S otheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale Online features over 100 paintings, works on paper, sculpture and prints, including pieces from important private and museum collections. Works by the Impressionist masters Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro are complemented by an exciting assortment of works on paper by Modernists such as Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and Joan Miró and a group of five prints by Edvard Munch including his woodcut, The Kiss IV. The sale features sculpture by Aristide Maillol, Auguste Rodin and Henry Moore as well as a striking selection of School of Paris portraiture and abstraction. Historic works by Latin America’s most important modern artists, including Mario Carreño, Rufino Tamayo, and Diego Rivera round out the sale’s offerings.
Featured highlights
P rintmaking was as important as painting or drawing to Edvard Munch’s oeuvre as he explored the same themes in different media throughout his career. Munch found printmaking to be particularly conducive to experimentation as he was able to save plates, stones or woodblocks for reuse. Many impressions of his prints are unique as Munch altered the color, paper type or composition, resulting in dramatic aesthetic variations and drastically changing the emotional impact of an image.
Munch’s mastery of the woodcut medium and his inventiveness as a printmaker are exemplified by the three works included in this sale, all coming from the collection of Catherine Woodard and Nelson Blitz Jr., who have assembled one of the most significant groups of Munch prints in private hands.
Degas, Picasso, Miró are blue-chip artists, each regarded today as a genius in his own right, but as young men they worked hard to convince critics and collectors of their unique vision. The early works of great artists are always fascinating and hold their own power and beauty, as the examples below demonstrate.
Sotheby’s is proud to present a selection of important works of Modern Art from across Latin America in the Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale Online. Among this May’s offerings are a rare portrait of Mary Rockefeller by celebrated Brazilian modernist Cândido Portinari, a historic work on paper by Mario Carreño, and an elegant Cubist portrait by Angel Zárraga. Mexican Modernism is strongly represented in the selection, with highlights including a pair of works by Alfredo Ramos Martínez from the collection of the San Diego Museum of Art, and dynamic works by Diego Rivera, Rufino Tamayo, and Rodolfo Nieto.
Amedeo Modigliani, Pablo Picasso and André Salmon in Montparnasse, Paris, 1916; photo by their friend, poet Jean Cocteau (WorldPhotos / Alamy Stock Photo)
At the turn of the 20th century, Paris became the heart of a growing avant-garde movement. Writers, philosophers and artists flocked to Montmartre and Montparnasse, fueling a melting pot of culture, philosophy, poetry and art. Led by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Chaim Soutine and Marc Chagall, amongst others, this community of artists, many of them émigrés, came to be known as the School of Paris. From this group came many of the major masterworks of the first half of the 20th century.
