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Art Market Fairs & Auctions
OBJECT LESSONS
From David Bowie’s Auerbach to a mysterious, 4,000-year-old Chinese jade disc,
here is our pick of this month’s international auctions and fairs. By Anna Brady
Selected prints
Auction in Oslo, Monday 12 December 2016 at 2 p.m.
Catalogue at http://www.gwpa.no from Tuesday 22 November
Edvard Munch Moonlight. Night in St. Cloud 1895,
Woll 17 IIIb, Luxury edition. Signed and numbered
by the artist Edvard Munch 9.Edvard Munch
MUNCH-AUKSJONEN
HOTEL CONTINENTAL
OSLO 12 DECEMBER 2016
THE ANNUAL NORWEGIAN EDVARD MUNCH SALE
INITIATED BY GREV WEDELS PLASS AUKSJONER, OSLOHenri Cartier-Bresson, Madrid (1933)
ERIC FRANCK/AUGUSTA EDWARDS, PARIS PHOTO, 10-13 NOVEMBER PRICED BETWEEN €20,000 AND €30,000Adding historical weight to the o erings at Paris Photo fair are vintage photographs from the 19th and 20th centuries, including a number
of photographs taken by Henri Cartier-Bresson. The father of reportage photography, Cartier-Bresson travelled across Europe during the
1930s, prowling the streets with a lightweight Leica to record the lives of the poor. One of the most famous from this series is Madrid (1933),
in which playful street children are anchored by a portly man walking in the background.Franz von Stuck, Ödipus löst das
Rätsel der Sphinx (1891)KETTERER KUNST, MUNICH, 25 NOVEMBER
ESTIMATE €180,000-€240,000The German symbolist painter Franz von Stuck (1863-1928) was enthralled by Greek and
Roman mythology. His near obsession with antiquity is seen in both his paintings and in the
Art Nouveau-meets-Classical interior of his lavish Munich home, Villa Stuck. Of particular
fascination was the sphinx, the subject of ive works including Oedipus Solves the Riddle
of the Sphinx (1891). Shown lunging forward, wide-eyed, at Oedipus before plunging into
the abyss, the sphinx typiies Stuck’s view of these creatures as symbols for enigmatic and
destructive women.Wassily Kandinsky,
Kreis u. Fleck (1929)INGABRITT & ARNE LUNDBERG
COLLECTION, STOCKHOLMS
AUKTIONSVERK, 15 NOVEMBER
ESTIMATE SEK25M-SEK30M
(€2.6M-€3.1M The sale of the collection of IngaBritt
and Arne Lundberg is a big moment in
Swedish auction history. The couple
amassed a collection of 20th-century
art by artists including Yves Klein, Max
Ernst, René Magritte, Victor Vasarely and
Raoul Dufy. The trophy piece is a work by
Wassily Kandinsky, painted while he was
an inluential member of the Bauhaus School. The carefully composed points, straight lines
and geometric shapes, plotted against pale space, read almost as a musical composition. This
painting, writes art historian Jan Torsten Ahlstrand, “can be viewed as visual music, if you will,
but also as Kandinsky’s way of transmuting a spiritual reality of an almost mystical kind”.Archaic jade notched
disc, late Neolithic, Shang
period, 2000BC-1500BCEARLY CHINESE ART, ESKENAZI, LONDON, 3-25 NOVEMBER
PRICE $800,000Eskenazi’s varied exhibitions of Chinese art are a highlight
of the annual Asian Art in London (3-12 November). Though
Giuseppe Eskenazi champions some contemporary Chinese
artists, his exhibition concentrates on 24 early pieces,
spanning a 2,500-year period, from the late Neolithic
era (around 2000BC) to the Tang dynasty (AD618-907).
At its core is a group of ancient bronze vessels, including
an inscribed archaic wine vessel from the Western Zhou
(1046-771BC). But most curious is an archaic, notched jade
disc, unusually large at 33cm in diameter. Other similar
(though smaller) discs exist, but experts remain mystiied as
to their purpose. A thing of timeless beauty nonetheless.Frank Auerbach,
Head of Gerda
Boehm (1965)BOWIE/COLLECTOR, SOTHEBY’S
LONDON, 10 NOVEMBER
ESTIMATE £300,000-£500,000“It will give spiritual weight to my
angst. Some mornings I’ll look at it and
go, ‘Oh, God, yeah! I know!’ But that
same painting on a di erent day can
produce in me an incredible feeling of
the triumph of trying to express myself
as an artist.” So said David Bowie of Frank Auerbach’s paintings. British art was particularly
dear to the late musician. He found Auerbach’s “bas-relief way of painting”, exempliied
by this portrait of Auerbach’s cousin, Gerda Boehm, “extraordinary”. Last exhibited at the
Royal Academy retrospective in 2001, the rich impasto exempliies Bowie’s observation that
sometimes, with Auerbach, “I’m not really sure if I’m dealing with sculpture or painting.”CARTIER-BRESSON: © THE ARTIST/MAGNUM; COURTESY OF THE FONDATION HENRI CARTIER-BRESSON. AUERBACH: COURTESY OF SOTHEBY’S. KANDINSKY: COURTESY OF STOCKHOLMS AUKTIONSVERK. JADE: COURTESY OF ESKENAZI. STUCK: COURTESY OF KETTERER KUNSTTHE ART NEWSPAPER Number 284, November 2016