Picasso at Christie’s and Sotheby’s
|
|
P. Picasso. Tete d'arlequin. 1905. Oil on panel. 35,0 È 26,5 cm. Sold for $15,160,000. Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale. Sotheby’s. New York, May 8
[zoom (313k)]
|
Four masterpieces by Pablo Picasso fetched $55,000,000 in total during a sale in New York. Christie’s auction «Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale» featured «Tete et main de femme», painted by Picasso while residing in Fontainbleau near Paris in the summer of 1921 with his wife Olga Khokhlova and their son Paulo. The painting depicts Olga, who inspired Picasso to make his first neoclassical oil painting in 1917 and whose image continued to permeate his classicism for the next six years. The unique work fetched $18,520,000.
Juan Gris’s «Le pot de geranium», 1915, a virtual guidebook to the artist’s compositional practices, preferred subject matter, formal interests and chromatic concerns became one of the evening’s highlights when it realized $18,520,000, doubling the artist’s previous world auction record which stood at $8.5 million. The sale also offered a superb group of bronzes by Alberto Giacometti. His incredibly captivating «L’homme qui chavire», a superb rendering of a capsizing figure, a drowning man was acquired for $18,520,000. The Christie’s sale on May 9 totaled stunning $236,464,000. The Sotheby’s sale of modern and impressionist art held the day earlier totaled $278,548,000. The top-lot of the auction was «T?te d'arlequin» by Picasso realized staggering $15,160,000.
äÏÂÁ×ÉÔØ ÏÔÚÙ× 
