Camille Pissarro (1830-1903), L’Anse des Pilotes et le brise-lames est, Le Havre 1903, oil on canvas 18 ¼ x 21 ¾ in. is one of the works in  Christie’s art sale. Estimate: $1,000,000 – $1,500,000.  Image courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd.

ART AUCTION

Original works on paper by famous art masters highlight Christie’s Fall art sale.

NEW YORK– Masterpieces by Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Camille Pissarro, Joan Miró, Maurice de Vlaminck, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, and  Juan Gris will highlight Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper auctions at the Rockefeller Center on November 6. Featuring a combined total of 407 works, the art sale which started with an online auction of Picasso Ceramics sales is an immense opportunity for new and established art collectors to collect blue-chip works by famous artists.

Included in the art sale of works by these acclaimed artists of the late 19th through early 20th century are paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings that are expected to make record art auction prices. As a prelude to the art sale, Picasso’s Ceramics are presently on display at Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries. Works on Paper will follow on November 1 in a one-day exhibition expected to attract many from the art business community.

L’Anse des Pilotes et le Brise-Lames Est, Le Havre, 1903 by Camille Pissarro is one of the major features of Christie’s Works on Paper art sales. Estimated $1,000,000 – 1,500,000, Pissarro was 73 years old when he painted this piece. From the vantage point of his room at the Hôtel Continental, Pissarro captured a view of the sea with ships and boats drifting along with the wind. From the foreground to middle ground and horizon, Pissarro takes viewers on a trip into the distance filled with cranes and houses. The creative brush work not only reveals his outstanding ability to capture atmospherics, but also Pissarro’s propensity to innovate and reinvent himself and his art even in the last year of his life. It is not surprising that the piece has been the object of praise, generating great excitement among art collectors.

Maurice de Vlaminck’s Bouquet de fleurs, is another piece in the Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper art sale generating great excitement among art collectors. Estimated at $700,000-1,000,000, the masterpiece was painted at the peak of Fauve experimentation between the Salon d’Automne in 1905 and the Salon des Independents in 1906. Bouquet de fleurs, is a zingy still-life painted with pure hues taken directly from the tube. The is expected to attract over the estimated auction price.

Besides his art, Pablo Picasso’s life was filled with women. These women were a major source of influence in his amazing artistic career. Tête, one of the works influenced by one of Picasso ‘s many women, will feature prominently during Christie’s art sale at the Rockefeller Center. Painted in 1929, Tête is an emotionally charged, bifurcated oil portrait of the artist’s wife Olga. Estimated at $600,000-900,000, Tête is as much a portrait of their fractured marriage as of Olga, when contrasted with contemporaneous images of his younger muse, Marie Thérèse Walter frolicking on the beach.

Amedeo Modigliani’s large-scale (21” x 17”) drawing of a Cariatide from 1913 marked the artist’s transition from painting to sculpture. Estimated at $120,000-180,000, the piece shows Modigliani’s amazing skill at using minimal lines to communicate the whole. His rendering of sculptural forms with a few simple ovoid lines in Modigliani’s signature style is what makes this piece a collector’s item.

A brightly hued gouache of an enormous bouquet painted in 1935-36 by Marc Chagall is another piece expected to fetch more than estimated auction price. Estimated at $400,000-600,000, Vase de fleurs dans la fenetre, belonged to the actress Joan Fontaine from circa 1945. Also included in the art auction is La Guitare (1913) by Juan Gris. One of about 50 works on paper and prints by the major figures of the Cubist movement from the Melamed Family Collection, the piece is a rare example of the artist’s work. A composition with violin and guitar, the piece illuminates a major element of the artist’s work from that period. Estimated at $400,000-600,000, this a rare example of a drawing from this era, as the artist usually destroyed his preparatory works.

Also included in the auction is Joan Miró’s Pour Romeo et Juliette created by the artist in May 1926 for Prince Alexandre Shervashidze. It is estimated at $350,000-550,000. Paul Cézanne’s Page de croquis (recto); La partie de campagne (verso). The sheet, with drawings on one side and a watercolor study for La partie de campagne on the other, was executed circa 1875, and originally owned by the artist’s son. Rosalynd C. Pflaum, a noted author, philanthropist, collector, and scholar of French history and culture also had the piece in her collection for nearly 60 years. It is estimated at $100,000-150,000.

Paysage Fond Orange from 1953 by Fernand Léger is estimated at $700,000-1,000,000.    The piece, a manifest of the artist’s late style, is the culmination of a series of landscapes he worked on in 1953, each juxtaposing organic and mechanical elements in varying degrees.

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Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day and Works on Paper auctions at the Rockefeller Center is an expansion of the art auction house to accommodate growing global demand among collectors for a broad array of Modern and Contemporary Art at the middle-market price level.   The collection of masterpieces by   Pablo Picasso, Paul Cézanne, Marc Chagall, Camille Pissarro, Joan Miró, Maurice de Vlaminck, Fernand Léger, Amedeo Modigliani, and  Juan Gris is expected to encourage new art collectors and established art clients to take home the paintings, sculptures, watercolors and drawings put on the auction block.

Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920), Cariatide 1913, brush and brown ink and pencil on paper 21 ¼ x 16 7/8 in. Estimate: $120,000 – $180,000 . Image courtesy of Christie’s Images Ltd

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