Exceptional art pieces selected from global network featured at Christie’s Shanghai 2014 spring auction

SHANGHAI.- After the successful inaugural auction in Shanghai in September 2013, Christie’s will continue the great momentum by holding two auctions in mainland China in 2014. Christie’s will present its 2014 Shanghai Spring Auction on April 26 at Jing An Shangri-La Hotel, featuring Asian and Western 20th Century and Contemporary Art. Offering over 60 well-selected artworks, the auction is estimated to realise in excess of RMB93 million/US$15 million. Works by Liu Wei, Zao Wou-Ki, Aya Takano, I Nyoman Masriadi, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Pablo Picasso and Bernard Buffet are among the highlights presented in our international sale platform. This international showcase draws on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Southeast Asian and Western art and spans subject matter, styles and technique from modern masters to avant-garde and cutting-edge contemporary talents.

This year, the highlights of the auction will be toured in Beijing on April 18-19, returning back to Shanghai on April 24-26, and presented in the evening auction on April 26. Christie’s will also tour highlights from the Hong Kong spring auction, as well as international private sales and masterpiece exhibitions featuring Asian Contemporary Art, Chinese Paintings, Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art, Impressionist and Modern Paintings, Post-War and Contemporary Art, Jewelry and Watches. In addition, from April 18 to 26 Christie’s will host a full programme of educational lectures, gallery tours and see the return of the popular Christie’s Art Forum series where global artists, collectors, and art professionals will be invited to engage in talks on art and collecting, and to discuss trends and developments in the global art market.

Roy Lichtenstein, (1923-1997), Apple and Grapefruit, signed and dated `Roy Lichtenstein ’80‟ (on the reverse), oil and magna on canvas, 20 x 24 inches (51 x 61 cm). Painted in 1980. Estimate: RMB 4,000,000-5,800,000/US$ 650,000-950,000. Photo: Christie’s Images Ltd 2014.

“The success of our first auction in Shanghai last September demonstrated strong growth in China’s art market and an increasing trend of East-West cultural convergence,” said Jinqing Cai, President of Christie’s China. “This season, we will continue to present to Chinese collectors an exceptional collection we have sourced through our global network, bringing art concepts and forms from various periods and regions to further international art and cultural exchanges. This year, we are delighted to showcase artworks in both Beijing and Shanghai and look forward to sharing a rich art and diverse experience with Chinese collectors and art enthusiasts.”

SELECTED HIGHLIGHTS OF SHANGHAI SPRING AUCTION 2014:

ASIAN 20TH CENTURY & CONTEMPORARY ART
ZAO WOU-KI (ZHAO WUJI, French/Chinese, 1921-2013), 31.08.2001-09.09.2002, oil on canvas. Painted in 2001-2002, 130 x 162 cm. (51 1/8 x 63 3/4 in.). Estimate: RMB 8,000,000-12,000,000/US$ 1,300,000-2,000,000
After exploring the discourse of Abstract art for over two decades, Zao Wou-ki’s artistic expression had begun to deliver a stronger sense of tranquility and inversality since the 1980s. Completed between 2001 and 2002, 31.08.2001-09.09.2002 fully attests to the energetic nature of his later works. Embodying a composition of Chinese landscape painting, brushstrokes and colour blocks painted with a blue-grey colour palette adds a touch of coolness and serenity to the image, ultimately bringing a sense of omniscience to the viewers.

WANG YIDONG (Chinese, B.1955), A Moment’s Reflection, oil on canvas. Painted in 1997, 104.5 x 104.5 cm. (41 1/8 x 41 1/8 in.). Estimate: RMB 3,600,000-4,500,000/US$ 600,000-740,000
A photo realistic portrayal of a young girl by Wang Yidong, A Moment’s Reflection employees poetic tenderness inaugurated by a moment of stillness. With bright almond eyes, a touch of red-violet on the cheeks, crimson lips, and dark hair, the girl in the picture is the perfect incarnation of Wang’s definition of aesthetical beauty.

ZENG FANZHI (Chinese, B.1964), Untitled 07-5, oil on canvas. Painted in 2007
200 x 200 cm. (78 3/4 x 78 3/4 in.). Estimate: RMB 4,200,000-6,200,000/US$ 685,000-1,000,000

AYA TAKANO (Japanese, B.1976), The Chamber of Ivy Lane Byobu, pencil, gel pen, acrylic on canvas. Painted in 2010, 162 x 162 cm. (63 3/4 x 63 3/4 in.). Estimate: RMB 550,000-850,000/US$ 90,000-140,000
On a purely flat surface, The Chamber of Ivy Lane Byobu continues Aya Takano’s artistic expression, one that is sweet but often suggests sexual insinuation. Having a sarcastic point of view towards the morally corrupted society, Takano incorporates a technique similar to pointillism depicting her world of both extreme complexity and imaginations.

RONALD VENTURA (Filipino, B.1973), Altar; & 3 O’Clock Habit, oil on canvas; & fiberglass, resin, polyurethaine paint. Executed in 2010, 153 x 153 cm. (60 1/4 x 60 1/4 in.); & 52 x 40 x 38cm (20 7/16 x 15 3/4 x 14 15/16 in.). Estimate: RMB 600,000-800,000/US$ 100,000-130,000
Ronald Ventura is one of the most highly acclaimed South Asian contemporary painters famous for his photorealistic language. Altar; & 3 O’Clock Habit interfaces the traditional with the contemporary by juxtaposing a brightly colored TV against a nearly monochromatic background which showcases religious imagery, a family photograph, and the odds and ends of domestic existence. This is Ventura’s idea of commenting on the transition between the old and the new, reality and nostalgia, and the relentless progress of contemporaneity.

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART
PABLO PICASSO (1881-1973), Tȇte de femme, signed `Picasso‟ (upper right); dated and numbered `5.12.64. VII‟ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 55.2 x 45.9 cm. (21¾ x 18⅛ in.). Painted on 5 December 1964. Estimate: RMB 9,000,000-15,000,000/US$1,500,000-2,500,000
Executed in 1964, Tête de femme presents an immediate, dynamic example of the great creative energy which characterised Pablo Picasso‟s works in the 1960s. Outlined with a few heavy, yet energetic brushstrokes, the head of a woman appears on the canvas, brought to life through the use of vibrant colours: pink, green and yellow. The painting exemplifies Picasso‟s talent for capturing his subject through a handful of well defined forms: here, using the white of the canvas as an integral element of the composition, Picasso described the lively face of a woman by combining round lines with angular strokes.

The subject in Tête de femme is Jacqueline Roque, Picasso‟s second wife. During the 1960s, Picasso had widely explored the theme of the artist and his model in his works; Jacqueline, with her striking features, had provided the artist with a subject of inexhaustible inspiration. In Picasso‟s late works she became a meaningful and recurrent presence: “All of the women of these years are Jacqueline. The image of the woman he loves is a model imprinted deep within, and it emerges every time he paints a woman” (M. Bernadac, in Late Picasso, exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London, 1988, p. 78). In Tête de femme, Picasso focused on Jacqueline‟s head, capturing the wavy lines of her hair through concentric brushstrokes and the straight, elegant profile of her nose, by combining black and yellow angular forms. The portrait celebrates Jacqueline as Picasso‟s muse, his companion, but also as a universal female figure.

On the same day Picasso executed Tête de femme – 5 December 1964 – he also completed seven other related portraits (C. Zervos, Pablo Picasso, vol. 24, nos. 299-303, 306 and 305 in order of execution). The series includes some male heads with stubbly beards, to which Tête de femme offers a more gentle, female counterpart. The series in itself, however, illustrates Picasso‟s constant flow of invention, while celebrating the apparent effortless with which he could conjure people into existence through his art. The striking bright green detail in the portrait, moreover, might have been intended as an homage to Picasso‟s friend and rival, Henri Matisse, who had died in 1954. In La raie verte, the famous portrait of his wife Amélie, Matisse had portrayed his companion by accentuating her features through a bold green shadow cast across her face, which is seemingly echoed in Picasso‟s Tête de femme. Vivid and instantaneous in its schematic composition, Tête de femme appears as a fascinating, almost calligraphic rendition of a human face through the simple means of flat colours and single brushstrokes.

MARC CHAGALL(1887-1985), L’offrande au peintre, signed „Chagall Marc‟ (lower left); signed again `Marc Chagall‟ (on the reverse), oil on canvas, 91.7 x 64.5 cm. (36 x 25½ in.). Painted in 1983. Estimate: RMB 7,000,000-10,000,000/US$ 1,200,000-1,800,000
L’offrande au peintre presents a moving example of Marc Chagall‟s joyous outlook onto the world. Throughout his career, Chagall created a unique universe of symbols and figures often floating across wide expanses of colour which, in their ensemble, seemed to conjure memories, dreams and poetic celebrations of life. In L’offrande au peintre, the act of painting opens up a whole world of images: as the painter portrays flowers on his canvas, a woman suddenly appears next to him, perhaps symbolising a muse, guiding and protecting the artist in his creative flow. Images and figures, emerging from memory or perhaps from his imagination, float all around. The small huts of the village seem to recall Chagall‟s native town Vitebsk (now Viciebsk), in Belarus, while the figures may evoke people from the artist‟s life. Symbolically, L’offrande au peintre – „offering to the painter‟ – may have been intended by Chagall as a celebration of painting and its power to evoke memories, unite people and create new worlds.

Although born in Belarus, Chagall is regarded as one of the foremost exponents of the Parisian school of painting. He spent a great part of his life in France, becoming a friend of artists such as Picasso. In this regard, Chagall belongs to those numerous artists who, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, had searched for artistic inspiration and recognition in Paris, a city regarded at the time as the cultural capital of Europe. Chagall had come to Paris in search for light and colour. „I hate Russian or Central Europe colour‟, he admitted, „it is like the footwear there. Soutine, me, all of us left because of colour. I was very dark when I arrived in Paris. I was potato-coloured, like Van Gogh. Paris is light and bright‟ (M. Chagall, quoted in J. Baal-Teshuva, Marc Chagall 1887-1985, Köln, 1998, p. 206). In L’offrande au peintre, space has dissolved into pure colour: the figures and symbols of Chagall‟s art are juxtaposed against a backdrop of intense yellow and red. The diagonal division of the canvas seems to evoke a symbolic division between the painter‟s earthly reality and the artistic universe of his creation.

Chagall painted L’offrande au peintre in 1983. By that time, the artist had achieved worldwide success, and was being celebrated as one of the most important painters of the Twentieth Century through a series of momentous exhibitions. In 1984, the Musée National d‟Art Moderne in Paris organised an important retrospective of Chagall‟s works on paper, while the Maeght Foundation in Saint-Paul-de-Vence arranged a major retrospective of his paintings. In 1985, the Royal Academy in London also honoured the painter with a major exhibition, which then travelled to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, reaffirming the artist‟s stature beyond Europe.

FRANÇOISE GILOT (B.1921), Living Forest, signed and dated „F. Gilot Nov. 1977.‟ (lower right); titled „Living Forest‟ (on the stretcher), oil on canvas, 130 x 81 cm. (51¼ x 31⅞ in.). Painted in 1977. Estimate: RMB 130,000-190,000/US$ 20,000-30,000
From the age of five, Francoise Gilot knew she wanted to be an artist. Born to a Parisian businessman and a watercolourist, Gilot studied law while secretly continuing her art. At the young age of 21, Gilot was already an accomplished artist in her own right during World War II. After meeting Gilot in a cafe in the spring of 1943, Pablo Picasso, already a world-famous artist, fell madly in love with her. This meeting marked the beginning of a decade-long romance, during which she was surrounded by the titans of Modernism including Chagall, Braque and Matisse. Their long relationship bore two children – Claude and Paloma. Currently based in New York, Gilot was recently appointed an Officer of the Legion d’Honneur, one of France’s highest distinctions.

BERNARD BUFFET (1928-1999), Deux clowns, saxophone, signed ‘Bernard Buffet’ (upper right) and dated ’1989′ (upper left), oil on canvas, 130.2 x 162.3 cm. (51¼ x 63⅞ in.). Painted in 1989. Estimate: RMB 3,200,000-4,500,000/US$ 500,000-700,000
Bernard Buffet is a French painter of the Post-War period. Through his figurative paintings, he elaborated a unique style of expression, characterised by strong, angular black outlines, stylised figure and flat colours. Buffet started his artistic career in 1943, enrolling at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. Promoted by the enthusiastic art critic Pierre Descargues, Buffet obtained his first personal exhibition in 1947. On that occasion the Musée National d‟Art Moderne of Paris bought the painting Nature morte au poulet for its collection. The distinctive style of Buffet‟s works gained the artist a wide success and from the early 1950s onwards, he became a regular and important presence in the Parisian and international art scene, often presenting his works grouped in thematic series. Thanks to the graphic quality of his style, Buffet also illustrated numerous literature works throughout his career and designed the stage sets of several opera and ballet productions. In 1971 the French state awarded Buffet the Légion d‟Honneur and in 1974 the painter was elected member to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1973, a passionate collector founded the Musée Bernard Buffet in Shizuoka Prefecture, Nagaizumi-cho, in Japan, which holds a collection of over 2000 works by the artist.

Deux clowns, saxophone was executed by Bernard Buffet in 1989. The picture portrays a tragicomic duo: two musicians, in flamboyant clown costumes, stand facing the viewer, oblivious to the cheerful character of their attire, while the exaggerated make-up on their faces contrasts sharply with their stern expressions. In its combination of music and theatre costumes, Deux clowns, saxophone evokes a tradition which had been central to much of the art of the Avant-garde. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, in fact, clowns, acrobats and musicians had become symbolic figures in the works of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall and Georges Rouault. In those years, the figure of the circus performer was often used in representation of the marginalised, story-teller figure of the artist himself, evoking the hardship of the artist‟s life, but also the charm and magic of his art.

By depicting two clowns, Deux clowns, saxophone revisits a subject which had already preoccupied Buffet in the mid-1950s. In 1955, Buffet had in fact explored the theme of the circus, depicting acrobats troupes and also clown figures, whose mournful expressions clashed with the exaggerated features of their costumes and the apparently gleeful tone of the their acts. Viewed in the context of post-war Europe, Buffet‟s 1955 clowns may have appeared as symbolic figures, projecting the angst and suffering in which men were left after the war. Buffet‟s art in general was understood to be akin to the Existentialist philosophy which compellingly voiced the feeling of disorientation which characterised the Post-War period. That 1955 series of clowns enjoyed a great success and, that same year, Buffet was elected as the best Post-War artist in Paris, in a poll organised by the art review Connaissance des Arts.

Painted in 1989, Deux clowns, saxophone seems to return to the theme of the clown with a different perspective from that employed during the post-war period. The picture belongs to a series of works, in which the clowns appear as impassive figures, at odds with the festive prospects evoked by the instruments they hold and the clothes they wear. Yet, compared with the 1955 series, the colours in these pictures are brighter and the figures appear as less tormented. While during the post-war period Buffet had turned the clown into a symbol of malaise and suffering, in the 1980s the artist seems to depict the same subject as a figure of accepted disillusionment. Unaffected by the comic appearances of their condition, the clowns in Deux clowns, saxophone display a forbearing, perhaps hopeful stance.

POST-WAR & CONTEMPORARY ART
DAMIEN HIRST (b. 1965), Calcium Hydride, signed, titled, dated and inscribed ’2007 Damien Hirst “Calcium Hydride” I ‘heart’ BRIONY’ (on the reverse); signed again ‘Damien Hirst’ and stamped ‘Hirst’ (on the stretcher), household gloss on canvas, 52 x 59 7/8 in. (132 x 152 cm.). Estimate: RMB 2,000,000-3,000,000/US$ 300,000-500,000

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997), Apple and Grapefruit, signed and dated `Roy Lichtenstein ’80‟ (on the reverse), oil and magna on canvas, 20 x 24 inches (51 x 61 cm). Painted in 1980. Estimate: RMB 4,000,000-5,800,000/US$ 650,000-950,000

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987), “Self-Portrait with Skeleton arm and Madonna” after Edvard Munch, signed and dated `Andy Warhol 84‟ (on the reverse), acrylic and silkscreen inks on canvas, 51 x 71 in. (129.5 x 180.3 cm.). Painted in 1984. Estimate: RMB 10,000,000-15,000,000/US$ 1,600,000-2,500,000