Post War French Art
1950 Etude pour Les Constructeurs by Léger
2007 SOLD for $ 11.8M including premium by Christie's
narrated in 2015 before the auction of another Etude (see below)
The end of the Second World War called for a period of rebuilding and of hope for a better life. Fernand Léger is interested in the social aspects of this new theme.
Thirty years before, he was already excited about engines and wheels. He now interprets the anonymous workers busy to build the basic structures of modern life. He works on a monumental painting titled Les constructeurs for which he produced several drafts.
A study in oil on canvas 108 x 138 cm is dated 1949 and 1950. Two men working on scaffolding are overlooking the scenery as sailors of the old time did from the top of the masts. A waving hand shared with another worker symbolizes the solidarity within the team. It passed at Christie's on November 5, 2014 and November 9, 2015.
In the final version 2 x 3 m painted in 1951, solidarity is now demonstrated by four men who join their physical strength to lift a huge steel girder. An oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm very close to the final version has been sold for $ 11.8M including premium at Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 44.
Léger was a member of the Parti Communiste Français since 1945, but he suspected that his art was too far away from Soviet realism to appeal his political friends. For establishing a direct link with the working class, he exhibited several paintings from this series in the canteen of the Renault factory in Boulogne-Billancourt. The reception was mixed but not indifferent.
Thirty years before, he was already excited about engines and wheels. He now interprets the anonymous workers busy to build the basic structures of modern life. He works on a monumental painting titled Les constructeurs for which he produced several drafts.
A study in oil on canvas 108 x 138 cm is dated 1949 and 1950. Two men working on scaffolding are overlooking the scenery as sailors of the old time did from the top of the masts. A waving hand shared with another worker symbolizes the solidarity within the team. It passed at Christie's on November 5, 2014 and November 9, 2015.
In the final version 2 x 3 m painted in 1951, solidarity is now demonstrated by four men who join their physical strength to lift a huge steel girder. An oil on canvas 130 x 89 cm very close to the final version has been sold for $ 11.8M including premium at Christie's on November 6, 2007, lot 44.
Léger was a member of the Parti Communiste Français since 1945, but he suspected that his art was too far away from Soviet realism to appeal his political friends. For establishing a direct link with the working class, he exhibited several paintings from this series in the canteen of the Renault factory in Boulogne-Billancourt. The reception was mixed but not indifferent.
1952 The Colors of Football
2019 SOLD for € 20M including premium
Nicolas de Staël wanted to introduce a new modernism in pictorial art at a time when American artists were developing the abstract expressionism. He tries geometric structures painted in various shades of gray sprinkled with traces of his knife in the impasto. This period culminates with a monumental opus 204 x 405 cm named Composition 1950 which was sold for € 4.2M including premium by Sotheby's on June 3, 2014.
He appreciates that a full abstraction cannot express an artist's relationship to the world. He begins to state that abstraction and figuration are not incompatible. One of his confidants is René Char, the poet who gave freedom to words.
Nicolas and his wife attend a football match at the Parc des Princes on March 26, 1952. This event was an example of modernism, being one of the first to be played in the night under the spotlights. Saturated colors are new to the sport. The atmosphere does not alter the vitality of the boys focused on their actions. The result, 1-0 for Sweden against France, probably did not interest Nicolas.
The hypersensitive artist felt a lasting empathy for both teams. Back in his workshop, he produced in a few weeks a series of 25 paintings, providing his interpretation of the variety of movements.
Almost all these Footballeurs paintings are in small sizes. An oil on canvas 200 x 350 cm is an exception. Titled Parc des Princes by the artist and differentiated from the others by its subtitle Les Grands Footballeurs, it has been kept until now by the family and is estimated € 18M for sale by Christie's in Paris on October 17, lot 12.
This series on football changes forever the style of the artist, who has regained his sensitivity to the colors of landscapes, still lifes and flowers. A bouquet in a vase, oil on canvas 147 x 98 cm painted in the countryside during the summer of 1952, was sold for € 8.3M including premium by Christie's on June 7, 2018.
He appreciates that a full abstraction cannot express an artist's relationship to the world. He begins to state that abstraction and figuration are not incompatible. One of his confidants is René Char, the poet who gave freedom to words.
Nicolas and his wife attend a football match at the Parc des Princes on March 26, 1952. This event was an example of modernism, being one of the first to be played in the night under the spotlights. Saturated colors are new to the sport. The atmosphere does not alter the vitality of the boys focused on their actions. The result, 1-0 for Sweden against France, probably did not interest Nicolas.
The hypersensitive artist felt a lasting empathy for both teams. Back in his workshop, he produced in a few weeks a series of 25 paintings, providing his interpretation of the variety of movements.
Almost all these Footballeurs paintings are in small sizes. An oil on canvas 200 x 350 cm is an exception. Titled Parc des Princes by the artist and differentiated from the others by its subtitle Les Grands Footballeurs, it has been kept until now by the family and is estimated € 18M for sale by Christie's in Paris on October 17, lot 12.
This series on football changes forever the style of the artist, who has regained his sensitivity to the colors of landscapes, still lifes and flowers. A bouquet in a vase, oil on canvas 147 x 98 cm painted in the countryside during the summer of 1952, was sold for € 8.3M including premium by Christie's on June 7, 2018.
1952 Floral Abstraction by Nicolas de Staël
2018 SOLD for € 8.3M including premium
The art of Nicolas de Staël is extremely genuine, not related to schools, because it is the expression of his obsession with painting. Nervous and touchy, capable of the greatest joy and of the greatest despair, the artist has constant doubts about the quality of his work. The rejection of one of his paintings by a usually enthusiastic admirer is for him a drama of the highest intensity.
In his abstract period his painting is laid with a knife in thicknesses that accumulate until the desired effect is achieved. This masonry effect pleases the fans of the Ecole de Paris. De Staël defies this sympathizing public when he suddenly renounces pure abstraction by stating that painting must be neither abstract nor figurative.
This hypersensitive artist is now looking for all the themes that can dazzle him. The outbreak of this new phase of his art is a football match on March 26, 1952 at the Parc des Princes, one of the first to be played by night under floodlight. In the rest of his short career he will look everywhere for the brightest colors that he will often associate with musical rhythms.
De Staël wants to see again the beautiful sunlight of Provence : he spends the summer of 1952 in a cabin in the Lubéron. He is inspired by a vase of roses by van Gogh for looking at the flowers.
On June 7 in Paris, Christie's sells a still life of flowers, oil on canvas 147 x 98 cm painted by De Staël in 1952, which is his largest format on this theme and indeed the culmination of his search for floral expression in that summer. It is estimated € 3.5M, lot 28.
In his abstract period his painting is laid with a knife in thicknesses that accumulate until the desired effect is achieved. This masonry effect pleases the fans of the Ecole de Paris. De Staël defies this sympathizing public when he suddenly renounces pure abstraction by stating that painting must be neither abstract nor figurative.
This hypersensitive artist is now looking for all the themes that can dazzle him. The outbreak of this new phase of his art is a football match on March 26, 1952 at the Parc des Princes, one of the first to be played by night under floodlight. In the rest of his short career he will look everywhere for the brightest colors that he will often associate with musical rhythms.
De Staël wants to see again the beautiful sunlight of Provence : he spends the summer of 1952 in a cabin in the Lubéron. He is inspired by a vase of roses by van Gogh for looking at the flowers.
On June 7 in Paris, Christie's sells a still life of flowers, oil on canvas 147 x 98 cm painted by De Staël in 1952, which is his largest format on this theme and indeed the culmination of his search for floral expression in that summer. It is estimated € 3.5M, lot 28.
1954 The Impossible Nude of Nicolas de Staël
2011 SOLD 7 M€ including premium
PRE SALE DISCUSSION
In the last years of his short life, Nicolas de Staël felt that his mind escaped. He was actor and victim of a surfeit of artistic creation, in search of a perfection which he did not know any more how to control.
With his thick paint spread with a knife, he is a sculptor of colors, becoming angry with his artist friends who do not understand his drift toward abstraction, but yet he is right.
His favorite subject is the light of the Mediterranean landscape. Critics and collectors have trouble following him, and he comes thinking that only the bright sun of the South enables to view his work in acceptable conditions.
His passionate love for Jeanne will be fatal to the balance of his family and himself. In 1954, on a large oil on canvas, 97 x 146 cm, Jeanne is naked, lying on her back. But is she Jeanne, or only his desire? The skin is full of bright colors, like the Sicilian light in the memory of the artist. The arms form a strange protective gesture.
This is a pathetic nude, and that love is impossible. Jeanne soon tired of Nicolas, and he committed suicide. He was 41.
This work is for sale on December 6 in Paris by Artcurial. Here is the link to the press release illustrated with a video. The painting is announced at € 2.7 M.
In the last years of his short life, Nicolas de Staël felt that his mind escaped. He was actor and victim of a surfeit of artistic creation, in search of a perfection which he did not know any more how to control.
With his thick paint spread with a knife, he is a sculptor of colors, becoming angry with his artist friends who do not understand his drift toward abstraction, but yet he is right.
His favorite subject is the light of the Mediterranean landscape. Critics and collectors have trouble following him, and he comes thinking that only the bright sun of the South enables to view his work in acceptable conditions.
His passionate love for Jeanne will be fatal to the balance of his family and himself. In 1954, on a large oil on canvas, 97 x 146 cm, Jeanne is naked, lying on her back. But is she Jeanne, or only his desire? The skin is full of bright colors, like the Sicilian light in the memory of the artist. The arms form a strange protective gesture.
This is a pathetic nude, and that love is impossible. Jeanne soon tired of Nicolas, and he committed suicide. He was 41.
This work is for sale on December 6 in Paris by Artcurial. Here is the link to the press release illustrated with a video. The painting is announced at € 2.7 M.
1959 The Last Painter from Lascaux
2018 SOLD for $ 10.6M including premium
The two painters of the black, Franz Kline and Pierre Soulages, influenced each other but their intentions were different. Kline wanted to simulate the gesture while Soulages obtained a whole range of brightness by varying the thickness of the layers and by practicing shears and incisions.
Their confrontation of black with other colors is almost simultaneous, around 1958. Soulages develops special tools to reveal color through black. Like Pollock, he works with his canvas laid flat on the floor of his studio.
This appeal for the black had come very early to Soulages, after his observation of some paintings in Lascaux caves. He was amazed by the use of black by prehistoric artists in their dark working place. Some figures are made in a black that has been partially scraped to reveal the color of the background while preserving the drawing.
The Peinture dated 21 Novembre 1959 reveals the blue layer under the sheared black. This oil on canvas 195 x 130 cm was sold for £ 4.3M including premium by Sotheby's on June 26, 2013. Like his friend Zao Wou-Ki, Soulages uses as title the date of the work.
On the last day before his fortieth birthday, Pierre Soulages synthesizes his inspiration by revealing a blood red under-layer which is one of the typical colors at Lascaux. Titled Peinture 186 x 143 cm 23 Décembre 1959, it is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on December 15, lot 22 C.
Their confrontation of black with other colors is almost simultaneous, around 1958. Soulages develops special tools to reveal color through black. Like Pollock, he works with his canvas laid flat on the floor of his studio.
This appeal for the black had come very early to Soulages, after his observation of some paintings in Lascaux caves. He was amazed by the use of black by prehistoric artists in their dark working place. Some figures are made in a black that has been partially scraped to reveal the color of the background while preserving the drawing.
The Peinture dated 21 Novembre 1959 reveals the blue layer under the sheared black. This oil on canvas 195 x 130 cm was sold for £ 4.3M including premium by Sotheby's on June 26, 2013. Like his friend Zao Wou-Ki, Soulages uses as title the date of the work.
On the last day before his fortieth birthday, Pierre Soulages synthesizes his inspiration by revealing a blood red under-layer which is one of the typical colors at Lascaux. Titled Peinture 186 x 143 cm 23 Décembre 1959, it is estimated $ 10M for sale by Christie's in New York on December 15, lot 22 C.
1960 Black over Ocher over White
2019 SOLD for € 9.6M by Tajan
The paintings by Pierre Soulages are abstract, titled only by the dimensions and the date. He manages to offer a timeless art that matches his perception of parietal art. He visited New York in 1957 and met Motherwell and Rothko.
His technique consists in superimposing the layers of paint. The first layer is white. The intermediate layer, which partially covers the surface, is colored. The top layer, deep black from walnut husks, shapes the image. Before it is dry, the artist shears it in a few places with a spatula to bring out the color or the white through the black.
The artist celebrated his 40th birthday on December 24, 1959. The 186 x 143 cm oil on canvas painted in the previous day was sold for $ 10.6M including premium by Christie's on November 15, 2018. The black mass forms a horizontal stripe with frayed edges. The intermediate color is blood red in a reference to the art of Lascaux. Through the black, the white is limited to a small scar.
Peinture 200 x 162 cm, 14 mars 1960, will be sold by Tajan in Paris on November 27, lot 8 estimated beyond € 4M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The diagonal black is elegantly bordered with beams in the taste of Franz Kline. The white appears in three tiny windows plus an incision. The ocher that had certainly been deposited in several layers offers a nice variety of transparency and brightness. Ocher is also one of the colors of Lascaux.
Pierre Soulages will celebrate his 100th birthday on December 24, 2019.
His technique consists in superimposing the layers of paint. The first layer is white. The intermediate layer, which partially covers the surface, is colored. The top layer, deep black from walnut husks, shapes the image. Before it is dry, the artist shears it in a few places with a spatula to bring out the color or the white through the black.
The artist celebrated his 40th birthday on December 24, 1959. The 186 x 143 cm oil on canvas painted in the previous day was sold for $ 10.6M including premium by Christie's on November 15, 2018. The black mass forms a horizontal stripe with frayed edges. The intermediate color is blood red in a reference to the art of Lascaux. Through the black, the white is limited to a small scar.
Peinture 200 x 162 cm, 14 mars 1960, will be sold by Tajan in Paris on November 27, lot 8 estimated beyond € 4M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.
The diagonal black is elegantly bordered with beams in the taste of Franz Kline. The white appears in three tiny windows plus an incision. The ocher that had certainly been deposited in several layers offers a nice variety of transparency and brightness. Ocher is also one of the colors of Lascaux.
Pierre Soulages will celebrate his 100th birthday on December 24, 2019.
1961 Lente Hourloupe in Paris
2015 SOLD for $ 25M including premium
Jean Dubuffet is a wholesale wine merchant in Le Havre. Fascinated by the roots of art, he does not need any academicism. He early becomes the herald of a resolutely anti-cultural approach, promoting the art of the mentally ill without hiding his own difficult character.
He creates his own artistic style based on trivial and pun. He complacently adds an earthiness that perfectly suits his need to shock. He surprises by his difference and becomes a famous artist.
After several years in the provinces, Dubuffet rediscovered Paris in 1961. The big city appears as a capital of the joie de vivre, the last place where Hemingway had tried to lead a festive life.
The artist interprets Paris in his way in his series of paintings Paris Circus. On May 11 in New York, Christie's sells Paris Polka, lot 22A. The press release of April 7 announces an estimate in the region of $ 25M.
This large oil on canvas, 190 x 220 cm, may be read like a tourist guide with facades and names of dancing halls symbolized by boxes filled with a dancing character. One of these signs, L'Entourloupe (the rotten trick), is anticipating the unprecedented and untranslatable pun that will define the next series of his art (l'Hourloupe).
In the same year, other paintings show Parisian buses fully loaded by his stylized figures, passing signs of various trades in the street. Trinité - Champs Elysées, 116 x 89 cm, was sold for $ 6.1 million including premium by Sotheby's on 11 November 2009. Gare Montparnasse - Porte des Lilas, 165 x 217 cm, was sold for $ 4.7 million including premium by Christie's on May 14, 2002.
He creates his own artistic style based on trivial and pun. He complacently adds an earthiness that perfectly suits his need to shock. He surprises by his difference and becomes a famous artist.
After several years in the provinces, Dubuffet rediscovered Paris in 1961. The big city appears as a capital of the joie de vivre, the last place where Hemingway had tried to lead a festive life.
The artist interprets Paris in his way in his series of paintings Paris Circus. On May 11 in New York, Christie's sells Paris Polka, lot 22A. The press release of April 7 announces an estimate in the region of $ 25M.
This large oil on canvas, 190 x 220 cm, may be read like a tourist guide with facades and names of dancing halls symbolized by boxes filled with a dancing character. One of these signs, L'Entourloupe (the rotten trick), is anticipating the unprecedented and untranslatable pun that will define the next series of his art (l'Hourloupe).
In the same year, other paintings show Parisian buses fully loaded by his stylized figures, passing signs of various trades in the street. Trinité - Champs Elysées, 116 x 89 cm, was sold for $ 6.1 million including premium by Sotheby's on 11 November 2009. Gare Montparnasse - Porte des Lilas, 165 x 217 cm, was sold for $ 4.7 million including premium by Christie's on May 14, 2002.
1961 The Life on the Grands Boulevards
2016 SOLD for $ 24M including premium
Jean Dubuffet states that it is expected from an artist that he shall not duplicate what had been previously done by others. His own style and themes are highly original and reach their culmination in 1961 when he rediscovers Paris after spending several years in the provinces.
This series is entitled Paris-Circus, where circus has not the meaning of a show but instead of a frenetic activity. In a surrounding of exuberant colors, people are dull, without personality, each one in his box like within a game of the goose and they do not communicate. The drawing is resolutely naive.
Paris Polka evokes dancing rooms and pleasures. This oil on canvas 190 x 220 cm was sold for $ 25M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
Humor comes back even bitter in Les Grandes Artères, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm for sale by Christie's in New York on November 15, lot 17 A estimated $ 15M. Please watch the videoshared by the auction house.
The composition is made in three parallel registers successively showing the roadway, the sidewalk and the dense urban pattern of shops and buildings.
In the foreground, each driver is alone in his car, stuck in traffic jam and stuck in his attitude. The childish figure is reinforced by identifying the brand of the vehicle and its license plate.
The titles of the shops are countless puns. Their often incongruous identification remind that the big city is a threat to the individual : A l'issue fatale (fatal outcome), Faillite (bankruptcy), Fruits et légumes du désespoir (Fruits and vegetables of despair). Poetry is not absent : Fin de saison (end of season) is in line with Salaisons (salted meat). The artist adds his recommendations : Buvez froid (drink cold), Urinez souvent (urinate frequently).
This series is entitled Paris-Circus, where circus has not the meaning of a show but instead of a frenetic activity. In a surrounding of exuberant colors, people are dull, without personality, each one in his box like within a game of the goose and they do not communicate. The drawing is resolutely naive.
Paris Polka evokes dancing rooms and pleasures. This oil on canvas 190 x 220 cm was sold for $ 25M including premium by Christie's on May 11, 2015.
Humor comes back even bitter in Les Grandes Artères, oil on canvas 114 x 146 cm for sale by Christie's in New York on November 15, lot 17 A estimated $ 15M. Please watch the videoshared by the auction house.
The composition is made in three parallel registers successively showing the roadway, the sidewalk and the dense urban pattern of shops and buildings.
In the foreground, each driver is alone in his car, stuck in traffic jam and stuck in his attitude. The childish figure is reinforced by identifying the brand of the vehicle and its license plate.
The titles of the shops are countless puns. Their often incongruous identification remind that the big city is a threat to the individual : A l'issue fatale (fatal outcome), Faillite (bankruptcy), Fruits et légumes du désespoir (Fruits and vegetables of despair). Poetry is not absent : Fin de saison (end of season) is in line with Salaisons (salted meat). The artist adds his recommendations : Buvez froid (drink cold), Urinez souvent (urinate frequently).
1961 Soulages
2021 SOLD for $ 20M by Sotheby's
At the turn of the 1960s the art of Pierre Soulages becomes increasingly gestural and multi-directional. He had earlier switched his small brushes to larger tools including knives and house painting brushes.
An oil on canvas titled Peinture 195 x 130 cm and dated 4 août 1961 was sold for $ 20M from an estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2021, lot 10.
This large scale luminous painting in red and black over a dark crimson base is an example of his quest of the basic features of painting. A frantic effect is obtained by variations in the length of the forms and in the thickness of the paint.
An oil on canvas titled Peinture 195 x 130 cm and dated 4 août 1961 was sold for $ 20M from an estimate of $ 8M by Sotheby's on November 16, 2021, lot 10.
This large scale luminous painting in red and black over a dark crimson base is an example of his quest of the basic features of painting. A frantic effect is obtained by variations in the length of the forms and in the thickness of the paint.
1963 The Scribbles of the Hourloupe
2017 SOLD for £ 10M including premium
Jean Dubuffet is a great revolutionary of the artistic creation. Reusing the styles, themes and techniques of his predecessors would be a disgrace to him. He follows no teacher but is attentive to the graphic representation of the world by the mentally ill. There is no absolute reality. Each artist builds another universe.
In 1962 Dubuffet is on the phone. He allows his pen to wander on the paper of the notebook. He hangs up and looks at his scribble, a new avatar of automatic writing that he completes with hatching. The non-figurative result looks like the unlimited urban patterns in his Paris Circus cycle. He will now explore his new language made of sinuous lines generating a multitude of small closed areas that can be filled with pure colors as in a Mondrian and reveal anthropomorphic figures.
He coins the name Hourloupe to describe his new style while providing varied explanations on the etymology of this word whose sound pleases him. The closeness with Entourloupe is especially noteworthy : the artist is necessarily a subjective interpreter, so he is a liar and a cheater. Dubuffet is undoubtedly the first to redefine the artist in a way totally opposed to the well-to-do traditions.
Dubuffet sets the example. For 22 years he was to replay his Hourloupe until giving to this wacky style a place in real life with theater costumes, monumental sculptures and interior fittings untouchable by their irregular paving.
On March 7 in London, Christie's sells Etre et paraître, oil on canvas 150 x 195 cm painted in 1963, lot 8 estimated £ 7M. The non-nonsense title is a profession of faith on the impossible duality between reality and the impression it brings to the viewer. Human profiles are buried within this huge scribble scattered with pure colors.
In 1962 Dubuffet is on the phone. He allows his pen to wander on the paper of the notebook. He hangs up and looks at his scribble, a new avatar of automatic writing that he completes with hatching. The non-figurative result looks like the unlimited urban patterns in his Paris Circus cycle. He will now explore his new language made of sinuous lines generating a multitude of small closed areas that can be filled with pure colors as in a Mondrian and reveal anthropomorphic figures.
He coins the name Hourloupe to describe his new style while providing varied explanations on the etymology of this word whose sound pleases him. The closeness with Entourloupe is especially noteworthy : the artist is necessarily a subjective interpreter, so he is a liar and a cheater. Dubuffet is undoubtedly the first to redefine the artist in a way totally opposed to the well-to-do traditions.
Dubuffet sets the example. For 22 years he was to replay his Hourloupe until giving to this wacky style a place in real life with theater costumes, monumental sculptures and interior fittings untouchable by their irregular paving.
On March 7 in London, Christie's sells Etre et paraître, oil on canvas 150 x 195 cm painted in 1963, lot 8 estimated £ 7M. The non-nonsense title is a profession of faith on the impossible duality between reality and the impression it brings to the viewer. Human profiles are buried within this huge scribble scattered with pure colors.
