Northern Europe
including Scandinavian born artists
See also : Nobel medals Russia Art on paper Man and woman Groups
Chronology : 19th century 1890-1899 1895 1900-1909 1902 1904 1907 1999 21st century 2020 to now 2021
See also : Nobel medals Russia Art on paper Man and woman Groups
Chronology : 19th century 1890-1899 1895 1900-1909 1902 1904 1907 1999 21st century 2020 to now 2021
1894 The most beautiful of Vampyrs (was made by Munch)
2008 SOLD 38 M$ including premium
This will be one of the stakes (!) of the season: Sotheby's sells a Vampire of Edvard Munch on November 3 in New York.
Chance of the sales or rediscovery of Munch? A week ago, I devoted an article in the Prints group to a lithographic copy of the "Scream". The next day I announced in my weekly preview the arrival of a Vampire, at Sotheby's in London on October 2! (300 K£, lot 81). But now it's even better: I do not speak of an engraving, but of an oil on canvas.
Munch was a very important artist, who knew perfectly how to mingle love and death. His extraordinary lithograph "Madonna" has also been a few months ago the subject of an article on these networks. He was an illustrator concerned about the disclosure of his work, who made his oils on canvas in a small number of examples and added lithographic issues with a virtually identical drawing. As a result, this female "vampire", with her flame-color long hair, kissing on the neck of her lover, is an image that the auction news bring us often.
The Vampire was painted in four copies in 1893-1894, and the example to be sold is the only one in private hands. It is well known in New York, where it had been loaned during ten years to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sotheby's expects more than $ 35 million.
On 7 May 2008, a painting with peaceful subject, Girls on a bridge, was sold in the same auction room at $ 30.8 million including expenses.
POST SALE COMMENT
In the chronology of the sales, the first is the print : 325 K£ including fees.
It is always nice to see an important work acknowledged by the verdict of the market. This is the case for this remarkable Vampire, sold $ 38 million charge included.
The image is shared by Wikimedia :
Chance of the sales or rediscovery of Munch? A week ago, I devoted an article in the Prints group to a lithographic copy of the "Scream". The next day I announced in my weekly preview the arrival of a Vampire, at Sotheby's in London on October 2! (300 K£, lot 81). But now it's even better: I do not speak of an engraving, but of an oil on canvas.
Munch was a very important artist, who knew perfectly how to mingle love and death. His extraordinary lithograph "Madonna" has also been a few months ago the subject of an article on these networks. He was an illustrator concerned about the disclosure of his work, who made his oils on canvas in a small number of examples and added lithographic issues with a virtually identical drawing. As a result, this female "vampire", with her flame-color long hair, kissing on the neck of her lover, is an image that the auction news bring us often.
The Vampire was painted in four copies in 1893-1894, and the example to be sold is the only one in private hands. It is well known in New York, where it had been loaned during ten years to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Sotheby's expects more than $ 35 million.
On 7 May 2008, a painting with peaceful subject, Girls on a bridge, was sold in the same auction room at $ 30.8 million including expenses.
POST SALE COMMENT
In the chronology of the sales, the first is the print : 325 K£ including fees.
It is always nice to see an important work acknowledged by the verdict of the market. This is the case for this remarkable Vampire, sold $ 38 million charge included.
The image is shared by Wikimedia :
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1895 The Scream of Nature
2012 SOLD 120 M$ including premium
The Scream by Edvard Munch has every reason to be the most famous image of modern art.
The artist, exalted by the meaning of life, is constantly navigating the limits of a morbid insanity. In 1889, during the Exposition Universelle in Paris, he is fascinated by the intensity of emotions expressed by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.
In early 1892, Munch lives his own road to Damascus. He sees the sky ablaze at sunset, like an indomitable force of nature which has invaded the fjord in a terrible explosion of colors. He writes in his notebook a short poem stating that the happening had generated an intense fatigue to him.
No doubt he will be mesmerized by this vision for over a year, before daring to translate the memory of his anxiety as a painting and a pastel with a title evocating his inspiration: the Scream of Nature.
It took him another two years to exorcise his anxiety. In 1895, he made a second pastel, 79 x 59 cm, to be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 2. Now conscious of having created a masterpiece, he prepares on the same year the first lithography. The fourth and last version of Munch's Scream is much later.
The pastel of 1895 is exceptional, and Sotheby's expects $ 80M. This is the only version where the artist has included the poem, hand painted into the frame. The two friends are still there in the distance, but are not any more interested in the scene, leaving the main character lonely struggling with his own dehumanization.
This is the only one of the four artworks to be still in private hands, and it had been little seen outside Norway. It is illustrated on Sotheby's page announcing the sale.
POST SALE COMMENT
Ite missa est. In a few words, everything is told: world record for a work of art, $ 120M including premium.
Rarely a record has been so deserved: last original in private hands, this pastel also marks the top of the emotional maturity of the artist on this theme, with dazzling colors.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
The artist, exalted by the meaning of life, is constantly navigating the limits of a morbid insanity. In 1889, during the Exposition Universelle in Paris, he is fascinated by the intensity of emotions expressed by Van Gogh, Gauguin and Toulouse-Lautrec.
In early 1892, Munch lives his own road to Damascus. He sees the sky ablaze at sunset, like an indomitable force of nature which has invaded the fjord in a terrible explosion of colors. He writes in his notebook a short poem stating that the happening had generated an intense fatigue to him.
No doubt he will be mesmerized by this vision for over a year, before daring to translate the memory of his anxiety as a painting and a pastel with a title evocating his inspiration: the Scream of Nature.
It took him another two years to exorcise his anxiety. In 1895, he made a second pastel, 79 x 59 cm, to be sold by Sotheby's in New York on May 2. Now conscious of having created a masterpiece, he prepares on the same year the first lithography. The fourth and last version of Munch's Scream is much later.
The pastel of 1895 is exceptional, and Sotheby's expects $ 80M. This is the only version where the artist has included the poem, hand painted into the frame. The two friends are still there in the distance, but are not any more interested in the scene, leaving the main character lonely struggling with his own dehumanization.
This is the only one of the four artworks to be still in private hands, and it had been little seen outside Norway. It is illustrated on Sotheby's page announcing the sale.
POST SALE COMMENT
Ite missa est. In a few words, everything is told: world record for a work of art, $ 120M including premium.
Rarely a record has been so deserved: last original in private hands, this pastel also marks the top of the emotional maturity of the artist on this theme, with dazzling colors.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
masterpiece
1899-1900 The Dance of Life by Munch
Nasjonalgalleriet Oslo
The meaning of Love was a great obsession to Edvard Munch. He began in 1893 an autobiographical series of paintings which will soon be titled Frieze of Life - a Poem about Life, Love and Death. The series includes the most poignant works by Munch : The Scream, Vampire, Madonna, The Kiss, Angst, Melancholy.
The Dance of Life, painted in 1899-1900, is a summary of the theme. In the foreground the dancing couple is a self portrait with his first love Millie. Youth and old age are respectively on their left and right side, looking at the viewer. They both are the same woman, his new partner Tulla, in bridal gown and mourning garb.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
That mystic quest comes in the same period as Gauguin's D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous? painted about two years earlier.
The Dance of Life, painted in 1899-1900, is a summary of the theme. In the foreground the dancing couple is a self portrait with his first love Millie. Youth and old age are respectively on their left and right side, looking at the viewer. They both are the same woman, his new partner Tulla, in bridal gown and mourning garb.
The image is shared by Wikimedia.
That mystic quest comes in the same period as Gauguin's D'où venons nous? Que sommes nous? Où allons nous? painted about two years earlier.
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1901 Vagen by Strindberg
2022 SOLD for £ 6.8M by Sotheby's
August Strindberg used the writing for expressing his vision of the meaning of life, influenced in turn by Nietzsche, Zola and Swedenborg. He could not live without very young wives but his three marriages were short-lived.
In three periods of extreme tension in his dramatic creation, Strindberg suddenly stopped writing and found refuge in a painting spread by violent knife blows, unleashing the automatism of his impulses.
In 1892 he left Sweden to try to restore his balance. This crisis will last six years. In 1893 he painted landscapes where sky and sea form a continuity without horizon.
In 1894 his tribulations led him with his very young pregnant second wife in a hut in Dornach, in the upper valley of the Danube. The couple's relationship is increasingly difficult. Waiting for the childbirth, he decorated this home by seven paintings of various subjects. The local scenery is spectacular. Strindberg paints landscapes in which topographical details are absent and where the thickness of the paint erases the border between the mountain and the stormy sky.
Alplandskap, an oil on panel 72 x 51 cm made in the Dornach hut, was sold for £ 2.1M by Sotheby's on June 27, 2007. The swirling motion of the knife reminds the starry sky of van Gogh. Made during the same stay, Wonderland shows the exit of the underworld, blinding and not reachable by a potential traveler stuck within the shadows. The inspiration and execution of Wonderland make Strindberg a forerunner of abstract expressionism.
Strindberg is aware that his art is totally new. The title is only a guide, and the artwork is a tour de force that expresses both the external environment and the inner torment of the artist. He outlined in 1893 the theory of his creations as Art fortuit (in French, meaning chance art), which opens the way for the much later role of emotion in surrealist art and to the abstract landscapes by Zao Wou-ki. If Strindberg had been a professional artist, he could have shaken forever the theories about the meaning of art. Kandinsky did it in 1909 in Murnau.
Prepared in 1897 in the depths of one of his paranoid crises, an autobiographical novel titled Inferno describes his hallucinations and delusions as well as his paltry remedies including alchemy and occultism.
A new major marital crisis occurs in 1901 when Strindberg then 52 years old is informed of the murder of his former lover Dagny Juel and cancels his honeymoon with his third wife Harriet Bosse aged 23.
On June 7, 2017, Bukowskis sold for SEK 15.5M before fees an oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm also titled Inferno, lot 403. This direct following to Wonderland is reflecting his new descent into hell. It is dated 1903 but the catalog considers that it was painted in 1901.
In his 1901 crisis, Strindberg did not forget the wild force of the ocean. His Vagen (Waves) V to VII are a sub-series of three paintings from that year. The threatening wave looks like a snowy mountain crest between the dark foreground and the stormy gray sky. That composition in horizontal fields including a narrow band of calm sky possibly influenced Rothko's abstract rectangles.
Vagen V, oil on canvas 100 x 71 cm, was sold for £ 6.8M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2022, lot 139.
In three periods of extreme tension in his dramatic creation, Strindberg suddenly stopped writing and found refuge in a painting spread by violent knife blows, unleashing the automatism of his impulses.
In 1892 he left Sweden to try to restore his balance. This crisis will last six years. In 1893 he painted landscapes where sky and sea form a continuity without horizon.
In 1894 his tribulations led him with his very young pregnant second wife in a hut in Dornach, in the upper valley of the Danube. The couple's relationship is increasingly difficult. Waiting for the childbirth, he decorated this home by seven paintings of various subjects. The local scenery is spectacular. Strindberg paints landscapes in which topographical details are absent and where the thickness of the paint erases the border between the mountain and the stormy sky.
Alplandskap, an oil on panel 72 x 51 cm made in the Dornach hut, was sold for £ 2.1M by Sotheby's on June 27, 2007. The swirling motion of the knife reminds the starry sky of van Gogh. Made during the same stay, Wonderland shows the exit of the underworld, blinding and not reachable by a potential traveler stuck within the shadows. The inspiration and execution of Wonderland make Strindberg a forerunner of abstract expressionism.
Strindberg is aware that his art is totally new. The title is only a guide, and the artwork is a tour de force that expresses both the external environment and the inner torment of the artist. He outlined in 1893 the theory of his creations as Art fortuit (in French, meaning chance art), which opens the way for the much later role of emotion in surrealist art and to the abstract landscapes by Zao Wou-ki. If Strindberg had been a professional artist, he could have shaken forever the theories about the meaning of art. Kandinsky did it in 1909 in Murnau.
Prepared in 1897 in the depths of one of his paranoid crises, an autobiographical novel titled Inferno describes his hallucinations and delusions as well as his paltry remedies including alchemy and occultism.
A new major marital crisis occurs in 1901 when Strindberg then 52 years old is informed of the murder of his former lover Dagny Juel and cancels his honeymoon with his third wife Harriet Bosse aged 23.
On June 7, 2017, Bukowskis sold for SEK 15.5M before fees an oil on canvas 100 x 70 cm also titled Inferno, lot 403. This direct following to Wonderland is reflecting his new descent into hell. It is dated 1903 but the catalog considers that it was painted in 1901.
In his 1901 crisis, Strindberg did not forget the wild force of the ocean. His Vagen (Waves) V to VII are a sub-series of three paintings from that year. The threatening wave looks like a snowy mountain crest between the dark foreground and the stormy gray sky. That composition in horizontal fields including a narrow band of calm sky possibly influenced Rothko's abstract rectangles.
Vagen V, oil on canvas 100 x 71 cm, was sold for £ 6.8M from a lower estimate of £ 2M by Sotheby's on June 29, 2022, lot 139.
#AuctionUpdate Record for Swedish playwright & novelist August Strindberg, as his visceral 1901 work ‘Wave V’ sells for £6,797,800, sparking competition from 4 bidders to make over twice its estimate. pic.twitter.com/HGzBojIH8b
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) June 29, 2022
1902 Four Girls away from the Guardrail
2016 SOLD for $ 55M including premium
Edvard Munch wants to be the artist of existence. His project for a frieze series on life, love and death makes him busy since 1893 but does not calm the emotional instability of his own life.
The legitimate hope for a happy life mercilessly leads to the forbidden love with the Vampire, the untold abortion of Madonna and the open madness of the Scream. The line and color are a scathing expression, after Gauguin and Van Gogh, before Matisse, Kirchner and Kandinsky.
His characters play the tragedy of a mental loneliness which is not canceled by their presence in or near a group. Sometimes the stage is guarded on one side by an endless railing over which one or more actors will come at some time to meditate while leaning over the water. This theatrical similarity is the terrible common feature between the Scream, paroxysm of terror, and the very peaceful Girls on the bridge.
In 1901 and 1902, Munch painted several versions of Girls on the bridge, with various position of the characters. One of these artworks brings a little more hope than the other ones. Far away from the suicidal railing, it displays a tight group of four in an attitude conducive to opening a discussion but indeed still not to the exchange of secrets.
This oil on canvas 101 x 102 cm painted in 1902 was sold for $ 31M including premium by Sotheby's in New York on 7 May 2008, lot 25. It comes back in the same auction room on November 14, lot 12. The press release of October 21 announces an estimate in excess of $ 50M.
The legitimate hope for a happy life mercilessly leads to the forbidden love with the Vampire, the untold abortion of Madonna and the open madness of the Scream. The line and color are a scathing expression, after Gauguin and Van Gogh, before Matisse, Kirchner and Kandinsky.
His characters play the tragedy of a mental loneliness which is not canceled by their presence in or near a group. Sometimes the stage is guarded on one side by an endless railing over which one or more actors will come at some time to meditate while leaning over the water. This theatrical similarity is the terrible common feature between the Scream, paroxysm of terror, and the very peaceful Girls on the bridge.
In 1901 and 1902, Munch painted several versions of Girls on the bridge, with various position of the characters. One of these artworks brings a little more hope than the other ones. Far away from the suicidal railing, it displays a tight group of four in an attitude conducive to opening a discussion but indeed still not to the exchange of secrets.
This oil on canvas 101 x 102 cm painted in 1902 was sold for $ 31M including premium by Sotheby's in New York on 7 May 2008, lot 25. It comes back in the same auction room on November 14, lot 12. The press release of October 21 announces an estimate in excess of $ 50M.
Edvard Munch’s ‘Girls on the Bridge’ will headline our Impressionist & Modern Art sales this November: https://t.co/tMh6b1ZWyv pic.twitter.com/SF0jHnPYDD
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) October 21, 2016
1904-1908 Lost Innocence
2021 SOLD for £ 16.3M including premium
The cycle of life is the great obsession of Edvard Munch. The stages from love to death are an inexorable tragedy generating a growing anguish : illusion, despair, infidelity, jealousy, humiliation, separation. The artist himself fails to peacefully satiate his sex life.
His meeting in 1902 with Dr. Linde is a relief. Linde, a great fan of Rodin, immediately writes a monograph on Munch's art. In 1904 he commissions a series of paintings from the artist to decorate the children's room in his villa in Lübeck.
Munch achieves this project with about eleven pieces, mostly beach scenes. The artist's old demons have not been annihilated : Linde rejects the set because a few couples are too risque to be seen by his young sons. The paintings, which will be identified as the Linde frieze, are returned to Munch.
Sommertag, summer day, oil on canvas 90 x 195 cm, is an opus from the Linde cycle. Groups of girls symbolize innocence. Unlike Girls on the Bridge, the characters lose their individuality : white dresses and long blond hair are intertwined in blocks.
Munch reworks this painting at an undetermined date. The image becomes Omfavnelse, the embrace. A dark couple has been added to the foreground. The blurry man lowers his head to kiss the woman whose oversized black-rimmed eyes express partner rejection and fear. They are transparent ghosts through which we can see the sea and the shore. The Scream, in 1893, left the possibility of some rescue. Omfavnelse is the post mortem phase. Its terminus ante quem is the great breakdown of the artist in 1908.
Summer day - the Embrace was sold for £ 6.2M including premium by Sotheby's on February 7, 2006, lot 34, and is estimated £ 9M for sale by Sotheby's in London on March 25, lot 115. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
His meeting in 1902 with Dr. Linde is a relief. Linde, a great fan of Rodin, immediately writes a monograph on Munch's art. In 1904 he commissions a series of paintings from the artist to decorate the children's room in his villa in Lübeck.
Munch achieves this project with about eleven pieces, mostly beach scenes. The artist's old demons have not been annihilated : Linde rejects the set because a few couples are too risque to be seen by his young sons. The paintings, which will be identified as the Linde frieze, are returned to Munch.
Sommertag, summer day, oil on canvas 90 x 195 cm, is an opus from the Linde cycle. Groups of girls symbolize innocence. Unlike Girls on the Bridge, the characters lose their individuality : white dresses and long blond hair are intertwined in blocks.
Munch reworks this painting at an undetermined date. The image becomes Omfavnelse, the embrace. A dark couple has been added to the foreground. The blurry man lowers his head to kiss the woman whose oversized black-rimmed eyes express partner rejection and fear. They are transparent ghosts through which we can see the sea and the shore. The Scream, in 1893, left the possibility of some rescue. Omfavnelse is the post mortem phase. Its terminus ante quem is the great breakdown of the artist in 1908.
Summer day - the Embrace was sold for £ 6.2M including premium by Sotheby's on February 7, 2006, lot 34, and is estimated £ 9M for sale by Sotheby's in London on March 25, lot 115. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
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1907 Dance on the Beach by Munch
2023 SOLD for £ 17M by Sotheby's
Max Reinhardt, recently appointed director of the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, extended it with a Kammerspiele (chamber theater) in 1905. Two plays by Ibsen were successively scheduled in that new place, starting with a replay of Ghosts, a haunting story about modern morality.
Reinhardt entrusts the decoration of the four walls of the entrance of the Kammerspiele to Edvard Munch who as a Norwegian was a compatriot of Ibsen and who worked on similar themes.
Munch executes an immersive suite of twelve friezes 90 cm high in his signature themes, made in tempera on canvas as a tribute to the Renaissance frescoes. The whole work is nearly completed in December 1907.
The largest piece is a Dance on the Beach 4 m long, which is a remake of the Dance of Life that had closed the Frieze of Life in 1900. The new composition is extended on both sides to the empty beach. Other significant opus titles are Desire and Melancholy, also staged in a summer night on the beach outside Munch's house in Aasgaardstrand.
The Reinhardt Frieze was removed from the theater in 1912. Its Dance was acquired by a patron and biographer of the artist, who lost it in an auction forced by the Nazis in 1933. Another friend of Munch managed to acquire it in 1938. After a few months of use in a liner, the painting was hidden in a barn during the Second World War.
After a settlement agreement between the descendants of the two friends of the artist, it was sold for £ 17M from a lower estimate of £ 12M for sale by Sotheby's on March 1, 2023, lot 110. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
Reinhardt entrusts the decoration of the four walls of the entrance of the Kammerspiele to Edvard Munch who as a Norwegian was a compatriot of Ibsen and who worked on similar themes.
Munch executes an immersive suite of twelve friezes 90 cm high in his signature themes, made in tempera on canvas as a tribute to the Renaissance frescoes. The whole work is nearly completed in December 1907.
The largest piece is a Dance on the Beach 4 m long, which is a remake of the Dance of Life that had closed the Frieze of Life in 1900. The new composition is extended on both sides to the empty beach. Other significant opus titles are Desire and Melancholy, also staged in a summer night on the beach outside Munch's house in Aasgaardstrand.
The Reinhardt Frieze was removed from the theater in 1912. Its Dance was acquired by a patron and biographer of the artist, who lost it in an auction forced by the Nazis in 1933. Another friend of Munch managed to acquire it in 1938. After a few months of use in a liner, the painting was hidden in a barn during the Second World War.
After a settlement agreement between the descendants of the two friends of the artist, it was sold for £ 17M from a lower estimate of £ 12M for sale by Sotheby's on March 1, 2023, lot 110. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
How Munch’s friend hid a masterpiece in a barn to foil the Nazis https://t.co/Ex2JgKhtlA
— Guardian news (@guardiannews) January 15, 2023
1907 The Music Room by Hammershøi
2023 SOLD for $ 9.1M by Sotheby's
Born in Copenhagen, Vilhelm Hammershøi married Ida in 1891. They have no children. Vilhelm is a gifted artist but his taciturn temperament keeps him away from any worldliness. Ida follows. A gigantic portrait of five artists painted in 1901-1902, 190 x 340 cm, shows his closest colleagues including his own brother with austere and gloomy attitudes. Vilhelm and Ida have no more friends and no need for them. Their outings are the subject of landscape paintings. The dreary countryside is of extreme coldness without any animation.
From 1898 to 1909, they live at the first floor in an old building of a historic district of Copenhagen, at Strandgade 30. Throughout that period it was the main theme of his work, featured in more than 60 paintings.
The rooms are sparsely furnished and not decorated. The walls are white under the high ceiling. Ida is often present, from back, sometimes reading, in an attitude that systematically excludes anecdote and emotion. The interior doors are opened or closed. His care for light reminds the Dutch golden age and his interest for simplified geometries anticipates Mondrian.
Vilhelm is shy and austere, and the idea of a recluse life does not disturb him. His sharp compositions oppose the trends of modern art that he nevertheless knew. His questions about the society of his time resulted in a rejection. He is now considered as having been a precursor to Hopper.
The flat at Strandgade 30 is poorly lit and Vilhelm observes its dull colors. He becomes a colorist of subtle hues and the art critics like now to compare his palette with Morandi's still lifes.
On May 12, 2022, Christie's sold for $ 6.3M an oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm painted in 1900 in Strandgade 30, lot 8C. It is simply titled Stue, meaning 'Home' in Danish. The standing brunette is for sure Ida, the only person who is still accepted in Vilhelm's privacy. Facing a closed and possibly fake door inserted without handles in the wall of the apartment, she resolutely turns her back to the viewer. On the same wall, an oval mirror reflects a portion of the curtain and window.
Strandgade 30 is not the house of silence. An oil on canvas 56 x 45 cm painted in 1901 features the same woman, again from back, playing the piano. It was sold for $ 6.2M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2017, lot 7.
In the flat, a music corner is made of the same piano accompanied by a violin on a chair with its bow and by a cello leaning against the piano. A view of this set without a musician is questioning the relation between music and silence. This oil on canvas 70 x 59 cm painted in 1907 was sold for $ 9.1M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2023, lot 106. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The artist improves his technique. His painting becomes glossy, bringing in a showroom the dramatic effect of the presence of the empty apartment. An oil on canvas 51 x 56 cm painted shortly before their departure from Strandgate 30 in 1909 was sold for £ 2.05M by Sotheby's on May 21, 2015, lot 12.
From 1898 to 1909, they live at the first floor in an old building of a historic district of Copenhagen, at Strandgade 30. Throughout that period it was the main theme of his work, featured in more than 60 paintings.
The rooms are sparsely furnished and not decorated. The walls are white under the high ceiling. Ida is often present, from back, sometimes reading, in an attitude that systematically excludes anecdote and emotion. The interior doors are opened or closed. His care for light reminds the Dutch golden age and his interest for simplified geometries anticipates Mondrian.
Vilhelm is shy and austere, and the idea of a recluse life does not disturb him. His sharp compositions oppose the trends of modern art that he nevertheless knew. His questions about the society of his time resulted in a rejection. He is now considered as having been a precursor to Hopper.
The flat at Strandgade 30 is poorly lit and Vilhelm observes its dull colors. He becomes a colorist of subtle hues and the art critics like now to compare his palette with Morandi's still lifes.
On May 12, 2022, Christie's sold for $ 6.3M an oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm painted in 1900 in Strandgade 30, lot 8C. It is simply titled Stue, meaning 'Home' in Danish. The standing brunette is for sure Ida, the only person who is still accepted in Vilhelm's privacy. Facing a closed and possibly fake door inserted without handles in the wall of the apartment, she resolutely turns her back to the viewer. On the same wall, an oval mirror reflects a portion of the curtain and window.
Strandgade 30 is not the house of silence. An oil on canvas 56 x 45 cm painted in 1901 features the same woman, again from back, playing the piano. It was sold for $ 6.2M by Sotheby's on November 14, 2017, lot 7.
In the flat, a music corner is made of the same piano accompanied by a violin on a chair with its bow and by a cello leaning against the piano. A view of this set without a musician is questioning the relation between music and silence. This oil on canvas 70 x 59 cm painted in 1907 was sold for $ 9.1M from a lower estimate of $ 3M by Sotheby's on May 17, 2023, lot 106. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The artist improves his technique. His painting becomes glossy, bringing in a showroom the dramatic effect of the presence of the empty apartment. An oil on canvas 51 x 56 cm painted shortly before their departure from Strandgate 30 in 1909 was sold for £ 2.05M by Sotheby's on May 21, 2015, lot 12.
#AuctionUpdate: An exciting new auction record has been set for Vilhelm Hammershøi tonight, with ‘Interior. The Music Room, Strandgade 30’ reaching $9.1M, nearly 2X its high estimate. #SothebysModern pic.twitter.com/cOOQqWyHKF
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) May 16, 2023
1911 Storm on the Baltic
2020 SOLD for $ 7.3M including premium
The extreme conditions exacerbate the feelings of the men of the North. Emil Nolde was born near a village in Schleswig-Holstein, in a border area between Germany and Denmark. He is not a symbolic colorist like Marc or Kandinsky : he expresses colors with an intensity nourished by his religious faith, overcoming the Fauvists.
Nature is more beautiful when it is hostile. His stormy skies are as menacing as the terrible red sky of Munch's Scream. The waves tend towards abstraction as the Alpine storms by Strindberg had done. This extremism of shapes and colors is also inspired from van Gogh.
Nolde failed to integrate into the Berlin expressionist movements. Frustrated and disappointed, he finds himself facing the Baltic Sea on his beloved island of Als. In the autumns of 1910 and 1911, he paints a series of 20 scenes of abstract and slashing swell, titled Herbstmeer.
On October 6 in New York, Christie's sells Herbstmeer XVI, lot 10 estimated $ 6M, oil on canvas 74 x 89 cm painted in 1911, in its artist's frame 93 x 108 cm. The clouds form a jagged yellow spiral on a violet background.
Nolde's primordial and vigorous expressionism appealed to Goebbels, especially since the artist belonged to the Danish section of the National Socialism. He was however one of the main "degenerate" artists vilified by Hitler and his art did not escape confiscation.
Nature is more beautiful when it is hostile. His stormy skies are as menacing as the terrible red sky of Munch's Scream. The waves tend towards abstraction as the Alpine storms by Strindberg had done. This extremism of shapes and colors is also inspired from van Gogh.
Nolde failed to integrate into the Berlin expressionist movements. Frustrated and disappointed, he finds himself facing the Baltic Sea on his beloved island of Als. In the autumns of 1910 and 1911, he paints a series of 20 scenes of abstract and slashing swell, titled Herbstmeer.
On October 6 in New York, Christie's sells Herbstmeer XVI, lot 10 estimated $ 6M, oil on canvas 74 x 89 cm painted in 1911, in its artist's frame 93 x 108 cm. The clouds form a jagged yellow spiral on a violet background.
Nolde's primordial and vigorous expressionism appealed to Goebbels, especially since the artist belonged to the Danish section of the National Socialism. He was however one of the main "degenerate" artists vilified by Hitler and his art did not escape confiscation.
1999 Typewriter Eraser by Oldenburg
2022 SOLD for $ 8.4M by Christie's
In the best tradition of pop art, the Swedish born Claes Oldenburg makes monumental enlargements of familiar objects for shop windows from 1961 and for public outdoor installations from 1964. He works from 1977 in co-operation with the Dutch sculptor Coosje van Bruggen whom he marries in 1979.
The now obsolete typewriter eraser had been an effective small and humble instrument that remained in Oldenburg's memory from his boyhood playing in father's office.
The number 3/3 eraser from a 1976 edition in painted aluminum, stainless steel, ferroconcrete and bronze 227 x 203 x 178 cm was sold for $ 2.2M by Christie's on May 13, 2009, lot 10. The giant disk-shaped eraser has just reached the ground, the bristles of its brush turned upwards.
The number 3/3 from a 1999 Scale X edition by Oldenburg and van Bruggen in stainless steel, fiberglass and acrylic polyurethane paint 59 x 36 x 36 cm was sold for $ 8.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on November 10, 2022, lot 124 in the day sale of the Paul G. Allen collection.
The now obsolete typewriter eraser had been an effective small and humble instrument that remained in Oldenburg's memory from his boyhood playing in father's office.
The number 3/3 eraser from a 1976 edition in painted aluminum, stainless steel, ferroconcrete and bronze 227 x 203 x 178 cm was sold for $ 2.2M by Christie's on May 13, 2009, lot 10. The giant disk-shaped eraser has just reached the ground, the bristles of its brush turned upwards.
The number 3/3 from a 1999 Scale X edition by Oldenburg and van Bruggen in stainless steel, fiberglass and acrylic polyurethane paint 59 x 36 x 36 cm was sold for $ 8.4M from a lower estimate of $ 5M by Christie's on November 10, 2022, lot 124 in the day sale of the Paul G. Allen collection.
2021 Dmitry Muratov Nobel Peace Prize
2022 SOLD for $ 103.5M by Heritage
In 1993 Mikhail Gorbachev used the money from his 1990 Nobel Peace prize to help founding an independent Russian newspaper, the Novaya Gazeta. The key personality for this operation is Dmitry Muratov, editor in chief from 1995 excepted a two year hiatus from 2017.
It is indeed not a comfortable task. From 2000 to 2009 six of its journalists including two women have been killed in a direct following of their professional investigations.
The 2021 Nobel Peace prize was shared between the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and Muratov "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
During the Russian-Ukrainian war, Muratov decided on March 22, 2022 to sell his medal to support UNICEF's humanitarian response for children in Ukraine and neighboring countries.
It was sold for $ 103.5M in a single lot auction operated by Heritage on June 20 which is also the World Refugee Day. The bidding was opened on June 1 which is Children's Day in Ukraine. The event is approved by the Norwegian Nobel Institute as a "generous act of humanitarianism very much in the spirit of Alfred Nobel". Please watch the video of an interview of Muratov about that project, shared by the auction house.
A precedent is the sale by Niels Bohr of his Nobel Prize in Physics medal to benefit Finnish relief during the Second World War.
The Russian edition of the Novaya Gazeta was suspended on March 28, 2022 after two warnings from the Russian agency in charge of the control of the communication. Muratov was subsequently splashed by an assailant in the eyes with a mixture of red paint and acetone.
It is indeed not a comfortable task. From 2000 to 2009 six of its journalists including two women have been killed in a direct following of their professional investigations.
The 2021 Nobel Peace prize was shared between the Filipino journalist Maria Ressa and Muratov "for their efforts to safeguard freedom of expression, which is a precondition for democracy and lasting peace."
During the Russian-Ukrainian war, Muratov decided on March 22, 2022 to sell his medal to support UNICEF's humanitarian response for children in Ukraine and neighboring countries.
It was sold for $ 103.5M in a single lot auction operated by Heritage on June 20 which is also the World Refugee Day. The bidding was opened on June 1 which is Children's Day in Ukraine. The event is approved by the Norwegian Nobel Institute as a "generous act of humanitarianism very much in the spirit of Alfred Nobel". Please watch the video of an interview of Muratov about that project, shared by the auction house.
A precedent is the sale by Niels Bohr of his Nobel Prize in Physics medal to benefit Finnish relief during the Second World War.
The Russian edition of the Novaya Gazeta was suspended on March 28, 2022 after two warnings from the Russian agency in charge of the control of the communication. Muratov was subsequently splashed by an assailant in the eyes with a mixture of red paint and acetone.
