compositions, one seated, one reclining, one smoking a narghile and one serving tea. This oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm was sold for $ 18.6M by Sotheby's on May 3, 2005, lot 12.
The Version L is a grisaille, 130 x 97 cm, dated February 9, 1955. The topic, centered on a figure of dominatrix woman, is executed in the manner of the experimental years of Cubism before the First World War. The cumulated experience of Picasso makes this painting a luminous work that exceeds in this respect many early Cubist paintings of the master. It was sold for $ 21.3M by Christie's on May 4, 2011.
The final iteration, 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.
The fifteen paintings are exhibited together to be sold as a batch. For that purpose, they should not be considered as fourteen sketches and a final painting but as fifteen versions on the same theme.
Thus the dispersion will not be made under the control of the artist or his dealers but by the Ganz couple who bought the set in 1956 for owning the final version (O). The Ganzs will also keep for their collection one of the most complete sketches (C), a style typical of the time of Marie-Thérèse (H) and two grisailles of the final phase (K and M).
The selection of the Ganzs is much judicious. It does not include the 54 x 65 cm complete version of the first phase (F), probably because it does not bring much beside the O version.
The Version O of Les Femmes d'Alger was sold by Christie's for $ 32M on November 10, 1997 and for $ 180M on May 11, 2015, lot 8A.
Response by Grok :
Quote
ART FLAW @ART_FLAW
Jan 8, 2024
|LES RECORDS DU MARCHÉ DE L'ART 08/31| Pablo Picasso, Les femmes d’Alger Version O, 1955. Adjugée pour 179,4millions de dollars (frais compris) le 11 mai 2015 par Christie’s New York. L’œuvre fut acquise par la famille princière du Qatar. D'après les informations connues ce jour
- The X post highlights Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger (Version O), sold for $179.4 million in 2015 at Christie’s, a record-breaking price influenced by the Qatar royal family's strategic art investments, which have reshaped global art market dynamics since the 2000s, per Artprice data showing their $1 billion+ spending on Western art.
- This painting, part of a 1954-1955 series inspired by Delacroix, reflects Picasso’s peak creativity at La Californie, where the Mediterranean setting boosted his output, supported by art historian Douglas Cooper’s analysis of its stylistic evolution.
- The sale underscores a shift in art ownership, with the Qatar purchase aligning with their Medici-like cultural strategy, challenging Western dominance, as noted in a 2025 study from the Journal of Cultural Economics on Gulf states’ impact on auction records.
Les Femmes d'Alger by Picasso. Compare Version O, to be taken as the reference, with preparatory versions F, J and L. Discuss the artist's intention to build a synthesis of his Cubist styles.
Overview of the Series
Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series, created between December 1954 and February 1955, consists of 15 oil paintings (versions A through O) inspired by Eugène Delacroix's 1834 painting The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment. The works also serve as an homage to Henri Matisse, who had recently died, incorporating elements of his odalisques and colorful cut-outs. Through these variations, Picasso explored themes of female figures in a harem setting, progressively distorting forms, space, and color to revisit and synthesize his Cubist innovations from earlier in his career.
Version O: The Reference
Version O, completed on February 14, 1955, measures 114 × 146.4 cm and represents the culmination of the series. It depicts four women in a compressed, chaotic interior: a stately seated figure on the left (often interpreted as resembling Picasso's partner Jacqueline Roque, with a long neck and elegant face), a reclining odalisque at the bottom, a standing servant in the background, and another figure integrated into the fractured space. The composition features intensely vibrant colors—brash reds, blues, and yellows—in flat patches, distorted perspectives, and interlocking geometric planes that create a sense of depthless turmoil. Fractured Cubist forms dominate, with bodies twisted to show multiple viewpoints simultaneously, blending analytic Cubism's sharp dissections with synthetic Cubism's bold, collage-like assembly. This version synthesizes the series' experiments into a dynamic whole, evoking a "maelstrom of colour and shattered and flattened perspectives." It stands as an "epic master class on the ways of painting, art history, color, structure, and form."
Comparison with Preparatory Versions
Version F
Painted on January 17, 1955, Version F (dimensions not consistently specified, but medium-sized like early works in the series) marks a midpoint in the exploratory phase. It features only three figures, omitting the fourth seen in Delacroix's original and later Picasso versions. The rightmost figure dominates the foreground, spreading expansively with a downward-pointing breast, echoing Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) from 1907 (though without the blue hue seen in the similar Version E). The composition is looser and rougher than O, with less resolved spatial dynamics and a more tentative abstraction—figures are fragmented but not as interlocked or chaotic. Colors are vibrant but not as violently clashing, and the overall feel is more improvisational, focusing on anatomical distortions rather than a packed, synthesized scene. Compared to O, F is simpler and less ambitious, serving as a building block by experimenting with figure dominance and Matissean influences before the fuller integration in the final version.
Version J
Version J, likely painted in late January 1955 (dimensions approximately 45 × 57.5 inches), emphasizes distortion in a multi-figure composition similar to O but with a more focused ambiguity. The reclining woman in the foreground has an upper body divided horizontally: the lower half and head suggest she lies on her stomach, while the upper breast, navel, and leg position indicate a back-down pose, creating impossible contortions that present front and back views at once. Colors are present but subdued compared to O's intensity, with sharper Cubist edges and a sense of spatial compression. Unlike O's harmonious synthesis, J feels more analytical and experimental, highlighting anatomical puzzles as a preparatory step toward the final's fluid multiplicity. It bridges early looseness (like F) and later monumentality (like L), advancing the series' progression toward complex viewpoints.
Version L
Completed on February 9, 1955, Version L (130 × 97 cm) is a large-format, monochrome (grisaille) portrait isolating the seated woman from the left of Delacroix's composition. She appears pyramid-like, enthroned with a hookah, evoking a sphinx or the ancient goddess Astarte—majestic, inscrutable, and embodying "sexually powerful and fertile womanhood." The style recalls Picasso's early analytic Cubism with sharp, grey-toned edges and geometric fragmentation, but without the color or multi-figure chaos of O. Compared to the reference, L is starkly simplified: one figure versus four, tonal restraint versus vibrant patches, and a static, intimidating presence versus dynamic energy. It acts as a preparatory focus on individual power, which O integrates into a broader ensemble, softening the severity with color and movement.
In summary, Versions F, J, and L are preparatory in their increasing complexity—F's loose three-figure exploration, J's ambiguous distortions, and L's monumental isolation—building toward O's fuller, more resolved synthesis. Early versions like F prioritize improvisation and homage to Matisse, while later ones like J and L deepen Cubist dissections, culminating in O's balanced fusion.
Picasso's Intention: Synthesizing Cubist Styles
Picasso's series reflects a deliberate effort to revisit and synthesize his Cubist styles in his later years, blending analytic Cubism's deconstructive, monochromatic fragmentation (evident in L's sharp greys and geometric forms) with synthetic Cubism's colorful, collage-inspired assembly (seen in O's flat planes and vibrant patches). At age 73, he used Delacroix's composition as a framework for "research" into painting's possibilities, appropriating historical motifs while infusing them with personal obsessions like distorted anatomy and multiple viewpoints. The progression from preparatory versions' tentative experiments to O's "brilliant syntheses" demonstrates his intent to merge early Cubist rigor with Matissean color and later abstraction, creating a "vital discussion on the very possibilities of painting." This was not just homage but a reclamation, as Picasso stated Matisse "left his odalisques to me as a legacy," transforming Orientalist themes into a modern Cubist dialogue. The result in O is a milestone that encapsulates Cubism's evolution, proving its enduring vitality.
Delacroix's Original: The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment
Eugène Delacroix's The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834, oil on canvas, 180 × 229 cm, Louvre, Paris) is a quintessential Romantic and Orientalist work, inspired by the artist's 1832 trip to Morocco and Algeria. It depicts three richly dressed women lounging in a luxurious harem interior, attended by a Black servant woman entering from the right with a tray or vessel. The scene is bathed in warm, diffused light filtering through a window, creating a sense of exotic intimacy and mystery. Colors are opulent—deep reds, golds, and blues—with meticulous details in textiles, jewelry, and architectural elements like the tiled floor and arched niches. The figures are rendered realistically, with serene expressions and naturalistic poses, evoking a voyeuristic glimpse into a forbidden, sensual world. Delacroix painted a second version in 1849 (now in Montpellier), which shifts the composition slightly by moving the figures forward and altering details, but maintains the overall Romantic allure.
Comparison of Picasso's Version O to Delacroix's Original
Picasso's Version O (1955) radically reinterprets Delacroix's composition through a Cubist lens, transforming the serene, narrative scene into a fragmented, dynamic explosion of form and color. While Delacroix presents a cohesive, illusionistic space with depth and atmosphere, Picasso flattens the interior into interlocking geometric planes, eliminating realistic perspective for multiple simultaneous viewpoints—echoing his Analytic and Synthetic Cubist phases. The four figures (three women and a servant) are distorted: the seated woman on the left becomes elongated and regal (resembling Jacqueline Roque), the reclining odalisque at the bottom twists impossibly, the standing servant merges into the background, and another figure blends into the chaos. Unlike Delacroix's clothed, modest women, Picasso's are nude or semi-nude, emphasizing eroticism and anatomical abstraction over cultural specificity—breasts, limbs, and faces are dissected and reassembled. Colors shift from Delacroix's warm, harmonious palette to brash, clashing primaries (reds, blues, yellows) in flat patches, evoking Matisse's influence rather than Orientalist exoticism. Details like the hookah, curtains, and furnishings are simplified or stylized, losing narrative detail for formal experimentation. Overall, Version O strips away Delacroix's Romantic voyeurism, replacing it with a modern, abstract dialogue on perception and form, while paying homage to the original as a structural framework.
Comparison of Preparatory Versions F, J, and L to Delacroix's OriginalThe preparatory versions F, J, and L represent Picasso's incremental departures from Delacroix's original, building toward the synthesis in O. Each experiments with elements of the harem scene but progressively abstracts them through Cubism.
Picasso's Intentions in Relation to the Original
Picasso's series uses Delacroix's painting as a "template" to synthesize his Cubist styles, blending Analytic deconstruction (sharp fragments in L and J) with Synthetic assembly (bold colors and planes in F and O). Triggered by Matisse's death in 1954, it serves as a dual homage—reclaiming Matisse's odalisques while engaging Delacroix's Orientalism in a post-colonial context (coinciding with the Algerian War's outbreak). By distorting the original's exoticism into modern abstraction, Picasso explores painting's possibilities, moving from preparatory experiments to O's "brilliant synthesis," bracketing colonialism's era from Delacroix's imperial gaze to his own fragmented modernity.
Explore Matisse's odalisque influence
Henri Matisse's Odalisques: An Overview
Henri Matisse (1869–1954), a leading figure in Fauvism and modern art, produced a significant body of work featuring odalisques—reclining or seated female figures often depicted in exotic, Orientalist harem settings. These paintings, created primarily in the 1920s during his time in Nice, France, drew from North African influences encountered during trips to Morocco in 1912–1913. Matisse's odalisques embody sensuality, vibrant color, and decorative patterns, with models like Henriette Darricarrère or Antoinette Arnoud posed in elaborate costumes, surrounded by textiles, screens, and mirrors that flatten space and emphasize surface beauty. Key themes include eroticism, luxury, and escapism, blending Western modernism with imagined Eastern motifs. Unlike the more narrative Orientalism of 19th-century artists like Delacroix, Matisse focused on formal elements: bold, harmonious colors; fluid lines; and a harmonious integration of figure and background, prefiguring his later paper cut-outs.
Notable examples include Odalisque with Raised Arms (1923), where a seated woman with arms aloft creates a rhythmic pose against patterned fabrics; Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (1907), a controversial early work with a reclining figure in blue tones, blending sculpture-like form with ambiguous racial features; and Odalisque in Red Trousers (c. 1924–1925), showcasing vibrant reds and relaxed sensuality. These works reflect Matisse's pursuit of "an art of balance, of purity and serenity," using color as an emotional force rather than realistic depiction.
Picasso's Relationship with Matisse
Picasso and Matisse shared a complex rivalry-turned-friendship, marked by mutual respect and artistic dialogue. Meeting in 1906 through Gertrude Stein, they challenged each other: Matisse's Fauvist color influenced Picasso's early experiments, while Picasso's Cubism pushed Matisse toward abstraction. By the 1950s, their bond deepened, with Picasso viewing Matisse as his primary contemporary equal. Matisse's death on November 3, 1954, profoundly affected Picasso, who began Les Femmes d'Alger just weeks later as a mourning ritual and inheritance claim. Picasso famously quipped, "When Matisse died, he left his odalisques to me as a legacy," positioning himself as the heir to Matisse's sensual, colorful harem themes while reinterpreting them through Cubism.
Influence on Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger Series
Matisse's odalisques provided Picasso with a visual vocabulary of languid poses, vibrant palettes, and flattened interiors, which he fused with Delacroix's composition and his own Cubist distortions. The series (1954–1955) transforms Matisse's serene, decorative sensuality into fragmented, dynamic energy, creating a "dialogue" across art history. Picasso appropriated Matisse's motifs—reclining nudes, raised arms, and exotic accoutrements—while intensifying color clashes and spatial ambiguity. This homage coincided with the Algerian War's outbreak, adding layers of postcolonial tension, though Picasso's focus remained artistic rather than political. Overall, Matisse's influence softened Picasso's late Cubism with Fauvist vibrancy, aiding his synthesis of analytic (sharp fragments) and synthetic (bold assemblages) styles into a colorful, multifaceted whole.
Specific Influences in Version O (Reference)
Version O epitomizes Matisse's impact, with its "maelstrom of colour" echoing Matisse's harmonious yet bold palettes. The reclining odalisque at the bottom—faceless, twisted to show multiple views—directly references Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) in pose and ambiguity, blending front and back in erotic abandon. The cross-legged figure with raised arms nods to Odalisque with Raised Arms, integrated into a chaotic ensemble. Matisse's decorative patterns appear in stylized textiles and screens, but Picasso shatters them Cubistically, synthesizing Matissean sensuality with his own geometric turmoil for a "visual summation" of art history.
Influences in Preparatory Versions
Picasso's intention in the series was to revisit his Cubist roots—analytic dissection and synthetic collage—while incorporating Matisse's legacy for a late-career renewal. Matisse's odalisques injected color and sensuality, allowing Picasso to merge Fauvist expressiveness with Cubist multiplicity. Preparatory versions like F, J, and L experiment with these elements incrementally: F's loose Matissean poses, J's ambiguous distortions, and L's stark forms culminate in O's "brilliant synthesis," where fragmented planes vibrate with Matissean hues. This fusion not only mourns Matisse but reaffirms Cubism's vitality, creating a "Herculean effort" to transcend grief through artistic dialogue.
Overview of the Series
Pablo Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger series, created between December 1954 and February 1955, consists of 15 oil paintings (versions A through O) inspired by Eugène Delacroix's 1834 painting The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment. The works also serve as an homage to Henri Matisse, who had recently died, incorporating elements of his odalisques and colorful cut-outs. Through these variations, Picasso explored themes of female figures in a harem setting, progressively distorting forms, space, and color to revisit and synthesize his Cubist innovations from earlier in his career.
Version O: The Reference
Version O, completed on February 14, 1955, measures 114 × 146.4 cm and represents the culmination of the series. It depicts four women in a compressed, chaotic interior: a stately seated figure on the left (often interpreted as resembling Picasso's partner Jacqueline Roque, with a long neck and elegant face), a reclining odalisque at the bottom, a standing servant in the background, and another figure integrated into the fractured space. The composition features intensely vibrant colors—brash reds, blues, and yellows—in flat patches, distorted perspectives, and interlocking geometric planes that create a sense of depthless turmoil. Fractured Cubist forms dominate, with bodies twisted to show multiple viewpoints simultaneously, blending analytic Cubism's sharp dissections with synthetic Cubism's bold, collage-like assembly. This version synthesizes the series' experiments into a dynamic whole, evoking a "maelstrom of colour and shattered and flattened perspectives." It stands as an "epic master class on the ways of painting, art history, color, structure, and form."
Comparison with Preparatory Versions
Version F
Painted on January 17, 1955, Version F (dimensions not consistently specified, but medium-sized like early works in the series) marks a midpoint in the exploratory phase. It features only three figures, omitting the fourth seen in Delacroix's original and later Picasso versions. The rightmost figure dominates the foreground, spreading expansively with a downward-pointing breast, echoing Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) from 1907 (though without the blue hue seen in the similar Version E). The composition is looser and rougher than O, with less resolved spatial dynamics and a more tentative abstraction—figures are fragmented but not as interlocked or chaotic. Colors are vibrant but not as violently clashing, and the overall feel is more improvisational, focusing on anatomical distortions rather than a packed, synthesized scene. Compared to O, F is simpler and less ambitious, serving as a building block by experimenting with figure dominance and Matissean influences before the fuller integration in the final version.
Version J
Version J, likely painted in late January 1955 (dimensions approximately 45 × 57.5 inches), emphasizes distortion in a multi-figure composition similar to O but with a more focused ambiguity. The reclining woman in the foreground has an upper body divided horizontally: the lower half and head suggest she lies on her stomach, while the upper breast, navel, and leg position indicate a back-down pose, creating impossible contortions that present front and back views at once. Colors are present but subdued compared to O's intensity, with sharper Cubist edges and a sense of spatial compression. Unlike O's harmonious synthesis, J feels more analytical and experimental, highlighting anatomical puzzles as a preparatory step toward the final's fluid multiplicity. It bridges early looseness (like F) and later monumentality (like L), advancing the series' progression toward complex viewpoints.
Version L
Completed on February 9, 1955, Version L (130 × 97 cm) is a large-format, monochrome (grisaille) portrait isolating the seated woman from the left of Delacroix's composition. She appears pyramid-like, enthroned with a hookah, evoking a sphinx or the ancient goddess Astarte—majestic, inscrutable, and embodying "sexually powerful and fertile womanhood." The style recalls Picasso's early analytic Cubism with sharp, grey-toned edges and geometric fragmentation, but without the color or multi-figure chaos of O. Compared to the reference, L is starkly simplified: one figure versus four, tonal restraint versus vibrant patches, and a static, intimidating presence versus dynamic energy. It acts as a preparatory focus on individual power, which O integrates into a broader ensemble, softening the severity with color and movement.
In summary, Versions F, J, and L are preparatory in their increasing complexity—F's loose three-figure exploration, J's ambiguous distortions, and L's monumental isolation—building toward O's fuller, more resolved synthesis. Early versions like F prioritize improvisation and homage to Matisse, while later ones like J and L deepen Cubist dissections, culminating in O's balanced fusion.
Picasso's Intention: Synthesizing Cubist Styles
Picasso's series reflects a deliberate effort to revisit and synthesize his Cubist styles in his later years, blending analytic Cubism's deconstructive, monochromatic fragmentation (evident in L's sharp greys and geometric forms) with synthetic Cubism's colorful, collage-inspired assembly (seen in O's flat planes and vibrant patches). At age 73, he used Delacroix's composition as a framework for "research" into painting's possibilities, appropriating historical motifs while infusing them with personal obsessions like distorted anatomy and multiple viewpoints. The progression from preparatory versions' tentative experiments to O's "brilliant syntheses" demonstrates his intent to merge early Cubist rigor with Matissean color and later abstraction, creating a "vital discussion on the very possibilities of painting." This was not just homage but a reclamation, as Picasso stated Matisse "left his odalisques to me as a legacy," transforming Orientalist themes into a modern Cubist dialogue. The result in O is a milestone that encapsulates Cubism's evolution, proving its enduring vitality.
Delacroix's Original: The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment
Eugène Delacroix's The Women of Algiers in Their Apartment (1834, oil on canvas, 180 × 229 cm, Louvre, Paris) is a quintessential Romantic and Orientalist work, inspired by the artist's 1832 trip to Morocco and Algeria. It depicts three richly dressed women lounging in a luxurious harem interior, attended by a Black servant woman entering from the right with a tray or vessel. The scene is bathed in warm, diffused light filtering through a window, creating a sense of exotic intimacy and mystery. Colors are opulent—deep reds, golds, and blues—with meticulous details in textiles, jewelry, and architectural elements like the tiled floor and arched niches. The figures are rendered realistically, with serene expressions and naturalistic poses, evoking a voyeuristic glimpse into a forbidden, sensual world. Delacroix painted a second version in 1849 (now in Montpellier), which shifts the composition slightly by moving the figures forward and altering details, but maintains the overall Romantic allure.
Comparison of Picasso's Version O to Delacroix's Original
Picasso's Version O (1955) radically reinterprets Delacroix's composition through a Cubist lens, transforming the serene, narrative scene into a fragmented, dynamic explosion of form and color. While Delacroix presents a cohesive, illusionistic space with depth and atmosphere, Picasso flattens the interior into interlocking geometric planes, eliminating realistic perspective for multiple simultaneous viewpoints—echoing his Analytic and Synthetic Cubist phases. The four figures (three women and a servant) are distorted: the seated woman on the left becomes elongated and regal (resembling Jacqueline Roque), the reclining odalisque at the bottom twists impossibly, the standing servant merges into the background, and another figure blends into the chaos. Unlike Delacroix's clothed, modest women, Picasso's are nude or semi-nude, emphasizing eroticism and anatomical abstraction over cultural specificity—breasts, limbs, and faces are dissected and reassembled. Colors shift from Delacroix's warm, harmonious palette to brash, clashing primaries (reds, blues, yellows) in flat patches, evoking Matisse's influence rather than Orientalist exoticism. Details like the hookah, curtains, and furnishings are simplified or stylized, losing narrative detail for formal experimentation. Overall, Version O strips away Delacroix's Romantic voyeurism, replacing it with a modern, abstract dialogue on perception and form, while paying homage to the original as a structural framework.
Comparison of Preparatory Versions F, J, and L to Delacroix's OriginalThe preparatory versions F, J, and L represent Picasso's incremental departures from Delacroix's original, building toward the synthesis in O. Each experiments with elements of the harem scene but progressively abstracts them through Cubism.
- Version F (January 17, 1955): This version simplifies Delacroix's composition to three figures, omitting the fourth woman, much like Picasso's early sketches and initial paintings (A and B) in the series. The dominant rightmost figure sprawls expansively with distorted anatomy (e.g., a downward-pointing breast), echoing Matisse more than Delacroix's poised women. Space is looser and less detailed than Delacroix's intricate interior, with vibrant but unresolved colors and tentative fragmentation—focusing on pose experimentation rather than the original's atmospheric depth or cultural attire.
- Version J (late January 1955): Closer to Delacroix in including multiple figures, but with heightened ambiguity. The reclining foreground woman combines front and back views in an impossible contortion, a Cubist twist absent in Delacroix's naturalistic poses. Colors are subdued compared to O, and edges sharper, emphasizing analytical dissection over Romantic harmony. It diverges by compressing space and prioritizing anatomical puzzles, moving away from Delacroix's serene grouping toward O's chaotic integration.
- Version L (February 9, 1955): This monochrome grisaille isolates the seated woman from Delacroix's left, rendering her as a monumental, pyramid-like figure with a hookah, evoking ancient statuary rather than a harem inhabitant. Lacking color and companions, it strips Delacroix's opulent scene to stark geometric fragmentation, recalling Picasso's early Analytic Cubism. The focus on individual power and inscrutability contrasts Delacroix's ensemble narrative, serving as a preparatory study for O's ensemble while highlighting severity over sensuality.
Picasso's Intentions in Relation to the Original
Picasso's series uses Delacroix's painting as a "template" to synthesize his Cubist styles, blending Analytic deconstruction (sharp fragments in L and J) with Synthetic assembly (bold colors and planes in F and O). Triggered by Matisse's death in 1954, it serves as a dual homage—reclaiming Matisse's odalisques while engaging Delacroix's Orientalism in a post-colonial context (coinciding with the Algerian War's outbreak). By distorting the original's exoticism into modern abstraction, Picasso explores painting's possibilities, moving from preparatory experiments to O's "brilliant synthesis," bracketing colonialism's era from Delacroix's imperial gaze to his own fragmented modernity.
Explore Matisse's odalisque influence
Henri Matisse's Odalisques: An Overview
Henri Matisse (1869–1954), a leading figure in Fauvism and modern art, produced a significant body of work featuring odalisques—reclining or seated female figures often depicted in exotic, Orientalist harem settings. These paintings, created primarily in the 1920s during his time in Nice, France, drew from North African influences encountered during trips to Morocco in 1912–1913. Matisse's odalisques embody sensuality, vibrant color, and decorative patterns, with models like Henriette Darricarrère or Antoinette Arnoud posed in elaborate costumes, surrounded by textiles, screens, and mirrors that flatten space and emphasize surface beauty. Key themes include eroticism, luxury, and escapism, blending Western modernism with imagined Eastern motifs. Unlike the more narrative Orientalism of 19th-century artists like Delacroix, Matisse focused on formal elements: bold, harmonious colors; fluid lines; and a harmonious integration of figure and background, prefiguring his later paper cut-outs.
Notable examples include Odalisque with Raised Arms (1923), where a seated woman with arms aloft creates a rhythmic pose against patterned fabrics; Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) (1907), a controversial early work with a reclining figure in blue tones, blending sculpture-like form with ambiguous racial features; and Odalisque in Red Trousers (c. 1924–1925), showcasing vibrant reds and relaxed sensuality. These works reflect Matisse's pursuit of "an art of balance, of purity and serenity," using color as an emotional force rather than realistic depiction.
Picasso's Relationship with Matisse
Picasso and Matisse shared a complex rivalry-turned-friendship, marked by mutual respect and artistic dialogue. Meeting in 1906 through Gertrude Stein, they challenged each other: Matisse's Fauvist color influenced Picasso's early experiments, while Picasso's Cubism pushed Matisse toward abstraction. By the 1950s, their bond deepened, with Picasso viewing Matisse as his primary contemporary equal. Matisse's death on November 3, 1954, profoundly affected Picasso, who began Les Femmes d'Alger just weeks later as a mourning ritual and inheritance claim. Picasso famously quipped, "When Matisse died, he left his odalisques to me as a legacy," positioning himself as the heir to Matisse's sensual, colorful harem themes while reinterpreting them through Cubism.
Influence on Picasso's Les Femmes d'Alger Series
Matisse's odalisques provided Picasso with a visual vocabulary of languid poses, vibrant palettes, and flattened interiors, which he fused with Delacroix's composition and his own Cubist distortions. The series (1954–1955) transforms Matisse's serene, decorative sensuality into fragmented, dynamic energy, creating a "dialogue" across art history. Picasso appropriated Matisse's motifs—reclining nudes, raised arms, and exotic accoutrements—while intensifying color clashes and spatial ambiguity. This homage coincided with the Algerian War's outbreak, adding layers of postcolonial tension, though Picasso's focus remained artistic rather than political. Overall, Matisse's influence softened Picasso's late Cubism with Fauvist vibrancy, aiding his synthesis of analytic (sharp fragments) and synthetic (bold assemblages) styles into a colorful, multifaceted whole.
Specific Influences in Version O (Reference)
Version O epitomizes Matisse's impact, with its "maelstrom of colour" echoing Matisse's harmonious yet bold palettes. The reclining odalisque at the bottom—faceless, twisted to show multiple views—directly references Matisse's Blue Nude (Souvenir de Biskra) in pose and ambiguity, blending front and back in erotic abandon. The cross-legged figure with raised arms nods to Odalisque with Raised Arms, integrated into a chaotic ensemble. Matisse's decorative patterns appear in stylized textiles and screens, but Picasso shatters them Cubistically, synthesizing Matissean sensuality with his own geometric turmoil for a "visual summation" of art history.
Influences in Preparatory Versions
- Version F: This early variant strongly channels Matisse, with the dominant rightmost figure sprawling in a pose reminiscent of Blue Nude, including a downward-pointing breast and expansive form. Colors are vibrant but improvisational, prioritizing Matissean anatomical fluidity over full Cubist fragmentation, as a stepping stone to O's intensity.
- Version J: Matisse's influence appears in the ambiguous reclining foreground woman, whose impossible contortion (prone yet supine) echoes the spatial play and erotic poses in Matisse's odalisques, like Blue Nude. Subdued colors and sharper edges blend Matisse's sensuality with analytic Cubism, advancing toward O's synthesis.
- Version L: Less directly Matissean due to its grisaille monochrome, this isolated seated figure evokes Matisse's monumental odalisques (e.g., Odalisque in Red Trousers) in its pyramid-like poise and inscrutable power. Lacking color, it focuses on form, preparing O's integration of Matisse's vibrancy with Cubist structure.
Picasso's intention in the series was to revisit his Cubist roots—analytic dissection and synthetic collage—while incorporating Matisse's legacy for a late-career renewal. Matisse's odalisques injected color and sensuality, allowing Picasso to merge Fauvist expressiveness with Cubist multiplicity. Preparatory versions like F, J, and L experiment with these elements incrementally: F's loose Matissean poses, J's ambiguous distortions, and L's stark forms culminate in O's "brilliant synthesis," where fragmented planes vibrate with Matissean hues. This fusion not only mourns Matisse but reaffirms Cubism's vitality, creating a "Herculean effort" to transcend grief through artistic dialogue.
2
Femme accroupie au Costume Turc
2007 SOLD for $ 31M by Christie's
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 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 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 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 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 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.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé is a legendary two-seater sports car from 1955, often hailed as one of the greatest automotive achievements of the 20th century. Named after Rudolf Uhlenhaut, Mercedes-Benz's chief engineer and head of the test department, it was essentially a road-legal adaptation of the dominant 300 SLR race car, which had powered the company to victory in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship. Only two examples were ever built, using surplus parts from the racing program after Mercedes abruptly withdrew from motorsport following the tragic 1955 Le Mans disaster that killed over 80 spectators. Uhlenhaut himself used one as a company car, famously driving it at high speeds on public roads, including a reported top speed exceeding 180 mph (290 km/h).
Its engineering was groundbreaking, drawing directly from the W 196 R Formula One car that won championships in 1954 and 1955. Powered by a 3.0-liter straight-eight engine producing around 310 horsepower, it featured advanced elements like a tubular spaceframe chassis, desmodromic valves, direct fuel injection, and a sleek, gullwing-door body designed for both aerodynamics and practicality. This made it not just a test vehicle but a symbol of Mercedes-Benz's engineering prowess during the post-war era, bridging the gap between racing dominance and road-car innovation. The 300 SLR series, including the open-top racers, secured iconic wins like Stirling Moss's record-setting victory at the 1955 Mille Miglia, cementing Mercedes' reputation for speed, reliability, and technological superiority. The Uhlenhaut Coupé, in particular, represents the "what if" of Mercedes continuing in endurance racing, as it was tested extensively but never competed.
In Mercedes-Benz history, the Uhlenhaut Coupé holds immense significance as a milestone in sports car development and a key artifact of the brand's racing heritage. It embodies the Silver Arrow era's spirit of innovation, where lessons from the track influenced future production models like the 300 SL Gullwing. For decades, both coupés were preserved in the Mercedes-Benz Museum collection, underscoring their role as "holy grails" of automotive history. The car's rarity—being one of just two prototypes—and its direct ties to Uhlenhaut's genius have elevated it to mythic status among collectors and enthusiasts.
In May 2022, one of the two Uhlenhaut Coupés (chassis number 00008/55) was sold at a private auction hosted by RM Sotheby's at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, fetching a record €135 million (approximately $142 million USD) from a private collector. This shattered previous auction records, making it the most expensive car ever sold and highlighting its unparalleled historical value. The proceeds funded the establishment of the Mercedes-Benz Fund, aimed at supporting research in decarbonization and resource conservation. The remaining example stays in Mercedes' collection, ensuring its legacy endures.
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.
The Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé is a legendary two-seater sports car from 1955, often hailed as one of the greatest automotive achievements of the 20th century. Named after Rudolf Uhlenhaut, Mercedes-Benz's chief engineer and head of the test department, it was essentially a road-legal adaptation of the dominant 300 SLR race car, which had powered the company to victory in the 1955 World Sportscar Championship. Only two examples were ever built, using surplus parts from the racing program after Mercedes abruptly withdrew from motorsport following the tragic 1955 Le Mans disaster that killed over 80 spectators. Uhlenhaut himself used one as a company car, famously driving it at high speeds on public roads, including a reported top speed exceeding 180 mph (290 km/h).
Its engineering was groundbreaking, drawing directly from the W 196 R Formula One car that won championships in 1954 and 1955. Powered by a 3.0-liter straight-eight engine producing around 310 horsepower, it featured advanced elements like a tubular spaceframe chassis, desmodromic valves, direct fuel injection, and a sleek, gullwing-door body designed for both aerodynamics and practicality. This made it not just a test vehicle but a symbol of Mercedes-Benz's engineering prowess during the post-war era, bridging the gap between racing dominance and road-car innovation. The 300 SLR series, including the open-top racers, secured iconic wins like Stirling Moss's record-setting victory at the 1955 Mille Miglia, cementing Mercedes' reputation for speed, reliability, and technological superiority. The Uhlenhaut Coupé, in particular, represents the "what if" of Mercedes continuing in endurance racing, as it was tested extensively but never competed.
In Mercedes-Benz history, the Uhlenhaut Coupé holds immense significance as a milestone in sports car development and a key artifact of the brand's racing heritage. It embodies the Silver Arrow era's spirit of innovation, where lessons from the track influenced future production models like the 300 SL Gullwing. For decades, both coupés were preserved in the Mercedes-Benz Museum collection, underscoring their role as "holy grails" of automotive history. The car's rarity—being one of just two prototypes—and its direct ties to Uhlenhaut's genius have elevated it to mythic status among collectors and enthusiasts.
In May 2022, one of the two Uhlenhaut Coupés (chassis number 00008/55) was sold at a private auction hosted by RM Sotheby's at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart, fetching a record €135 million (approximately $142 million USD) from a private collector. This shattered previous auction records, making it the most expensive car ever sold and highlighting its unparalleled historical value. The proceeds funded the establishment of the Mercedes-Benz Fund, aimed at supporting research in decarbonization and resource conservation. The remaining example stays in Mercedes' collection, ensuring its legacy endures.
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.Woman as Landscape, aka Woman as a Landscape, by de Kooning, sold by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 7 B. Compare with the whole range of the Woman I-VI series.
Willem de Kooning's "Woman as Landscape"
"Woman as Landscape" (1954-1955) is an oil and charcoal on canvas painting measuring 65 3/8 x 49 1/4 inches (166 x 125 cm), depicting a female figure that blends seamlessly with abstract landscape elements, such as blue skies and green earth tones, reflecting de Kooning's evolving interest in merging human forms with environmental motifs. The work features bold, gestural brushstrokes and a vibrant palette, with the woman's form emerging through layers of paint that suggest both eroticism and abstraction. Signed "de Kooning" in the lower left, it was completed in 1955 and represents a transitional phase in his career, moving beyond pure figuration toward more fluid, integrated compositions.
This piece has a notable provenance, including ownership by actor Steve Martin in the 1990s, and was part of the collection of luxury travel entrepreneur Barney A. Ebsworth before its sale. It achieved $68,937,500 at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on November 13, 2018 (Lot 7B), surpassing its $60-80 million estimate and setting an auction record for de Kooning at the time.
Comparison Between "Woman as Landscape" and the Woman I-VI Series
Both "Woman as Landscape" and the Woman I-VI series share de Kooning's signature Abstract Expressionist style, including vigorous, gestural brushstrokes, layered paint application, and a focus on the female form as a vehicle for exploring abstraction and representation. They reflect his fascination with the "grotesque" and erotic undertones, drawing from art historical precedents like the seated female figure or Madonna archetype while subverting them through distortion.
However, "Woman as Landscape" represents an evolution from the earlier series: created just after Woman I-VI, it integrates the figure more holistically with landscape elements, using colors like blues and greens to suggest environmental fusion rather than the confrontational isolation of the women in I-VI. The 1950-1953 works are more aggressive and "petulant," with stark, fragmented bodies, clashing hues, and a sense of violence—Woman I, for instance, features incised eyes and a toothy grimace that evoke menace.
In contrast, "Woman as Landscape" is softer and more fluid, with the figure "as" the landscape (not "in" it), indicating de Kooning's shift toward blending genres and a less hostile portrayal. The earlier series often feels confined and intense, while the later painting expands into a broader, more perceptual space, foreshadowing de Kooning's full embrace of landscape abstraction in the 1960s.
This progression highlights de Kooning's refusal to separate abstraction from figuration, using the woman motif to push boundaries across his oeuvre.
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.Woman as Landscape, aka Woman as a Landscape, by de Kooning, sold by Christie's on November 13, 2018, lot 7 B. Compare with the whole range of the Woman I-VI series.
Willem de Kooning's "Woman as Landscape"
"Woman as Landscape" (1954-1955) is an oil and charcoal on canvas painting measuring 65 3/8 x 49 1/4 inches (166 x 125 cm), depicting a female figure that blends seamlessly with abstract landscape elements, such as blue skies and green earth tones, reflecting de Kooning's evolving interest in merging human forms with environmental motifs. The work features bold, gestural brushstrokes and a vibrant palette, with the woman's form emerging through layers of paint that suggest both eroticism and abstraction. Signed "de Kooning" in the lower left, it was completed in 1955 and represents a transitional phase in his career, moving beyond pure figuration toward more fluid, integrated compositions.
This piece has a notable provenance, including ownership by actor Steve Martin in the 1990s, and was part of the collection of luxury travel entrepreneur Barney A. Ebsworth before its sale. It achieved $68,937,500 at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on November 13, 2018 (Lot 7B), surpassing its $60-80 million estimate and setting an auction record for de Kooning at the time.
Comparison Between "Woman as Landscape" and the Woman I-VI Series
Both "Woman as Landscape" and the Woman I-VI series share de Kooning's signature Abstract Expressionist style, including vigorous, gestural brushstrokes, layered paint application, and a focus on the female form as a vehicle for exploring abstraction and representation. They reflect his fascination with the "grotesque" and erotic undertones, drawing from art historical precedents like the seated female figure or Madonna archetype while subverting them through distortion.
However, "Woman as Landscape" represents an evolution from the earlier series: created just after Woman I-VI, it integrates the figure more holistically with landscape elements, using colors like blues and greens to suggest environmental fusion rather than the confrontational isolation of the women in I-VI. The 1950-1953 works are more aggressive and "petulant," with stark, fragmented bodies, clashing hues, and a sense of violence—Woman I, for instance, features incised eyes and a toothy grimace that evoke menace.
In contrast, "Woman as Landscape" is softer and more fluid, with the figure "as" the landscape (not "in" it), indicating de Kooning's shift toward blending genres and a less hostile portrayal. The earlier series often feels confined and intense, while the later painting expands into a broader, more perceptual space, foreshadowing de Kooning's full embrace of landscape abstraction in the 1960s.
This progression highlights de Kooning's refusal to separate abstraction from figuration, using the woman motif to push boundaries across his oeuvre.
1955 ROTHKO
1
Red, Blue, Orange
2014 SOLD for $ 56M by Phillips
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 by Sotheby's in 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 by Christie's on November 13, 2007, lot 12, and for $ 56M by Phillips on May 15, 2014, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by Phillips.
Asking Grok to define significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Mark Rothko's "Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange)" (1955) stands as a quintessential example from the peak of his mature phase, embodying the exuberant, luminous color fields that defined his most innovative and fertile period in the mid-1950s, before his palette darkened in the late 1950s and 1960s amid personal and philosophical shifts.
This painting captures Rothko's full mastery of abstraction after his earlier explorations in figurative art, Surrealism, and multiform compositions during the 1930s and 1940s, transitioning to large-scale, stacked rectangular forms that prioritize color as a conduit for profound emotional and spiritual experiences—tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime—while rejecting representational constraints to foster direct, intimate viewer engagement.
Created amid the postwar rise of the New York School and American Abstract Expressionism, it reflects his response to global devastation and modernity's threats, drawing on ancient myths, Nietzsche's Dionysian-Apollonian duality from "The Birth of Tragedy," and Romantic influences like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner to evoke universal human truths through radiant, pulsating hues that create a sense of infinite depth, presence, and metaphysical encounter.
In 1955, a year of professional milestones including his move to Sidney Janis Gallery and growing recognition as an investment-worthy artist, this work highlights Rothko's technical innovations—layering thinned pigments on raw canvas for tactile luminosity and dynamic equilibrium—positioning him as a humanist pioneer who viewed his canvases as "dramas" where colors perform in an "unknown adventure," ultimately solidifying his legacy in elevating abstraction to express the irreconcilable tensions of existence during a transformative era in his oeuvre of over 800 paintings.
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 by Sotheby's in 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 by Christie's on November 13, 2007, lot 12, and for $ 56M by Phillips on May 15, 2014, lot 18. Please watch the video shared by Phillips.
Asking Grok to define significance in the career of the artist.
Grok thought :
Mark Rothko's "Untitled (Red, Blue, Orange)" (1955) stands as a quintessential example from the peak of his mature phase, embodying the exuberant, luminous color fields that defined his most innovative and fertile period in the mid-1950s, before his palette darkened in the late 1950s and 1960s amid personal and philosophical shifts.
This painting captures Rothko's full mastery of abstraction after his earlier explorations in figurative art, Surrealism, and multiform compositions during the 1930s and 1940s, transitioning to large-scale, stacked rectangular forms that prioritize color as a conduit for profound emotional and spiritual experiences—tragedy, ecstasy, and the sublime—while rejecting representational constraints to foster direct, intimate viewer engagement.
Created amid the postwar rise of the New York School and American Abstract Expressionism, it reflects his response to global devastation and modernity's threats, drawing on ancient myths, Nietzsche's Dionysian-Apollonian duality from "The Birth of Tragedy," and Romantic influences like Caspar David Friedrich and J.M.W. Turner to evoke universal human truths through radiant, pulsating hues that create a sense of infinite depth, presence, and metaphysical encounter.
In 1955, a year of professional milestones including his move to Sidney Janis Gallery and growing recognition as an investment-worthy artist, this work highlights Rothko's technical innovations—layering thinned pigments on raw canvas for tactile luminosity and dynamic equilibrium—positioning him as a humanist pioneer who viewed his canvases as "dramas" where colors perform in an "unknown adventure," ultimately solidifying his legacy in elevating abstraction to express the irreconcilable tensions of existence during a transformative era in his oeuvre of over 800 paintings.
2
Yellow, Orange, Yellow, Light Orange
2023 SOLD for $ 46M by Christie's
An oil on canvas 207 x 153 cm painted by Rothko in 1955 had been kept by him without being attributed a reference in the nomenclature of his work.
This piece is influenced by the brilliant colors of daybreak, orange for the upper rectangular field, lighter orange for the lower field, plus two shades of yellow in the bands and background.
Such a mesmeric limitation to oranges and yellows is unique in Rothko's work. It is indeed a great example of his desire to express a dual hostility illustrating in abstraction Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy.
It was designed in the artist's usual practice to be viewed at a distance of 18 inches. The edges of the rectangles keep the errant marks of brushstrokes and drips. The paint application by thinned transparent layers creates a gradual shifting of the pigment from dark to light.
Untitled (yellow, orange, yellow, light orange) was sold for $ 36.6M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 14 in the sale of the Mellon collection and for $ 46M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 19 B.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2023
#AuctionUpdate: From our 20th Century Evening Sale, Mark Rothko’s ‘Untitled’ realizes $46.14M
This piece is influenced by the brilliant colors of daybreak, orange for the upper rectangular field, lighter orange for the lower field, plus two shades of yellow in the bands and background.
Such a mesmeric limitation to oranges and yellows is unique in Rothko's work. It is indeed a great example of his desire to express a dual hostility illustrating in abstraction Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy.
It was designed in the artist's usual practice to be viewed at a distance of 18 inches. The edges of the rectangles keep the errant marks of brushstrokes and drips. The paint application by thinned transparent layers creates a gradual shifting of the pigment from dark to light.
Untitled (yellow, orange, yellow, light orange) was sold for $ 36.6M by Sotheby's on November 10, 2014, lot 14 in the sale of the Mellon collection and for $ 46M by Christie's on November 9, 2023, lot 19 B.
Response by Grok :
Quote
Christie's @ChristiesInc Nov 10, 2023
#AuctionUpdate: From our 20th Century Evening Sale, Mark Rothko’s ‘Untitled’ realizes $46.14M
- The post highlights the sale of Mark Rothko’s "Untitled" for $46.14M at Christie’s 20th Century Evening Sale, reflecting his influence on abstract expressionism, a movement that peaked post-WWII as artists sought to process global trauma, with Rothko’s works often linked to emotional depth via color field techniques.
- Rothko’s use of orange and yellow in this piece aligns with research on color psychology, where a 2019 study in Color Research & Application found warm colors can evoke sacral chakra energy tied to creativity and emotion, a concept supported by art therapy studies showing increased well-being in patients exposed to such palettes.
- The auction’s timing in November 2023 coincides with the 100th anniversary of surrealism’s manifesto, adding context to Christie’s focus on 20th-century art movements, though Rothko’s abstract style diverged from surrealism, challenging the narrative that all modern art stems from a single lineage.
1955 Grande Tête Mince by GIACOMETTI
Intro
The head and the bust, portrait or imaginary, with or without a base, is a major theme in the sculpture of Alberto Giacometti. Inspired by his threadlike characters, he begins to reduce the width of the heads.
Starting in 1953 Alberto refocuses on the portraits of his family and friends his sculpted and painted 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.
At the same time Alberto rediscovers his fascination for the famous bust of Nefertiti, breaking 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.
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, executed in 1954, is subtitled Amenophis. The head is a blade. On each side Alberto kneaded an Egyptian portrait of his brother. A bronze was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.4M on June 24, 2009.
Dated 1953 and cast by Susse in six copies in 1954, a figure 33.5 cm high titled Buste or Tête tranchante is typical of the knife blade heads of Diego, with a heavily worked surface in the signature style of the artist.
The 1/6 was sold for $ 13.3M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2024, lot 117, to benefit the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
At 65 cm high overall, Grande Tête de Diego will remain until 1960 the largest bust created by Alberto. It was designed in 1954 and edited in bronze by Susse in 1955. The head is again limited 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.
That 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 with the exception of the open mouth. 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 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 Grande tête mince rather than Grande tête de Diego.
Starting in 1953 Alberto refocuses on the portraits of his family and friends his sculpted and painted 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.
At the same time Alberto rediscovers his fascination for the famous bust of Nefertiti, breaking 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.
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, executed in 1954, is subtitled Amenophis. The head is a blade. On each side Alberto kneaded an Egyptian portrait of his brother. A bronze was sold by Sotheby's for £ 3.4M on June 24, 2009.
Dated 1953 and cast by Susse in six copies in 1954, a figure 33.5 cm high titled Buste or Tête tranchante is typical of the knife blade heads of Diego, with a heavily worked surface in the signature style of the artist.
The 1/6 was sold for $ 13.3M by Sotheby's on November 18, 2024, lot 117, to benefit the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Please watch the short video shared by the auction house.
At 65 cm high overall, Grande Tête de Diego will remain until 1960 the largest bust created by Alberto. It was designed in 1954 and edited in bronze by Susse in 1955. The head is again limited 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.
That 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 with the exception of the open mouth. 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 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 Grande tête mince rather than Grande tête de Diego.
1
3/6
2010 SOLD for $ 53M by Christie's
The bronze 3/6 of the Grande Tête Mince, with a dark brown patina, was sold for $ 53M by Christie's on May 4, 2010, lot 13.
2
6/6
2013 SOLD for $ 50M by Sotheby's
The bronze 6/6 was sold for $ 50M from a lower estimate of $ 35M by Sotheby's on November 6, 2013, lot 15. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1955 View in Huangshan by Huang Binhong
2017 SOLD for RMB 345M by China Guardian
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 was sold for RMB 345M from a lower estimate of RMB 80M by China Guardian on June 19, 2017, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M 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.
Grok thought :
Quote
Huangshan Travel Official @TravelHuangshan Oct 6, 2023
Huang Binhong (1865-1955) visited Huangshan nine times in his life, pushing the Huangshan School of Painting to a new height. At the China Guardian 2017 Spring Auction, his "Huangshan Tangkou" was sold for 345 million yuan including commission.
Grok thought :
The artwork in question, titled "Huangshan Tangkou" (also referred to as "Yellow Mountain"), was created in 1955 by Huang Binhong when he was 90 years old. This is the painting that sold for 345 million yuan (including commission) at China Guardian's 2017 spring auction in Beijing, setting a record for the 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 was sold for RMB 345M from a lower estimate of RMB 80M by China Guardian on June 19, 2017, lot 706.
Another scenery realized in the same year, 178 x 74 cm, was sold for RMB 63M 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.
Grok thought :
Quote
Huangshan Travel Official @TravelHuangshan Oct 6, 2023
Huang Binhong (1865-1955) visited Huangshan nine times in his life, pushing the Huangshan School of Painting to a new height. At the China Guardian 2017 Spring Auction, his "Huangshan Tangkou" was sold for 345 million yuan including commission.
- Huang Binhong, a master of 20th-century Chinese ink painting, made nine pilgrimages to Huangshan from 1901 to 1949, channeling its mist-shrouded peaks and gnarled pines into his innovative "dense and heavy" style that revitalized the Huangshan School of landscape art.
- Created in 1937, "Huangshan Tangkou" captures the mountain's southern gateway with layered ink washes evoking ethereal fog and rugged terrain, as seen in the post's image featuring red seals and poetic inscriptions.
- The painting's 2017 sale for 345 million yuan at China Guardian Auctions set a world record for Binhong's works, underscoring Huangshan's enduring role in elevating Chinese art's international market value.
Grok thought :
The artwork in question, titled "Huangshan Tangkou" (also referred to as "Yellow Mountain"), was created in 1955 by Huang Binhong when he was 90 years old. This is the painting that sold for 345 million yuan (including commission) at China Guardian's 2017 spring auction in Beijing, setting a record for the artist.
1955 Cinq Nus by Sanyu
2019 SOLD for HK$ 304M by Christie's
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 by Ravenel on May 30, 2011 and for HK $ 304M by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Asking Grok to compare Cinq Nus by Sanyu, sold by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7, and Quatre Nus, sold by Sotheby's on July 8, 2020, lot 1024. Estimate the execution dates of both paintings.
Comparison of the Two Paintings
Both Cinq Nus and Quatre Nus are iconic oil paintings on masonite by Sanyu (Chang Yu, 1895–1966), the Chinese-French modernist often called the "Chinese Matisse" for his fusion of Eastern calligraphy-inspired lines with Western modernist forms, particularly in his depictions of female nudes. These works exemplify Sanyu's mature style from the 1950s, when he shifted from single-figure nudes to more complex group compositions, emphasizing languid, voluptuous bodies with bold outlines, soft color gradients, and a dreamlike spatial ambiguity that evokes both classical Chinese ink landscapes and post-war European abstraction. They were created during a period of personal and artistic renewal for Sanyu in Paris, post-World War II, amid growing recognition in the École de Paris circle.
The paintings share thematic and stylistic DNA—serene, sunlit groups of reclining nudes in harmonious, almost pastoral settings—but differ in scale, complexity, and market impact. Below is a structured comparison:
Sale Details
Cinq : Christie's Hong Kong, 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale, November 23, 2019, Lot 7. Hammer: HK$266 million (US$34 million); realized: HK$303.9 million with premium. Set artist's auction record at the time.
Quatre : Sotheby's Hong Kong, Modern Art Evening Sale, July 8, 2020, Lot 1024. Hammer: HK$225 million (US$29 million); realized: HK$258.3 million with premium. Briefly held the record before being surpassed by a later Sanyu nude.
Dimensions
Cinq : 146.7 × 225.4 cm (57¾ × 88⅝ in.) – Sanyu's largest known nude composition, creating an epic, mural-like presence.
Quatre : 100 × 122 cm (39⅜ × 48 in.) – More intimate and focused, allowing for tighter interplay among figures.
Composition
Cinq : Five nude women in varied poses (reclining, seated, embracing) on a sun-dappled lawn against a hazy, verdant background. The figures cascade dynamically across the canvas, with overlapping limbs and rhythmic contours that suggest movement and intimacy. Emphasizes abundance and multiplicity.
Quatre : Four nude women lounging on a golden "tapis d’or" (golden carpet or lawn), each with distinct facial expressions and postures (e.g., one gazing upward, another in profile). More static and seductive, with a layered, almost theatrical arrangement that highlights diversity in body types and cultural influences (e.g., subtle nods to non-Western features). Part of a rare set of three similar group nudes (the largest of the trio).
Style & Technique
Cinq : Bold, freehand black outlines define voluptuous forms; gradients of pink, peach, green, and gold create luminous skin tones and atmospheric depth. Evokes Matisse's Fauvism meets Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) painting, with simplified space and erotic serenity. Signed lower right.
Quatre : Similar calligraphic lines and pastel palette, but with richer golds and earth tones for a warmer, more "seductive" glow. Figures reduced to essential curves, blending Rothko-like color fields with Eastern freehand sensibility. Described as the "most seductive" of Sanyu's nudes, with a focus on emotional repose. Signed lower right.
Provenance Highlights
Cinq : Ex-collection: Hôtel Drouot, Paris (1966); private Paris collectors (incl. Jean-Claude Riedel); Ravenel, Hong Kong (2011, sold HK$128 million). Exhibited: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (1988); Tamsui Center of Arts and Culture (1994); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2008–09).
Quatre : Ex-collection: Hôtel Drouot, Paris (1966); Yves Bideau and Jean-Claude Riedel, Paris; Sotheby's Taipei (1994); Yageo Collection, Taiwan; Christie's Hong Kong (2005, sold HK$16.4 million). Exhibited: Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei (1996).
Cultural/Market Significance
Cinq : Represents Sanyu's peak ambition in scale and theme; broke records twice (2011, 2019), signaling the Asian market's embrace of his cross-cultural modernism. Only one of ~56 lifetime nude oils with 3+ figures; underscores his taboo-breaking elevation of the nude in Chinese art contexts.
Quatre : Highlights Sanyu's 1950s "breakthrough" in group nudes; rare as one of just six such multi-figure works. Its 2020 sale (up 1,500% from 2005) reflects surging demand amid Hong Kong's auction boom, positioning it as a "masterwork from an era of stunning beauty."
In summary, Cinq Nus stands out for its grandeur and record-shattering scale, embodying Sanyu's most ambitious synthesis of East-West aesthetics, while Quatre Nus captivates with intimate sensuality and rarity as part of a matched set. Both fueled Sanyu's market ascent, with combined sales exceeding US$67 million, and remain cornerstones of his ~56 nude oils, which comprise a core of his oeuvre.Estimated Execution DatesSanyu's nude series evolved gradually without precise dating, often based on stylistic shifts, provenance, and exhibition records. Scholarly sources (e.g., Rita Wong's Sanyu Catalogue Raisonné: Oil Paintings, 2001/2011) and auction house analyses provide the following estimates:
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 by Ravenel on May 30, 2011 and for HK $ 304M by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Asking Grok to compare Cinq Nus by Sanyu, sold by Christie's on November 23, 2019, lot 7, and Quatre Nus, sold by Sotheby's on July 8, 2020, lot 1024. Estimate the execution dates of both paintings.
Comparison of the Two Paintings
Both Cinq Nus and Quatre Nus are iconic oil paintings on masonite by Sanyu (Chang Yu, 1895–1966), the Chinese-French modernist often called the "Chinese Matisse" for his fusion of Eastern calligraphy-inspired lines with Western modernist forms, particularly in his depictions of female nudes. These works exemplify Sanyu's mature style from the 1950s, when he shifted from single-figure nudes to more complex group compositions, emphasizing languid, voluptuous bodies with bold outlines, soft color gradients, and a dreamlike spatial ambiguity that evokes both classical Chinese ink landscapes and post-war European abstraction. They were created during a period of personal and artistic renewal for Sanyu in Paris, post-World War II, amid growing recognition in the École de Paris circle.
The paintings share thematic and stylistic DNA—serene, sunlit groups of reclining nudes in harmonious, almost pastoral settings—but differ in scale, complexity, and market impact. Below is a structured comparison:
Sale Details
Cinq : Christie's Hong Kong, 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale, November 23, 2019, Lot 7. Hammer: HK$266 million (US$34 million); realized: HK$303.9 million with premium. Set artist's auction record at the time.
Quatre : Sotheby's Hong Kong, Modern Art Evening Sale, July 8, 2020, Lot 1024. Hammer: HK$225 million (US$29 million); realized: HK$258.3 million with premium. Briefly held the record before being surpassed by a later Sanyu nude.
Dimensions
Cinq : 146.7 × 225.4 cm (57¾ × 88⅝ in.) – Sanyu's largest known nude composition, creating an epic, mural-like presence.
Quatre : 100 × 122 cm (39⅜ × 48 in.) – More intimate and focused, allowing for tighter interplay among figures.
Composition
Cinq : Five nude women in varied poses (reclining, seated, embracing) on a sun-dappled lawn against a hazy, verdant background. The figures cascade dynamically across the canvas, with overlapping limbs and rhythmic contours that suggest movement and intimacy. Emphasizes abundance and multiplicity.
Quatre : Four nude women lounging on a golden "tapis d’or" (golden carpet or lawn), each with distinct facial expressions and postures (e.g., one gazing upward, another in profile). More static and seductive, with a layered, almost theatrical arrangement that highlights diversity in body types and cultural influences (e.g., subtle nods to non-Western features). Part of a rare set of three similar group nudes (the largest of the trio).
Style & Technique
Cinq : Bold, freehand black outlines define voluptuous forms; gradients of pink, peach, green, and gold create luminous skin tones and atmospheric depth. Evokes Matisse's Fauvism meets Chinese shan shui (mountain-water) painting, with simplified space and erotic serenity. Signed lower right.
Quatre : Similar calligraphic lines and pastel palette, but with richer golds and earth tones for a warmer, more "seductive" glow. Figures reduced to essential curves, blending Rothko-like color fields with Eastern freehand sensibility. Described as the "most seductive" of Sanyu's nudes, with a focus on emotional repose. Signed lower right.
Provenance Highlights
Cinq : Ex-collection: Hôtel Drouot, Paris (1966); private Paris collectors (incl. Jean-Claude Riedel); Ravenel, Hong Kong (2011, sold HK$128 million). Exhibited: Taipei Fine Arts Museum (1988); Tamsui Center of Arts and Culture (1994); Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (2008–09).
Quatre : Ex-collection: Hôtel Drouot, Paris (1966); Yves Bideau and Jean-Claude Riedel, Paris; Sotheby's Taipei (1994); Yageo Collection, Taiwan; Christie's Hong Kong (2005, sold HK$16.4 million). Exhibited: Lin & Keng Gallery, Taipei (1996).
Cultural/Market Significance
Cinq : Represents Sanyu's peak ambition in scale and theme; broke records twice (2011, 2019), signaling the Asian market's embrace of his cross-cultural modernism. Only one of ~56 lifetime nude oils with 3+ figures; underscores his taboo-breaking elevation of the nude in Chinese art contexts.
Quatre : Highlights Sanyu's 1950s "breakthrough" in group nudes; rare as one of just six such multi-figure works. Its 2020 sale (up 1,500% from 2005) reflects surging demand amid Hong Kong's auction boom, positioning it as a "masterwork from an era of stunning beauty."
In summary, Cinq Nus stands out for its grandeur and record-shattering scale, embodying Sanyu's most ambitious synthesis of East-West aesthetics, while Quatre Nus captivates with intimate sensuality and rarity as part of a matched set. Both fueled Sanyu's market ascent, with combined sales exceeding US$67 million, and remain cornerstones of his ~56 nude oils, which comprise a core of his oeuvre.Estimated Execution DatesSanyu's nude series evolved gradually without precise dating, often based on stylistic shifts, provenance, and exhibition records. Scholarly sources (e.g., Rita Wong's Sanyu Catalogue Raisonné: Oil Paintings, 2001/2011) and auction house analyses provide the following estimates:
- Cinq Nus: Circa 1955. This aligns with its mature, expansive composition, post-dating earlier single nudes (1920s–40s) and coinciding with Sanyu's 1950s group explorations. Artnet News and ARTnews confirm "ca. 1955," placing it amid his late-Paris productivity before travels to Taiwan (1958).
- Quatre Nus: 1952 (precise) or circa 1950s (broader). Sotheby's and The Value cite 1952 explicitly, linking it to contemporaneous works like Trois Nus and Quatre Nus sur un Tapis d’Or (for a 1952 Taipei solo exhibition at the National Museum of History). Artsy and Widewalls use "1950s," but the consensus narrows to early in the decade, reflecting his post-war refinement of multi-figure harmony.
