Joan Miró ladders

Curated by Marko Daniel, Joan Miró: The Ladder of Escape retrospective shows the most staggering work conceived by the Catalan artist. His inventive identity is set against planes of color laid-out in thirteen rooms across Tate Modern fourth floor. With each series entitled to its own room, the first of them explore Miró's commitment to his native Catalonia. An auto-portrait developed by displacing archetypal figures in to simple arrangement of signs – as is the case with The Head of a Catalan Peasant (1925) –, and the juxtaposition of unrelated objects, in Animated Landscapes (1926-7), for instance. Whereas the middle section reflect Miró’s new pictorial language. The first rooms in this section may suggest a withdrawal from the harsh realities of the world, the atmosphere of uncertainty arousing from his exile in France in late 1936 and «the terrifying years of the Spanish Civil War». The furious abstract painting on masonite (1936) are one example and The Constellations (1940-1) series's another imagery. While the later rooms epitomize Miro’s conflicting tendencies towards political engagement and his inner escape into creativity. The body of work conceived during this phase reflect the artist greater confidence in the balance he established between recognition on the international stage and inner exile at Mont-roig, in Catalonia. Finally, «the final section looks at the last years of Franco’s rule», when his painting «capture the tireless energy of creativity», challenging the dying regime that was animating the intellectual circles in Spain, in the late sixties. But, particularly revealing, is the American Abstract Expressionism influence in Miró's work that are shown in the central rooms. Four vast triptychs (1961-2, 1968 and 1973) mark the artist immersion into a new chromatic creation of space.

newsfromchristies201011

Henri MATISSE (1869-1954)
Nu de dos, 4 état (Back IV), conceived circa 1930 and cast in 1978
Signed with initials 'HM' and numbered '00/10' (lower right)
Bronze with dark brown patina, 189.2cm (Height)

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$48,802,500 (£30,257,550) (€34,649,775) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 65)
Estimate US$25,000,000-35,000,000
Lot Sold Gagosian Gallery Inc.

***WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST***

Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine) exemplifies Modigliani's conquest of the nude, a subject that is considered his greatest accomplishment in painting. Continuing the tradition of Botticelli's Venus, Velazquez's Rokeby Venus, Ingres' Baigneuse turque and Manet's Olympia, it ranks among the definitive nudes in the history of Western art.

The four life-sized reliefs known today as Backs I-IV represent Matisse's most monumental and ambitious sculptural undertaking and the longest-lived single project of his career (figs. 1-4). This imposing set of reliefs, executed at widely spaced intervals between 1908 and 1931, has been lauded as "one of the artist's most distinctive achievements" (M. Mezzatesta, Henri Matisse, Sculptor/Painter, exh. cat., Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, 1984, p. 79) and "one of the great landmarks of modern sculpture" (S. Nash, exh. cat., 2007, p. 9). The four Backs are united by the penetrating analysis of a single motif, the female nude leaning against a wall and viewed from behind. The compositions move from a relatively naturalistic rendering of the figure in Back I through progressively simplified and increasingly geometric anatomies to the startlingly stripped down, columnar figure in Back IV--"a stark but refined, highly architectural monolith, in which Matisse smoothed away the struggles of its earlier states" (S. D'Alessandro and J. Elderfield, exh. cat., op. cit., p. 355). The present work is one of twelve bronze casts of this culminating relief, and one of only two examples that currently remain in private hands (...) Back IV with the reprise of the Danse theme that Matisse painted for Albert Barnes (Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania). [...]

Property from a European Private Collector

Juan GRIS (1887-1927)
Violon et guitare, painted in Céret, September 1913
Signed, inscribed and date 'Juan Gris, Céret. 9-13' (on the reverse)
Oil on canvas, 100.3x65.4cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$28,642,500 (£17,758,350) (€20,336,175) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 23)
Estimate US$18,000,000-25,000,000
Lot Sold. European Private

***WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR THE ARTIST***

When Juan Gris returned to Paris in early November 1913 from his three-month sojourn in Céret, he had good reason to be pleased with the pictures he had painted there. He completed thirteen canvases in a consistently focused and formally cohesive series of still-lifes, figures and landscapes, paintings which constituted the most assured, fully fledged and distinctively personal work he had done to date. John Golding has declared, "Gris, who had always been an original painter, had during 1912 asserted himself as an important influence on the minor figures of the Cubist movement. Now, in 1913, he was executing works which match the contemporary paintings of Picasso and Braque in quality and invention... Gris' work of 1913 shows rather a steady progression toward an increasingly accomplished and commanding kind of painting" (op. cit., p. 129). Indeed, among these pictures are several that would eventually be counted among the very best he ever painted, indisputable masterworks that demonstrate an astonishing and dazzling synthesis of idea, color and form. Violon et guitare was Gris' own favorite among these Céret paintings, as he mentioned in a letter quoted below. This painting has since come to be widely regarded as a peak in his magnificent oeuvre, and one of the milestones of cubism and early modernism. [...]

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection: Four Modern Masterpieces

Joan MIRÓ (1893-1983)
L'Air, 1938
Signed 'Miró' (center left)
Oil on canvas, 54.9x46cm

Hammer Price with Buyer's Premium US$10,330,500 (£6,404,910) (€7,334,655) (Christie's NY, November 2rd 2010, Lot 25)
Estimate US$12,000,000-18,000,000
Lot Sold. European Trade

Composed of interpenetrating sections of blue sky and yellow mountains, L'Air is Miró's evocation of his native Spain, as well as Catalunya, the region in which he was born, raised and maintained his ancestral family home. The bright red aspect seen in the various personages and objects that inhabit this landscape join with the yellow earth to make up the traditional heraldic colors which compose the flags of both Spain and Catalunya. Deep blue, bright red, and vivid yellow--these primary colors raise their voices in celebration, as whimsical beings and odd objects float and tumble about. The artist's title suggests the joyous freedom of flight, a miraculous buoyancy that has lifted these creatures far above the events and cares of the world below. There is, however, an ominious subtext that informs these strange occurences. The time is 1938; Miró painted L'Air under the widening specter of civil war in Spain. Ranging across the yellow landscape is a slithering red serpent, whose mustachioed visage is perhaps a caricature of General Francisco Franco, El Caudillo, the leader of the fascist uprising that has torn Spain apart. [...]

Property from a Distinguished Private Collection: Four Modern Masterpieces