Sotheby's Impressionism, Surrealism and Modern art sales - Feb 3 & 4, 2015

Sotheby's Surrealism, Modern Art and Impressionism sales Feb 3 & 4  2015 London

What they went for ;
Monet -Le Grand Canal - £23.7m
Monet - Les Peupliers au Giverny - £10.8m
Matisse - Odalisque au Fauteuille Noir - £15.8m
Toulouse Lautrec- Au Lit; Le Baiser - £10.8m - not seen for 40 years , til now....

The big money came for the Russians, and seeing as i saw one bid from the room during the hour or I so I was watching, it no doubt came from Moscow on the phone. It was a bundle to get to a phone in the room, no mobiles were being used, only old fashioned corded diallers it looked like. Kandinskys Moscau II went for £6.3m, way over the estimate, and the Malevich self portrait, a weird circular piece went for £5.75m, top est being £1.5m. But for me the oddest price was an ugly Seurat profile with little artistic flair and no colour; it went for £7.75m.
More understandable was a sweet but fragile Picasso Owl sculpture going for £1.25m. Then another strange angular sculpture described as a Tete, Maquette went for almost £9m

Yet one of the Pissaros didnt sell, nor did a Braque, Matisse sketch and a Chagall. The other Pissaro went for over £2m. And how about  £7.75m for a Gino Severini. It was Monets night, this lovely piece , L'Embarcadere went for over £10m. Takinginto account a mere £8.77m for an Antibes view, Monet made over £40m with just four compositions. The impressionists still rule !

 Preveiw
It was as packed as I've seen it on Sunday afternoon at the New Bond St London HQ of Sotheby's for the last days of previews before the big events. They start on Tuesday afternoon when the lesser works go under the hammer, the price range generally starting at £5k and then going up to £25k on the whole. The main events are the evening sales on Tuesday with Surrealism and Modernism and then on Wednesday the big hitters of Impressionism are up for grabs. Estimates are modest for this type of auction - lets call it the Premier League of art collecting, with the main work most definitely being a Monet with an estimate of £25m - £30m.

Nothing really stood out for me at first sight apart from the 1984 Basquiat - pictured - which was judged to be one of his most coherent pieces due to a lower intake of drugs when composed. Its a large canvas, and the expert explained the New Yorker worked incredibly fast, often finishing a large work in a couple of days. Most artists would take months to cover such an expanse. Of course Jean Michel wasnt too fussed about rough edges; the white blocks are painted with household emulsion rather than anything grander. The Warhols were non-descript, as were the Cy Twomblys.
Excellence there was aplenty however. The Magrittes were classy, as was the Delvaux, Derain, Ernst and as always, Joan Miro was a stand out artist - see Danseuse (est £0.5m) and L'Oiseau (est £2m - £3m). He is rapidly becoming one of my top 5 all time artists, and Picabia had a lovely work called Cornelly with a top est of £250, 000. Now maybe the time to bid for these super modern masters; none could be better than the two Matisses on sale ; 'L'Odalisque au fauteuille noir ' and a lovely view of his room with a window "Interieur a Nice Femme Assise avec un livre ".
The Impressionism and Art Nouveau was stronger with some sketches by Klimt and Scheile going for relative peanuts, as were some of the Picasso pencil sketches. The major league Toulouse Lautrec - Au Lit Le Baiser is a fabulous rendition of what all those salon and Maison Closes scenes are all about - sex. The estimate is £9m - £12m

Pissaro was at the forefront of expectations but to me these were way below his high point of Boulevard de Montmartre and the Paris boulevards night scenes that sealed his reputation. Some nice works by Jablonsky and Cross were every bit as commercial as the bigger names. Lets see how well they do on the 3rd of Feb.


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