School of Paris Leads Bi-Coastal Sale of Modern and Contemporary Arts at Bonhams

NEW YORK, NY.- Bonhams announced the November 9, 2010 bi-coastal auction of Modern and Contemporary Art. Held in New York and simulcast to Los Angeles, the sale features significant examples paintings, drawings, and sculpture from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries by artists such as Bernard Buffet, Adolph Gottlieb, Philip Guston, Fernand Léger, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Richard Anuszkiewicz, Tom Wesselmann, Aaron Young, and Rachel Howard. Also featured is a Property from the Estates of Molly and Leon Lyon, Daniel Melnick, Myriam Schasseur and Howard C. Warren as well as noted Scottsdale, Arizona gallerist Elaine Horwich, will also be included within the auction. 

Highlighting the Fall sale are works from the School of Paris. Leading the offering are four paintings by Fernand Léger: Studies for the City of Light mural for the Con Edison New York World’s Fair building, 1938 (est. $40,000 – 60,000); Fantaisie sur fond rouge (est. $250,000 – 350,000); Paysage au Papillon (est. $30,000-40,000) and La branche sur fond noir (est. $600,000 – 800,000), an homage to the artist’s homeland, the painting was a symbol of peace for the men and women returning from war and exile. 

Additional works of note from the School of Paris include Femme en rouge lisant, 1895 by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (est. $200,000 – 400,000); Untitled, 1958 by Serge Poliakoff (est. $150,000 – 200,000); Bouquet de zinnias dans un vase by Bernard Buffet (est. $60,000 – 80,000); Small Reclining Figure by Alexander Archipenko (est. $25,000-35,000) and Nu féminin assis, petit modèle, also known as ‘Petite étude de mouvement’ by Auguste Rodin (est. $25,000 – 35,000). 

This season’s auction will also feature a strong selection of fresh-to-market Eastern European by artists such as Vilmos Aba-Novák, Georges (Karpeles) Kars, Hugó Scheiber and Franz von Zülow, among others. Although unusual in this concentration for a Western sale, the offering is highly anticipated as Bonhams has historically set auction records for Eastern European artists including Emil Filla in November 2009. Works of note include At the market by Aba-Novák (Est. $20,000 – 30,000); Untitled (Cityscape) by Scheiber (Est. $6,000 – 8,000); Flowers in a vase by Zülow (Est. $3,000 – 5,000) and Street scene by Kars (Est. $3,000 – 5,000). 

The auction catalogue’s cover lot, Untitled, 1952, a rare and important work by Philip Guston (est. $750,000 – 950,000), is also generating much excitement among collectors and connoisseurs. Measuring 40 x 35 inches, the painting contains all of the most prescient ideas that the artist was engaged with at that time: materiality of paint, pure abstraction, a striving toward freedom, and raw freshness. 

The canvas’s fleshy pink and green composition marked out over a waxy background of creamy whites is a spectacular synthesis of the many tendencies in Guston’s art at the time. It foreshadows subsequent great paintings, most clearly MoMA’s 1954 Untitled canvas (given by Philip Johnson), arguably Guston’s most important Abstract Expressionist work. As well, with its pink and red palette, it goes even further and points directly to his powerful raw later work. 

In addition, a highly sought after Burst painting by Adolph Gottlieb titled Green, Ochre, Maroon, 1969 (est. $200,000 – 300,000) will be offered. The Burst paintings were Gottlieb last great achievement. This format, with its many deep cultural references, was the one Gottlieb would continue to develop and investigate until his death in 1974. The painting Green, Ochre and Maroon reveals the fruits of those many years of study and investigation. It is a particularly ambitious and complex canvas. It contains three pulsating round “burst” shapes, which float over a seismic base consisting of many intertwined shapes and symbols that revisit the artist’s earlier Pictograph paintings. 

Also featured within the November auction is Open Ended Nude (Drawing Edition) #37, 1973 by Tom Wesselmann (est. $20,000-30,000); Imaginary Garden by Leo Lionni (est. $20,000-30,000); Cadmium Yellow Convergence by Richard Anuszkiewicz (Est. $30,000 – 40,000); Platonic Heaven, 2006 by Aaron Young (est. $12,000 – 18,000); The Final Curtain, 2005 by Richard Prince as John Dogg (est. $25,000 – 35,000) and Commission, 2004 by Ivan Navarro (est. $12,000 – 18,000) as well as a strong selection of Latin American paintings and sculpture. 

Los Angeles Preview: October 29-30, 2010 
New York Preview: November 6-8, 2010 
Auction: November 9, 2010, 1pm, New York, simulcast to Los Angeles

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