Lot 10. Olivier Debré (1920-1999), Vert et rose barre rouge, Brocéliande, 1979-1980. Huile sur toile signée, datée et titrée au dos, 38 x 55 cm. Estimation : 4 000 - 6 000 €. Photo Millon
Provenance :Galerie Fabien Boulakia, Paris
Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
Lot 11. Olivier Debré (1920-1999), Le Bleu de la Mer Rouge, 1981. Huile sur toile signée, datée, titrée et dédicacée à Claude et Michèle Harel au dos, 24,5 x 33 cm. Estimation : 3 000 - 4 000 €. Photo Millon
Provenance : Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Toile peinte en Jordanie, en 1981, à l'occasion de la venue de l'artiste pour l'exposition organisée à Amman, au Musée national jordanien des beaux-arts, 1er - 25 mars 1981, et offerte par l'artiste à Claude et Michèle Harel.
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
Lot 12. Olivier Debré (1920-1999), Rose d'Amman, 1981. Huile sur toile signée, datée, titrée et dédicacée à Claude Harel au dos, 13 x 18 cm. Estimation : 1 200 - 1 500 €. Photo Millon
Provenance : Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Toile peinte en Jordanie, en 1981, à l'occasion de la venue de l'artiste pour l'exposition organisée à Amman, au Musée national jordanien des beaux-arts, 1er - 25 mars 1981, et offerte par l'artiste à Claude et Michèle Harel.
A propos de cette toile, Claude Harel note "Peint sur un tonneau branlant par Olivier dans le jardin de l'ambassade à Amman: Le mur rose d'en face avec la lumière de 17h et le mouvement d'un cyprès agité par le vent."
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
Lot 221. A rare silver portrait of the sixth Shamarpa, Chökyi Wangchuk, Tibet, early 17th Century. Estimate 400,000-600,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.
Himalayan Art Resources item no. 13426.
Height: 4 7/8 in. (12.5 cm)
Provenance: Bukowskis Stockholm, 13-16 December 1988.
Literature: K. Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth Karmapa, New York, 2012, pp. 66-67, fig. 2.1.
H. Uebach and J. L. Panglung, "A Silver Portrait of the 6th Źwa-dmar Karma-pa (1584-1630)", in B. Kellner et al. eds. Pramanakirtih: Papers Dedicated to Ernst Steinkellner on the Occasion of His 70th Birthday, Vol. II, Vienna, 2007, p. 975-988.
Note: The current work is a very rare silver figure depicting the sixth Shamarpa Chökyi Wangchuk (1584—1630). Exquisitely modeled and elegantly cast, Chökyi Wangchuk is identifiable by the iconic headdress from which the Shamar or Red Hat lineage derives its name. The first Shamar tulku, Kedrub Dragpa Sengge, was recognized by the third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje in 1283, and presented with a red replica of the unique, double-peaked black hat for which the Karmapa was known. From this point the incarnation lineage of Kedrub Dragpa Sengge was known as the Red Hat or Shamar lineage.
The double-peaked headdress of Chökyi Wangchuk is adorned at center with a vishvavajra surmounted by a sun and crescent moon. On either peak of the headdress are scrolling cloud motifs. Chökyi Wangchuk is seated crosslegged on a rectangular plinth covered in four layers of cloth or rugs. He wears the robes of a monk, arranged and draped with precision: the dhonka or cap-sleeved shirt; the shemdap or long skirt folded at the upper waist; the patchwork chogu worn on top of the dhonka and draped over the left shoulder; and the zhen or heavy outer robe, depicted here slung low around the waist, the fabric gathered around the legs in graceful pleats. He hold a bumpa or vase in the left hand lowered at his lap, with the right hand raised in dharmachakra mudra or the gesture of teaching.
On the back of the plinth upon which the Shamarpa is seated is a Tibetan inscription which has been translated by H. Uebach and J. L. Panglung as follows:
Reverence to the portrait of the Gyalwa [Shamarpa], the sixth bearer of the head ornament, the Red Hat, the glorious Garchen Chökyi Wangchuk, the statue blessed by the lord himself with [grains of] barley.
Below this inscription, on the lower right, is a further annotation of the weight of the sculpture, which has been translated as: 26 ½ sang [i.e. of silver alloy]. A sang was a Tibetan unit used to measure weight, particularly gold and silver, and was equivalent to the Chinese liang.
Silver sculpture in Tibetan antiquity was created at great expense and as such, was significantly less common than casting in bronze. Based on published examples of Tibetan silver sculpture in private collections and public collections, silver appears to have been a favored medium of the Shamarpa and Karmapa lineages; compare the drapery of the robes, the seated position, and the rectangular plinth with identifying verso inscription of the current work with another silver figure of similar size depicting the eighth Karmapa Mikyo Dorje, see D. Weldon and J. Casey, The Sculptural Heritage of Tibet: Buddhist Art in the Nyingjei Lam Collection, 1999, pp. 188-189, pl. 48.
Based upon the above inscription, it can be inferred that the current work was created in the early seventeenth century before 1630, the year in which Chökyi Wangchuk passed away, as the inscription notes that the sculpture was personally blessed by Chökyi Wangchuk with traditional grains of barley.
The current work also shares many similar characteristics to another silver sculpture from the Jokhang/Tsuglakhang collection in Lhasa, depicting the sixth Shamarpa Chökyi Wangchuk, see U. von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Vol. II, Tibet and China, Hong Kong, 2001, p. 1218, pl. 336A-C. Both sculptures are approximately the same size, and share similar architecture, proportion and style. In both works, the Shamar is seated upon a low, rectangular platform covered by several layers of cloth. Of particular note on the verso of each sculpture is the similarity of the unique crescent-shaped upper robes, the pleats of both which cascade down and upon the platform base.
The inscriptions at the verso of each sculpture, incised on the platform verso, both note that each work was blessed by the hand of sixth Shamarpa. Per Uebach and Panglung, the biography of the sixth Shamarpa references a number of sculptures made in his likeness which were consecrated by the lama himself. While it is not possible to determine whether either of these sculptures are those which were referenced in the biography of Chökyi Wangchuk, we do know that the practice of consecrating images in his likeness as described in the Shamar hagiography supports the inscriptions.
The tulkus of the Shamarpa and Karmapa lineages have had a historical relationship of spiritual mentorship and reciprocity since the late thirteenth century. Like his spiritual disciple the tenth Karmapa Chöying Dorje (see lot lots 222 and 223), Chökyi Wangchuk was also a painter and sculptor, and his biography cites numerous works of art which he created throughout his travels across Tibet, India and Nepal in his short lifetime. For a detailed discussion on the artistic training and accomplishments of both the sixth Shamarpa and tenth Karmapa, see K. Debreczeny, The Black Hat Eccentric: Artistic Visions of the Tenth Karmapa, New York, 2012, pp. 67-69.
Sotheby's. Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Works of Art Including Property from The Cleveland Museum of Art, New York, 15 Mar 2017, 10:00 AM
Lot 212. A large and rare bronze figure of Buddha Shakyamuni inlaid with silver and copper, Tibet, 13th century. Estimate 300,000-500,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.
Himalayan Art Resources item no. 13391.
Height: 16 1/4 in. (41.3 cm)
Provenance: Acquired in India, 1969.
Collection of the late Mrs. Annalies Sutter, Switzerland.
Literature: U. von Schroeder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 185, pl. 36E.
Note: This sculpture represents the early phase of Tibetan Buddhist art during the Chidar, the Later Diffusion of Faith, that took inspiration from eleventh and twelfth century Pala period (circa 750-1200) sculptural traditions of eastern India. Compare the broad shoulders and narrow waist of an eleventh century Buddha at Surajpur, Bihar, see S. L. Huntington, The Pala-Sena Schools of Sculpture, Leiden, 1984, pl. 136, and a twelfth century Pala period brass Buddha in a private collection, see U. von Schroder, Indo-Tibetan Bronzes, Hong Kong, 1981, p. 289, pl. 72C.
The figure is not gilded, in common with the majority of metal sculpture from eastern India and in contrast to the popular gilt copper medium of metal sculpture from Nepal. The sculpture is inlaid with copper and silver, as is a significant proportion of medieval eastern Indian metalwork: the downcast eyes are inlaid with silver, which is visible through the polychromy, and the lips and fingernails are elegantly inlaid with copper. Consecration marks in the form of incised seed syllables om, ah and hum are positioned at upper chakra points on the figure verso representing the purification of body, speech and mind.
The sculpture is likely to have been made in central Tibet during the thirteenth century when the eastern Indian traditions were gradually assimilating into this uniquely Tibetan sculptural style. Compare the face, hairline, shape of head and ushnisha, the hands and feet and the diaphanous robe of the Tibetan eleventh or twelfth century Buddha from the collection of Jack and Muriel Zimmerman, see Marylin M. Rhie, Robert A. F. Thurman, The Sacred Art of Tibet, London, 1991, p. 74, cat. no. 2. Compare also the group of twelfth or thirteenth century bronze Tathagatas at Nyethang, see U. von Schroeder, Buddhist Sculptures in Tibet, Hong Kong, 2001, pp. 1162-3, pls 308A-E.
This iconographic form of Shakyamuni Buddha, in which the historical Buddha is presented in the earth-touching gesture (bhumisparsha mudra), recalls an episode from his spiritual biography in which he triumphs over Mara (maravijaya) just prior to his enlightenment.
Having vowed to remain in meditation until he penetrated the mysteries of existence, Shakyamuni was visited by Mara, a demon associated with the veils and distractions of mundane existence. The Buddha remained unmoved by the diversions with which Mara sought to deflect him from his goal. According to some traditional accounts, Mara’s final assault consisted of an attempt to undermine Shakyamuni's sense of worthiness by questioning his entitlement to seek the lofty goal of spiritual enlightenment and the consequent freedom from rebirth.
Aided by spirits who reminded him of the countless compassionate efforts he had made on behalf of sentient beings throughout his numerous animal and human incarnations, Shakyamuni recognised that it was his destiny to be poised on the threshold of enlightenment. In response to Mara’s query Shakyamuni moved his right hand from the meditation position in his lap and touched the ground, stating, ‘the earth is my witness’. This act of unwavering resolve caused Mara and his army of demons and temptresses to disperse, leaving Shakyamuni to experience his great enlightenment. The thunderbolt sceptre (vajra) that appears on the lotus throne before the figure refers to the adamantine site (vajrasana) at Bodh Gaya, which is said to have been empowered to expedite his enlightenment.
Sotheby's. Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Works of Art Including Property from The Cleveland Museum of Art, New York, 15 Mar 2017, 10:00 AM
Lot 247. A monumental grey schist figure of seated Buddha Ancient region of Gandhara, Kushan period, first half of 3rd Century. Estimate 200,000-300,000 USD. Photo: Sotheby's.
Height 50 7/8 in. (129.2 cm)
Provenance: William H. Wolff, 2 December 1961.
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund, 1961.
Exhibited: “Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India”, The Cleveland Museum of Art, 13 November 1985–5 January 1986; Asia Society Galleries, New York, 13 February–6 April 1986; Seattle Art Museum, 8 May–13 July 1986.
On view at The Cleveland Museum of Art, before 23 November 1997–13 June 2005.
Literature: 'Oriental Art Recently Acquired by American Museums', in Archives of the Chinese Art Society of America, vol. XVI, Honolulu, 1962, illus. p. 106, fig. 10.
The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, vol. 49, June 1962, illus. p. 128.
The Human Adventure II, Classical Civilization, Volume II, Grade 5, The Educational Research Council of Greater Cleveland, 1965–6, illus. p. 48
Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966, illus. p. 228
S. Czuma and R. Morris, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India, Cleveland, 1985, illus. p. 197, fig. 108.
Note: Examples of monumental Buddhist sculpture, such as the current work, with a tapered tang socketed into a separately carved base, rarely appear at auction. Of particular note is the ovoid cushion upon which Buddha sits, incised with circular motifs which represent lotus seed pods. The tapered tang with seed pod motif would likely have fitted into a separately carved lotus throne base; for a complete example of the type, see a similar example sold at Christie's New York, 23 September 2004, lot 32.
The powerful and beautifully proportioned figure of Buddha is draped in a undulating sanghati which wraps over the right shoulder, leaving the left shoulder bare. Although the forearms are now missing, it is likely that the hands would have been raised in dharmachakra mudra or the teaching gesture, based upon the position of the extant arms and the small area of exposed schist at the chest center, where the raised hands would have been joined to the torso.
Compare this style with another large Teaching Buddha from Loriyan Tangai in the northwest Frontier Province of modern Pakistan, see F. Tissot, Gandhâra, Paris, 1985, fig 128, currently in the collection of the Indian Museum in Kolkata. Also compare with a seated Buddha at the Kabul Museum, see B. Rowland, Art in Afghanistan, 1971, cat. no. 107; and a shrine of the Teaching Buddha at the Indian Museum in Kolkata, in A. Foucher, L'Art Greco-Bouddhique du Gandhara, 1905, vol. 1, fig. 76, p. 192.
The current monumental work is a widely-published and exhibited example of the sculpture created between the second and third centuries to meet the demand for large Buddhist icons to be placed in niches on temples and in monasteries to secure religious merit for donors, in accordance with the growing popularity of Mahayana Buddhist beliefs. Buddhism flourished in the Gandharan region from the 1st century BCE, reaching its apogee under the mighty Kushan emperors. The Kushan period, during which the present work was created, is considered a golden age of Gandharan Buddhist art, during which the construction of stupas or reliquary mounds, temples, monasteries and sculpture dominated the cultural sphere.
Spanning the distance across the Khyber from modern day Afghanistan in the east and Pakistan in the north, the Gandharan cultural region served as the central passageway between Persia, Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. The ancient kingdom of Gandhara was a center of significant military and commercial importance, which absorbed and reflected the dynamic multicultural, artistic and religious influence of its numerous conquerors and inhabitants. Situated between the Indus and Kabul Rivers in the fertile Peshawar valley, this region was also for many centuries a main corridor of invasion from within and without. By the first and second centuries BCE, after the capture of the Gandharan region by the Greek and Persian armies of Alexander and the decline of the Mauryan Empire of Chandragupta and his heirs, an era of Graeco-Bactrian rule began, thus giving rise to this unique synthesis of Hellenistic and Indic artistic traditions.
Sotheby's. Indian, Himalayan & Southeast Asian Works of Art Including Property from The Cleveland Museum of Art, New York, 15 Mar 2017, 10:00 AM
Leonardo da Vinci, Adorazione dei Magi, immagine antecedente il testauro, Firenze, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi
The programme got under way on 10 January with Fashion in Florence through the lens of the Archivio Foto Locchi. This photographic exhibition, held in Palazzo Pitti's Andito degli Angiolini and due to run until 5 March, is devoted to fashion from the 1930s to the 1970s and uses the force of images to tell the story of the birth of fashion in Florence. 24 January saw the inauguration of Giorgio Castelfranco: curator, patron and defender of the arts in the Sala del Camino della Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture in the Uffizi. The exhibition, which is due to run until 26 February and which is the first in a series of exhibitions in a minor key designed to focus on specific aspects and interests, celebrates the figutre of Giorgio Castelfranco, a leading player in the preservation of Italy's heritage in the Fascist era. An official with the then Soprintendenza and the director of the collections in Palazzo Pitti, he fell victim to the race laws and worked behind the scenes for the country's freedom and for the safety of its artistic heritage. At the same time, he was himself a connoisseur, supporter and patron of the contemporary art of his day
The exhibitions planned for the coming months range from Renaissance themes and crucial moments in the growth of the Medici family's collections to a historical commemoration of the October Revolution and include one-man shows of work by celebrated contemporary artists. In addition to the exhibition programme, a number of restored works and new acquisitions will also be presented to the public in a setting narrating their history, occasionally displaying coeval work alongside them, and illustrating any new evidence discovered during restoration.
We should also briefly mention another major exhibition at Palazzo Pitti, due to be announced separately in the coming weeks, designed to coincide with the summer edition of Pitti Uomo and which will thus be a spectacular event linked to fashion and costume organised in conjunction with Pitti Immagine.
"The rich and intense programme of exhibitions that the Gallerie degli Uffizi plans to offer its visitors in 2017 places particular emphasis on contemporary art," said Uffizi Director Eike Schmidt, "because our cooperation with the city of Florence in this sphere is going to be stepped up further thanks to the fact that our galleries will be hosting a number of works associated with two exhibitions organised by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Comune respectively: a retrospective of Bill Viola's work at Palazzo Strozzi and a major retrospective of Italian art entitled Ytalia at the Forte Belvedere. Also, starting this year, we will be inaugurating two exhibitions every March devoted to two women artists, one from the past and one from the present. The art and architecture of the 15th and 16th centuries and various aspects of the Medici family's collecting occupy the central part of our exhibition programme, and the year will end with a series of exhibitions focusing on three true revolutionaries, each in his own field (Martin Luther, Leopoldo de' Medici and Eisentstein), and with Europe's firstg major exhibition on Japanese nature and landscape painting from the Muromachi era to the start of the Edo era (15th to 17th centuries). Thus our intention with this programme is to address a varied array of themes and issues while maintaining our broad offer of culture throughout the year, and in fact beefing that offer up during those periods of the year when the city tends to attract fewer visitors."
Nicolas Froment, Episodi della Vita di Cristo e Resurrezione di Lazzaro, olio su tavola, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi.
Suor Plautilla Nelli, Santa Caterina de' Ricci, olio su tela, Siena, Convento di San Domenico
Maria Lassnig, Mit einem Tiger schlafen (Dormire con una tigre), 1975, olio su tela, Vienna, The Albertina Museum, prestito a lungo termine dalla Oesterreichische Nationalbank. © Maria Lassnig Foundation; Albertina, Vienna – Peter Ertl, Olga Pohankova
Maria Lassnig, Woman Power, 1979, olio su tela, Vienna, The Albertina Museum, The Essl Collection. © Maria Lassnig Foundation; Graphisches Atelier Neumann, Vienna.
Simone de Magistris, Transito di San Martino, 1590 ca., olio su tela, Caldarola, Collegiata di San Martino
Carlo Maratti, Visione di Santa Francesca Romana, 1655 - 1656, olio su tela, Ascoli Piceno, Chiesa di Sant'angelo Magno
Leonardo da Vinci's Adoration of the Magi is returning to the Uffizi after six years, in the course of which the painting has been restored and subjected to thorough diagnostic inspection by the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, with the financial support of the Amici degli Uffizi. The painting was commissioned from Leonardo by the Austin Friars in 1481 for their church of San Donato a Scopeto. The master's departure for Milan in 1482, however, caused him to leave it unfinished and led to the friars calling on Filippino Lippi a few years later to produce another altarpiece depicting the Adoration of the Magi, which was completed in 1496. The painting, which Leonardo stopped painting after a lengthy preliminary study, found a home in the palazzo of the Benci family in Florence for some time before entering the Medici family's collections. It is the largest of Leonardo's panel paintings to have come down to us (246 x 243 cm). Its restoration not only resolved a number of conservation issues but also permitted the recovery of its unexpected colours and restored its full readability, which is extremely rich in fascinating details that open up new prospects with regard to its complex iconographical significance. Alongside Leonardo's Adoration of the Magi, the exhibition also hosts Filippino Lippi's version of 1496 in a fascinating interplay highlighting both the differences in the two masters' temperament and the different ways in which they interpreted the same subject matter as a result of the changes in the political and cultural climate that had taken place in Florence in just over a decade.
Leonardo da Vinci, Adorazione dei Magi, immagine antecedente il testauro, Firenze, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi
Leonardo da Vinci, Adorazione dei Magi, particolare in fase di restauro dopo la pulitura, Firenze, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi
Giuliano da Sangallo, Progetto per San Lorenzo a Firenze, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe
Giuliano da Sangallo, Progetto per un tabernacolo, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe
The exhibition sets out to shed light on a little known yet nonethetheless fascinating episode in the history of silverworking in Italy between the 17th and 18th centuries – an episode occasioned by the feast of St. John the Baptist, which has been solemnly celebrated in Florence every year on 24 June since the city's earliest days, and by the diplomatic relations of the House of Medici, which extended its influence over both the courts of Europe and the Roman Curia. These circumstances permitted the Medici to enrich their collections with an outstanding group of historiated silver plates produced to designs by some of the leading artists working in Rome at the time. Cardinal Lazzaro Pallavicini, who was beholden to Grand Duke Cosimo III for the many favours he had received from him, ordered in his will that his heir offer the Florentine grand duke and his successors a silver plate worth three hundred scudi. His descendants honoured his wishes, and starting in 1680 and for fully fifty-eight years thereafter, Cosimo III and his successor, his son Giangastone, were to receive each year a precious silver plate decorated with stories illustrating the dynastic glory of their house. The very memory of the St. John plates would have been lost with the Medici family's extinction, however, had the Ginori manufactory in Doccia not made plaster casts of the silver originals between 1746 and 1748 in order to reproduce them in porcelain. In addition to the 18th century casts, the exhibition also showcases numerous preparatory drawings by Roman artists – including Carlo Maratta and Ciro Ferri – currently held in a variety of Italian and foreign museums and collections, along with recent porcelain and silver reproductions, the latter particularly successful in conjuring up the splendour of the originals by virtue of the inimitable light effects of silver.
In a one-man show hosted in the Boboli Garden, Helidon Xhixha – renowned for his floating sculptures at the most recent edition of the Venice Biennale and winner of the Somerset House Prize in London last year with his installation Bliss– will be displaying the results of his study of the concepts of chaos and order using the technique of iconic sculpture, and producing his own vision of them, drawing his inspiration from the natural world. The Limonaia in the Boboli Garden will provide the setting for a group of monumental works in stainless steel taking their cue from the Crystal Mine in Mexico to propose an alternative to Buontalenti's Grotto, while the Boboli Garden itself will provide the backdrop for works inspired by geometrical shapes found in nature. Xhixha's sculptural installations use their forms and their reflecting surfaces to interact directly with the environment, offering a new take on the interweave between art and nature of which the Medici were so fond in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Helidon Xhixha, Simbiosis, 2016, acciaio lucidato a specchio e marmo statuario, pezzo unico.
The display of two sketches by Luca Giordano (Naples 1634–1705) and Taddeo Mazzi (Palagnedra, Canton Ticino, second half of the 17th century – Florence, first half of the 18th century), recently acquired by the Gallerie degli Uffizi, provides the pretext for reflecting on an aspect of 17th and 18th century collecting that was an expression of the taste for the rapid, dabbed painting that allowed the artist to express himself in more immediate, virtuoso manner than he would have been able to do in a finished work. Giordano's preparatory drawing for the decoration of the dome in the Corsini Chapel in the church of the Carmine in Florence and Mazzi's preparatory drawing for a canvas for the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in the Santuario di Montesenario provide new elements to enrich the tight fabric of relations linking the Uffizi to its surrounding territory. This small exhibition is designed both to acquaint the public with the two sketches that have so recently joined the gallery's collections and to put a moment in Luca Giordano's career in Florence, as well as the work of the less celebrated Taddeo Mazzi, into focus.
Luca Giordano, Gloria di Sant’Andrea Corsini, bozzetto per la cupola della cappella Corsini di Santa Maria del Carmine di Firenze, olio su tela, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi
Taddeo Mazzi, Storia del beato Manetto dell’Antella, bozzetto per un dipinto della cappella del beato Manetto della chiesa di Montesenario a Vaglia, olio su tela, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi
The King of Spain's Grandchildren: Anton Raphael Mengs' Portrait of Federico and Maria Anna of Lorraine in the Pitti Palace - curated by Matteo Ceriana. Palazzo Pitti, Sala delle Nicchie, 19 September 2017 – 7 January 2018
The exhibition presents the Gallerie degli Uffizi's recent acquisition of an important painting by Anton Raphael Mengs (Aussig, 1728 – Rome, 1779) portraying Federico and Maria Anna, the young children of Pietro Leopoldo, dressed in contemporary costume and depicted inside Palazzo Pitti. Begun in the early 1770s while the artist was in Florence, the picture was in fact never finished and Mengs kept it with him, eventually leaving it to his daughter on his death, until it was rediscovered by a descendant of the artist. The painting is displayed alongside a version of the portrait of Pietro Leopoldo's very young children that Mengs painted on the same occasion for their maternal grandfather King Charles III of Spain, depicting the young princes in Spanish court costume (Madrid, Prado), and a portrait of their brother Francesco, the future Emperor of Austria, by Johann Zoffany (Frankfurt am Main 1733 – Strand-on-the-Green, 1810). The exhibition sets out to highlight the portrait model that Mengs developed in the Uffizi's new painting, which is more "enlightened" and closer in spirit to the approach of Zoffany who, only a very few years later, was to portray the ruling Lorraine family for their paternal grandmother, the Empress Consort Maria Theresa of Austria, again in Palazzo Pitti but in modern costume and surrounded by books and maps for study. Thus we are looking at a new, modern portrait model which, albeit within the context of the Ancien Régime, pits the young, enlightened Vienna princelings squarely against the Madrid infantes.
Anton Raphael Mengs, Ritratto degli arciduchi Ferdinando e Maria Anna, 1771-1774, Firenze, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria Palatina
The Japanese Renaissance: nature in screen painting from the 15th to the 17th centuries. To mark the 150th anniversary of Friendship between Italy and Japan, curated by Rossella Menegazzo. Uffizi, Aula Magliabechiana, 26 September 2017 – 7 January 2018
The exhibition uses a selection of approximantely forty large paintings of landscapes and natural scenes in the traditional sliding screen format to illustrate the golden age of Japanese art stretching from the Muromachi era to the Edo era (15th to 17th centuries). In particular, the exhibition tracks the emergence of the two great trends that marked the whole of Japanese painting, reaffirming the aesthetic ideals that we still associate with Japan today: on the one hand, evocative monochrome painting made up of voids and of bare, rapid lines, close to the Chinese tradition and linked with the Zen philosophy which the warrior class embraced as early as in the Kamakura period and which adorned the temples and residences of the Samurai; and on the other, the indigenous style of painting with gold backgrounds and flat fields of colour, more explicit and easier to grasp, that was perfectly suited to adorning such large residential spaces as the homes of the bourgeois classes and the palaces and castles of the aristocracy. On the one hand, landscapes painted by such artists as Hasegawa Tōhaku, Kaihō Yūshō and Unkoku Tōgan with their rarefied, symbolic atmospheres; on the other, traditional Kanō and Tosa school works depicting flowers and birds, the four seasons, and sites that owe their fame to literature and to poetry, depicted in bright colours in the Yamato-e style. The changing beauty of nature expressed in the considerable dimensions allowed by one, or more often two, screens comprising two or six panels apiece, convey the deep bond linking the Japanese people to the plant and animal world, causing the people to become an integral part of that world in accordance with the Shintoist pantheistic religious sentiment that underpins the whole of Japan's literary and visual culture. This first major exhibition in Europe of painted screens from museums, tamples and the Japanese Cultural Affairs Agency winds up the programme of activities devised to mark the 150th anniversary of Friendship between Italy and Japan and is organised in conjunction with the Japanese Cultural Affairs Agency and with the Embassy of Japan in Italy.
Shikibu Terutada, Gibboni che si divertono tra alberi e rocce, paravento a sei ante, periodo Muromachi, XVI secolo, Kyoto National Museum, Proprietà Culturale Importante.
Autore sconosciuto, La pianta di Musashino, paravento a sei ante, periodo Edo, tardo XVII secolo, Suntory Museum of Art.
The Gallerie degli Uffizi is displaying the portrait of Luther by Lucas Cranach (1572–53), court painter to the Elector of Saxony Frederick the Wise to mark the 500th anniversary of the day Martin Luther pinned his ninety-five theses against indulgences on the door of Wittenberg's Schloßkirche. Running a flourishing workshop in the capital of Saxony, Cranach forged such close ties with the Austin friar that he ended up becoming of the leading players in defining the new Protestant iconography of art. His portraits of Luther, of his wife Caterina von Bora and of the Protestant Humanist Filippo Melantone were to acquire vast renown throughout the known world, including even in certain Counter-Reformation courts such as the court of the Medici in Florence.
Lukas Cranach il Vecchio, Ritratti di Martin Lutero e Caterina von Bora, olio su tavola, Firenze, Galleria delle Statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi.
Eisenstein: the image revolution. To mark the 100th anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution in Russia, curated by Marzia Faietti, Gianluca Farinelli, Pierluca Nardoni ed Eike Schmidt. Uffizi, Sala Edoardo Detti, 7 November 2017 – 7 January 2018
The impact that Sergey Eisenstein's narrative revolution in film editing has had on expressive media from the 20th century to the present day is unmatched by virtually any other innovation. The exhibition, organised in conjunction with the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow and the Cineteca Comunale di Bologna, offers an overview of this great film director and theoretician's style and visual thought, taking its cue from his drawings which reveal his particular interest in Italian Renaissance art.
Leopoldo de' Medici, Prince of Collectors. To mark the 400th anniversary of Leopoldo de' Medici's birth, curated by Valentina Conticelli, Riccardo Gennaioli, Maria Sframeli. Palazzo Pitti, Tesoro dei Granduchi, 7 November 2017 – 28 January 2018
An encylopaedic figure of scholarship and discernment who was raised to the purple at the age of fifty, Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici stands out in the panorama of European collecting thanks to the vast scope of his interests and to the astonishing variety that was such a feature of his collections. Availing himself of highly skilled agents, merchants and secretaries both in Italy and abroad, he put together in the course of his life a collection of utterly superb and sophisticated items in the most wide-ranging of fields stretching from ancient and modern sculpture to coins, medals and cameos, paintings, drawings and engravings, ivories, semi-precious stones and precious objets d'art, portraits large and small, books, scientific instruments and natural rarities. On his death in 1675, most of his works entered the grand ducal collections and many of them were expressly earmarked by his nephew, Grand Duke Cosimo III, for the Galleria degli Uffizi. The systematic entry of Leopoldo's works of art into the collections of the Tuscan ducal family's principle museum sparked one of the most radical renovations in its history.
To mark the fourth centenary of Leopoldo's birth in 2017, the Gallerie degli Uffizi, which still holds the major part of his collection, wishes to display some of the more significant examples of his taste in the various fields that benefited from his discerning connoisseurship to illustrate the multi-faceted nature of his preferences and to shed light on the extremely rich contribution that he made to the family's art treasures.
Giovanni Battista Gaulli detto il Baciccio, Ritratto del cardinal Leopoldo de'Medici, Firenze, Galleria delle statue e delle Pitture degli Uffizi.
Neolithic Pottery Jar, Zaoyuan Village, Yicheng County, ca. 5000 BC, Shanxi Museum © Shanxi Museum
The loops below the waist of this amphora are too small to be handles themselves, but a rope could be tied to them and used as a straphandle.
Painted Neolithic Pot, ca. 4000 BC, Shanxi Museum © Shanxi Museum
Pottery Drum, ca. 2500 BC, Shanxi Museum © Shanxi Museum
Noticeable features of this very early drum include its shape; its handles; the irregular, net-like, raised pattern on its lower bell; the small rimmed collar at the base of the instrument; incised reliefs on its body and neck; and bosses at the top to attach the drumhead. To make the drumhead, an animal skin was stretched by ropes or sinews and attached to the circular bosses.
Cooking Pot-Stove, ca. 2500 BC, Shanxi Museum © Shanxi Museum
This pottery gui, a combined cooking-pot and stove, is cleverly designed and practical. If you wanted to take a pot and stove camping with you in the outback, even today, this single-piece design might be worth considering.
Lot 3. Gerhard Richter (B.1932), Abstraktes Bild, signed, dated 1988 and numbered 654-4 on the reverse, oil on canvas, 91.5 by 67 cm. 36 by 26 3/8 in. Estimate 1,500,000 — 2,000,000 GBP. Photo: Sotheby's.
Provenance: Galerie Hans Strelow, Dusseldorf
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 1990.
Literature: Exh. Cat., Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, n.p., no. 654-4, illustrated in colour
Dietmar Elger, Ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1988-1994, Vol. IV, Ostfildern 2015, p. 63, no. 654-4, illustrated in colour
Note: Abstraktes Bild is a visually arresting example of Gerhard Richter’s revered body of abstract paintings. Created in 1988, this painting is dramatic in colour and engaging in composition, aptly demonstrating the theatre of Richter’s idiosyncratic painterly method. Created at the start of Richter’s seminal 1988 - 1992 period of production, during which time his Abstrakte Bilder realised new heights of sophistication and elegance, the present work epitomises the series’ strength.
Though entirely disconnected from referentiality in both method and conception, Richter’s abstractions nevertheless evoke natural forms and colour configurations. We cannot help but ascribe meaning to the complexity of their layered compositions. As outlined by the artist: “The paintings gain their life from our desire to recognise something in them. At every point they suggest similarities with real appearances, which then, however, never really materialise” (Gerhard Richter cited in: Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 267). The predication of this telling effect is rooted in this artist’s unique painterly method, and particularly in his chosen depictive tool: the squeegee. The layered excavation and resonant accumulation of colour engendered by the tool imparts an eroded surface reminiscent of myriad natural forms: sunsets, sunrises, shoals, riptides, and cresting waves.
Gerhard Richter in his studio, Cologne 1987. Image: © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2017, Foto: Benjamin Katz
Such a reading of the present work is very much linked to the artist’s methodological dialogue with chance. As the squeegee is dragged across an expanse of canvas, the pressure and speed of Richter’s application of paint ultimately surrenders to the unpredictability of chance in informing the composition. It is this separation of the artist from direct expression that bestows Richter’s paintings with their inherently natural look. The shimmering and harmoniously artful orchestration of paint within Abstraktes Bild vacillates between an act of intense evocation and a simultaneous effacement of painterly form: ingrained within the work’s destructive and unpredictable formation is a reflection of nature itself. As outlined by the scholar Beate Söntgen; Richter’s method “joins the painted traces of the tools together with the layering and intersections of colour to form structures that are figural or landscape in appearance, without ever solidyfing into an object that is once again recognisable” (Beate Söntgen, ‘Work on the Picture: The Discretion of Gerhard Richter’, in: Exh. Cat., Cologne, Museum Ludwig Cologne, Gerhard Richter: Abstrakte Bilder, 2008, p. 37).
Claude Monet, Waterlilies: Green Reflections, 1914-18. Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris. Image: © Bridgeman Images.
Embracing an element of automatism, kinetic energy is literally compounded into the painterly surface of the present work, tracing where Richter drew the squeegee across the canvas in successive layers. Subtly alternating direction as well as the density of paint, the viscosity of the painted movements, and the drying time between each scrape, Richter indulges in an infinite and unknowable number of permutations born out of the precise interactions between the oil pigments. The detailed combinations of construction, modification, and erasure of the colour fields all stand to be manipulated by the intuitively felt variations of pressure and direction enacted by Richter. The resultant surface is boldly corporeal in its texture, yet it simultaneously toys with our phenomenological capacities for viewing its structure, based on the historic visual tendency for viewing the painted plane as an illusory realm of depth. Richter performs a sensory shattering of that Renaissance idea of the painting as a clear window into an alternate reality, as his distinctly cerebral abstract fields construct a peculiar sense of unstable spatial configuration.
Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 08 Mar 2017, 07:00 PM
Lot 20. Gerhard Richter (B. 1932), Gebirge, signed, dated 1968, numbered 182 and inscribed Alpen (FL.-Pass) on the reverse, oil on canvas, 200 by 160.5 cm. 78 3/4 by 63 1/8 in. Estimate 2,500,000 — 3,500,000 GBP. Photo: Sotheby's.
Provenance: Galleria Lucio Amelio, Naples
Libero Grande, Naples (acquired from the above in 1976)
Estate of Libero Grande, Naples (thence by descent)
Sotheby’s, London, 19 October 2004, Lot 62 (consigned by the above)
Marlborough Gallery, London (acquired from the above sale)
Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich
Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2007
Exhibited: Baden-Baden, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Junge deutsche Künstler: 14 x 14, April - July 1968
Nuremberg, Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Deutscher Künstlerbund: 16 Ausstellungen, July - September 1968
Dusseldorf, Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Gerhard Richter: Arbeiten 1962 bis 1971, June - August 1971, n.p., illustrated
Venice, XXXVI Biennale Internazionale dell'Arte, Gerhard Richter, 36 Biennale, June - October 1972, pp. 67 and 87, no. 182, illustrated (incorrectly titled)
Literature: Exh. Cat., Aachen, Gegenverkehr, Zentrum für aktuelle Kunst, Gerhard Richter, March - April 1969, n.p., no. 99, illustrated
Klaus Honnef, Gerhard Richter, Recklinghausen 1976, p. 35, illustrated
Exh. Cat., Dusseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Gerhard Richter: Bilder / Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne 1986, p. 76, illustrated
Exh. Cat., Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, n.p., no. 182, illustrated
Hans Dickel, Kunst als zweite Natur: Studien zum Naturverständnis in der modernen Kunst, Berlin 2006, p. 215, no. 39, illustrated
Anon., Capital, 30 March 2006, p. 151, illustrated in colour
Dietmar Elger and Hans Ulrich Obrist, Eds., Gerhard Richter: Text, Cologne 2008, p. 147, illustrated
Dietmar Elger, Ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1968, Vol. I, Ostfildern 2013, p. 368, no. 182, illustrated in colour
Note: Powerfully delivering an Alpine vista in utterly epic proportions, Gerhard Richter’s Gebirge (1968) is a rare work from a small corpus of mountainscapes created between 1967 and 1970. Within this concise series, Richter created very few works on this scale and here the sheer size of the painting envelopes the viewer’s vision. Rising like an apparition, this depiction of the Flüela Pass in Switzerland appears from afar like a photorealist depiction, while upon close inspection the image gradually blurs into an amalgamation of greyscale daubs and punctuated brushstrokes. Following Richter’s painterly translation of aerial photographs of cities and townscapes in the mid-1960s, Richter’s turn towards landscape appropriates the archetypal subject of Romanticism. Nonetheless, utterly devoid of Romanticism’s transcendental narrative, Gebirge instead displays Richter’s engagement with the process of painting in relation to photography. Via a conceptual approach to picture making channelled through photography, Richter blurs the boundaries between photo-realism and gestural abstraction in an attempt to investigate the way we see. Here, he almost dissolves subject matter in a fluid painterliness that pushes hard against the threshold between realism and abstraction, between the illusory and the concrete.
Sigmar Polke, Don Quichotte (Don Quixote), 1968. Artwork: © Sigmar Polke
Richter’s choice of subject immediately calls to mind a deep history of artistic precedent. The master of German Romanticism, Caspar David Friedrich, and venerated painter of light J.M.W. Turner both revered the magnitude of imposing mountain ranges as the ultimate manifestation of awe-inducing sublimity in nature. It is interesting to note the historical conditions out of which Romanticism was born. Coinciding with the spread of the Industrial Revolution across Europe, Romanticism developed out of material disillusionment and sought to re-establish the spiritual self through a contemplation of nature. In an analogous mode, the arrival of Richter’s quasi-Romantic mountainscapes and subsequent body of seascapes coincided with a period of marked commercial and economic propagation. Known in Germany as the Wirtschaftswunder, post-war industrial boom provided the context out of which Richter’s reinterpretation of the landscape genre emerged. Attuned to a socio-political moment of mass-manufacture and rapid technological advancement, Richter’s painterly mountainscapes reflect the same impetus that triggered the nostalgic yearnings of Romanticism, and yet his painterly treatment is framed within the terms of its technological moment.
Franz Kline, Ballantine, 1948-60, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles. Image: © Bridgeman Images. Artwork: © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2017
Alongside these grand depictions of the traditional forms of natural aspiration, he also tackled the modern form of capitalist aspiration, the cityscape, in a similar way. Within these two dichotomous groups lies the maturing of Richter’s individual creative vision as a mirror image of the post-modern world. The Alps with their grouping of masses, their morphology, and their size are impossible to assess from a distance. Their oblique surfaces and depths, shadowed holes and light clouds provide a fascinating basis for an investigation into the construction of the world which surrounds us as a metaphor for that which constructs a painting. Both in their size and the physical presence of the paint, it can be said that the mountainscapes are the ultimate depiction of what it is both to look at and experience nature. In the powerful facture of these paintings, the artist’s intervention is palpable; however, rather than appearing as free expressive brushwork it remains bound up with the structure of the photographic images upon which they are based. Here in Gebirge, it is the stunningly photographic view which draws us in, but the fascinating layering of textured paint which involves us from close up. Jutting left and right the brushstrokes cut into the painterly surface. In much the same way as erosion cuts away at the rock’s surface, Richter here adds paint to take it away. Furthermore, despite the relative density and weight of the paint which constructs this powerful physical image, every now and then, Richter leaves a trace of bare canvas to remind us that this is just a two-dimensional picture plane.
Gerhard Richter, Davos, 1981, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Image/Artwork: © Gerhard Richter, 2017The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Image/Artwork: © Gerhard Richter, 2017
In April of 1968, Richter and Sigmar Polke collaborated on an offset lithograph entitled Transformation (Umwandlung) that documented the photographic dissolution of a craggy mountain-top into a sphere. Echoing this performative collaboration, the present work similarly transmutes a photographic verisimilitude of nature but in purely painterly terms. In translating into paint a composition captured in a snapshot photograph, Richter looked to further the remit of painting by absorbing into its process the objective impartiality of mechanical image-making. The juxtaposition of representational and abstract painterly qualities in the present work builds upon Richter’s preceding body of Photo Paintings, for which he dragged a dry paintbrush over his painted surfaces to achieve a steadily blurred image. However in possessing a paroxysmal facture and looseness of brushwork, Gebirge also heralds the artist’s gradual move into full abstraction. By the end of the 1960s, Richter had fully pushed the textural and compositional boundaries of greyscale to its utmost limit: the delicate sfumato gradation of his blurred portraits finally gave way to a full-on denouncement of figurative content with the highly conceptual series of Grey Paintings. Commenting on the qualities of grey, Richter pointed out that “it makes no statement whatever; it evokes neither feelings nor associations: it is really neither visible nor invisible. Its inconspicuousness gives it the capacity to mediate, to make visible, in a positively illusionistic way, like a photograph. It has the capacity that no other colour has, to make 'nothing' visible” (Gerhard Richter cited in: Dietmar Elger and Hans-Ulrich Obrist, Eds., Gerhard Richter, TEXT: Writings, Interviews and Letters: 1961-2007, London 2009, p. 92).
For Richter, the photographic blur as an assault on the clarity of the image triggered a conceptual stance that extended the remit of painting and allowed for a means to scrutinise the classic dichotomy of figuration and abstraction. Having emerged at a time when painting was declared obsolete and seemingly more progressive artistic forms were favoured, Gebirge stands as a powerful meditation on the medium’s conceptual elasticity and more generally imparts Richter’s ability to overcome the strictures of convention through an insistence upon painting’s creative and philosophical relevance within a photographic age.
Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 08 Mar 2017, 07:00 PM
Lot45. Gerhard Richter (B. 1932), Frauenkopf Im Profil, titled on the stretcher; signed and dated 16.III.66 on the reverse, oil on canvas, 30.2 by 25 cm. 11 5/8 by 9 7/8 in. Estimate 500,000 — 700,000 GBP. Photo: Sotheby's.
Provenance: Galerie Fred Jahn, Munich
Collection H. Schott, Frankfurt (acquired from the above in 1968)
Christie’s, London, 23 October 1997, Lot 92 (consigned by the above)
Acquired from the above by the present owner
Exhibited: Zurich, Galerie Bruno Bischofberger, Gerhard Richter, March - April 1966
Frankfurt, Portikus, On Kawara – Wieder und Wider, March - April 1989
Literature: Exh. Cat., Dusseldorf, Städtische Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Gerhard Richter: Bilder / Paintings 1962-1985, Cologne 1986, p. 36, no. 80-11, illustrated
Exh. Cat., Bonn, Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1993, Vol. III, Ostfildern-Ruit 1993, n.p., no. 80-11, illustrated
Susanne Ehrenfried, Ohne Eigenschaften: Das Portrait bei Gerhard Richter, Vienna and New York 1997, p. 189, illustrated
Dietmar Elger, Ed., Gerhard Richter: Catalogue Raisonné 1962-1968, Vol. I, Ostfildern 2013, p. 195, no. 80-11, illustrated in colour
Note: With its characteristically blurred surface and elegant subtlety of monochrome grey hues Frauenkopf Im Profil is a stunning paradigm of Gerhard Richter's Photo Paintings. Both its tonal topography and technical distinction epitomise the artist’s overarching ambition to present the viewer with a new perspective of reality, highlighting his ongoing investigation into human perception and the validity of the painted image. Defiling the traditional process of portraiture by painting from a photograph instead of real life, Richter sought to imbue his paintings with the objectivity and legitimacy generally associated with the photographic medium. As he explained: “A portrait must not express anything of the sitter’s ‘soul’, essence or character. For this reason, among others, it is far better to paint a portrait from a photograph, because no one can ever paint a specific person” (Gerhard Richter cited in: Dietmar Elger, Gerhard Richter: A Life in Painting, Chicago 2009, p. 74).
Between 1962 and 1968 Richter persued a portrait practice based exclusively on media-derived and family photographs. Seeking to explore the ambiguity that exists between the alleged objectivity of a photograph and the inherent artifice of painting, he chose to use photographic source material rather than paint from life. He aspired to imbue his paintings with the impartial and factual documentation inherent to photography, in order to convey an image free from predisposed interpretation or meaning and a painting free from individual artistic expression. With a paradigmatic blurring of contours and drained of any colour, the portraits exemplify Richter’s deliberate choice of a monochrome palette, which he attributed to the objective subtlety of the colour grey. According to Richter, “grey is the welcome and only possible equivalent for indifference, non-commitment, absence of opinion, absence of shape” (Gerhard Richter cited in: Exh. Cat., New York, The Museum of Modern Art (and travelling), Gerhard Richter: Forty Years of Painting, 2003, p. 62).
Gerhard Richter, Albumfotos (Atlas Sheet 1), 1962. Image/Artwork: © Gerhard Richter 2017
In line with the early paintings of gallerist Alfred Schmela, or many subsequent commissioned portraits, such as those of the collector Willi Schniewind or Dr Gisela Knobloch, the subtly faded contours of the present work leave the sitter slightly out of focus. The source image for Frauenkopf Im Profil can be found among the photos on the first sheet in Atlas, the artist’s picture archive, now in the collection of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. An intimate snapshot of a young woman with her back turned and covering herself with a white towel, the familiarity of the portrait invokes the inherent sentiment of an old family photograph. As is the case in many of these early paintings, including Ema, Nude Descending a Staircase and Lovers in the Forest, a certain sensuality and eroticism is evoked. Similar to Ema, in Frauenkopf Im Profil this is underlined by the graceful, elegant pose of the model, which here gazes seductively over her bare shoulder.
With its carefully blurred surface and subtle grey-scale, Frauenkopf Im Profil oscillates between figuration and abstraction. Confronting the viewer with an unknown sitter, it elicits the artist’s primary aspiration of exploring the dualities and dichotomies of the painted medium and is a transcendent paradigm of Richter’s acclaimed photo-paintings. Exceptional on account of its early date and its flawless execution, the work’s ethereal beauty carries an underlying intellectual rigor that helped re-define contemporary painting, as well as conceptual artistic genres.
Sotheby's. Contemporary Art Evening Auction, London, 08 Mar 2017, 07:00 PM
An employee poses for a photograph with a re-discovered sculpture of two carved marble lions, by French artist Andre Beauneveu, commissioned by French King Charles V, at Christie's auction house in London on February 20, 2017. A sculpture of two lions carved for the tomb of French King Charles V that was thought lost in the French Revolution will go under the hammer in London, auction house Christie's said on February 21, 2017. The 14th-century marble work by French artist Andre Beauneveu will be sold on July 6, after being held in a private British collection for more than two centuries. Justin TALLIS / AFP.
LONDON (AFP).- A sculpture of two lions carved for the tomb of French king Charles V that was thought lost in the French Revolution will soon go under the hammer in London, auction house Christie's said Tuesday.
The 14th-century marble work by French artist André Beauneveu, which had been held in a private British collection for more than two centuries, will be sold on July 6.
The lions were carved as near mirror images of each another, with strikingly detailed manes and one baring its teeth.
Beauneveu was commissioned by the king shortly after he came to the throne, and was tasked with constructing four family tombs.
The lions were sculpted over two years from 1364 to 1366, according to Christie's, and placed at the foot of Charles's tomb in what was then the Abbey of Saint Denis in Paris.
But the family tombs were dismantled in 1793 by France's revolutionary government, and the lions were purchased in 1802 by Thomas Neave, a British aristocrat.
The emergence of the sculpture represents a "remarkablerediscovery", Christie's said.
"The discovery of these lions in a private English collection is wonderful news for collectors and scholars who previously thought they had been lost during the French Revolution," said Donald Johnston, Christie's international head of sculpture.
Their appearance had previously been known only from an 18th-century engraving.
Sotheby's has not yet estimated a sale figure for the work, though it is expected to be high.
A pair of marble figures from the tomb of Charles's brother, the Duke of Berry, were sold last year to the Louvre museum for 5 million euros ($5.3 million).
© Agence France-Presse
An employee poses for a photograph with a re-discovered sculpture of two carved marble lions, by French artist Andre Beauneveu, commissioned by French King Charles V, at Christie's auction house in London on February 20, 2017. A sculpture of two lions carved for the tomb of French King Charles V that was thought lost in the French Revolution will go under the hammer in London, auction house Christie's said on February 21, 2017. The 14th-century marble work by French artist Andre Beauneveu will be sold on July 6, after being held in a private British collection for more than two centuries. Justin TALLIS / AFP.
LONDRES (AFP).- La maison Christie's a annoncé mardi la vente aux enchères, le 6 juillet à Londres, d'une sculpture en marbre représentant deux lions adossés, réalisée au XIVe siècle par l'artiste français André Beauneveu pour le tombeau de Charles V. L'oeuvre, sculptée entre 1364 et 1366, a été conçue à l'origine pour le tombeau du roi Charles V (1337-1380) à l'abbaye de Saint-Denis, avant d'être achetée en 1802 par l'aristocrate anglais Thomas Neave.
Selon Christie's, son apparition sur le marché constitue "une redécouverte majeure" puisque les historiens de l'art connaissaient l'existence de cet élément du tombeau seulement par une gravure datée du XVIIIe siècle. "Leur redécouverte au sein d'une collection privée anglaise est une formidable nouvelle pour les collectionneurs et historiens qui pensaient que ce groupe en marbre avait été perdu lors de la Révolution" française, a commenté Donald Johnston, directeur international du département Sculpture chez Christie's, dans un communiqué.
Thomas Neave a acquis les lions lors d'une visite à Paris en 1802 au cours de la brève période durant les guerres napoléoniennes où les Anglais pouvaient se rendre en France. Peu de temps après son intronisation, le jeune roi Charles V commanda quatre tombeaux familiaux à André Beauneveu, dont le sien. Réalisés en seulement deux ans, ils furent démantelés quatre siècles plus tard en 1793. Le gisant de Saint-Charles a depuis été restituéà la basilique Saint-Denis, mais sans les lions qui prenaient place à ses pieds et dont on ne sait pas comment ils ont été séparés du reste de la sculpture funéraire.
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of the saints Hermits. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice ".
VENICE.- Wild disturbing visions, convulsive scenes, hallucinatory landscapes with cities burning in the background, monsters and dreamlike creatures of the strangest shapes: this is the world of Hieronymus Bosch, the fascinating and enigmatic painter who lived between circa 1450 and 1516 in 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands, and whose 500th anniversary of his death was commemorated last year with two major exhibitions, respectively, in his hometown and at the Prado in Madrid.
It is to this extraordinary artist that Venice, the only city in Italy to conserve any Bosch masterpieces, is dedicating a fascinating exhibition in the Doge’s Palace from 18 February to 4 June 4, 2017. The event is of great public interest but also of major importance for scholars, as the focus is on the three great Bosch paintings conserved in the Gallerie dell'Accademia – two triptychs and four panels – restored to their former glory thanks to a major campaign of restoration financed by the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) and the Getty Foundation of Los Angeles: The martyrdom of Saint Uncumber (Wilgefortis, Liberata), Three hermit saints and Paradise and Hell (Visions of the Afterworld).
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of Santa freed or Wilgerfortis. Credit © Picture allerie Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
“Hieronymus Bosch and Venice”, co-produced by the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia and the Museo Nazionale Gallerie dell’Accademia di Venezia, with the patronage of the Dipartimento di Culture e Civiltà, University of Verona, takes visitors on a voyage of discovery through a city that alongside the classicism of Titian and tonal lyricism also pursued a scholarly passion for the world of dreams and oneiric visions, as evidenced by the spectacular Bosch masterpieces and almost 50 other contextual works from important public and private international collections, including paintings by such artists as Palma Giovane, Quentin Massys, Jan Van Scorel and Joseph Heintz, drawings and extraordinary prints by Dürer, Bruegel, Cranach and Campagnola, bronzes and antique marbles, precious and rare manuscripts and printed books. These works help clarify the links between Flanders and one of the most refined and sophisticated protagonists of the Venetian scene of the time, Cardinal Domenico Grimani, who collected masterpieces by the artist. The exhibition also shows the connections between this cultural milieu and the Jewish Kabbalah and Jewish culture in general; it evokes the salons and extraordinary collections that were formed in Venice, which became the venues for philosophical and moral discussions and exchange of opinion.
The restoration has not only ensured a better readability of the works but has also brought to light a number of fundamental clues for rethinking the many questions that are still outstanding, concerning the origins and meaning of the artist's works, the presence of such works in Venice and also the impact of Bosch on Italian art.
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of Santa freed or Wilgerfortis. Credit © Picture allerie Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
Bosch and Venice therefore constitutes a key chapter in the studies that are still so full of question marks regarding the great Flemish painter, as is explained by new and unpublished data in the catalogue and in the exhibition, curated by Bernard Aikema with the scientific coordination of Gabriella Belli and Paola Marini.
This is a thrilling event, with a milieu of hellish visions, “chimeras and stregozzi”, to use the words of Anton Maria Zanetti, leading us to rediscover an art that is deliberately enigmatic and reveals a completely ambiguous figurative culture that never ceases to intrigue, to stimulate discussion, and to surprise.
And in the exhibition, it is equally exciting to enter the work virtually, immersing oneself in the nooks of Hell and bright visions of Paradise thanks to a modern multimedia installation, which allows a thrilling and totally immersive vision of Hieronymus Bosch’s Visions of the Afterworld.
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of Santa freed or Wilgerfortis. Credit © Picture allerie Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
THE EXHIBITION
A fundamental clue for the reconstruction of Bosch’s relation to Venice, is the very early account of Marcantonio Michiel, connoisseur and art critic, who in 1521, in describing Grimani's “lagoon” collection, alongside a stunning series of northern European paintings, also mentioned three works by Bosch featuring monsters, fires and dreamlike visions; works that on his death two years later were left by the cardinal to the Most Serene Republic, along with other paintings and sculptures. Crates full of works remained in the basement storerooms of the Doge’s Palace until 1615, when a group of works was retrieved and displayed in the doge’s residence.
In actual fact, only two of the works by Bosch now preserved in Venice seem to correspond to those described by Michiel (all trace has been lost of the third work he mentioned), but it is nevertheless believed that the panel with the so-called Saint Uncumber – described by Boschini as being in the Doge’s Palace in 1664, and the attribution of which has never been questioned – was also originally in Grimani's collection.
The restorations effected show that two of the three works preserved in Venice – Saint Uncumber, and Paradise and Hell – were initially intended for North European patrons and subsequently modified (perhaps by a workshop assistant shortly after Bosch’s death) to accord with the taste of a refined Italian culture and a new patron: probably indeed the Venetian patrician Domenico Grimani, cardinal and son of Antonio, the 76th Doge of Venice.
Jheronimus Bosch, Altarpiece of the afterlife Visions. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
CARDINAL GRIMANI AND HIS COLLECTION. THE WORLD OF DREAMS, A PASSION FOR FLEMISH ART, LEARNED DISCUSSIONS
The exhibition focuses on the figure of Domenico Grimani – depicted in a tondo by Palma Giovane together with his nephew Marino and in a beautiful medal made by Camelio – and his collecting interests, with a series of works of great beauty, such as some Greek statues from his collection and especially the silver plaque depicting the Flagellation of Christ – a masterpiece by Moderno, loaned to the exhibition by the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna – and the exceptional Grimani Breviary with its 110 miniatures (ca. 1515- 1520), probably the most beautiful and the most important illuminated manuscript to be produced in Flanders during the last blossoming of the ars illuminandi, at a time when printed books had already become accessible and manuscripts a rarity.
The exhibition then moves on to the subject of dreams, one dear to the entourage of Domenico Grimani.
A high-ranking figure with a variety of interests, ranging from philosophy to theology, a passionate connoisseur of ancient Greek sculpture, of Titian, Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, the Cardinal was also attracted to the art of Flanders and showed especially strong interest in those dream visions imagined in the sophisticated salons of Venice at the time.
Jheronimus Bosch, Altarpiece of the afterlife Visions. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
The theme of dreams recurs in the famous vision-filled book published in 1500 in Venice by Aldus Manutius, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, and in the engraving entitled The Dream (1506 -1507) by Marcantonio Raimondi – perhaps made after a lost painting by Giorgione – showing two sleeping female nudes and various monsters.
According to the exhibition curator, Bernard Aikema, the oneiric images of demons and monsters in these cases do not derive from Bosch – if anything they reflect a fascination for the German prints of Dürer, Martin Schongauer and Lucas Cranach the Elder, all on display – but conversely the presence of Bosch in Venice might well have been the consequence of a specific “fashion”, of an interest already widespread in intellectual circles, as evidenced by the small bronzes of fantastic monsters that used to decorate the studies of the time, by the Ink well in the form of a sea monster by Severo da Calzetta (1510 - 1530), active in the sixteenth century in the Basilica del Santo in Padua, and by the Seated satyr drinking by Andrea Briosco, aka Il Riccio.
Jheronimus Bosch, Altarpiece of the afterlife Visions. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
In like fashion, Bosch himself and many artists from across the Alps drew certain "surreal" characters after Leonardo’s grotesque caricatures (the exhibition displays some beautiful drawings from the Leonardesque graphic corpus probably by Francesco Melzi, from the Cabinet of Drawings and Prints in the Gallerie dell’Accademia).
Grimani thus deliberately sought out Flemish works; he consciously wanted Bosch, with his nightmarish night views and his monstrous creatures, but also with his ambiguities and oddities; and as a true Renaissance prince, he wanted Bosch too for aesthetic reasons, to make a work by him the pretext for an erudite discussion, the stimulus for an intellectual debate as a moment of pleasure and education in his “circle”, as occurred with the early works of Lotto, Titian and above all Giorgione.
Jheronimus Bosch, Altarpiece of the afterlife Visions. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
DANIEL VAN BOMBERGHEN, THE JEWISH WORLD AND RELATIONS WITH FLANDERS
He therefore sought out an important intermediary with Flanders in the Jewish circles he frequented, given his closeness to the syncretism of Giovanni Pico, amidst neoplatonic speculation and Jewish culture. In particular, among his main Jewish contacts there was his personal doctor, Meir de Balmes, who, in turn, maintained close relations with the most important publisher of books in Hebrew, a "multifaceted entrepreneur" with a keen interest in the visual arts, Daniel van Bomberghen, who settled in Venice around 1515.
Bomberghen may well have been the go-between for the cardinal’s purchases in the Low Countries, assisted – and this is a new element to have emerged now – by Cornelis De Renialme, his nephew and business associate, identified as having handled the negotiations for the works remaining in the workshop at ’s-Hertogenbosch after the death of the painter in 1516 (including the Raphael cartoon depicting the Conversion of Saul, also subsequently in the Grimani collection).
The presence of Bosch in Venice did not immediately influence artistic production in Italy, as there was already a strong interest in “Flemish-style” landscapes on the Italian market and in the lagoon: for example, not only the works of Civetta, Patinir and van Scorel (perhaps including the Tower of Babel on loan from Ca’ d’Oro) present in the Cardinal’s gallery, but also paintings, such as the Temptation of St. Anthony or the fragment of a hellish Descent into Limbo, formerly in the Correr collection. These works nevertheless helped spread the myth of Bosch as a creator of demons and helped engender a production of rather standardised but highly popular images “à la Bosch” in the second half of the sixteenth century in the Low Countries, and then once again in the middle of the seventeenth century.
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of the saints Hermits. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
PAINTINGS IN THE “MANNER OF BOSCH” AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY APOTHEOSIS. HEINTZ THE YOUNGER
In the exhibition, a succession of anonymous followers of the great artist present in the lagoon underscore the birth of a myth; just as the spread of Boschian motifs in prints is demonstrated by a core of important loans from the Koninklijke Bibliotheek van Belgie in Brussels.
Arriving for the occasion from Vienna and Basel are a series of hellish visions and hallucinatory scenes, such as a huge canvas by Jacob Isaacz. van Swanenburgh, demonstrating the seventeenth-century apotheosis of Bosch in his homeland, while in the city of the Doges it was Joseph Heintz the Younger (who lived in Venice for over fifty years, from 1625 until his death) who revived the dark and dreamlike universe, the deformed and grotesque creatures of Bosch with his “stregozzi”, in perfect harmony with the necromantic climate and interests of many exponents of the Accademia degli Incogniti (Academy of the Unknowns).
But now times had changed. Now this form of painting was pure aestheticism, simple effect: there were no more messages to be sought out and understood, no more moral or religious legacies; the oneiric dimension had given way to baroque wonder.
Jheronimus Bosch, Triptych of the saints Hermits. Credit © Picture Galleries of the Academy, "permission of the Ministry of goods and cultural activities and tourism. National Museum of the Accademia Galleries of Venice "
Pablo Picasso, Plant de tomates, oil on canvas, painted in Paris between 6-9 August 1944 (est. £10,000,000-15,000,000). Photo: Sotheby's.
“The tomato plants are an earthy and decorative metaphor for the human need to survive and flourish”. 1Jean Sutherland Boggs in Picasso and Things (exhibition catalogue), The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1992.
LONDON - Samuel Valette, Sotheby’s Senior Specialist in Impressionist & Modern Art, commented: “This exceptional work by Pablo Picasso was painted at a moment of particular tension during the war: the liberation of Paris. As such, it is infused with a sense of renewed energy and hope that distinguishes it from other wartime still-lifes, which were imbued with a more sombre and dark mood. It shows that there was light at the end of the tunnel. For Picasso, the very act of continuing to paint as normal was an act of resistance, and following the Liberation, his atelier became a must-see for the allied soldiers who wanted to witness what the master had created in the war years.”
Symbolic of victory in Europe, Picasso’s series of five paintings of a tomato plant in bloom in the Paris apartment he shared with his lover Marie-Thérèse are ripe with personal as well as wider political and cultural significance – a way of reflecting the spirit of hope and resilience that characterised this time. The most complex and visually striking example from the most soughtafter series of the war period, Plant de tomates has been in a private collection for four decades since it was sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1976. This exquisite work is expected to fetch £10,000,000 – 15,000,000 as part of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening sale in London on 1 March 2017.
In the summer of 1944, Picasso was staying with Marie-Thérèse at the Boulevard Henri IV in the weeks before the Liberation of Paris from the Nazis by the Allied Forces. Picasso began to take notice of the potted tomato plant that was growing besides the window of the apartment. These were not uncommon in civilian households throughout Europe at a time when food rations limited the amount of available produce for consumption. Seeing the resilient plant as a sign of hope as it continued to bear fruit, Picasso painted five canvases of the plant on a window sill between August 3 and August 12, 1944 – varying in degrees of abstraction. Thus he recorded this
consequence of war as a source of admiration and a metaphor of human perseverance in times of strife.
In this work, the branches of the plant are weighed down with the heavy tomatoes – their arched shapes standing in contrast with the strong horizontals and verticals of the window, which fragment the composition into a grid-like form. For his palette, Picasso chose vibrant shades of red and green to emphasise the lush and fertile nature of the plant. The background view outside the window is painted with varying shades of yellow and grey, calling to mind the smoke and gunfire that could be heard throughout the city during these frightening last weeks of the war. Rarely has Picasso invested a still-life with such meaning and sociological importance.
Although not an active member of the Resistance movement, Picasso’s artistic activity during the war was deemed as heroic by many of his contemporaries around the world. His art was blacklisted by the Nazi regime and he was not permitted to exhibit his pictures publicly by government decree. However, by this point in his career, Picasso was financially secure and the paintings that he completed during this period remained in his studio – only to be exhibited after the war. A series of photographs that renowned photographer Cecil Beaton took of Picasso’s studio at rue des Grands-Augustins, several of them showing this work, gives remarkable insight into Picasso's work during this period. In the days leading to the Liberation – and in the midst of his painting of the tomato plant series – Picasso met with several British and American journalists and soldiers who wished to praise him for his accomplishment at his studio.
© Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s
The dining room of Lord Weidenfeld’s Bennison decorated Chelsea apartment © Christie's Images Ltd 2017
‘Why Waste A Good Idea?’ - The late Lord Weidenfeld GBE
LONDON – On 18 May Christie’s London will offer The Collection of The late Lord Weidenfeld GBE: A Life of Ideals and Ideas, an auction offering insight into the private world of a public man. George Weidenfeld, created Baron Weidenfeld of Chelsea in 1976, was well known and greatly respected as publisher, philanthropist and social convener; what is less well known is that he was an avid and informed art collector. He was also one of very few clients to coax the revered antique dealer Geoffrey Bennison into taking on a decorating commission; Bennison decorated Lord Weidenfeld’s Chelsea Embankment apartment at a time when both men were breaking new ground in their respective fields. So successful was Bennison's scheme that Lord Weidenfeld kept the apartment almost exactly as Bennison had arranged it for over 40 years; a series of rich, book-lined spaces conceived as a grand backdrop for entertaining and for his fascinating collection.
Lord Weidenfeld began collecting shortly after the war and continued to acquire significant works of art throughout his life, each chosen with great care and passion. The auction is a reflection of his multifaceted interests and enthusiasms and includes important Old Master paintings and drawings, an important group of 20th Century works on paper – with a strong concentration on artists from his native Vienna – together with sculpture, furniture, decorative arts and soft furnishings. The collection is expected to realise in excess of £1.4 million. Highlights of the 20th Century works on paper will be on view at Christie’s London 23-27 February, ahead of the preview of the full collection in May.
Born in Vienna in 1919, Lord Weidenfeld left the city before the outbreak of the Second World War and settled in London, which he made his permanent home. In 1948 he co-founded the highly esteemed publishing house Weidenfeld & Nicolson, which published many landmark works of biography and literary fiction, including the British edition of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in 1959. Lord Weidenfeld also held a number of diplomatic and philanthropic posts throughout his life including as political advisor and chief of cabinet for Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel, in 1949. He also believed in the strong link between Judaism and Christianity and promoted inter-faith understanding, notably creating The Weidenfeld Fund to support the relocation of Christian families and communities at risk to places of safety. Lord Weidenfeld bequeathed his personal library to the National Library of Israel in Jerusalem, which is due to reopen in 2021.
The Collection
A highlight of the auction is a study of a female model by Egon Schiele (estimate: £200,000-300,000). Executed in 1918, the work is a bold depiction of female sexuality. Another highlight is Alberto Giacometti’s Femme debout (recto) and Deux têtes d’homme (verso), which exhibits the artist’s highly distinctive draughtsmanship (estimate £250,000-350,000). Executed in 1947, Femme debout dates from a pivotal moment in the artist’s career during which drawing dominated his work; this is one of the earliest in a series of standing figure drawings executed by the artist.
The collection also includes an impressive array of Old Masters Paintings, with a notable focus on Christian art including a number of interesting portrayals of popes. Highlights include Bernardo Cavallino’s St Dorothy (estimate: £150,000-200,000) (right); An Astrologer by Luca Giordano (estimate: £100,000-150,000); as well as a bust of Pope Urban VIII from the workshop of Gian Lorenzo Bernini (estimate: £30,000-50,000).
The sale also includes furniture and works of art collected by Lord Weidenfeld as well as decorative furnishings supplied by Geoffrey Bennison. Highlights include a large 19th century Chinese blue and white baluster vase fitted as a table lamp (estimate: £2,000-4,000); Lord Weidenfeld’s desk, circa 1820, attributed to Gillows (estimate: £40,000-60,000), an architectural model, which adorned the desk (estimate: £800-1,200), as well as the brass bookcases created by Bennison that lined Lord Weidenfeld’s study (to be sold in four lots with estimates ranging from £2,500 to £5,000)
Pieter Hugo, WITH MY SON, JAKOB HUGO, NATURES VALLEY, AUS DER SERIE „KIN”, 2006-2013, 2014 c-print© Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
WOLFSBURG.- What divides us and what unites us? How do people of all colors live with the shadows of cultural repression or political dominance? The South African photographer Pieter Hugo (* 1976 in Johannesburg) explores these questions in his portraits, still lifes, and landscapes.
After solo exhibitions at the Hague Museum of Photography, the Musée de l’Elysée Lausanne, Müpa Budapest, and the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson Paris, the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg is the first museum in Germany to present a comprehensive overview of the series with which Pieter Hugo achieved recognition, for example “Looking aside”, “Kin”, “The Hyena & Other Men”, “Permanent Error”, “There’s a Place in Hell For Me and My Friends”, and “Nollywood” as well as his recent “1994”, “Rwanda 2004: Vestiges of a Genocide” and “Californian Wildflowers” projects.
Raised in post-colonial South Africa, where he witnessed the official end of Apartheid in 1994, Hugo has a keen sense for social dissonances. He perceptively makes his way through all social classes with his camera, and not only in his native country but also in places like Rwanda, Nigeria, Ghana, China and the United States. How do people of all age groups and from the most diverse origins deal with their historical baggage and living conditions? Pieter Hugo’s socio-cultural portraits record the visible traces and scars of lived biography as well as lived-through national history. He is particularly interested in social subcultures, the gulf between the ideal and reality. His pictures feature the homeless; albinos; AIDS sufferers; men who tame hyenas, snakes, and monkeys; people who gather electrical scrap metal in apocalyptic scenarios; costumed Nollywood actors in striking poses, in addition to his own family and friends.
His photographs are non-hierarchical; everyone is treated with the same amount of respect. More artist than anthropologist or documentarian, Hugo captures the “moment of voluntary vulnerability” (Pieter Hugo) with a pronouncedly detached, but at the same time also empathetic, concise visual language, creating in this way true to life portraits of powerful directness. In many cases, this humanity stands in sharp contrast to the hardships of the social reality engulfing the subjects of his pictures. Entirely in this sense, Pieter Hugo’s photographic still lifes and landscapes occasionally seem like social commentaries or metaphors, complementing his socio-cultural portraits.
Pieter Hugo, ABDULLAHI MOHAMMED WITH MAINASARA, LAGOS, NIGERIA, AUS DER SERIE „THE HYENA & OTHER MEN”, 2005-2007, 2007, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, EMEKA, MOTORCYCLIST AND ABDULLAHI AHMADU, ASABA, NIGERIA, AUS DER SERIE „THE HYENA & OTHER MEN”, 2005-2007, 2007, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, THE HONOURABLE JUSTICE MOATLHODI MARUMO, AUS DER SERIE „JUDGES OF BOTSWANA”, 2005, lambda print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, ANNEBELLE SCHREUDERS (1), AUS DER SERIE „THERE'S A PLACE IN HELL FOR ME AND MY FRIENDS”, 2011-2012, 2012, platinum print, arches platine paper © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, ASHLEIGH MCLEAN, AUS DER SERIE „THERE'S A PLACE IN HELL FOR ME AND MY FRIENDS”, 2011-2012, 2011, platinum print, arches platine paper © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, PORTRAIT #1, RWANDA, AUS DER SERIE „1994”, 2014-2016, 2014, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, GUO FAMILY, BEIJING, AUS DER SERIE „FLAT NOODLE SOUP TALK”, 2015- 2016, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, DEERSAN, BEIJING, AUS DER SERIE „FLAT NOODLE SOUP TALK”, 2015- 2016, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, INSIDE ARCADIA PLACE OLD-AGE HOME, OBSERVATORY, AUS DER SERIE „KIN”, 2006-2013, 2013, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Pieter Hugo, IN SIPHO NTSIBANDE’S HOME, SOWETO, AUS DER SERIE „KIN”, 2006- 2013, 2013, c-print © Pieter Hugo, Priska Pasquer, Cologne
Dragon-Shaped Gong, Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC© Shanxi Provincial Museum
This Shang dynasty gong is shaped, as usual, like a dragon with bottle horns; its body, however, is elongated compared to other examples. The object is a wine container, made beautiful by the bronze-caster's art. A close up of the dragon's head, and rubbings of the reliefs on the dragon's body, are shown at left.
Bu, Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
Gong, Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
The zoomorphic gong is decorated with bits and pieces of various animals, both real and imaginary.
Basin with Three Fishes Decoration, Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
This pan has three fishes swimming around its inside walls, appropriate to a water vessel. It was excavated from Taohuazhe village, Shilou county. Compare: the famous pottery basin from Taosi. Both findspots are located in Shanxi Province.
Scoop With A Tiger Handle, Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
An unusual bronze scoop is seen here, with a miniature tiger perching on its handle.
"Dancing Bell", Shang Dynasty, 16th - 11th century BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
This is a clapperless bronze bell used for dancing. Its sound was made by chains, attached to the handle loops, that struck its body when shaken.
Bowl with Gold Inlay, Warring States period, 475-221 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
This precious vessel illustrates that the Warring States were, although politically troubled, yet a culturally vibrant period. It is inlaid with gold.
Bronze Ox With Rider Holding A Plate, Warring States period, 475-221 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
This beautiful and thoroughly-engraved bronze ox carries a rider, who holds an openwork plate, resembling an umbrella, above his head. Perhaps the small plate held a saucer or some condiments for banqueting, but whatever its use this object must have been a centerpiece of the table.
Bronze Ding, Spring And Autumn period, 770-476 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
Bronze vessels like this Huo Ding (meat cooker) served a ritual function, to cement the ties between a vassal and his lord.
Hu, Spring And Autumn period, 770-476 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
The hu (wine vase), with climbing dragons and lotus crown, became a very popular vessel type from the Eastern Zhou period and onward.
Gourd-shaped Vessel, Spring And Autumn period, 770-476 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
A bird rests atop the bent neck of the vessel. A chain extends down to its zoomorph handle. The bulbous body of the vase is decorated in four bands of closely-set pimples. Compare: a similar vessel from Xi'an.
Open-work Ding, Spring And Autumn period, 770-476 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
The intertwined snakes, that decorate the surface of this ding, are skillful examples of openwork bronze casting. They would have been made in separate blocks using the lost-wax casting process, and then soldered on to the body of the vessel.
Wine-Warming Vessel, Western Han Dynasty, 26 BC © Shanxi Provincial Museum
The vessel is decorated with animals and birds in shallow raised relief, upon a blank background.
Oil Lamp, Western Han dynasty, 206 BC - 8 AD © Shanxi Provincial Museum
Lot 13. Olivier Debré (1920-1999), Blanc du désert aux taches noires, Petra, 1981. Huile sur toile signée, datée, titrée et dédicacée à Michèle Harel au dos, 24,5 x 33,5 cm. Estimation : 3 000 - 4 000 €. Photo Millon
Provenance : Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Toile peinte en Jordanie, en 1981, à l'occasion de la venue de l'artiste pour l'exposition organisée à Amman, au Musée national jordanien des beaux-arts, 1er - 25 mars 1981, et offerte par l'artiste à Claude et Michèle Harel.
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
Lot 14. Olivier Debré (1920-1999) , Rose d'Automne, Washington, 1982. Huile sur toile signée, datée, titrée et dédicacée à Claude Harel au dos, 19 x 24 cm. Estimation : 2 000 - 3 000 €. Photo Millon
Provenance : Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Toile peinte à l'occasion de la visite faite par l'artiste à Claude Harel, alors Ministre plénipotentiaire à Washington
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
Lot 14. Olivier Debré (1920-1999), Ocre d'automne, Washington, 1982. Huile sur toile signée, datée et dédicacée à Michèle Harel au dos, 14 x 18 cm. Estimation : 1 200 - 1 500 €. Photo Millon
Provenance : Collection Claude et Michèle Harel
Toile peinte à l'occasion de la visite faite par l'artiste à Claude Harel, alors Ministre plénipotentiaire à Washington
Millon. Les maîtres de l'abstraction; Autour de la collection Claude & Michèle Harel, lundi 06 mars à 14h30. Drouot Richelieu - Salle 5 - 9, rue Drouot 75009 Paris
