1.
Francis
Picabia, Volupté (1932), $130K
2. Joan Miró, Femme (Femme debout) (1969), $4.5M -$8M
3.
Joan
Miró, Femme, étoile (1942),
$500K-$800K.
4.
Joan
Miró, L’echelle d’évasion (Escape Ladder)
(1939), $800K - $1.3M
5.
Joan
Miró, Signes et figurations, $1M-
$1.5M
6.
Joan
Miró, Tête (1970), $800K - $1.1M
7.
Max
Ernst, La Forêt (1934/35), $50K-$80K
8.
Max
Ernst, Roter Gratenwald mit Sonne (Red
Forest with Sun) (1936), $650K-$1M
9. Paul Delvaux, ecce homo (la descendre de croix) (1949), $1M - $1.4M
10.
Paul
Delvaux, La Première Rose (1947),
$1.6M - $2.4M
11. Paul Delvaux, Les nymphes des eaux (1938).
$5M-$8M
12.
René
Magritte, A la rencontre du plaisir
(1950), $2M-$3M
13.
René
Magritte, La traverse difficile (II)
(1946), $400K-$600K
14.
opt.
Edvard Munch, Robat
pa sjøen (1904), $1M
Cheaper by the Baker’s Dozen
Or… if I had $10 Million Dollars … I’d Buy Us a … Miró, a
Delvaux and a Munch
I would never actually advise anyone as to what art they should or
should not consider purchasing, but while reading Hedley Twidle’s
interesting article about South African Nobel Literary Laureate John
M. Coetzee in the Financial
Times, I noted the advertisement for Christie’s upcoming Surrealist Art
Auction in London (08 Feb, 2013), and could not resisting clicking on the
teaser icon. “Hmmm, I see…”
Truthfully, I have a love and hate
relationship with Surrealism, but many of the pieces in this particular auction
draw closer to Modernism than to Surrealism, though all are definitely impacted
by Surrealist forms and theory. The
first few selections in their slide show did not hold my attention. They were fine, but not of the quality or the
creativity I would expect for those prices.
But after imagining the excitement the wives of attorneys, Freshmen
Congressmen and the other Long Island types whom I assume bid on such pieces, I
caught a glimpse of Joan Miró’s Femme – a large, brilliant sculpture in black matte-finish bronze …
And the expected price range for the piece?
A mere $4.5 million. “Nice – I’d sure like to see the commission
on that one,” I thought to myself.
Going through the slideshow catalogue, I
noted several other Miró’s that I felt to be rather special and a few other
works by other artists, ending up with a baker’s dozen-or-so that I felt would
be well worth the trip to view. The
combined recommended minimum for the full dozen, roughly a cool $19.5 Millions – not really so
bad if you really think about it.
