Plus 1910s
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Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
Except otherwise stated, all results include the premium.
1911 Dresden by Kirchner
2012 SOLD for £ 7.3M by Sotheby's
Throughout Europe in the 1910s, groups of artists and intellectuals question the origin of mankind and the role of art. In Dresden, Die Brücke, led by Kirchner, has the ambition to be a bridge between past and present.
The present is the urban landscape that reflects modern life. The past, or the origin, is characterized by obsessive nudes with a primitivist sexuality. The group executes some masterpieces of wood engraving.
A gentle oil on canvas by Kirchner, 120 x 151 cm, has for theme the Albertplatz of Dresden. The characters are quiet and anonymous, like the walkers of Utrillo or Dufy. However, its date, 1911, is important, and brings an estimate of £ 5M. It was sold for £ 7.3M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Sotheby's on February 8, 2012, lot 39.
It is indeed one of the last provincial cityscapes made by Kirchner before leaving for Berlin, a move that had so far-reaching consequences on his life and was so fruitful for the history of art. His anguished discovery of the communication difficulties in the anonymity of the big city will generate some masterpieces of expressionist art.
In 1913 the group exploded. Persecuted in 1937 by the Nazis who considered him as a typical example of degenerate artist, Kirchner could not protect his own artwork and committed suicide in the following year.
The present is the urban landscape that reflects modern life. The past, or the origin, is characterized by obsessive nudes with a primitivist sexuality. The group executes some masterpieces of wood engraving.
A gentle oil on canvas by Kirchner, 120 x 151 cm, has for theme the Albertplatz of Dresden. The characters are quiet and anonymous, like the walkers of Utrillo or Dufy. However, its date, 1911, is important, and brings an estimate of £ 5M. It was sold for £ 7.3M from a lower estimate of £ 5M by Sotheby's on February 8, 2012, lot 39.
It is indeed one of the last provincial cityscapes made by Kirchner before leaving for Berlin, a move that had so far-reaching consequences on his life and was so fruitful for the history of art. His anguished discovery of the communication difficulties in the anonymity of the big city will generate some masterpieces of expressionist art.
In 1913 the group exploded. Persecuted in 1937 by the Nazis who considered him as a typical example of degenerate artist, Kirchner could not protect his own artwork and committed suicide in the following year.
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.
1918 Les Cylindres Colorés by Léger
2014 SOLD for £ 12 M by Christie's
Fernand Léger was a sapper and stretcher wearer during the First World War where he was gassed and wounded. Healed from a tuberculosis, he restarts his career in late 1917 while avoiding the theme of the horrors of war. An avant-garde artist, he had been one of the main proponents of Cubism.
These three years spent with working-class men laid the foundations for his later political commitment and incited him to renounce to a hermetic full abstraction.
The great theme of modern civilization is mechanical. The Futurists are interested in its application to speed. Léger is inspired by the assembly and even the machining of its components : cylinders, wheels, discs, gears.
In December 1917, he took the cylinders as a basic element in a seminal Partie de cartes which is one of his many tributes to Cézanne. He uses this new grammar of the cylinder to oscillate between Cubism and abstraction.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 12M from a lower estimate of £ 5M Les cylindres colorés, oil on canvas 54 x 50 cm painted in 1918, lot 5. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
Viewed from afar, the work could display an engine and gears. However its elements are pointing in all directions without visible support and a closer inspection will consider this composition as completely abstract. Another novelty, shared with Mondrian, is the use of pure colors.
These three years spent with working-class men laid the foundations for his later political commitment and incited him to renounce to a hermetic full abstraction.
The great theme of modern civilization is mechanical. The Futurists are interested in its application to speed. Léger is inspired by the assembly and even the machining of its components : cylinders, wheels, discs, gears.
In December 1917, he took the cylinders as a basic element in a seminal Partie de cartes which is one of his many tributes to Cézanne. He uses this new grammar of the cylinder to oscillate between Cubism and abstraction.
On February 4, 2014, Christie's sold for £ 12M from a lower estimate of £ 5M Les cylindres colorés, oil on canvas 54 x 50 cm painted in 1918, lot 5. Please watch the video prepared by Christie's.
Viewed from afar, the work could display an engine and gears. However its elements are pointing in all directions without visible support and a closer inspection will consider this composition as completely abstract. Another novelty, shared with Mondrian, is the use of pure colors.
1918 Les Deux Acrobates by Léger
2022 SOLD for $ 14M by Christie's
Painted in 1918, Les Deux Acrobates marks Léger's desire to remain at the border between abstraction and Cubist fragmentation.
A mid length performer from Cirque Médrano in Montmartre is holding a fellow reverted acrobat in an airy vertical composition. The face to face heads are figured in a cartoonish style while hats and arms form a loose construction of curved volumes.
This oil on canvas 90 x 58 cm was sold by Christie's for $ 5.5M on November 6, 2002, lot 41 and for $ 14M on May 12, 2022, lot 36C.
A mid length performer from Cirque Médrano in Montmartre is holding a fellow reverted acrobat in an airy vertical composition. The face to face heads are figured in a cartoonish style while hats and arms form a loose construction of curved volumes.
This oil on canvas 90 x 58 cm was sold by Christie's for $ 5.5M on November 6, 2002, lot 41 and for $ 14M on May 12, 2022, lot 36C.
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
1918 Saule Pleureur by Monet
2017 SOLD for £ 8.9M by Christie's
The war was a period of great concern for Claude Monet, a patriot and friend of Clemenceau. Too old for active engagement he takes refuge with some feeling of shame within his artistic occupation. With his series of paintings of water lilies that will become Les Grandes Décorations he wants to express that the beauty of nature is immutable unlike the events created by men.
Each water lily painting is a technical feat in increasingly panoramic formats. Monet also observes the shores of his pond in search of vertical themes that will bring an impression of vitality and power. The 200 x 100 cm picture of a group of mauve irises in close-up was sold for £ 10.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2015.
In March 1918 the German counter-offensive threatens Amiens. After some hesitation Monet decides to remain at all costs in Giverny. He immediately begins his paintings on the theme of the weeping willows of his garden. This series will include ten artworks made in 1918 and 1919.
The weeping willow is an ornamental tree with dense and enveloping foliage. Under his tree Monet observes the subtlety of colors. The trunk and a small corner of the ground at the edge of the pond are sufficient to identify the theme. The low angle follows the trunk in bottom-up in its whole height. The leaves provide a mingling of colors treated in a heavy impasto by gestural brush strikes that deliberately ignore the perspective.
The weeping willows of Monet renew the modern art. He is aware and proud of that and wishes to present one of these paintings to France at the time of the armistice. This series opens the path to the experiments close to abstraction of his latest years.
On June 27, 2017, Christie's sold for £ 8.9M a Saule pleureur by Monet, oil on canvas 130 x 110 cm, lot 14.
Each water lily painting is a technical feat in increasingly panoramic formats. Monet also observes the shores of his pond in search of vertical themes that will bring an impression of vitality and power. The 200 x 100 cm picture of a group of mauve irises in close-up was sold for £ 10.8M by Christie's on June 23, 2015.
In March 1918 the German counter-offensive threatens Amiens. After some hesitation Monet decides to remain at all costs in Giverny. He immediately begins his paintings on the theme of the weeping willows of his garden. This series will include ten artworks made in 1918 and 1919.
The weeping willow is an ornamental tree with dense and enveloping foliage. Under his tree Monet observes the subtlety of colors. The trunk and a small corner of the ground at the edge of the pond are sufficient to identify the theme. The low angle follows the trunk in bottom-up in its whole height. The leaves provide a mingling of colors treated in a heavy impasto by gestural brush strikes that deliberately ignore the perspective.
The weeping willows of Monet renew the modern art. He is aware and proud of that and wishes to present one of these paintings to France at the time of the armistice. This series opens the path to the experiments close to abstraction of his latest years.
On June 27, 2017, Christie's sold for £ 8.9M a Saule pleureur by Monet, oil on canvas 130 x 110 cm, lot 14.
Saule pleureur de #Monet : une peinture chargée d’histoire exécutée à l’aube de la fin de la 1ère GM https://t.co/v9exCXAJkq pic.twitter.com/yG83YVjden
— Christie's Paris (@christiesparis) June 14, 2017
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.
