Plus 1910s
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Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
1912 Testa Luce Ambiente by Boccioni
2018 SOLD for £ 9M by Sotheby's
By publishing in 1909 in French and then in Italian his Manifesto of Futurism, Marinetti wants to change life as a whole. Not less ! The sensational technical developments of his time will make it possible to forget the past. Violence will be necessary. Speed is the main feature of the new life.
He gathers around him the artists interested in his project. Umberto Boccioni becomes the theoretician of the Futurist art. Art will no longer be realistic. Embracing dynamism and simultaneity, the new painting is a global expression of the world.
Unlike Balla who expresses the speed of the machines, Boccioni remains focused on the human figure. He discovers in Paris the cubism of Braque and Picasso of which he reuses the divisionism with many facets.
Painted by Boccioni in 1912, Testa + luce + ambiente is a great example of this new global art. The image is structured in areas that can be oblique mirrors in which the reflections of the head and of the light are everywhere and nowhere. This oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm was sold for £ 9M from a lower estimate of £ 5.5M for sale by Sotheby's on February 28, 2018, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In terms of graphic art, other avant-gardes around Duchamp, Léger or Kandinsky make similar advances. Mondrian will soon capture the whole universe on small canvases.
Boccioni's vision for sculpture is even more seminal. Based on portraits sculpted by Picasso, he promotes the overall effect against the realism of proportions and surfaces. In 1913 his running man titled Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio precedes by 34 years Giacometti's walking man with moreover an abstract vision of the human body that announces Henry Moore.
He gathers around him the artists interested in his project. Umberto Boccioni becomes the theoretician of the Futurist art. Art will no longer be realistic. Embracing dynamism and simultaneity, the new painting is a global expression of the world.
Unlike Balla who expresses the speed of the machines, Boccioni remains focused on the human figure. He discovers in Paris the cubism of Braque and Picasso of which he reuses the divisionism with many facets.
Painted by Boccioni in 1912, Testa + luce + ambiente is a great example of this new global art. The image is structured in areas that can be oblique mirrors in which the reflections of the head and of the light are everywhere and nowhere. This oil on canvas 60 x 60 cm was sold for £ 9M from a lower estimate of £ 5.5M for sale by Sotheby's on February 28, 2018, lot 14. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In terms of graphic art, other avant-gardes around Duchamp, Léger or Kandinsky make similar advances. Mondrian will soon capture the whole universe on small canvases.
Boccioni's vision for sculpture is even more seminal. Based on portraits sculpted by Picasso, he promotes the overall effect against the realism of proportions and surfaces. In 1913 his running man titled Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio precedes by 34 years Giacometti's walking man with moreover an abstract vision of the human body that announces Henry Moore.
Rare Boccioni Futurist Painting at Sotheby’s in London https://t.co/gNq9SLwcsd pic.twitter.com/C5rsX70219
— Art Market Monitor (@artmarket) February 14, 2018
1912 Portrait of his Wife by Jawlensky
2011 SOLD for $ 11.3M by Sotheby's
In 1912 in Munich, the artists of the Blaue Reiter group explore color as a means of expression. The realism of the drawing is contradicted by aggressive colors that clash together.
Alexej von Jawlensky expresses this tendency in beautiful paintings of female faces, which were to remain his most spectacular art. The head is turned toward the artist, the eyes underlined by large rings provide a very effective sense of presence.
On May 3, 2011, Sotheby's sold for $ 11.3M from a lower estimate of $ 8M a portrait of the artist's wife, lot 12. Her confident and intimate attitude is made strange and attractive by her yellow cheeks and neck, red nose, blue and red clothing, and the green of the fan.
This oil on board, 65 x 54 cm, is one of the masterpieces of the master, who kept it until his death. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Alexej von Jawlensky expresses this tendency in beautiful paintings of female faces, which were to remain his most spectacular art. The head is turned toward the artist, the eyes underlined by large rings provide a very effective sense of presence.
On May 3, 2011, Sotheby's sold for $ 11.3M from a lower estimate of $ 8M a portrait of the artist's wife, lot 12. Her confident and intimate attitude is made strange and attractive by her yellow cheeks and neck, red nose, blue and red clothing, and the green of the fan.
This oil on board, 65 x 54 cm, is one of the masterpieces of the master, who kept it until his death. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1913 Il Pomeriggio di Arianna by De Chirico
2020 SOLD for $ 16M by Sotheby's
The Greek mythology is an enigmatic poetry. The myth of Ariadne, mixing life and death, past and present, truth and dream, inspired Nietzsche. A granddaughter of Zeus, she is a mortal princess and the half-sister of the Minotaur. She dies when Theseus abandons her, but the ancient accounts are contradictory. She is the complement or the antithesis of Dionysus who may have married her. An allegory of vegetation, she will be reborn in spring.
In 1910 Giorgio de Chirico conceives that painting can display the indistinguishable and the revelation. In 1912 and 1913, he devotes eight works to Ariadne's final sleep in Naxos, when she did not yet know that Theseus had fled.
The piazza is huge and deserted. Ariadne is a recumbent in marble symbolizing loneliness, but the position of the arms evokes sleep and life. The late afternoon brings the mysterious threat of shadows. The piazza is closed by an antique brick tomb but personal symbols of the artist, the train and the boat, are still beyond.
Il Pomeriggio di Arianna, painted in 1913, is the dreamlike culmination of the series. Ariadne is almost androgynous. The brick tower, as vertiginous as a skyscraper, is flanked by a broken column of similar height. This oil on canvas 135 x 65 cm was sold for $ 16M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 115.
De Chirico brought a metaphysical dimension to symbolism. His Ariadne series anticipates surrealism in substance, through recourse to the psyche, and in form, through deliberately contradictory elements. Especially in Il Pomeriggio, the inverted perspective of the stele reminds the foreshortening of the Dead Christ by Mantegna.
In 1910 Giorgio de Chirico conceives that painting can display the indistinguishable and the revelation. In 1912 and 1913, he devotes eight works to Ariadne's final sleep in Naxos, when she did not yet know that Theseus had fled.
The piazza is huge and deserted. Ariadne is a recumbent in marble symbolizing loneliness, but the position of the arms evokes sleep and life. The late afternoon brings the mysterious threat of shadows. The piazza is closed by an antique brick tomb but personal symbols of the artist, the train and the boat, are still beyond.
Il Pomeriggio di Arianna, painted in 1913, is the dreamlike culmination of the series. Ariadne is almost androgynous. The brick tower, as vertiginous as a skyscraper, is flanked by a broken column of similar height. This oil on canvas 135 x 65 cm was sold for $ 16M from a lower estimate of $ 10M by Sotheby's on October 28, 2020, lot 115.
De Chirico brought a metaphysical dimension to symbolism. His Ariadne series anticipates surrealism in substance, through recourse to the psyche, and in form, through deliberately contradictory elements. Especially in Il Pomeriggio, the inverted perspective of the stele reminds the foreshortening of the Dead Christ by Mantegna.
1913 Automobile in Corsa by Balla
2013 SOLD for $ 11.5M by Sotheby's
The wonder of the time is the automobile, and the new art must express up to excess the feeling of extreme power brought by speed. Defined in 1909, the Italian Futurist movement goes to advocate violence in literature and art.
In 1912, Giacomo Balla had already transposed in painting the experiments of chronophotography, but too softly in the opinion of his futurist fellows. This is also in the same year that Duchamp painted his Nu descendant un escalier.
Automobile in corsa, oil and ink on paper 74 x 104 cm, throws him in full speed in 1913 into the new trend at such a point that he is now signing Futur Balla.
The car is essentially limited to the unlimited vortex of the successive positions of the wheels. The ghost vehicle moves in an open space whose characteristic is to have multiple vanishing points. The purpose of the composition is to show the strength of the motion in a kind of fourth dimension.
As spontaneous as a drawing, this work in black, gray and white is also a tribute to photography, which had been the first art that dared breaking the motion.
Automobile in corsa was sold for $ 11.5M by Sotheby's on November 6, 2013, lot 9o. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
In 1912, Giacomo Balla had already transposed in painting the experiments of chronophotography, but too softly in the opinion of his futurist fellows. This is also in the same year that Duchamp painted his Nu descendant un escalier.
Automobile in corsa, oil and ink on paper 74 x 104 cm, throws him in full speed in 1913 into the new trend at such a point that he is now signing Futur Balla.
The car is essentially limited to the unlimited vortex of the successive positions of the wheels. The ghost vehicle moves in an open space whose characteristic is to have multiple vanishing points. The purpose of the composition is to show the strength of the motion in a kind of fourth dimension.
As spontaneous as a drawing, this work in black, gray and white is also a tribute to photography, which had been the first art that dared breaking the motion.
Automobile in corsa was sold for $ 11.5M by Sotheby's on November 6, 2013, lot 9o. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
1915 Beatrice Hastings by Modigliani
2022 SOLD for $ 17.6M by Christie's
From 1909 to 1913 Amedeo Modigliani had worked almost exclusively in sculpture. His poor health made him returning to oil painting, especially the sensitive portraits of his friends.
Beatrice Hastings, the highly unconventional "poétesse anglaise", arrives in Montparnasse in 1914, appealed by the bohemian life, and begins an affair with Modigliani. They part from one another in 1916 after two years of debauchery and quarrels.
This short period built the image of a villain Modigliani as a temperamental artist, an Italian womanizer, a heavy drunker, defined by Beatrice as altogether a swine and a pearl. A few years later his fair behavior with Jeanne Hébuterne will not be sufficient to rehabilitate him.
Amedeo painted 14 portraits of Beatrice in all the features of her excessive temper, from charming or vulnerable to arrogant or witty. She wore in a ball a trompe l'oeil dress painted by him on her naked body.
Beatrice Hastings devant une porte is a half length portrait painted in 1915 in the stylized pose of his former sculpted ideal women and caryatids. A gentle and elegant Beatrice has an elongated neck and wears a stylish plumed hat.
This oil on canvas 81 x 46 cm was sold for $ 17.6M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 9. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
Beatrice Hastings, the highly unconventional "poétesse anglaise", arrives in Montparnasse in 1914, appealed by the bohemian life, and begins an affair with Modigliani. They part from one another in 1916 after two years of debauchery and quarrels.
This short period built the image of a villain Modigliani as a temperamental artist, an Italian womanizer, a heavy drunker, defined by Beatrice as altogether a swine and a pearl. A few years later his fair behavior with Jeanne Hébuterne will not be sufficient to rehabilitate him.
Amedeo painted 14 portraits of Beatrice in all the features of her excessive temper, from charming or vulnerable to arrogant or witty. She wore in a ball a trompe l'oeil dress painted by him on her naked body.
Beatrice Hastings devant une porte is a half length portrait painted in 1915 in the stylized pose of his former sculpted ideal women and caryatids. A gentle and elegant Beatrice has an elongated neck and wears a stylish plumed hat.
This oil on canvas 81 x 46 cm was sold for $ 17.6M from a lower estimate of $ 12M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 9. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
1918 La Quiétude by Van Dongen
2023 SOLD for £ 10.8M by Christie's
At the time of the Fauvisme, red unexpectedly becomes a preferred color for the human flesh, used for example on a blue background by Matisse in La Danse.
Van Dongen follows. His Jeune arabe, painted in an orientalist mood in 1910-1911 from his Southern trip, has a shocking cadmium red bare torso. This oil on canvas 102 x 65 cm was sold for $ 13.8M by Sotheby's on November 4, 2009, lot 7.
La Quiétude, painted in 1918, is an orientalist fancy and an allegory for quietness. A languorous entwined couple reclines in the nude. Its main character is a bright red woman somnolent on her back with raised knees. Both legs are terminated with heel boots unseparated from the feet. The drawing is simplified as Sanyu will do a few years later.
The other human is in her shadow, the head resting between her thighs. He or she is midnight blue. A pair of doves listen in the same colors. The foreground stages a smiling monkey and a sleeping dog whose tapered nose reminds Franz Marc's foxes.
In the same year van Dongen executed a series to illustrate the harem stories of the One thousand and One Nights. At the same time he was living his Oriental dream in a home filled with dark colors, velvet curtains, sumptuous carpets and blue tinted windows decorated with garlands of exotic flowers.
This oil on canvas 115 x 146 cm was painted in that home and acquired directly from the artist by the fashion designer Paul Poiret nicknamed le Magnifique by reference to Suleyman. It was sold for £ 10.8 M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on October 13, 2023, lot 9.
Van Dongen follows. His Jeune arabe, painted in an orientalist mood in 1910-1911 from his Southern trip, has a shocking cadmium red bare torso. This oil on canvas 102 x 65 cm was sold for $ 13.8M by Sotheby's on November 4, 2009, lot 7.
La Quiétude, painted in 1918, is an orientalist fancy and an allegory for quietness. A languorous entwined couple reclines in the nude. Its main character is a bright red woman somnolent on her back with raised knees. Both legs are terminated with heel boots unseparated from the feet. The drawing is simplified as Sanyu will do a few years later.
The other human is in her shadow, the head resting between her thighs. He or she is midnight blue. A pair of doves listen in the same colors. The foreground stages a smiling monkey and a sleeping dog whose tapered nose reminds Franz Marc's foxes.
In the same year van Dongen executed a series to illustrate the harem stories of the One thousand and One Nights. At the same time he was living his Oriental dream in a home filled with dark colors, velvet curtains, sumptuous carpets and blue tinted windows decorated with garlands of exotic flowers.
This oil on canvas 115 x 146 cm was painted in that home and acquired directly from the artist by the fashion designer Paul Poiret nicknamed le Magnifique by reference to Suleyman. It was sold for £ 10.8 M from a lower estimate of £ 3M by Christie's on October 13, 2023, lot 9.
1918 Gefärliche Strasse by Grosz
2020 SOLD for £ 9.7M by Christie's
Born in Berlin, George Grosz is 21 years old in 1914. Disgusted by the atrocities of war, he is twice discharged from the German army. He escapes in 1917 a scheduled execution because he is considered as insane.
The civil society disgusts him just as much. While the corpses are rotting on the barbed wire, the survivors indulge in all the sins in Friedrichstrasse. Prostitutes reign over this increasingly miserable decadence. The war will be lost but nobody pays attention to it.
Grosz protests in a proletarian caricature, violently anti-militarist and anti-bourgeois. He will try unsuccessfully to approach revolutionary and Dadaist movements and his art will be censored by all regimes. For the Nazis, he will be the worst cultural Bolshevik. Many of his works have been destroyed.
On February 5, 2020, Christie's sold for £ 9.7M from a lower estimate of £ 4.5M Gefährliche Strasse (the dangerous street), oil on canvas 47 x 65 cm painted in July 1918, lot 6.
The image juxtaposes two nightmarish scenes, symbolizing sex and death. A hilarious prostitute, naked under her transparent clothes, excites a lecherous crowd. In the foreground, an austere soldier with emaciated cheeks resolutely turns his back on the rest of the action. Grosz's screams are worthy of Goya's disasters.
The scene is staged by night in dark colors, with a Futurist fragmentation in the style of Boccioni. In the bottom right, the silhouette of a head expressing repulsion or anger is considered to be a self-portrait of the artist.
The civil society disgusts him just as much. While the corpses are rotting on the barbed wire, the survivors indulge in all the sins in Friedrichstrasse. Prostitutes reign over this increasingly miserable decadence. The war will be lost but nobody pays attention to it.
Grosz protests in a proletarian caricature, violently anti-militarist and anti-bourgeois. He will try unsuccessfully to approach revolutionary and Dadaist movements and his art will be censored by all regimes. For the Nazis, he will be the worst cultural Bolshevik. Many of his works have been destroyed.
On February 5, 2020, Christie's sold for £ 9.7M from a lower estimate of £ 4.5M Gefährliche Strasse (the dangerous street), oil on canvas 47 x 65 cm painted in July 1918, lot 6.
The image juxtaposes two nightmarish scenes, symbolizing sex and death. A hilarious prostitute, naked under her transparent clothes, excites a lecherous crowd. In the foreground, an austere soldier with emaciated cheeks resolutely turns his back on the rest of the action. Grosz's screams are worthy of Goya's disasters.
The scene is staged by night in dark colors, with a Futurist fragmentation in the style of Boccioni. In the bottom right, the silhouette of a head expressing repulsion or anger is considered to be a self-portrait of the artist.
1918 Flags by Hassam
2021 SOLD for $ 12.3M by Sotheby's
In 1916 President Wilson is still expecting to maintain the USA out of the First World War, but he nevertheless consolidates the US Army.
The Preparedness movement, supported by former President Roosevelt, manages a campaign for entering the Americans in the war beside the Allies against the Germans. Specific Preparedness days are organized to gather crowds of many thousands around the waving US flags.
Childe Hassam is recognized as the leader of the small group of US Impressionist painters. His style was influenced by the French Impressionnisme. His preferred theme was the everyday life of the crowd in the avenues, in a variety of bright colors. He was a keen Francophile and became early committed to the Preparedness and then to the US Army in war from the formal involvement in April 1917.
From 1916 to 1919, Hassam executed a patriotic set of about thirty views of New York City entitled Flags, displaying crowds and flags in various angles of view, moments and climatic conditions.
The most famous opus from Hassam's Flags is subtitled The Avenue in the Rain. Painted in 1917 in a style close to the French Impressionnisme, it belongs to the White House and was displayed by President Obama on the wall of the Oval Office.
On May 12, 2021, Sotheby's sold for $ 12.3M Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918, oil on canvas 72 x 61 cm, lot 1026, previously owned by the New York Historical Society. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The scene is a rare top to down view without horizon from the window of Hassam's studio. It is the only snowy scenery in the series, with a nice foreground effect of flags stiffened by frost.
The Preparedness movement, supported by former President Roosevelt, manages a campaign for entering the Americans in the war beside the Allies against the Germans. Specific Preparedness days are organized to gather crowds of many thousands around the waving US flags.
Childe Hassam is recognized as the leader of the small group of US Impressionist painters. His style was influenced by the French Impressionnisme. His preferred theme was the everyday life of the crowd in the avenues, in a variety of bright colors. He was a keen Francophile and became early committed to the Preparedness and then to the US Army in war from the formal involvement in April 1917.
From 1916 to 1919, Hassam executed a patriotic set of about thirty views of New York City entitled Flags, displaying crowds and flags in various angles of view, moments and climatic conditions.
The most famous opus from Hassam's Flags is subtitled The Avenue in the Rain. Painted in 1917 in a style close to the French Impressionnisme, it belongs to the White House and was displayed by President Obama on the wall of the Oval Office.
On May 12, 2021, Sotheby's sold for $ 12.3M Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918, oil on canvas 72 x 61 cm, lot 1026, previously owned by the New York Historical Society. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The scene is a rare top to down view without horizon from the window of Hassam's studio. It is the only snowy scenery in the series, with a nice foreground effect of flags stiffened by frost.
#AuctionUpdate: On offer from the New-York Historical Society and sold to benefit museum collections, Childe Hassam’s 'Flags on 57th Street, Winter 1918' achieves $12.3 million - a new auction record for the American artist. pic.twitter.com/32tlAQvDep
— Sotheby's (@Sothebys) May 13, 2021
1919 Jeune Homme Roux Assis by Modigliani
2014 SOLD for $ 17.6M by Christie's
From 1916 to 1918 in Montparnasse, Zborowski had sponsored the theme of the nude woman by Modigliani. The artist had a great delicacy and was not always at ease in front of his models. He succeeded to create an unprecedented new style, not overlooking the shyness of the girls.
Under the increasing pressure of the war, he leaves with Zbo in April 1918 for the Côte d'Azur. During their 13 months stay, life was not the same. Their clients were far away. Amedeo took a keen interest in the portraits of local children and teenagers, pictured frontally seated on a simple chair. He tried to reveal their individuality behind their clumsiness or boredom while being observed by the artist.
This new theme became a pretext to improve the features, in another new signature style. Bodies and necks became elongated and flexible. The background was made in light warm colors.
Often the eyes were completely filled in sky blue, without pupil, bringing an enigmatic gaze. This unprecedented feature was probably inspired by his earlier practice in sculpture beside his friend Brancusi, under the influence of African masks lit from behind. Some Montparnasse nudes had similarly filled eyes but slightly darker with a lesser empathy.
Jeune homme roux assis, oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm painted in 1919, is in the follow of the series of seated young people by Modigliani.
The handsome red haired guy between adolescence and a confident adulthood does not belong to the working class. The eyes are filled in cerulean blue.
It was sold for $ 17.6M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Christie's on May 6, 2014, lot 5.
Under the increasing pressure of the war, he leaves with Zbo in April 1918 for the Côte d'Azur. During their 13 months stay, life was not the same. Their clients were far away. Amedeo took a keen interest in the portraits of local children and teenagers, pictured frontally seated on a simple chair. He tried to reveal their individuality behind their clumsiness or boredom while being observed by the artist.
This new theme became a pretext to improve the features, in another new signature style. Bodies and necks became elongated and flexible. The background was made in light warm colors.
Often the eyes were completely filled in sky blue, without pupil, bringing an enigmatic gaze. This unprecedented feature was probably inspired by his earlier practice in sculpture beside his friend Brancusi, under the influence of African masks lit from behind. Some Montparnasse nudes had similarly filled eyes but slightly darker with a lesser empathy.
Jeune homme roux assis, oil on canvas 100 x 65 cm painted in 1919, is in the follow of the series of seated young people by Modigliani.
The handsome red haired guy between adolescence and a confident adulthood does not belong to the working class. The eyes are filled in cerulean blue.
It was sold for $ 17.6M from a lower estimate of $ 8M by Christie's on May 6, 2014, lot 5.
1919 Jeune Fille en Bleu by Modigliani
2021 SOLD for $ 16.4M by Sotheby's
From 1916 to 1918 in Montparnasse, Zborowski had sponsored the theme of the nude woman by Modigliani. The artist had a great delicacy and was not always at ease in front of his models. He succeeded to create an unprecedented new style, not overlooking the shyness of the girls.
Under the increasing pressure of the war, he leaves with Zbo in April 1918 for the Côte d'Azur. During their 13 months stay, life was not the same. Their clients were far away. Amedeo took a keen interest in the portraits of local children and teenagers, pictured frontally seated on a simple chair. He tried to reveal their individuality behind their clumsiness or boredom while being observed by the artist.
This new theme became a pretext to improve the features, in another new signature style. Bodies and necks became elongated and flexible. The background was made in light warm colors.
Often the eyes were completely filled in sky blue, without pupil, bringing an enigmatic gaze. This unprecedented feature was probably inspired by his earlier practice in sculpture beside his friend Brancusi, under the influence of African masks lit from behind. Some Montparnasse nudes had similarly filled eyes but slightly darker with a lesser empathy.
On May 12, 2021, Sotheby's sold for $ 16.4M Jeune Fille en bleu, lot 1023. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This oil on canvas 100 x 64 cm was painted in soft tones throughout, in 1919, probably before they left the Riviera.
Under the increasing pressure of the war, he leaves with Zbo in April 1918 for the Côte d'Azur. During their 13 months stay, life was not the same. Their clients were far away. Amedeo took a keen interest in the portraits of local children and teenagers, pictured frontally seated on a simple chair. He tried to reveal their individuality behind their clumsiness or boredom while being observed by the artist.
This new theme became a pretext to improve the features, in another new signature style. Bodies and necks became elongated and flexible. The background was made in light warm colors.
Often the eyes were completely filled in sky blue, without pupil, bringing an enigmatic gaze. This unprecedented feature was probably inspired by his earlier practice in sculpture beside his friend Brancusi, under the influence of African masks lit from behind. Some Montparnasse nudes had similarly filled eyes but slightly darker with a lesser empathy.
On May 12, 2021, Sotheby's sold for $ 16.4M Jeune Fille en bleu, lot 1023. Please watch the video shared by the auction house. This oil on canvas 100 x 64 cm was painted in soft tones throughout, in 1919, probably before they left the Riviera.
