PR ESS R EL EASE
Félix Vallotton’s Coquetterie &
a Rediscovered Picture by Oskar Schlemmer
in the Modern Art Sale at the Vienna Dorotheum
With its sale of Modern and Contemporary Art held on 20th May 2003, the
Vienna Dorotheum is giving emphasis to international modernity. Presenting a
first-rate selection of international art, this sale is going to be the focal point of
the forthcoming Auction Week, scheduled from 19th to 23rd May.
The sale’s top lot in the section of international modern art will be the oil
painting Coquetterie from 1911 by Félix Vallotton (1865-1925), which has
already been on display in numerous exhibitions all over the world. It underlines
Félix Vallotton’s virtuosity in illustrating a scene from everyday life – a young
woman doing her morning toilet – and confronts the viewer with a motif popular
since antiquity that was frequently quoted above all during the Italian
Renaissance (€ 160,000 – 180,000). The oil painting Sunlit House from 1911 by
the late Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer (1888-1943) was discovered in an
Austrian private collection. Oskar Schlemmer painted the same motif twice:
once seen from the rear and once from the front. The version showing the street
front is in the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart today. The rear view, unknown to date, is
now going to be offered in the Dorotheum (€ 15,000 – 20,000).
Lovis Corinth (1858-1925) stands out with the watercolour On the
Herzogenstand – Walchensee Landscape, dating from 1918 (€ 36,000 –
38,000). Several works by Rudolf Bauer (1889-1953), who from 1915 to 1921
exhibited together with Kandinsky, Campendonck, Chagall, Jawlensky, Klee,
Léger, and Picasso at the Sturm, come from an Austrian collection (e.g.,
Untitled, oil on canvas, € 15,000 – 20,000). Karl Hofer (1878-1955) is
represented with two works from his late period. It was not until the last years of
his life that Hofer began to be preoccupied with religious and biblical subjects,
concentrating his interest not so much on the motif as such but rather on the
solution of the figural composition. Put up for sale here is going to be the figure
of Saint Anthony from 1948 (€ 55,000 – 70,000) as well as the painting Three
Girls amidst Ladders, which the arist executed one year before his death (1954,
€ 70,000 – 90,000).
The view of the snow-covered mountain range of the Trattalmen in Kitzbühel
with the motif of the Wilder Kaiser looming in the background is an impressive
example of Alfons Walde’s powerful landscape renderings (1959, € 90,000 –
120,000).
DOROTHEUM GmbH & Co KG, A-1010 Wien, Dorotheergasse 17,
E-Mail: michaela.strebl@dorotheum.at, Telefax (+ 43 1) 515 60-379
Also international contemporary art offers a selection of significant works, such
as the bronze La grande Ginette by César (1921-1998), 178 cm high. In
César’s work there figures a series of nudes, which he started in 1954 with Le
Torse and completed in 1965 with La victoire de Villetaneuse. These sculptures
are assigned to his “Classical” period and were made from iron chips welded
together. Encouraged by his gallerist, in the early 1970s César started to
produce larger-sized versions in bronze, including La grande Ginette (€ 140,000
– 220,000). The bronze figure Grand Esther by Ernst Fuchs from 1973, 263 cm
high, comes from American private ownership (No. 4/6, € 120,000 – 160,000).
Fritz Winter (1905-1976), whose oeuvre is characterised by a suspenseful
arrangement of pictorial elements across the surface, is represented with
several works, including With Yellow and Black from 1954 in oil and mixed
media (€ 15,000 – 20,000). Franz West’s Blessing, a work made from wax,
acrylic, gauze, papier mâché, iron and cardboard, forms part of the artist’s New
Sculptures, which are to be considered as autonomous works
(€ 22,000 –
28,000).
Further prominent names appearing in the sale are Oskar Mulley, Wilhelm
Nikolaus Prachensky, Georg Merkel, Franz von Zülow, Henri Lebasque,
Georges d’Espagnat, Jean Mulley, Jean Cocteau, Sonja Delaunay, Hans
Purrmann as well as Raoul Dufy, in order to mention just a few more classics.
Other contemporary artists deserving special mention include Ernst Fuchs,
Arik Brauer, Arnulf Rainer, Christian Ludwig Attersee, Herbert Brandl,
Hans Staudacher, Markus Prachensky, Gottfried Helnwein, Adolf
Fleischmann, Walter Stöhrer, Sam Francis, Roy Liechtenstein, Xanti
(Alexander) Schawinsky, Otto Ritschl, Jörg Immendorff, Yves Klein,
Marcel Broodthaers as well as Bernard Schultze.
Digital images available on request : pr-marketing@dorotheum.at
Sale:
MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART
20th May 2003; 5:00 p.m.
Viewing:
as from 10th May 2003
Venue:
PALAIS DOROTHEUM, 1010 Vienna, Dorotheergasse 17
Specialists: Elke Königseder, Patricia Maydell, Monika Meindl
Phone (+ 43 1) 515 60-358, -386, -370, 20c.paintings@dorotheum.at
Press Contact: Michaela Strebl, Phone (+ 43 1) 515 60-229
www.dorotheum.com
DOROTHEUM GmbH & Co KG, A-1010 Wien, Dorotheergasse 17,
E-Mail: michaela.strebl@dorotheum.at, Telefax (+ 43 1) 515 60-379