Art Contemporain Evening Sale

Sotheby’s is pleased to announce the Paris Art Contemporain Evening sale on 24 June. This sale will be an elevated auction anchored by a museum quality selection of blue-chip Post-War and Contemporary Art. Featuring examples by the greatest masters of the second half of the 20th century, the auction offers a rare opportunity to acquire historical works such as a 1957 Soulages masterpiece, 3 exceptional works by Zao Wou-Ki and a colourful Hourloupe Dubuffet from the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.

Featured Highlights

Watch the video on Pierre Soulages' Peinture 130 x 162 cm, April 14, 1957.

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A Soulages Masterpiece

Watch the video on 2 of Zao Wou-Ki's Masterworks

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2 Zao Wou-Ki Masterworks from the Arthur T. Hadley II Private Collection

The Life of Pierre Soulages

1919
1932
1941
1946
1947
1948
1951
1952
1953
1954
1955
1957
1979
1987
1989
1993-1995
2005-2007
2008
2009
2014
2017
2019

Pierre Soulages as a child in Aveyron © All Rights Reserved

Birth of Pierre Soulages on December 24th in Rodez. (Image: Pierre Soulages as a child in Aveyron © All Rights Reserved)
The Abbey-church of Conques in the South of France © All Rights Reserved

Discovery of the Roman abbey church Sainte-Foy de Conques during a class visit. "It was she who gave me the decisive shock" he would later say.
Pierre & Colette Soulages © Archives Secrétariat Soulages

Montpellier where he frequently visits the Fabre Museum and enrolls at the School of Fine Arts where he meets Colette Llaurens, whom he will marry that same year.
Soulages’ first studio in the outskirts of Paris © Archives Secrétariat Soulages

Settles in a workshop in Courbevoie, near Paris. The works he sends to the Salon d'Automne are refused.
Beginning of his long friendship with Roberta Gonzales and Hans Hartung, whom he meets at the Salon des Surindépendants, a salon without jury or prizes where his works are exhibited. Mocked by the critics, Francis Picabia notices him, however, convinced that one of his works is the "best painting in the Salon". Settles in a new studio rue Schoelcher, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris
James Johnson Sweeney in 1956 © Photo: Waintrob. Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York (Gift of Samuel I. Hoffberg, 1981)

Meets Jean-Michel Atlan, Fred Klein and his son Yves. The famous curator of the Museum of Modern Art James Johnson Sweeney visits his studio and buys a painting from him.
The French state acquires the work Peinture 146 x 114 cm, 1950. Louis Carré becomes his agent abroad.
Lot 6 in the 24 June 2020 Paris Contemporary Art Sale, Pierre Soulages, Gouache 65 x 50,5 cm, 1952, Estimate €120,000–180,000

Participation in the XXVIth Venice Biennale.

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Participation in the Younger American Painters exhibition organized by Pat Sweeney at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.
First solo exhibition in New York at the gallery of Samuel Kootz, who will soon become his agent in the United-States, devoting 8 exhibitions to him until 1966. Nelson Rockefeller and Alfred H. Barr visit his studio.
Participation in the first Documenta in Kassel and in the exhibition The New Decade at MoMA. The Gimpel Fils gallery devotes him in London his first solo show in London. This is the beginning of a collaboration that will last more than 20 years.

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Creates Peinture 130 x 162 cm, April 14, 1957. Important year for the artist who moves to a new studio at 48, rue Galande and receives the prestigious Windsor Price. Beginning of a world tour that will take him to New York where he meets Adolph Gottlieb, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Franz Kline, Louise Nevelson, Mark Tobey, Robert Motherwell and Mark Rothko.

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Soulages in his Sète studio at the beginning of the 80S © Archives Secrétariat Soulages

First Outrenoirs. Exhibition "Soulages, Peintures récentes" at the Centre Pompidou.
(c)BPORNECZI

One of Soulages’ stained glass window in the the Abbey-church of Conques ©All Rights Reserved

Creation of the stained glass windows of the Abbey of Sainte-Foy de Conques.
Kassel Fridericianum Museum in 1989 ©All Rights Reserved

Retrospective exhibition "Soulages 40 years of painting" in Kassel, Valence and Nantes.
Pierre Encrevé & Pierre Soulages at the time © All Rights Reserved

Retrospectives in Seoul, Beijing and Taipei. Pierre Encrevé publishes the first volume of the Catalogue Raisonné de l'œuvre peint de Pierre Soulages. A second volume follows in 1996, a third in 1998, a fourth in 2007 and a fifth in 2015.
The Pierre Soulages Aisle at the Fabre Museum © All Rights Reserved

Pierre and Colette Soulages donate 500 paintings to the Communauté d'Agglomération du Grand Rodez for the creation of the Soulages Museum. At the same time, 19 paintings are donated to the Fabre Museum in Montpellier, which builds a new wing to house them.
Pierre Soulages, Peinture, 21 July 1958 © Sotheby’s

Peinture, 21 July 1958 is exchanged for more than 1.5 million euros at Sotheby's Paris, an absolute record for a work by a French artist during his lifetime.
Pierre Soulages Retrospective at the Pompidou © All Rights Reserved

Retrospective at the Centre Pompidou on the occasion of its 90th anniversary.
The facade of the Soulages Museum © All Rights Reserved

The Soulages Museum in Rodez is inaugurated in the presence of the President of the French Republic.
Pierre Soulages, April 14, 1962 © Sotheby’s

For the first time, a painting by Soulages sells for more than 5 million euros at auction, Peinture 162 x 130 cm, April 14, 1962, trading at 6,120,000 euros against an estimate of between 2,000,000 and 3,000,000.
Pierre Soulages Retrospective at the Louvre ©All Rights Reserved / ADAGP Paris, 2020

On the occasion of its centenary, the Louvre Museum pays tribute to Soulages by devoting a retrospective to him during his lifetime. Only Chagall and Picasso had had this privilege before him.

Download the PDF Catalogue

Past Auction

Art Contemporain Evening Sale

24 June 2020 | 7:00 PM CEST | Paris