Wassily Kandinsky's auction record was broken twice within minutes during
Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art sale held in London on June 21,2017 when
his 1909 landscape with a green house sold for 21 million GBP followed by his 1913 canvas titled“Bild mit Weissen Linien"(Painting With White Lines)”, which fetched 33 million
pounds (including fees)
The auction totaled 149
million GBP, compared with 103.3 million
a year ago. Joan Miro's “Femme et Oiseaux” sold for a record
price of 24.6 million GBP while Alberto Giacometti's elongated sculpture of a
female nude titled "Grande Figure", a unique cast from
1948 reputedly sold by the billionaire Leon Black went for the equivalent
of $22.6 million.
While the total represented a 45
percent increase on last year, bidding was rarely intense and few lots sold
above estimate. Still, small works on paper by Ed Rusha, whose "Blue
Scream" (1964 sold for 1.6 million,
and Mark Grotjahnattracted
the attention of bidders as did an Old
Master flower painting by Ambrosius Bosschaert, bought by an Asian collector
within estimate for £3 million while approximately 66 percent of the sale's low
estimate was guaranteed with irrevocable bids, notably Joan Miro'sFemme et Oiseau, a magnificent
1940 work on paper from his rare “Constellation” series which
went beyond the artist's previous auction record of 23.6 million GBP, set in
2012 for his 1927 oil painting,Peinture
(Etoile Bleue).
There was however no guarantee needed for Kandinsky's Fauvist period
landscape painting of the bucolic German town of Murnau, which came from the Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher Collection
in Switzerland.Just six lots later, a rare testimony from Kandinsky's move into
abstraction in 1913,Painting
with White Lines, jumped to a new record after being guaranteed for 27
million GBP. This picture had remained in Russia all its life until 1974, when
it was acquired from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow by Cologne collector
William Hack, whose descendants were selling it. Kandinsky's previous auction
record was $23.3 million, set at Christie's New York last year for a large 1935
painting titledRigide
et Courbe which went slightly beyond hisFugue(1914),a rather better work
from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, sold in 1990 at Sotheby's for 21
million USD, a price now equivalent to 39 million USD with inflation over 27 years taken into account.
The other notable record price of the evening was for Théo van
Rysselberghe's luminous pointillist painting,Sailboats
on the Escault(1892),
which had been bought in 2002 for a record $2.6 million. Guaranteed this time,
it sold within estimate for £8.5 million.
Wassily Kandinsky's auction record was broken twice within minutes during
Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern art sale held in London on June 21,2017 when
his 1909 landscape with a green house sold for 21 million GBP followed by his 1913 canvas titled“Bild mit Weissen Linien"(Painting With White Lines)”, which fetched 33 million
pounds (including fees)
The auction totaled 149
million GBP, compared with 103.3 million
a year ago. Joan Miro's “Femme et Oiseaux” sold for a record
price of 24.6 million GBP while Alberto Giacometti's elongated sculpture of a
female nude titled "Grande Figure", a unique cast from
1948 reputedly sold by the billionaire Leon Black went for the equivalent
of $22.6 million.
While the total represented a 45
percent increase on last year, bidding was rarely intense and few lots sold
above estimate. Still, small works on paper by Ed Rusha, whose "Blue
Scream" (1964 sold for 1.6 million,
and Mark Grotjahnattracted
the attention of bidders as did an Old
Master flower painting by Ambrosius Bosschaert, bought by an Asian collector
within estimate for £3 million while approximately 66 percent of the sale's low
estimate was guaranteed with irrevocable bids, notably Joan Miro'sFemme et Oiseau, a magnificent
1940 work on paper from his rare “Constellation” series which
went beyond the artist's previous auction record of 23.6 million GBP, set in
2012 for his 1927 oil painting,Peinture
(Etoile Bleue).
There was however no guarantee needed for Kandinsky's Fauvist period
landscape painting of the bucolic German town of Murnau, which came from the Werner and Gabrielle Merzbacher Collection
in Switzerland.Just six lots later, a rare testimony from Kandinsky's move into
abstraction in 1913,Painting
with White Lines, jumped to a new record after being guaranteed for 27
million GBP. This picture had remained in Russia all its life until 1974, when
it was acquired from the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow by Cologne collector
William Hack, whose descendants were selling it. Kandinsky's previous auction
record was $23.3 million, set at Christie's New York last year for a large 1935
painting titledRigide
et Courbe which went slightly beyond hisFugue(1914),a rather better work
from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, sold in 1990 at Sotheby's for 21
million USD, a price now equivalent to 39 million USD with inflation over 27 years taken into account.
The other notable record price of the evening was for Théo van
Rysselberghe's luminous pointillist painting,Sailboats
on the Escault(1892),
which had been bought in 2002 for a record $2.6 million. Guaranteed this time,
it sold within estimate for £8.5 million.
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