René Magritte, Master of the Surreal

René Magritte, Le jockey perdu.
Estimate: £1,000,000–1,500,000.

Le jockey perdu is one of Magritte’s most compelling and iconic subjects. Inspired by the fifteenth-century Renaissance master Paolo Uccello, it exemplifies Magritte's atmospheric juxtaposition of objects and settings. This gouache comes directly from the celebrated Surrealist collection of William N. Copley who was a patron and friend of René Magritte, as well as a philanthropist and an artist in his own right.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, Ciel-bouteille. Estimate: £600,000–800,000.

Ciel-bouteille is one of three painted bottles that remained in the collection of the artist's widow Georgette Magritte until her death in 1986, and were auctioned as part of the sale of Magritte's estate at Sotheby's London the following year. The image of a bright blue sky punctuated with white and grey clouds is one of the most iconic in Magritte's œuvre, usually seen as part of a paradoxical landscape or superimposed onto various shapes such as a bird.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, Le coup au Coeur.
Estimate £500,000–700,000.

Le coup au cœur was Magritte's solution to what he called 'the problem of the rose'. The contradiction between the sweetness and softness of the rose and the cruel sharpness of its thorns is a paradox that intrigued him, and he sought to underline it by augmenting the rose's natural weapon – its thorn – with an actual weapon – a dagger.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, L’Arc de Triomphe.
Estimate: £500,000–700,000.

L'Arc de Triomphe shows Magritte exploring the idea of how one object can be seen or depicted in multiple ways. In this surrealist vision, he presents the viewer both with the image of the tree in its entirety and a close-up view of meticulously painted leaves. The simultaneity of this experience was intended to enhance or illuminate the reality of the object.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, La perspective amoureuse.
Estimate: £800,000—1,200,000.

Dating from 1936, La perspective amoureuse is one of Magritte's earliest variations on the theme of a closed door, broken by a hole that reveals a landscape behind it. The iconography of a large leaf has its origin in Magritte's hybrid tree-leaf which first appeared in the 1935 oil La géante and would recur in his painting over the next several decades.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, L'École buissonnière.
Estimate: £250,000–350,000.

In L'Ecole buissonnière, Magritte returned to a number of motifs that occur throughout his pre-war œuvre, including the street lamps and tall red-roofed buildings typical of suburban Belgian towns which also feature in the Empire des lumières series of 1949-54. The addition of a theatre stage introduces a complex play on scale and provides the all-important element of mystery. The work was given by Magritte to Rose and Joseph Capel in 1960 and it has remained in their family to this day.

Surrealist Art Evening Sale
28 February 2018 | London

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René Magritte, L’Émpire de la réflexion.
Estimate £300,000–400,000.

Within L’Émpire de la réflexion, René Magritte subverts the viewer's expectations by challenging the way in which we perceive the world around us. In place of the position habitually occupied by the moon hovers the earth, our entire world reduced to a serene microcosm floating within the sky. Magritte himself wrote of this work that: "in the sky a large mirror sends back to us the image of the earth"(David Sylvester (ed.), Sarah Whitfield & Michael Raeburn, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonné, London, 1994, vol. IV, p. 94).

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
1 March 2018 | London

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René Magritte, Le Traité du paysage.
Estimate £200,000–300,000.

Imprinted with silence and mystery, Le Traité du paysage leads the viewer's gaze into the vanishing far distance, in a hypnotic reversal of aerial perspective.

Impressionist & Modern Art Day Sale
1 March 2018 | London

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