LONDON (AP) — A significant work by surrealist painter René Magritte that hasn’t been proven in public for 1 / 4 century might fetch 50 million kilos ($64 million) at public sale subsequent month.
Christie’s public sale home introduced Saturday that it’ll supply “L’ami intime” (The Intimate Good friend) at a March 7 sale in London marking a century of the surrealist motion in artwork.
The portray contains a number of of the Belgian artist’s signature motifs, together with a bowler-hatted man and fluffy white clouds on a blue sky. On this portray, accomplished in 1958, the person is proven from behind, going through out over a hilly panorama. A baguette and a wine glass hover within the foreground.
Olivier Camu, Christie’s deputy chairman for Impressionist and trendy artwork, stated the “extremely poetic, extremely dreamy” portray is among the many handful of most vital Magritte works in non-public palms. Final exhibited publicly in Brussels in 1998, it’s being auctioned for the primary time since 1980, and has a pre-sale estimate of between 30 million and 50 million kilos ($38 million and $64 million).
This 12 months marks the centenary of Andre Breton’s “Surrealist Manifesto,” which outlined a revolutionary creative motion characterised by unsettling juxtapositions and paradoxical statements — as in Magritte’s most well-known work, a portray of a pipe titled “This isn’t a pipe.”
“Now it’s develop into ordinary to consider the unconscious, psychology, psychoanalysis — however they have been the one who opened the doorways,” Camu stated.
Camu stated Magritte, who died in 1967, has develop into probably the most “in-demand” of all of the surrealists. Not like the work of contemporaries similar to Salvador Dali, there are few particular cultural or non secular references to be present in his work.
“Magritte by no means defined something,” Camu stated — even the titles of his work have been steered by pals.
“There’s no signal of faith in Magritte ever, or explicit historical past, or something,” he stated. “They’re completely conceptual, clear, highly effective, disturbing, great, silent footage. They’re accessible to everyone.”
That declare is backed up by hovering costs for Magritte’s work in recent times, hitting a document 59.4 million kilos ($79.8 million on the time) for “L’empire des lumières” (The Empire of Gentle) at a Sotheby’s public sale in 2022.
The work up on the market in March comes from the gathering of the late Gilbert Kaplan — founding father of the publication Institutional Investor — and his spouse, Lena Kaplan.
The portray can be on show earlier than the sale at Christie’s in Los Angeles Feb 3, 5 and 6, in New York Feb 9-14, in Hong Kong Feb 21-23 and in London March 1-7.
