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1882 DANS LES ROSES BY RENOIR
2003 SOLD FOR $ 23.5M BY SOTHEBY'S
to be narrated later
On May 6, 2003, Sotheby's sold for $ 23.5M Dans les roses (Madame Léon Clapisson), oil on canvas 100 x 81 cm painted by Renoir in 1882, lot 18. The image is shared by Wikimedia.
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1885 A SUMMER WITH SEURAT
2018 SOLD FOR $ 34M INCLUDING PREMIUM
Georges Seurat wants his art to be for social criticism. He blames the Impressionist techniques for being emotional and not strict enough. He begins in 1884 a demonstration painting in very large size 208 x 308 cm : Un dimanche après-midi à l'Ile de la Grande Jatte.
Everything is important but everything is mingled. An image with rising lines and warm colors will look optimistic. The Grande Jatte will have to be chilling, with an invading shadow in the foreground and stiff figures symbolizing the aberrations of the bourgeoisie.
The young artist is receptive to ideas about the balance of colors. Chevreul's psychophysiological observations that the vision of a pure color is accompanied by the perception of a halo of its complementary color convince him that the composition of the colors of a painting must not slavishly follow the nature.
Seurat spends the summer 1885 at the seaside, in Grandcamp, on the advice of Signac who also invites him to take an interest in intense lights. Seurat then tests with marine views his interpretation of Chevreul's theories, developing his new technique of dividing colors by horizontal brush strokes that will soon become dots. He names that practice the chromo-luminarisme.
On May 8 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 18 La Rade de Grandcamp, oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm on the rather happy theme of a regatta of horizontally aligned white sails.
The achievement of the Grandcamp series pleases him. Back in his studio, he retouches the Grande Jatte by reducing chromatic variations and by introducing the pointillism. When this work is completed in 1886, it triggers the inevitable break with the Impressionnistes. Only Fénéon is convinced. In 1887 Fénéon coins the neo-Impressionist wording to try showing that Seurat's art is not an opposition to Impressionism but another step on the path to a new art.
Passionate about his theories, Seurat retouched his artworks. Rade de Grandcamp is perhaps the only example left in its original state from his very first experiences in complementary color techniques.
Everything is important but everything is mingled. An image with rising lines and warm colors will look optimistic. The Grande Jatte will have to be chilling, with an invading shadow in the foreground and stiff figures symbolizing the aberrations of the bourgeoisie.
The young artist is receptive to ideas about the balance of colors. Chevreul's psychophysiological observations that the vision of a pure color is accompanied by the perception of a halo of its complementary color convince him that the composition of the colors of a painting must not slavishly follow the nature.
Seurat spends the summer 1885 at the seaside, in Grandcamp, on the advice of Signac who also invites him to take an interest in intense lights. Seurat then tests with marine views his interpretation of Chevreul's theories, developing his new technique of dividing colors by horizontal brush strokes that will soon become dots. He names that practice the chromo-luminarisme.
On May 8 in New York, Christie's sells as lot 18 La Rade de Grandcamp, oil on canvas 65 x 81 cm on the rather happy theme of a regatta of horizontally aligned white sails.
The achievement of the Grandcamp series pleases him. Back in his studio, he retouches the Grande Jatte by reducing chromatic variations and by introducing the pointillism. When this work is completed in 1886, it triggers the inevitable break with the Impressionnistes. Only Fénéon is convinced. In 1887 Fénéon coins the neo-Impressionist wording to try showing that Seurat's art is not an opposition to Impressionism but another step on the path to a new art.
Passionate about his theories, Seurat retouched his artworks. Rade de Grandcamp is perhaps the only example left in its original state from his very first experiences in complementary color techniques.
#AuctionUpdate Georges Seurat’s ‘La rade de Grandcamp (Le port de Grandcamp)’ auctions for $34,062,500. https://t.co/Dvt3rbsVQ1 pic.twitter.com/2OZswikdNo
— Christie's (@ChristiesInc) May 9, 2018
1932 THE PHRYNE OF MODERN ART
2011 SOLD 25.2 M£ INCLUDING PREMIUM
The very young Marie-Thérèse Walter was a beauty. Picasso, who had met her by chance in a Paris street, was dazzled by her body and face.
Pablo was married and waited five years before turning into art his passion for Marie-Thérèse. The art market has already twice acknowledged these portraits made in 1932 as major works of modern art and masterpieces of eroticism.
The beautiful blonde was at once voluptuous and innocent, and Pablo loved to see her in her sleep. She is naked and lying asleep next to the image of her carved bust, in the painting sold for $ 106.5 million including premium at Christie's on May 4, 2010.
Lightly dressed, she dozes in an armchair in the painting titled Le Rêve (The Dream), 130 x 97 cm. Steve Wynn wanted it to become the world's most expensive artwork, but the transaction foreseen at $ 139M was set aside when he accidentally damaged the canvas in October 2006.
La Lecture (The Reading), oil on panel 65 x 51 cm, has a composition similar to the Dream. Marie-Thérèse, a little more undressed, forgets the book on her lap and sleeps chastely and candidly, her head turned upward. The same sinuous lines surround the head and body, getting a remarkable realism by a geometric drawing of great simplicity, as shown in the illustration of the press release shared by Artdaily. The solid colors are close to a Matisse or a Léger.
Estimated £ 12M, La Lecture is for sale on February 8 in London by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
La Lecture takes its deserved place among the masterpieces of Picasso. This painting was sold £ 25.2 million including premium, well above the estimate.
Pablo was married and waited five years before turning into art his passion for Marie-Thérèse. The art market has already twice acknowledged these portraits made in 1932 as major works of modern art and masterpieces of eroticism.
The beautiful blonde was at once voluptuous and innocent, and Pablo loved to see her in her sleep. She is naked and lying asleep next to the image of her carved bust, in the painting sold for $ 106.5 million including premium at Christie's on May 4, 2010.
Lightly dressed, she dozes in an armchair in the painting titled Le Rêve (The Dream), 130 x 97 cm. Steve Wynn wanted it to become the world's most expensive artwork, but the transaction foreseen at $ 139M was set aside when he accidentally damaged the canvas in October 2006.
La Lecture (The Reading), oil on panel 65 x 51 cm, has a composition similar to the Dream. Marie-Thérèse, a little more undressed, forgets the book on her lap and sleeps chastely and candidly, her head turned upward. The same sinuous lines surround the head and body, getting a remarkable realism by a geometric drawing of great simplicity, as shown in the illustration of the press release shared by Artdaily. The solid colors are close to a Matisse or a Léger.
Estimated £ 12M, La Lecture is for sale on February 8 in London by Sotheby's.
POST SALE COMMENT
La Lecture takes its deserved place among the masterpieces of Picasso. This painting was sold £ 25.2 million including premium, well above the estimate.
1932 AN EPIC RESCUE
2014 SOLD 31.5 M$ INCLUDING PREMIUM
On May 7 in New York, Sotheby's sells an enigmatic painting by Picasso, estimated $ 14M, lot 24 in the catalog. Titled Le Sauvetage, this oil on canvas 97 x 130 cm made in November 1932 is the ultimate piece in a small series that Picasso explained. But must we ever believe what artists say, especially when they have the wit and humor of Pablo ?
Pablo is madly in love with Marie-Thérèse but could not spend the summer vacation with her. The reckless young woman was seriously ill after a swim in a polluted river. The announced inspiration for Le Sauvetage is a mixing between this tragedy and the happy days of an erotic summer in Dinard a few years earlier.
The composition juxtaposes pleasure and tragedy, by staging a group of young women similar to the ideal image of Marie-Thérèse in all roles: player, swimmer, drowned, lifesaver, rescued. Without any man.
This work was born from the rivalry of Picasso with Matisse who was at the same time preparing for Barnes the huge mural triptych La Danse II. It is not a coincidence that the bodies of Matisse's dancers and of Picasso's bathers are similarly contorted.
Nudes painted by Matisse in La Danse II are decorative and stylized but not at all anecdotal. Picasso wants to stay at the forefront of artistic expression and adds a narrative and even philosophical effect by this opposition between life and death.
If we consider in Le Sauvetage the variety of occupations and the desire for drama, we may state that this bizarre painting is as an epic precursor to Guernica.
POST SALE COMMENT
Picasso fans loved the unusual style and the narrative theme of this painting, sold for $ 31.5 million including premium.
Pablo is madly in love with Marie-Thérèse but could not spend the summer vacation with her. The reckless young woman was seriously ill after a swim in a polluted river. The announced inspiration for Le Sauvetage is a mixing between this tragedy and the happy days of an erotic summer in Dinard a few years earlier.
The composition juxtaposes pleasure and tragedy, by staging a group of young women similar to the ideal image of Marie-Thérèse in all roles: player, swimmer, drowned, lifesaver, rescued. Without any man.
This work was born from the rivalry of Picasso with Matisse who was at the same time preparing for Barnes the huge mural triptych La Danse II. It is not a coincidence that the bodies of Matisse's dancers and of Picasso's bathers are similarly contorted.
Nudes painted by Matisse in La Danse II are decorative and stylized but not at all anecdotal. Picasso wants to stay at the forefront of artistic expression and adds a narrative and even philosophical effect by this opposition between life and death.
If we consider in Le Sauvetage the variety of occupations and the desire for drama, we may state that this bizarre painting is as an epic precursor to Guernica.
POST SALE COMMENT
Picasso fans loved the unusual style and the narrative theme of this painting, sold for $ 31.5 million including premium.
1944 STUDY OF A TOMATO PLANT
2017 SOLD FOR £ 17M INCLUDING PREMIUM
Picasso did not want to leave Paris during the German Occupation. Times are hard. The Germans do not forgive his interpretation of Guernica and a decree forbids to exhibit his art. Pablo devotes most of his work to still life which has a lower risk of retaliation and confiscation.
Liberation is approaching and violence is increasing. In early August 1944 Pablo left his studio in the Quartier Latin which had become too dangerous and spent several days in the apartment of the Ile Saint-Louis occupied by his former mistress Marie-Thérèse with their daughter Maya.
Pablo has no heart to pleasure. He looks at a tomato plant in front of the window. Easy to grow with little soil, water and sunlight, the tomato offers a limited complement of food in addition to the strict rationing. It mostly offers an illusion of initiative and freedom in this stifling time.
Pablo painted a simultaneous series of oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm on that theme. The more or less ripe tomatoes and the rich or weak foliage are not a naturalistic picture of Marie-Thérèse's plant but express the feelings of the Parisians at that time of undecided future. A gloomy version dated August 10 was sold for $ 13.5M including premium by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
On March 1 in London, Sotheby's sells the optimistic version, dated 6 August 1944. The heavy fruits soon to be picked bend the branches in a harmoniously centered composition. This painting is estimated £ 10M, lot 8.
Liberation is approaching and violence is increasing. In early August 1944 Pablo left his studio in the Quartier Latin which had become too dangerous and spent several days in the apartment of the Ile Saint-Louis occupied by his former mistress Marie-Thérèse with their daughter Maya.
Pablo has no heart to pleasure. He looks at a tomato plant in front of the window. Easy to grow with little soil, water and sunlight, the tomato offers a limited complement of food in addition to the strict rationing. It mostly offers an illusion of initiative and freedom in this stifling time.
Pablo painted a simultaneous series of oil on canvas 92 x 73 cm on that theme. The more or less ripe tomatoes and the rich or weak foliage are not a naturalistic picture of Marie-Thérèse's plant but express the feelings of the Parisians at that time of undecided future. A gloomy version dated August 10 was sold for $ 13.5M including premium by Christie's on November 8, 2006.
On March 1 in London, Sotheby's sells the optimistic version, dated 6 August 1944. The heavy fruits soon to be picked bend the branches in a harmoniously centered composition. This painting is estimated £ 10M, lot 8.
1962 THE LEGACY OF AN ORPHAN
2020 SOLD FOR $ 23M INCLUDING PREMIUM
New forms of pictorial art were developed in California around 1960 while pop art was born in New York. It is no coincidence that the works by Warhol and Lichtenstein were exhibited very early in Los Angeles. The innovations by Diebenkorn, Thiebaud and Ruscha also have a lasting effect.
Ed Ruscha was first influenced by Jasper Johns, whose rigorously symmetrical Targets put an end to one of the major taboos in painting. In addition Barnett Newman dared to use large monochrome flat areas outlined by perfect rectangles.
Ruscha perceives the key role of typography to attract public attention. The letters of the alphabet take for this reason the most varied forms, drawn for a specific need by anonymous artists. They can represent elegance in advertising images, thrill in comics. Ruscha had the fruitful idea to paint actual words instead of alignments of letters but their meaning no longer matters.
In 1962 he appropriates the most recent typography of the title in the pages of Little Orphan Annie. The letters are easily recognizable : they are thick and contiguous in an undulating black outline, with minimized orifices, without forgetting the oblique oval dot over the i.
His use of the word Annie enlarges the typography from the comic strip without modification. The word painted in bright red, now isolated from its context, is placed like a title in a golden background rectangle, separated by a narrow white stripe from an empty rectangle of the same size with a blue background.
Such a geometrical rigor is the antithesis to Rothko : a new art is being born. Later the possible sources of the typographies used by Ruscha will no longer be directly reconciled.
That Annie, oil and graphite on canvas 181 x 170 cm, is estimated $ 20M for sale by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 68.
Ed Ruscha was first influenced by Jasper Johns, whose rigorously symmetrical Targets put an end to one of the major taboos in painting. In addition Barnett Newman dared to use large monochrome flat areas outlined by perfect rectangles.
Ruscha perceives the key role of typography to attract public attention. The letters of the alphabet take for this reason the most varied forms, drawn for a specific need by anonymous artists. They can represent elegance in advertising images, thrill in comics. Ruscha had the fruitful idea to paint actual words instead of alignments of letters but their meaning no longer matters.
In 1962 he appropriates the most recent typography of the title in the pages of Little Orphan Annie. The letters are easily recognizable : they are thick and contiguous in an undulating black outline, with minimized orifices, without forgetting the oblique oval dot over the i.
His use of the word Annie enlarges the typography from the comic strip without modification. The word painted in bright red, now isolated from its context, is placed like a title in a golden background rectangle, separated by a narrow white stripe from an empty rectangle of the same size with a blue background.
Such a geometrical rigor is the antithesis to Rothko : a new art is being born. Later the possible sources of the typographies used by Ruscha will no longer be directly reconciled.
That Annie, oil and graphite on canvas 181 x 170 cm, is estimated $ 20M for sale by Christie's in New York on July 10, lot 68.
1963 THE COLORS OF LIZ
2014 SOLD FOR $ 31.5M INCLUDING PREMIUM
Andy Warhol has built much of his initial fame with a single image of Marilyn and a single image of Liz, taken from magazines. They however did not have the same role in the development of his business.
The first Marilyns from 1962 are experimental. Andy's idea is to mix the techniques of acrylic and silkscreen. He makes his hand in a variety of processes, dimensions and positioning of the image that is sometimes already multiplied in juxtaposition on a single canvas.
The Liz selected during the summer of 1963 opens the use of paint for a multiple reproduction with fixed dimensions. She is first seen on a background of silver painting, referring to the movie screens. A first pass of screen printing provides a mark for the colors: pink skin, red mouth, turquoise eye shadows. A second screen printing brings the deep black lines and hair.
In November 1963, Andy is preparing an exhibition of 101 x 101 cm Liz's which will be similar excepted the background color. The paintings used in this exhibition are numbered from 1 to 6. Seven additional specimens were not numbered. The series is identified as the Early Colored Liz.
In the following year, Andy uses his Liz in printed editions, again with backgrounds from various colors.
The Early Colored Liz number 5 on turquoise background was sold for $ 27M including premium by Phillips de Pury on May 12, 2011. The number 1 in a too bright yellow settled at $ 20.3M including premium on November 13, 2013 at Sotheby's (sold). An unnumbered turquoise was sold for $ 23.5M including premium at Christie's on November 13, 2007.
The Early Colored Liz number 3 with green background will be sold on November 11 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 27.
The first Marilyns from 1962 are experimental. Andy's idea is to mix the techniques of acrylic and silkscreen. He makes his hand in a variety of processes, dimensions and positioning of the image that is sometimes already multiplied in juxtaposition on a single canvas.
The Liz selected during the summer of 1963 opens the use of paint for a multiple reproduction with fixed dimensions. She is first seen on a background of silver painting, referring to the movie screens. A first pass of screen printing provides a mark for the colors: pink skin, red mouth, turquoise eye shadows. A second screen printing brings the deep black lines and hair.
In November 1963, Andy is preparing an exhibition of 101 x 101 cm Liz's which will be similar excepted the background color. The paintings used in this exhibition are numbered from 1 to 6. Seven additional specimens were not numbered. The series is identified as the Early Colored Liz.
In the following year, Andy uses his Liz in printed editions, again with backgrounds from various colors.
The Early Colored Liz number 5 on turquoise background was sold for $ 27M including premium by Phillips de Pury on May 12, 2011. The number 1 in a too bright yellow settled at $ 20.3M including premium on November 13, 2013 at Sotheby's (sold). An unnumbered turquoise was sold for $ 23.5M including premium at Christie's on November 13, 2007.
The Early Colored Liz number 3 with green background will be sold on November 11 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 27.
1963 LIFE AND DEATH OF LIZ TAYLOR
2011 SOLD 27 M$ INCLUDING PREMIUM
Liz Taylor died on March 23, 2011. The very next day Phillips de Pury announced in a press release that her portrait by Warhol will be included in their contemporary art auction in New York on May 12. Of course the negotiations with the seller had taken place before the death of the actress, but the media effect was very strong.
This is the number 5, 101 x 101 cm, painted in 1963 as part of a group of thirteen works with the same picture on different background colors. This painting is shown on the release shared by Artdaily.
Unfortunately for her, Liz was sickly. Warhol used an expressionist technique for paying tribute to his idol. The violet contour of the eyes up to the eyebrows, the too dark red lips accentuate the appearance of pale face. The turquoise background of this serial number 5 has a chilling effect.
The press release announced an estimate of $ 20M, not repeated in the catalog. Another turquoise copy, same size, had been sold for $ 23.5 million including premium by Christie's on November 13, 2007.
Let us quote results for two other works from the same series, again in the same size. Liz on dark red background was sold for $ 12.6 million including premium by Sotheby's on May 10, 2005. The silver Liz was sold £ 6.7 million including premium at Christie's on June 30, 2010.
POST SALE COMMENT
Victory for the turquoise version: $ 27M including premium.
This is the number 5, 101 x 101 cm, painted in 1963 as part of a group of thirteen works with the same picture on different background colors. This painting is shown on the release shared by Artdaily.
Unfortunately for her, Liz was sickly. Warhol used an expressionist technique for paying tribute to his idol. The violet contour of the eyes up to the eyebrows, the too dark red lips accentuate the appearance of pale face. The turquoise background of this serial number 5 has a chilling effect.
The press release announced an estimate of $ 20M, not repeated in the catalog. Another turquoise copy, same size, had been sold for $ 23.5 million including premium by Christie's on November 13, 2007.
Let us quote results for two other works from the same series, again in the same size. Liz on dark red background was sold for $ 12.6 million including premium by Sotheby's on May 10, 2005. The silver Liz was sold £ 6.7 million including premium at Christie's on June 30, 2010.
POST SALE COMMENT
Victory for the turquoise version: $ 27M including premium.
1974 HIGH PLACES OF MAOISM
2017 SOLD FOR RMB 178M INCLUDING PREMIUM
Around 1964 the art of Li Keran is an exalted praise of Maoism. Troops of the Revolution cross the steep mountains of the Long March to reach the unlimited tranquility of the hills. There is no possible misinterpretation : a poem by Mao accompanies each image and the mountains are bright red.
Yet two years later the denunciation of outdated old customs is implacable : the Cultural Revolution does not spare Li Keran. Released after six years, he may resume his brushes provided he complies with the requirements of official art, including monumental paintings of high places of Maoism for official buildings and for diplomatic gifts.
In 1974 Li Keran painted a view of Mao's birthplace, a farmhouse in the Hunan hills where the Red Guards practiced pilgrimages far away from cities and conflicts to immerse themselves within the thought of the Great Helmsman long before the current craze for red tourism.
The farmhouse is shown in a photographic realism. The composition of the landscape in full format is decidedly modern but small groups with various occupations meet the tradition of Chinese handscroll imaging. Nearly one hundred characters in green uniform constitute these groups, approaching or moving away, sitting on the ground around a teacher or posing for a photo. Red flags are everywhere. As if the poem was not enough to applaud the modern mood of the regime, two electric pylons are standing in the distant countryside.
This ink and colors 142 x 243 cm was sold for RMB 124M including premium by China Guardian on May 12, 2012. It is now for sale by Poly in Beijing on December 17, lot 2661. It is illustrated in the 2017 post sale release by The Value.
Yet two years later the denunciation of outdated old customs is implacable : the Cultural Revolution does not spare Li Keran. Released after six years, he may resume his brushes provided he complies with the requirements of official art, including monumental paintings of high places of Maoism for official buildings and for diplomatic gifts.
In 1974 Li Keran painted a view of Mao's birthplace, a farmhouse in the Hunan hills where the Red Guards practiced pilgrimages far away from cities and conflicts to immerse themselves within the thought of the Great Helmsman long before the current craze for red tourism.
The farmhouse is shown in a photographic realism. The composition of the landscape in full format is decidedly modern but small groups with various occupations meet the tradition of Chinese handscroll imaging. Nearly one hundred characters in green uniform constitute these groups, approaching or moving away, sitting on the ground around a teacher or posing for a photo. Red flags are everywhere. As if the poem was not enough to applaud the modern mood of the regime, two electric pylons are standing in the distant countryside.
This ink and colors 142 x 243 cm was sold for RMB 124M including premium by China Guardian on May 12, 2012. It is now for sale by Poly in Beijing on December 17, lot 2661. It is illustrated in the 2017 post sale release by The Value.
1982 THE SCARLET SKULL
2017 SOLD FOR £ 16.5M INCLUDING PREMIUM
On May 18, 2017, Sotheby's sold for $ 110M including premium an Untitled 183 x 173 cm painted by Basquiat in January 1982. A Red Skull 152 x 152 cm of the same year is for sale by Christie's in London on October 6, lot 8. Beyond the fact that both are centered on a single skull, these artworks have significant differences.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
The Untitled skull is floating in front of an uncertain surrounding that can be a break through a palisade. Large and black and occupying two thirds in both height and width of the image, it is breathing an extreme power. With several holes opening to the blue sky and a red tongue, it is a crazy mask as well as a mere human skull.
The Red Skull features a scarlet red skull with hollow cheeks, smaller in its proportion within the image. Less obsessive than the other skull, it therefore leaves a better place to its surrounding which is a masterpiece of synthesis of modern art to which the artist adds his innovative mastery of pure colors by the technique of the oilstick .
A great jazz lover, Basquiat admired the art of Franz Kline. King Oliver, an abstract painting 250 x 197 cm painted by Kline in 1958 and sold for $ 26.5M including premium by Christie's on November 12, 2014, was already a balance of pure colors brought onto the canvas by a musicalist gesture.
Red Skull is a very good example of the expressionist balance brought by Basquiat with no less than seven colors, red, blue, lilac, pink, green, yellow and gold, covering the entire canvas unlike the explosions by Kline or by Joan Mitchell. The work is also embellished with urban structures tending to abstraction that would have enchanted Kandinsky or de Kooning.
1992 ABSTRAKTES BILD 768-2 BY RICHTER
2021 SOLD FOR $ 23.2M BY SOTHEBY'S
The Abstrakte Bilder 768-1 to -4 and 769-1 to -4 constitute a homogeneous set of eight oil on canvas around 200 x 160 cm painted by Richter in 1992.
All these pieces display a pattern of vertical bands from higher to lower edge like folds in a curtain. The intention here is not to display the force of the verticals but to reveal some areas of brilliant colors in the background. The striations are created with a knife over an underlayer applied with the squeegee.
768-2 thus reveals blue and yellow under a fiery red. It was sold for $ 17M by Sotheby's in New York on November 9, 2011, lot 10, and for $ 23.2M in the same auction room on May 12, 2021, lot 11.
Sotheby's also sold 769-2 for $ 14M on November 9, 2011, lot 31, and 769-1 for £ 8.2M on February 12, 2013, lot 23. 769-3 is reported as destructed in the catalogue raisonné.
All these pieces display a pattern of vertical bands from higher to lower edge like folds in a curtain. The intention here is not to display the force of the verticals but to reveal some areas of brilliant colors in the background. The striations are created with a knife over an underlayer applied with the squeegee.
768-2 thus reveals blue and yellow under a fiery red. It was sold for $ 17M by Sotheby's in New York on November 9, 2011, lot 10, and for $ 23.2M in the same auction room on May 12, 2021, lot 11.
Sotheby's also sold 769-2 for $ 14M on November 9, 2011, lot 31, and 769-1 for £ 8.2M on February 12, 2013, lot 23. 769-3 is reported as destructed in the catalogue raisonné.
