The Fine Art File Edition 42

THE

FINE ART FILE Edition 42 2018

W RIT T EN AN D PU BL ISH ED BY

WATERHOUSE & DODD

IN THIS ISSUE Wilhelmina BARNS-GRAHAM Trevor BELL

Norman BLUHM

Willem DE KOONING

Friedel DZUBAS

Georges FOLMER Auguste HERBIN

Paul JENKINS Alex KATZ

Fernand LÉGER

Sol LEWITT

Robert LONGO

Frans MASEREEL

André MASSON Henri MATISSE

Joan MITCHELL

Robert RAUSCHENBERG

Jean-François RAUZIER

Anselm REYLE

Gerhard RICHTER

Jean-Paul RIOPELLE Gino SEVERINI

Frank STELLA

Kees VAN DONGEN

Jacques VILLON

Tom WESSELMANN

Angel ZÁRRAGA

KEES VAN DONGEN Dutch (1877-1968) Le paravent Signed & inscribed with title on reverse Painted circa 1909 Oil on canvas 25.5 x 21 in / 65 x 53.5 cm This work will be included in the forthcoming Kees van Dongen catalogue raisonné being prepared by the Wildenstein Institute

Kees van Dongen took part in the controversial 1905 Salon d’Automne exhibition with the Fauves (the ‘wild beasts’), showing his work alongside Henri Matisse, André Derain, Albert Marquet and Maurice de Vlaminck.

Thereafter, throughout his career, he combined the lush and sometimes harsh colouring of that group with a playful eroticism, as evident in the present work.

Completed immediately following his Fauve period, van Dongen’s tongue-in-cheek composition, places us, the viewer, with the artist behind the screen (‘le paravent’) that ought to preserve the model’s modesty.

The energy and wry humour with which van Dongen depicted the cabaret girls of Paris was widely acknowledged. Matisse recalled how in the early 1900s in Montmartre the proprietor of the Moulin de la Galette used to invite the painters to come and draw. Matisse wrote “van Dongen was prodigious. He ran around after the dancers and drew them at the same time.” Indeed the painter was never shy of retaining an element of eroticism in his paintings, both discreet and overt. In later years he was in demand as a portraitist. Of his sitters van Dongen flippantly remarked “The essential thing is to elongate the women, and especially to make them slim. After that it just remains to enlarge their jewels.”

Provenance: Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (1911) ; Sotheby’s, New York, 3 November 2005, lot no. 243; Private collection (acquired from the above sale)

JACQUES VILLON French (1875-1963) La femme blessée (Yvonne Duchamp) Signed & dated 1914 Oil on panel 10 x 8.5 in / 25 x 22 cm

Jacques Villon was one of six siblings. His two brothers were also artists: Cubist and Dadaist Marcel Duchamp, and sculptor Raymond Duchamp Villon. His sister Suzanne Duchamp also became a Dadaist and married the painter Jean Crotti, while his other sisters Yvonne and Magdeleine were regularly pressed into service as models both for him and Marcel. Villon was born Gaston Duchamp, but changed his name to Jacques Villon in tribute to the eponymous French medieval poet, and to distinguish himself from his brothers and sisters.

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Patrick Bongers and will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné Provenance: Collection of the artist; Galerie Louis Carré, Paris (acquired from the above circa 1944); Private collection, Paris (acquired from the above in 1977)

Depicting Villon’s sister Yvonne, the subject and style of the present work exemplify Jacques Villon’s interest in bringing greater rigour and relevance to the Analytical Cubism forged by Picasso and Braque. The faceted diagonals and interlocking planes of the composition draw on the painter’s desire to underpin Cubism with a sense of mathematical order, while the pastel blocks of colour reflect his description of himself as the ‘Impressionist Cubist’.

The painting relates to two earlier compositions by Villon: ‘La Lecture du journal’ from 1912 and ‘Portrait de Mlle YD’ from 1913, in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. It also relates to his 1913 etching ‘Yvonne D de profil’ and the series of etchings Villon made of his sister, which have been hailed as among the greatest achievements ever in the medium. Writing of the etchings in a catalogue of the Art Institute of Chicago, Ginny Voedisch wrote: “In these depictions, Villon seems to have captured his sibling in a moment of introspection. Rather than detracting from her reverie, the riot of shapes seem to represent her thoughts made manifest, the complexity of the composition further suggesting the inscrutability of her inner mind.”

Below: Jacques Villon, ‘Yvonne D de profil’, 1913, drypoint etching, 21.5 x 16.25 in / 55 x 41 cm

FERNAND LÉGER French 1881-1955 La carte postale

During the 1920s Fernand Léger broke free from the ‘tyranny of the subject’; he took everyday objects and elevated them to monumental status, not as the means to an end but as the end itself. Having achieved that he turned to the liberation of the figure. As he expressed it: “as long as the human body is considered a sentimental or expressive value in painting, no new evolution in pictures of people will be possible.” Thus all the objects within a composition, including the human figures, are of equal interest.

Having established their equality he juxtaposed human and natural forms, organic and mechanical elements, to exemplify what he called ‘the law of contrast’, creating tensions and unlikely harmonies within a composition.

However, the coldly analytical processes, no matter how confidently expressed, were not always so rigidly adhered to. Léger once described an attractive girl he had met as being “as beautiful as a gasometer” - a fine quotation but one used largely for effect. The longstemmed rose that links the two figures in ‘La carte postale’ appears in a number of compositions from the early 1930s and almost certainly retains its traditional message as a symbol of romance and feminine beauty, of fertility and growth. Yet it also serves its purpose among the diverse elements in the ‘law of contrast’.

The theme of two (or sometimes three) sisters recurs throughout Léger’s oeuvre. As a pictorial device they are used in close groupings to explore the contrasts that are the defining characteristic of most of Léger’s work - the physical similarities and yet their differences, their moods and mannerisms, and their relationship to the objects around them. Yet there is a sense of human involvement that belies many of Léger’s cold pronouncements on his art. In 1919 Léger married Jeanne-Augustine Lohy, his ‘marraine de guerre’ (a sort of war-time pen-friend who would send provisions and letters of comfort) and they remained married until her death in 1950. But Léger retained a strong affection for her sister, Yvette, and while the precise nature of their relationship remains undocumented, there is no doubt that for the artist the theme of sisters carried a more complex significance than pictorial devices.

Signed & dated ‘32; further, signed, titled & dated on reverse ‘La carte postale, 1932, F. LEGER’ Oil on canvas 18.25 x 13 in / 46 x 33 cm

This work is included in the catalogue raisonné prepared by Georges Bauquier under no. 820

Provenance: Private collection, Paris; SVV Chayette-Cheval, Paris Drouot, 2008; Private collection, Switzerland Literature: ‘Hommage à Fernand Léger’, Revue du XX° siécle, Paris, n° spécial, 1971, illustrated p.59; ‘Fernand Léger’ by Pierre Descargues, Paris, Maeght Editeur, 1995, illustrated p.130; ‘Fernand Léger, Catalogue Raisonné de l’Oeuvre Peint, Vol 5 1932-1937’, Georges Bauquier, Maeght Editeur no. 820, p.54

FERNAND LÉGER French (1881-1955) Deauville la Sieste Signed with initials, inscribed ‘Deauv’ & dated ‘août ‘50’ Executed in 1950 Gouache, watercolour and ink on paper 11.25 x 15 in / 28 x 38 cm Provenance: Galerie Louis Carré, Paris; Svensk Franska Konstgalleriet, Stockholm; Gallery Bengtsson, Stockholm

In 1950, at the request of the dealer Louis Carré, Fernand Léger painted a series of gouaches of Deauville, the elegant seaside resort on the coast of Normandy. They were exhibited later that year, from 8th November to 9th December, at Galerie Louis Carré in Paris in an exhibition entitled ‘Deauville vu par Fernand Léger’.

Léger had been a regular visitor to the town, often staying with a friend who lived nearby at Touques. The choice of subject was highly congenial to Léger’s art at this time, the bold shapes and colours exactly conveying the holiday mood.

Sixty five years later, in July 2015, the Mayor of Deauville, Philippe Augier, unveiled a plaque to Fernand Léger to commemorate the series of paintings, accompanied by Nathalie Samoïlov, great-granddaughter of Nadia Léger, wife of the painter, and Jean de Chatenet, the curator of Fernand Léger’s house, in Lisores.

Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Louis Carré, ‘Deauville vu par Fernand Léger’, 8th November - 9th December 1950; Stockholm, Galerie Blanche, ‘Franskkonst’, January 1951, cat no. 31; Stockholm, Svensk Franska Kontsgalleriet, 11-29 March 1961, cat no. 21 Literature: J. Cassou, J. Leymarie & G. Loudmer, ‘Léger, dessins et gouaches’, no. 11-1032, illustrated www.legerdessinsetgouaches.com

AUGUSTE HERBIN French (1882-1960) Nature morte aux pots de fleurs

With its vibrantly coloured interlocking planes and rhythmic ornamental motifs, this painting is amongst Auguste Herbin’s most complex and arresting Cubist compositions. Painted in 1918, it belongs to a pivotal point in the evolution of his unique Cubist aesthetic, which is characterised by bright tonalities and intricate decorative forms. Herbin began to experiment with Cubism in 1909, when he moved to Bateau-Lavoir and became acquainted with Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque and Juan Gris. Intrigued by their interrogation of perspective, he began to paint compositions that dissect objects into multiple facets, though he did not adopt the near-monochromatic tones of Analytic Cubism. He developed his unique approach in 1917, when he returned to painting following a three-year placement at an airplane factory during the First World War. By this time his style had become more abstract and geometrical, evident in this painting’s kaleidoscopic floral arrangement and highly stylised background. This was a unique period in Herbin’s career, who would briefly return to representation in the 1920s with his New Objectivity works and move towards pure abstraction in the 1930s. Reveling in colour and ornament, while still embracing the historically charged still life format, this painting is a rare example from a brief and highly original period in Herbin’s work.

Herbin’s innovative Cubist style drew the attention of the prominent art dealer Léonce Rosenberg, who invited him to exhibit at Galerie de l’Effort Moderne in January 1918. Painted the following month, the present work was one of Rosenberg’s first acquisitions for his burgeoning gallery. He launched his exhibition programme with a solo show of Herbin’s work and reserved the highest praise for the artist, writing that “the perfection of all perfections, the absolute of all idealism is always Herbin” (Bulletin, 1918, p.21). Wilhelm Uhde and Alfred Flechtheim, both amongst the greatest dealers and collectors of the time, also took an interest in Herbin’s work during this period, acquiring pieces directly from his studio.

Signed Painted in 1918 Oil on canvas 39.25 x 28.75 in / 100.5 x 73 cm This work is included in the catalogue raisonné prepared by Geneviève Claisse under no.359 Provenance: Galerie L’Effort Moderne (Léonce Rosenberg), Paris; Galerie Michel Haas, Berlin; Francis Briest, Drouot-Montaigne, Paris, 15 June 1991, lot 27; Private collection, Paris (acquired at the above sale); Private collection, USA Literature: “Parade 1925”, Connaissance des Arts, May 1959, p.106-15, illustrated p. 111; Geneviève Claisse, Herbin: Catalogue raisonné de l’oeuvre peint, Paris, 1993, no.359, illustrated p.343

ANGEL ZÁRRAGA Mexican (1886-1946) Composition cubiste

In Paris in the years immediately prior to the First World War there was the most astonishing gathering together of artistic talent the world had ever seen. And from it came a frenzy of new ideas, of new concepts and of wholly original ways of viewing the world. To put these into context it is instructive to place them alongside the rest of ‘normal’ society: the traditional social mores, the limits of travel and communication, and even the day to day constraints of a starched high collar cutting into one’s neck or a tightly-laced corset making it difficult to sit and hard to draw breath. In light of this it is remarkable that the Mexican painter, Angel Zárraga, should conceive of the world in the terms of the painting illustrated on the facing page.

Zárraga later said that he joined the Cubist movement as a sort of discipline, an intellectual investigation into ways to depict the world around him. To most of its protagonists Cubism was an end in itself. Nonetheless the works he produced in the years 1910-1916 demonstrate the cross-currents between the work of Zárraga and that produced at the same time by Picasso, Braque, and Juan Gris - and of course by his friend Diego Rivera. Through these quintessentially Cubist works Zárraga’s mind was opened to other expressive means, which though sometimes obscure and experimental, were executed with a faultless technique and conviction.

The ‘Composition cubiste’ facing seems to conceive a world inhabited by skeletal chess pieces, fragmented but capable of movement within a realistic 3-dimensional perspective.

Zárraga gradually came to regard Cubism as ‘dehumanised art’ and like many artists he returned to more traditional style of art, albeit in a slightly unusual way. Having fallen ill during the war with pneumonia, he recovered thanks to the care of a Russian friend, Jeannette Ivanoff, a soccer player who initiated him into the sport that was to become a passion, and whom he married in 1919. It is a peculiarity that today Zárraga’s best known paintings consist of Cubist and abstracted compositions, scenes of football matches and portraits of principally female soccer players.

Inscribed with the artist’s name on verso Painted 1913-1915 Oil on canvas 29.5 x 25 in / 75 x 63.5 cm Accompanied by a certificate of authentication from Mme. Paulette Patout, this work is to be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné.

Below: Angel Zárraga and Diego Rivera in Paris in 1913

GINO SEVERINI Italian (1883-1966) Un mosaico Madonna con bambino e St Antonio de Padova Signed Painted in 1955 Gouache on board 15.75 x 24.5 in / 40 x 62 cm

Gino Severini was one of the leaders of Italian Futurism in the years 1910-1918, but in Paris immediately after the war he became associated with the ‘return to order’ movement, a pan-European trend rejecting extreme avant-garde art and taking inspiration from traditional art instead. However, in the 1950s Severini returned to his Futurist style for a series of mosaic and large-scale decorative commissions.

The gouache illustrated here is related to the commission for a mosaic in the children’s hospital of the University of Padua, completed in 1955. From what presumably started as a visualisation of the work in situ, Severini has created a presentation painting that is altogether more beautiful and interesting. The mosaic floats in an ambiguous space, slightly away from the walls and behind two brutalist pillars that are stylistically in keeping with the architecture of the Clinica Pediatrica, though not literal depictions. Indeed, the work eschews literalness and is a striking and detailed depiction of the mosaic thrown into relief against the neutral colours and anomalous space of its intended setting.

Although relatively static compared to the movement of his earlier dancer series, the colours and Cubo-Futurist elements of the present work nevertheless demonstrate an endurance of the artist’s early harlequin studies. In the work illustrated, the figures form a pseudo-Trinity, which along with surrounding elements produce a sophisticated iconographic schema. A Madonna and Child are placed centrally whist an angel is obscured by the right-hand pillar. On the left, St Anthony represents both the city of Padua and the liberal arts - utilising a pair of compasses -whilst the Virgin holds a Rod of Asclepius representing the practice of medicine.

This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Gina Severini Franchina dated 28/11/1976

GEORGES FOLMER French (1895-1977)

GEORGES FOLMER French (1895-1977)

Phénomès Inconscients

Composition

Painted in 1939-1940 Mixed media on canvas 32 x 25.5 in / 81 x 65 cm

Signed Painted in 1952-1955 Mixed media on hardboard 51.25 x 39.5 in / 130 x 100 cm

Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Paris, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, 1949, illustrated p.19; Nancy, Musée des Beaux-Arts, ‘Folmer et l’abstraction géométrique’, 1993, no.6, illustrated in colour p.41; Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2010, illustrated in colour p.40 Literature: ‘Georges Folmer, 1895-1977, catalogue raisonné’, Paris, 2015, no.314, illustrated p.32

Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Raymonde Cazenave, 1966; Paris, Galerie Drouart, 2006, illustrated in colour p.84; Évian, Palais Lumière, ‘La Ruche. Cité des artistes, 1902-2009’, 2009, illustrated in colour p.111; Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2010, illustrated in colour on cover and on poster Literature: ‘Georges Folmer, 1895-1977, catalogue raisonné’, Paris, 2015, no.625, illustrated p.137

GEORGES FOLMER French (1895-1977) Perspectives Géométriques Signed & dated on reverse ‘Folmer ‘33’ Painted in 1952-1955 Mixed media on hardboard 51.25 x 39.5 in / 130 x 100 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 2010, illustrated in colour p.34 Literature: ‘Georges Folmer, 1895-1977, catalogue raisonné’, Paris, 2015, no.199, illustrated p.91

George Folmer’s understanding of geometry and advanced mathematical theory deepened with his friendship with the ‘mathématicien-chercheur et dessinateur’ Dimitri Viener, who was Folmer’s neighbour at his studio in rue Dulac, Montparnasse from 1928 until his disappearance in 1946. Thus Folmer’s work progressed from the late Cubist style, through works informed by the Golden Section and geometric theories both ancient and modern, to the pure abstraction of the post-War years.

‘Phénomès Inconscients’ stands at a crossroads in Folmer’s art, coming from a brief period when he experimented with the juxtaposition of organic forms and purely abstract shapes, the interplay of forms recalling by turns surrealism and the works of Fernand Léger. By the time Folmer returned to painting, after the hiatus of the war and the immediate aftermath, he turned almost exclusively to geometric abstraction.

Purely abstract shapes, with no connection to the natural

world other than through the laws of geometry, are arranged in a supposedly 3-dimensional space, where Folmer bends and breaks the laws of perspective so that forms may delicately touch and overlap, or push free from their natural place in the picture plane.

The hot colours of ‘Perspectives Géométriques’ are a rarity in Folmer’s oeuvre, and in marked contrast to the blues and greys to which he was naturally drawn.

Gradually in the 1950s these neutral tones came to dominate his palette, as he saw it bringing his paintings closer to the architecture and design of the period. This led him in 1960 to form the Group Mesure of which he served as President and which sought to bring together the ideas of artists, painters, sculptors, designers and architects bound together by their commitment to exclusively geometric designs. In 1966 R.V. Gindertael wrote: “Folmer created contemporary art of monumental character that is perfectly in tune with the boldest trends of a forward-looking architecture”.

JEAN-PAUL RIOPELLE Canadian (1923-2002)

Riopelle was described in his obituaries as “perhaps Canada’s finest 20th century artist”, not the most ringing endorsement . But the ‘perhaps’ can refer both to ‘finest’ and ‘Canadian’. He left Canada early in his career, painted in France for over forty years, and only spent his final years in a house on an island in the middle of the St Lawrence River. In Paris he was a Québécois, in New York he was a Montreal-born Parisian. As Stéphane Arquin wrote: “Wherever he was, in fact, Riopelle would always find his artistic identity in an Elsewhere.”

When he died the Canadian news reported the death of the “bad boy of the art world”. Like Joan Mitchell, with whom he lived for 20 years, he could be both combative and contrary. Marcia Tucker recalled visiting them in the 1970s to discuss a major exhibition at the Whitney, and an argument erupted between the two artists which involved throwing at each other anything that came to hand - including a dish of fried eggs.

Riopelle’s pronouncements on his art, while always interesting, can rarely be taken at face value or as lasting truths. Thus he is quoted as stating: “I have never wanted to paint thickly, paint tubes are much too expensive. But one way or another, the painting has to be done. When I learn how to paint better, I will paint less thickly.” With his oil paintings he would build up bewildering layers of pigment, usually applied with a palette knife or brush and sometimes thrown at the canvas - though it should be noted he never dripped the paint onto a horizonal surface as is sometimes assumed.

Works on paper from the 1950s, the period when Riopelle is considered to have painted his finest works, are rare. At this time he was concerned with three basic elements in his art - colour, volume and sheen. Painted when he was at his absolute artistic peak in 1956, in the work illustrated here he translates those elements onto paper. He has had to reduce the sheer weight of paint but, like his friend Sam Francis, he allows the paper to remain in clear sight, the void that brings areas of calm to the frenetic action around it.

During the 1960s Riopelle experimented with a variety of media including watercolour, ink, lithography, collage and sculpture, and in the 1980s he abandoned his longheld techniques in favour of aerosol spray cans.

Sans titre Signed Executed in 1956 Gouache on paper 23.5 x 47.25 in / 59.5 x 120 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist; Yann Fravalo Riopelle (son of the artist); Galerie Philippe Gravier, Paris; Private collection, France

NORMAN BLUHM American (1921-1999) Right: Shantagalisk Signed & dated ‘67 Signed, titled & dated on reverse Oil on canvas 90 x 72 in / 228 x 183 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Stadler, 1968; Maubeuge, France, 1ère Triennale des Amériques, 1993

Facing Page: Damia Signed & dated ‘68; Signed, titled & dated on reverse Oil on canvas 80 x 74 in / 203 x 188 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist Exhibited: Paris, Galerie Stadler, ‘Peintures Récentes’, 1970; Washington DC, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, ‘Norman Bluhm, Recent Paintings’, 1969, catalogue no.21

Below: Northern Lights Signed & dated ‘61 Painted in 1961 Oil and card mounted on Masonite 39 x 37.5 in / 101 x 95.5 cm Provenance: Private collection, Milwaukee

In 2012 John Dorfman wrote in Art & Antiques magazine: “Norman Bluhm is the greatest Abstract Expressionist painter you’ve never heard of. Or if you have heard of him, you’re part of a select group of aficionados.” This wrongly implies Bluhm was some sort of unknown painter, yet by then his works had already sold for more than $1m at auction, but it contains an essential truth that still holds true. Today Norman Bluhm remains the most under-rated of the second generation of Abstract Expressionists, a group of artists whose works are amongst the most sought-after in the current market.

The reasons for this are many and complex. He was not an easygoing man; he was intense; demanding and garrulous, but so were almost all the other members of his circle, and it was this fire that fuelled his creativity.

He perhaps did not have the constant support of the most influential art dealers, but this is really only true in his final years and after his death; before then he had many exhibitions with the great dealer Leo Castelli.

Perhaps critically he remained very much his own man and in many ways his oeuvre differs from other Abstract Expressionists. This uniqueness shows his strength of character but has not helped his commercial appeal. His friend, the poet and critic John Yau, wrote: “Imagine de Kooning’s raw, loaded brushstroke synthesized with Lichtenstein’s refined image of a brushstroke and you get a sense of the hybrid form that Bluhm developed in his paintings.”

In a career spanning six decades, it is for his paintings of the period from 1959-1963 that Bluhm is most highly regarded. The open and gestural style resonated with the

New York School, but remained resolutely his own. It was also at this time that Bluhm started showing at Leo Castelli Gallery, launching his career in earnest. In the late 1960s he turned back to figuration, and in the 1980s and 90s his works came to resemble the mandalas in the tantric paintings of India and Tibet. These included a series of ‘poem paintings’ which, in 1999, shortly before Bluhm died, were singled out by Art in America editor, Raphael Rubinstein, who predicted that this body of work would be “as important to the 21st century as Cézanne’s later output was to the 20th”. That has not come to pass yet, but Bluhm continues to collect champions among the aficionados.

WILLEM DE KOONING Dutch-American (1904-1997) Pink Woman Signed & dated Executed 1964 Oil and pastel on paper laid on board 10 x 11 in / 25 x 28 cm Provenance: Solomon & Co, NY; Private collection, Palm Beach, FL (acquired from above 1997); Barbara Annis Fine Art, New York; Private collection, New York

Friedel Dzubas is often aligned to the Post-Painterly artists (notably Morris Louis, Jules Olitski and Kenneth Noland ) who absorbed the advances of the earlier Abstract Expressionists but dispensed with much of the gesture, concentrating instead on producing elegant compositions of flat forms which appear to float in the pictorial space. Dzubas’s work, particularly during his mature peak in the mid-1970s, is characterised by large, dense forms that are then feathered out (to use his own terminology). The uniformity of colour was made possible by the use of Magna, an acrylic resin developed

by Sam Golden and Leonard Bocour. This process gives a sense of tension and movement in the composition but allows the artist to retain the essential ‘flatness’ of a painting.

FRIEDEL DZUBAS German-American (1915-1994) Ute Signed, titled & dated ‘Dzubas/1976’ on reverse Acrylic on canvas 33 x 62 in / 84 x 157.5 cm Provenance: John Berggruen, San Francisco; Andre Emmerich, New York; Benjamin & Gloria Engel, Los Angeles, from 1987; The Estate of Gloria Engel

Unlike the majority of his fellow Abstract Expressionists, Willem De Kooning often retained a figurative element in his work, and, from the late 1940s until the 1960s painted many female figures. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Woman series’, they are more of a succession of series’. These paintings, of buxom, vampish females, knotted up in swathes of abstraction, took detours from earlier ladylike forms into a new and violent direction. “If the facial and anatomical distortions of these figures reveal a kinship with Picasso’s famous series of paintings of Dora Maar, de Kooning’s handling of the figure within the space is far more fluid and energized than the rational geometry of Picasso’s Cubist interior spaces,” (Judith Zilczer, ‘Willem de Kooning - A Way of Living’)

Zilczer goes on to place these figurative paintings in the context of the history of world art: “Greenberg, who had hailed de Kooning’s first solo exhibition five years earlier, claimed his painting belonged to ‘the most advanced in our time’, precisely because of the painter’s ambition to invest modern, abstract art with the ‘power of sculptural contour’ derived from the human form. Thus, Greenberg located the artist’s paintings of ‘Woman’ within a ‘great tradition of sculptural draftsmanship’ that encompassed the likes of Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, Ingres and Picasso.”

In 1967, following the death of her mother, Mitchell acquired a house in Vétheuil. The town is forever associated with Claude Monet (his wife Camille is buried in the churchyard) and Mitchell’s house, near that of Monet’s, has a panoramic view of the River Seine. But she spent much of her time there denying any connection to the great Impressionist painter. Deborah Solomon of The New York Times reported in one of Mitchell’s last interviews: “I bought this house because I liked the view, not out of any love for Monet,” she snaps, pointedly mispronouncing the painter’s name so that it rhymes with the word ‘bonnet’.”

The first generation of Abstract Expressionist painters took many elements from French art and developed something wholly new and American. The focus of the art world shifted from Paris to New York. For members of the second generation like Mitchell and Sam Francis, Paris was no longer a threat to their free spirited creativity and they could engage with it afresh. Mitchell would forcefully declare her American-ness in spite of the many years she spent in France: “I didn’t move to France permanently. I’m here by default. And now I’m too lazy to move.” And again: “Expatriate?” she scoffed.

“I live in France because I lost the lease on my St. Marks Place apartment. Don’t turn me into Gertrude Stein.”

Nonetheless, in spite of her protestations, many critics have noted how her work harks back to French art of the previous century, if not to Monet then to Van Gogh.

She herself wrote: “I have feelings about water and sky. I like a view. I don’t like to look at a wall.” As an old friend of hers, the poet and critic John Ashbery observed: “You have a feeling that her paintings show a location, even though you don’t know where it is.” While she remained an Abstract Expressionist painter, her works are not expressions of a particular mood or moment in her life.

She shared the house in Vétheuil with the Canadian painter Jean-Paul Riopelle until 1979; their tempestuous rows were legendary and they both suffered dramatic swings in mood. Yet with Mitchell’s work the viewer might experience exhilaration at a work painted during a time of great pain, or empathetic sadness at a work painted in joyous mood. For Mitchell the act of painting produced its own entirely new set of emotions. She was not the action painter of popular imagination, applying paint in a frenzy of emotion. Painting was a slow and considered process and often a canvas would stay on the easel for a month and more, developing its identity only gradually. “I’m happy when I’m painting. I like it.”

JOAN MITCHELL American (1926-1992) Untitled Painted in 1972 Oil on canvas 25 x 23.5 in / 64 x 60 cm This work is accompanied by an illustrated letter from Joan Mitchell to Carl Plansky: “Carl, my studio gone!!! Keep the painting.

You are a dream. All my love, (portrait head of Joan Mitchell).”

Provenance: Carl Plansky, NY (gift from the artist); Succession Carl Plansky 2009, NY; Private collection, Pennsylvania; Collection of David Schaff, Philadelphia; Jane Roberts Fine Arts, Paris; Private collection, London; Private collection, Brussels (since 2012)

Below: Illustrated letter from Joan Mitchell to Carl Planksy that accompanies this work

Right: ANDRÉ MASSON French (1896-1987) Semiramis Signed & dated 1940 Titled & dated on verso Pen & ink on paper 23 x 18.5 in / 58 x 47 cm This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from the Comité André Masson

Below: SOL LEWITT American (1928-2007)

Above: GERHARD RICHTER German (born 1932)

Left: Parallel Straight Ink lines, Right: Parallel not straight ink lines

Abstract VII 91

Left: FRANS MASEREEL Belgian (1889-1972)

Signed, titled & dated 1991 Ink on paper 6.5 x 9.5 in / 16.5 x 24 cm

La cité

Signed, titled, inscribed on the reverse & dated 1972 Ink on paper 14 x 11 in / 36 x 28 cm Provenance: Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf; Private collection, USA

Signed with initials & dated 1921 China ink on paper 22.5 x 17.5 in / 57 x 44.5 cm

Provenance: Anthony d’Offay Gallery, London; Tim Sayer Collection, London (acquired from the above) Exhibited: ‘The Tim Sayer Bequest: A Private Collection Revealed’ The Hepworth Wakefield, Wakefield 30th April - 9th October 2016 Literature: ‘Gerhard Richter: Drawings 1964-1999.

Catalogue Raisonné’, Richter Verlag, Düsseldorf (2000), by Dieter Schwarz & Birgit Pelzer; ‘Richter en France’, Actes Sud, Arles (2009), by Guy Tosatto, Jean-Pierre Criqui & Jonas Storsve; ‘Gerhard Richter: Aquarelle und Zeichnungen’, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit / Albertina, Vienna (2009), by Klaus Albrecht Schröder

Right: HENRI MATISSE French (1869-1954) Corbeille d’ananas et fruits Signed Executed in 1926 Charcoal on paper 19 x 25 in / 48 x 62.5 cm This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity from Wanda de Guébriant Provenance: Pierre Matisse; thence by descent; Private collection, New York (circa 1985); Waterhouse & Dodd, London (2009); Private collection, UK (acquired from the above Literature: Pierre Schneider, ‘Matisse’, London, 1984, illus. p.38

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG American (1925-2008) Rush 17 (Cloister Series)

Today Robert Rauschenberg is regarded as one of the most influential artists in the world. Like Picasso (albeit to a slightly lesser extent) he had the capacity to invent wholly original approaches to art. But he largely saw his experiments as collaborative. He enjoyed long lasting and fruitful relationships, both romantic and artistic, with artists Cy Twombly (who he originally met in 1950) and Jasper Johns. But he also saw his work as engaging in a free and inclusive dialogue with the viewer. As he later reflected, “My whole area of art has always been addressed to working with other people. Ideas are not real estate.”

Rauschenberg’s oeuvre is usually seen, like Picasso’s, as successive (albeit overlapping) series’ of works. Thus the ‘White Paintings’, the ‘Black Paintings’ and the ‘Red Paintings’ of 1951-54. The years 1954-1962 were the period of the ‘Combines’ for which he is probably best known, though there are examples both before and after those dates. ‘Combines’ – that is litter and found objects from the streets of New York, interesting but largely discarded items brought together in compositions that defied the accepted boundaries between art and sculpture. In this he was taking the ideas of Marcel Duchamp, and combining them with the aesthetic of the Abstract Expressionists, creating a new vocabulary for the next generation of American artists.

During the 1960s he began to incorporate into his compositions not only found objects but also found images that he transferred to the canvas using a silkscreen process. A process previously only used commercially, Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns started to explore its uses at the same time as Andy Warhol, for whom it became his primary medium. This he extended into solvent transfer techniques and, in 1980, after he settled a copyright lawsuit brought against him for an earlier appropriation of an advertisement, Rauschenberg shifted to exclusively using images he had shot himself as material for works that involved photography.

Signed, titled and dated on verso Executed in 1980 Solvent transfer on paper and fabric on panel 98 x 74 in / 249 x 188 cm Cataloguing details confirmed by the Rauschenberg Foundation Provenance: Gagosian Gallery, New York; Private collection, New York; Private collection, Connecticut

ROBERT RAUSCHENBERG American (1925-2008) Untitled 75.090 From the ‘Hoarfrost’ series Executed in 1975 Solvent transfer and paper bags on fabric 90 x 51 in / 228 x 130 cm

In 1970 Rauschenberg left the bustling streets of Lower Manhattan for the peaceful seclusion of Captiva Island in Florida, a move that naturally ushered in a quieter more contemplative aspect to his art allied to an altogether freer and more liberated approach to techniques. His first project there was a 16.5 meter silkscreen print made with newspapers from the first two months of the year.

The ‘Hoarfrost’ series (1974-76) signalled a departure from his original method of image making, forging a new type of artistic practice that captured the ephemeral, the fleeting and the transitory. For the ‘Hoarfrost’ series, Rauschenberg used solvent to transfer images from newspapers and magazines to unstretched fabric. The Hoarfrosts were created when Rauschenberg noticed that the cheesecloth used to clean lithography stones in print workshops retained traces of newspaper imagery after the transfer process was complete. The use of diaphanous sheets of fabric and the loose hanging of the work allow for delicate shifts in movement. The inclusion of everyday ephemera including paper bags, newspaper cuttings and photographs further reinforces the transience that Rauschenberg sought to explore in the series as well as investigating the nature of the veiled or obscured image.

‘Untitled 75.090’ captures Rauschenberg’s characteristic tendency towards the use of imagery cut from newspapers, advertisements and photographs that are playfully arranged on fabric. Featured in Preview (Hoarfrost Edition) from 1974, the car motif on the left of the earlier work is used again in our work, ‘Untitled 75.090’ it has been cut in half and the right half turned 180 degrees, creating a subtle distortion.

Cataloguing details confirmed by the Rauschenberg Foundation Provenance: Private collection, Florida (acquired direct from the artist); James Goodman Gallery, 1988; Gallery Moos, New York, 1990 Private collection, Toronto

Below: Original polaroid of ‘Untitled 75.090’ from the Rauschenberg Foundation

Alex Katz, even at the age of 90, is a very ‘cool’ artist. To quote Adam Weinberg, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art: “Coolness is something that artists of all generations admire - cool in the sense of detachment, but also cool in the sense of hip.” Like Warhol, Katz bridges the worlds of fashion and art, but more importantly his paintings are cool in the sense of images that are unemotional, impersonal and detached – an attribute the artist himself sees in the works of Edouard Manet.

Like the French master, his tools are colour and light, and his own stripped-down vision of the world. “I try to make painting that looks simple”. He paints ‘wet on wet’ so his

fluid brushstrokes blend together on the canvas, creating a lustrous, luminous finish. Maintaining his own unique style of painting is of paramount importance to the artist. As Irving Sandler wrote, “almost from the beginning of his career, Katz forged an individual style in the interface between representation and artifice, that is, by rendering appearances and painting flatly. Style would become his primary consideration. It was not something superficial, like stylization…but was found at the core of his being – the Katzness of Katz.” (Sandler, ‘Alex Katz: A Retrospective’, 1998, p. 59) Katz is still very competitive and single-minded in pursuit of his own artistic vision. “I want to paint what I see, I

don’t want to paint what someone else painted.” And so while he is best known for his large studio paintings, he has long appreciated the immediacy of painting ‘en plein air’. It was during his summer residencies at Skowhegan School for Painting and Sculpture in Maine that Katz was introduced to en plein air painting, a revelation that he claims was a pivotal development in his early career.

He met Ada, who had studied biology at New York University, at a gallery opening in 1957 and has since painted her more than 200 times. “She’s a great beauty,” he said, “The gestures are perfect. She’s like an actress in a sense. She’s also a very sharp Italian girl from the Bronx - you can’t beat that.”

ALEX KATZ American (born 1927)

ALEX KATZ American (born 1927)

Study for Ada in the Park

Poppy

Signed & dated ‘65 Oil on board 9.5 x 14 in / 24 x 36 cm

Signed & dated ‘67 Oil on board 9 x 12 in / 23 x 30.5 cm

Provenance: Fischbach Gallery, New York

Provenance: Gifted by the artist to Robert Dorfman, New York, 1970

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Wesselmann worked on the ‘Bedroom Painting Series’ in which elements of his ‘Great American Nude’, ‘Still Lifes’ and ‘Seascapes’ were juxtaposed. With these works Wesselmann began to concentrate on a few details such as hands, feet and breasts surrounded by flowers and objects. A major motivation of the ‘Bedroom Paintings’ was to shift the focus and scale of the attendant objects around a nude; these objects are relatively small in relation to the nude, but become major, even dominant elements when the central element is a body part.

did he realise he was independently working a seam already being mined by other artists fed up with the controlling influence of the abstract expressionists and the critic Clement Greenberg. Nonetheless, Wesselmann never liked his inclusion in American Pop Art, pointing out how he made an aesthetic use of everyday objects and not a criticism of them as consumer objects: “I dislike labels in general and ‘Pop’ in particular, especially because it overemphasizes the material used.”

At this time he also began the ‘Great American Nudes’, which remain his best-known works, and in 1961 the Green Gallery offered him a contract. Not until this point

In 1973 he brought to an end the Great American Nudes with ‘The Great American Nude #100’. But of course the female nude was too important to Wesselmann to be discarded. In his own words: “Painting, sex, and humor are the most important things in my life.”

TOM WESSELMANN American (1931-2004)

TOM WESSELMANN American (1931-2004)

Drawing for Bedroom Painting #14

Study for Blonde Vivienne

Signed & dated 1969; inscribed on the reverse ‘Drawing for Bedroom Painting #14 1969+1975’ Ink and Liquitex on paper 14 x 17 in / 35.5 x 43 cm

Signed & dated ‘88 Liquitex on Bristol board 12.75 x 11.75 in / 32.5 x 30 cm

Provenance: Galerie Benden + Klimczak, Cologne; Private collection (acquired from the above) Exhibited: Munich, Galerie Thomas , Tom Wesselmann, Feb - May 2013 Literature: ‘Tom Wesselmann’, Galerie Thomas, Munich, 2013, illus. p.40

The work is registered in the Estate Tom Wesselmann, New York, under the archive no.D8810 Provenance: Purchased directly from the artist by Caroll Janis, 2001; Private Collection, until 2017

FRANK STELLA American (born 1936)

FRANK STELLA American (born 1936)

K.17 (Lattice Variation)

The Musket

Executed in 2008 Stainless steel and spray-painted Alumide RPT 24 x 28 x 17 in / 60 x 71 x 43 cm

Executed in 1990 Mixed media on aluminium 74.5 x 77.5 x 32 in / 189 x 196 x 81 cm

Provenance: Private collection, New York Exhibited: New Canaan, The Philip Johnson Glass House, ‘Frank Stella: Scarlatti Kirkpatrick’, Sept -Nov 2012; London, Simon Dickinson, ‘Forms of Abstraction: American Abstraction from the 1950s to Today’, June - July 2014 Literature: J. Dorfman, ‘Working in Space’, Art & Antiques Magazine, October 2013, illustrated p.82

In 1959 Frank Stella was included in the Museum of Modern Art’s influential Sixteen Americans exhibitions at the age of just 23. In 1970, at the age of 34, the same museum granted him a major retrospective exhibition. A critical success, Stella chose to see the show as an “excuse for starting again”. His wall works became more 3-dimensional, what he came to call “maximalist” painting for its sculptural qualities. Paintings and collages were supported on aluminium, and the free-standing painted metal sculptures were re-imagined to be hung upon walls. Through the 70s and 80s the shapes became more exuberant, the colours more day-glo and the brushstrokes more scrawled.

‘The Musket’ from 1990 (illustrated right) captures much of the sense of drama of the novel. Between 1986 and 1997 Stella created a series of 138 works in various media that, as Stella said, attempted to ‘grasp’ the novel without ‘touching’ it. There is a fleetingness, water like in the gestural twist of the geometry, in which we find a panoply of different images and gestures, which are sometimes painted and other times etched and printed.

Upon first glance, it is clear that these works are a departure from Stella’s beginnings. Often, geometric forms curve and swirl, layered in collage form. The colours are incredibly vibrant and add to the illusion of multiple dimensions.

In the mid 1980s he embarked upon a series of works inspired by Herman Melville’s ‘Moby Dick’. In an interview, Stella explained “I think the Moby Dick series is a kind of turning point. I was a little afraid, and probably still am a little, with Moby Dick, but the pictures [are] essentially curved surfaces. They started to really move, and the novel moves; you’re going around the world, it’s pretty wet, there are a lot of waves and motion.” In this manner, Stella creates a visual narrative as powerful as its original textual form. Rather than create literal depictions of the chapters, Stella envisions the spirit of the novel.

To create complex works like ‘The Musket’ Stella used collages or maquettes that were then enlarged and recreated with the aids of assistants, industrial metal cutters, and rudimentary digital technologies. As this technology improved, it became an important part of Stella’s creative process, so that by 2008 when he created the above ‘K.17 (lattice variation)’ the drawings and hand-made maquette would be scanned into a computer and then the design refined there, before being realised using a lightweight resin known as protogen RPT which he would counterbalance with spirals of steel tubing .

Provenance: Gagosian Gallery, New York (purchased in 1994); Private collection, Miami Literature: Robert K. Wallace, ‘Frank Stella’s Moby-Dick’, Univ. of Michigan Press, 1994, p.277, illustrated plate 198

In 2006 Stella began a series of works inspired by the harpsichord sonatas of the Baroque composer Domenico Scarlatti, and the writings of the 20th century American musicologist, Ralph Kirkpatrick who catalogued each of the 555 sonatas chronologically with a ‘K’ number. To date Stella has produced just over 150 works in the series. Yet each composition is not a literal interpretation of a particular piece of music; they are rather designed to give a sense of visual rhythm, as the artist himself explains: “If you were able to follow an edge and follow it through quickly, you’d get that sense of rhythm and movement that you get in music.”

‘K.17 (lattice variation)’ lies at the crossroads of painting, drawing and sculpture and succeeds in turning painting’s traditional depiction of illusionistic space into a real projection that constantly shifts depending on the viewer’s changing perspective.

Elsa Smithgall, curator of an exhibition of Scarlatti Kirkpatrick Series works at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C., explains: “They combine sculpture, painting and even drawing, since Stella sees the armatures as a form of drawing that serves to orient the polychrome sculpture in space. There’s colour, movement and abstraction”. Indeed labelling such works as purely sculptural limits them. As Donald Kuspit, professor at Cornell University, explains, “To call Stella’s sculptures constructions is to miss the point: they are deconstructions of sculpture into paradoxically painterly fragments. They are sort of two-dimensional expressionistic paintings that expand into threedimensional sculptures.”

Above: Trevor Bell installing ‘Thrust’ in his Winchester studio, c.1968

TREVOR BELL British (1930-2017) Spring Signed, titled & dated 1966 on reverse Oil on canvas 50 x 68.5 in / 126 x 174 cm Provenance: Private collection, UK

Trevor Bell was a painter of instinct and feeling. His major canvases were often supported and developed through preparatory sketches but he was essentially an intuitive artist who described directly in paint what he felt about a landscape rather than what he saw. Peter Lanyon used natural forces (in his case the thermals employed in glider flight) to help him achieve an altered perspective of the landscape but Bell used these natural forces as inspiration alone.

wonder in his work. He was drawn to Cornwall not because it was pretty, but because it was wild.

Generations of artists in Cornwall admired the coves, harbours and long golden beaches. Bell responded instead to the Atlantic squalls smashing against the cliffs and the granite backbone of the county which had developed during primeval tectonic movements. As such, his paintings are sublime evocations of nature without ever representing the landscape.

In the image above Bell is wrestling one of his paintings, ‘Thrust’, like a sailor harnessing the wind. Bell was in fact keen sailor and enjoyed describing the forces he felt on open water in his abstract art. Similarly, ‘Blue Radial’, painted while he was a professor of painting at Florida State University, has no representational elements, but Bell’s experience of the shimmering heat on the Gulf coast is palpable. There is always a sense of joy and

We have represented Trevor for 12 years. Our seven solo exhibitions, in five different locations and three different cities, barely scratched the surface of his output. He sadly passed away last year, but he leaves behind a rich legacy quite unlike any other British artist of the 20th and 21st century. His work features prominently in the current installation at Tate St Ives, who held a solo exhibition of his work in 2003.

TREVOR BELL British (1930-2017) Blue Radial Signed, titled & dated 1985 on reverse Acrylic on canvas 96 x 140 in / 244 x 355 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist Right: Installation shot of ‘Trevor Bell: A British Painter in America’ at The Gulf Coast Museum, Largo, Florida, 2003

TREVOR BELL British (1930-2017) Untitled Painted in 2017 Acrylic on canvas 32 x 27.5 in / 82 x 70 cm Provenance: Estate of the artist This work is not signed and hung for many years in the artist’s home as part of his personal collection.

PAUL JENKINS American (1923-2012) Phenomena in the Wind’s Eye

As a young painter Paul Jenkins first met Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning, aligning himself directly with the nascent Abstract Expressionist group. However, Jenkin’s inspirations were a great deal more global. He had a deep interest in Chinese painting and immersed himself in the European avant-garde, relocating to Paris for a period in the 1950s.

The titles of his work have always been important to Jenkins, who once said: “I have conversations with them, and they tell me what they want to be called.” His early Abstract Expressionist paintings had names from Hermann Melville, such as ‘To Queequeg’ (1957), evoking the fury of the elements in a vast movement of thickly applied paints of Captain Ahab’s blind search for the absolute. He then developed a more serene version of Tachism in paintings he often called Phenomena, which are characterised by delicate washes of vibrant colours set against plain white backgrounds. He himself commented: “What is left in silence completes the expression and makes the unknown visible and perceptible.”

Though he remained faithful to the title Phenomena, the appearance of his work continued to evolve, coming closer to that of the American painters Mark Rothko, Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland, for whom colour was becoming the dominant means of expression.

From early in his career, Jenkins experimented with pouring paint onto primed canvases. In the 1960s he moved away from working in oil paints to acrylic, and adopted the use of an ivory knife to give greater control.

As he recorded in one of his notebooks: “I do not stain and I do not work on unprimed canvas. This is more significant than it may appear. Staining or working on unprimed canvas results in an inkblot-like effect where the paint penetrates the canvas and spreads out on its own. When I work on primed canvas, I can control the flow of paint and guide it to discover forms. The ivory knife is an essential tool in this because it does not gouge the canvas, it allows me to guide the paint.”

Signed, titled & dated 1977 on reverse Acrylic on canvas 77 x 62.75 in / 196 x 159.5 cm Provenance: Private collection, Texas

WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM British (1912-2004) Brown and Orange Signed & dated 1972; Signed, titled & dated on reverse Oil and acrylic on hardboard 20 x 20 in / 51 x 51 cm Recorded in the Barns-Graham Trust archive under no.BGT369 Provenance: Estate of the Artist

Windblown (Green) Signed & dated 1972-6; Signed, titled & dated on reverse Oil on hardboard 14 x 14 in / 35.5 x 35.5 cm Recorded in the Barns-Graham Trust archive under no.BGT316

While resident in St Ives, Wilhelmina Barns-Graham lived and worked at no.1 Barnaloft, a converted fish-loft right on the sea front at Porthmeor Beach. The view from the seaward facing windows would have given an uninterrupted view of the Atlantic Ocean with the beach directly below. She moved to the studio in 1963 having been a resident of the town for 23 years already, originally drawn to the area because of its concentration of internationally recognised artists including Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth and Naum Gabo.

From Barnaloft, she would have seen the patterns of towels and parasols decorating the beach before her, which found their way into her paintings including ‘Summer Series’. Barns-Graham is occasionally criticised for the eclectic nature of her work which ranges from beautifully realised figurative pencil drawings to pure geometric abstract art. Her eclecticism is not down to an inability to concentrate on one particular idiom, but recognition that the natural world she observed could not be reduced to one simple pictorial formula. As such, one can read her figurative works in abstract terms, and conversely apply our own experience of the natural world to give a more literal interpretation to even her most abstract works. As Lynn Green points out perceptively: “Even at its most lyrical and decorative, her work, like the artist herself, has never been short of a backbone.”

WILHELMINA BARNS-GRAHAM British (1912-2004)

Provenance: Estate of the Artist

Summer painting series Signed & dated 1986 Gouache on paper 22 x 30 in / 56 x 77 cm Authenticity confirmed by the Barns-Graham Trust Provenance: Private collection, UK

Barns-Graham felt, with some justification, that her gender was a considerable factor in the lack of recognition she was afforded during her career. This realisation was a contributing factor in the development of the strong resolve Green comments on. The major Tate gallery retrospective of St Ives painting in 1985 contained several works by her, but she was not awarded the same wall space as some of her male peers (the exhibition was curated by David Lewis, to whom BarnsGraham was at one time married). Let us not forget that her time in St Ives began long before artists such as Patrick Heron and Terry Frost arrived in the town, and she was a founder member of many of the exhibitions groups which helped define post-war abstraction in St Ives and in Britain generally.

It is a fact that only now is her true value to the story of 20th century British art being properly recognised. This is in no small part down to the work of the Trust set up to manage her estate which we are proud to represent in London and internationally. Barns-Graham’s works are prominently displayed in the (recently refurbished and expanded) Tate St Ives, and a major exhibition of her seminal glacier / rock form works will take place at the Jerwood Gallery this year. It was a glacier painting which recently broke the artist’s auction record, appearing at the evening sale of David Bowie’s collection alongside works by Basquiat, Auerbach and Lanyon, and not looking at all out of place.

ANSELM REYLE German (born 1970) Untitled Executed in 2008 Mixed media on canvas, acrylic glass 56.25 x 48 x 8 in / 143 × 121.5 × 20 cm

Anselm Reyle grew up in an artistic household, with a mother who painted abstracted landscapes, yet in turning to art his rebellion consisted of a rejection of their more refined taste. Some American commentators have described his work as ‘uber-kitsch’, a phrase embraced by Reyle though it oversimplifies his art. Many of his works are formed out of found objects that have been removed from their original function, altered visually and contextually reinvented. Their brightness and indeed ‘trashiness’ is vital to the work.

Probably his best known works are what he refers to as his ‘foil paintings’. These pieces are created by arranging foil, and installing it in coloured Perspex boxes. The foil trapped in the box gives a shimmering glow and invites the viewer to engage in a tactile experience, which the viewer is being denied at the same time. The foil exudes a spatial presence with its dynamic surface. It is also this rigid geometrical surface that contradicts the fragile nature of folded foil.

This fascination with high gloss effect and decorative material is derived from the merchandising world only to frame his own critique of kitsch. This clash of low-culture in its consumerist form, and what is known to be high art, is the focal point of Reyle’s art, confronting the viewer with the thin line at which these two categories meet. In 2011 they were happily aligned in Reyle’s commission to design accessories for the fashion house Dior.

Provenance: Almine Rech Gallery, Brussels; Private collection (acquired from the above, 2008); Collection of Santiago Barberi Gonzalez, New York

André Derain (1880-1954) Nature morte aux fruits 1911 Oil on canvas We advised a client with broad ranging tastes but a nonetheless definite aesthetic of this interesting oil painting by André Derain. While the search parameters for his collection are necessarily vague, we are happy to keep him informed of all interesting works that we see and send details of dozens of paintings in a year. We negotiated and acquired the Derain for him, and ensured he received all the expertise and background details that make it so important.

Since Waterhouse & Dodd was founded in 1987, we have given advice to clients on purchases and sales of works of art not related to the gallery. When our advice started to involve multi-million dollar paintings in the mid 1990s we formed a separate company, Fine Art Brokers. Since then it has become one of the leading art advisory companies in the world, involved in sales and purchases totalling more than $400m.

We only charge commissions on completed sales, and as we already have a flourishing business we are not aggressive in trying to earn commissions. We put our clients’ interests first and often dissuade clients from purchasing on the basis of value, quality, and how it fits their collection. Meanwhile, the experience and contacts we have gained from 30 years in art dealing give Fine Art Brokers quite exceptional ‘reach’.

On this page are just a few examples of deals we have completed. If you think we can help you with any aspects of your art collecting, please contact us now info@fineartbrokers.com www.fineartbrokers.com +44 20 7734 7800 or +1 212 717 9100

Henri Matisse (1869-1954) Danseuse dans le fauteuil 1942 Oil on canvas

A client spotted this wonderful early portrait in an Old Master sale and, as we have found him many other paintings, he asked us to advise and gather information on it and bid for it - we still find it is best, where possible, to attend auctions and were pleased to be successful with this purchase. Although outside our normal expertise, we were able to advise on matters such as condition (which is exceptionally fine) and provenance, and clarify the attribution that remains a subject of further research.

Purchased with Fine Art Brokers advice in 2000 for $7.5 million (without the buyer seeing the painting) and sold with Fine Art Brokers advice and recommendations on timing for $21.7 million in 2007, at that time a world record for the artist.

William Scott (1913-1989) Orange segments 1976 Oil on canvas Over the past 17 years we have helped one client form a major collection of Modern British art. He felt that Scott was under-represented in his collection and so we were able to negotiate the release of this example from the artist’s estate.

Fine Art Brokers are delighted to advise on the acquisitions of a client we have known for over 30 years, and whose collection contains wonderful examples of French and British Post-Impressionist painting. He now lives in California, but the scene depicted below by Harold Knight was a familiar one - in the 1980s he owned the house two doors away, in Langford Place St John’s Wood, and for many years enjoyed the same view.

David Hockney (born 1937) Henry Geldzahler seated with Yves-Marie 1974 Coloured pencil on paper

Anish Kapoor (born 1954) Untitled, 2014 2014 Stainless steel and lacquer (green) Through a combination of sourcing, negotiating and logistics we have helped an American client purchase works of art by Oldenberg. Wesselmann and Rickey. Last year he wanted to acquire a Kapoor and we found this excellent example and negotiated a very fair price.

Attributed to Bernard Strigel (1460-1528) Portrait of a lady circa 1500 Oil on panel

Harold Knight (1874-1961) On the balcony 1933 Oil on canvas

A London client with a richly varied art collection and a particular love of David Hockney, asked to be kept informed of any great drawings we came across. The market in Hockney’s work was very buoyant (and remains so) but we were able to locate this wonderful coloured drawing through a contact in California.

Jean-François Rauzier ‘Mythe de Babel 1 d’après La Tour de Babel de Pieter Bruegel l’Ancien’ 2015 C-type print from an edition of 8 58 x 77.5 in / 147 x 196 cm Part of a series of hyperphotos inspired by ‘The Tower of Babel’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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