Press Release London For immdediate r elease London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | [email protected] Mitzi Mina | [email protected] | Sarah Rustin | [email protected] New York | + 1 212 606 7176 | Diana Phillips | [email protected] Lauren Gioia | [email protected] Major Picasso Portrait of his Mistress and Muse Marie-Thérèse, from 1932, to lead Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Sale in London in February 2011 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), La Lecture, 1932. Est: £12-18 million / $18.6- $27.9 million LONDON, MONDAY 17 th JANUARY 2011– Sotheby’s forthcoming Evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art, to be held in London on Tuesday, 8 th February 2011, will be led by a major painting by Pablo Picasso, depicting Marie-Thérèse Walter, the woman who transformed both his life and his art. Picasso’s La Lecture of 1932 (estimated at £12,000,000-18,000,000 / US$18,570,000 - $27,850,000*) relates closely to the legendary painting Le Rêve (The Dream), painted in the same year, and ranks among the stars of the big season of sales that will take place in London from February 8 th to 17 th . Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Chairman, Impressionist & Modern Art, Europe, comments: “ Last February at Sotheby’s in London saw the record-breaking sum of £65 million paid for Giacometti’s L’Homme qui marche I. Following on from that, and from the successes in the field of Impressionist and Modern Art that continued throughout the year, we are now delighted to present a sale that will appeal to the tastes of today’s ever expanding global market.” The story of Picasso’s first encounter with Marie-Thérèse, and their subsequent love affair, are among the most compelling in 20 th -century art history. Marie-Thérèse was just 17 when Picasso first introduced himself to her. She was naïve and completely oblivious of the fame that already surrounded the stranger who approached her as she was leaving the Paris Metro one day in 1927. “ I was an innocent girl,” she later recalled. “I knew nothing – either of life or of Picasso… I had gone to do some shopping at the Galeries Lafayette, and Picasso saw me leaving the Metro. He simply took me by the arm and said: ‘I am Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together.’” The couple’s relationship was kept a well-guarded secret for many years, both on account of the fact that Picasso was then still married (to Olga Khokhlova, a Russian-Ukrainian dancer he had met on tour with Diaghilev) and because of Marie-Thérèse’s age. Until the period in which this work was painted, Marie- Thérèse only ever appeared in Picasso’s works in code, her features often embedded in the background of his paintings. But by the end of 1931, Picasso could no longer repress the creative impulse that his lover inspired, and over Christmas and New Year 1931 and ‘32, Marie- Thérèse emerged, for the first time, in fully recognisable, languorous, form. It was then, in January 1932, that this picture was painted. Marie-Thérèse’s potent mix of physical attractiveness and sexual naivety had an intoxicating effect on Picasso, and his rapturous desire for her brought about a number of images that are among the most sought after of his long career. Indeed, La Lecture is very similar, in terms of composition, to the famous Le Rêve, the history and importance of which has been widely reported. The two works were painted just days apart, and were soon after exhibited alongside each other in the major Picasso retrospective Exposition Picasso , held from June to October 1932 at Galerie Georges Petit in Paris, and at the Kunsthaus in Zurich. It was with the exhibition that – for the first time – Picasso’s secret came out. Olga, upon seeing Picasso’s numerous references to a specific face that was clearly not her own, was suddenly alerted to the presence of a new woman in her husband’s life. The painting enjoys an illustrious history, having belonged to a series of celebrated American collectors, including Keith Warner, David Lloyd Kreeger and James W. Alsdorf. It has not been seen in Europe since the 1932 exhibition. SCULPTURE 2010 was an exceptional year for sculpture, with record-breaking prices seen across the board. Chief among these was Giacometti’s £65 million L’Homme qui marche I, sold at Sotheby’s in February last year and establishing a record for any work of art sold at auction. Given the strength of the sculpture market, this February’s sale includes a fittingly strong selection of sculpture, with works by Marini, Giacometti, Moore and Maillol. 2 Just as La Lecture ranks high in the oeuvre of Picasso, so too Marino Marini’s L’Idea del cavaliere (pictured right, est: £3.7 – 4.5 million) is one of the most important works by the artist ever to come to the market. Remarkable both in terms of its monumental scale (it measures 220cm / 86 5/8 in. high) and because it is hand-painted by the artist, this extraordinary 1955 bronze of Marini’s most famous subject of the horse and rider is an exceptional example of his achievements in this area. L’Idea del cavliere is one of an edition of four bronzes of the subject. Others from the series are at the Museo Marino Marini in Milan and San Diego Museum of Art. In 1956, Marini carved a unique painted wood version, which was sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 2007 for $7 million - a record for the artist at the time. Alberto Giacometti ’s bronze Grand buste de Diego avec bras , 1957 (est: £3.5-5 million) belongs to a celebrated series of the artist’s sculptural portraits of his younger brother Diego, and is complemented by the oil on canvas Diego , 1958 (est: £3-5 million), which is also to be offered. Diego acted as the primary model for Alberto’s numerous variations on the theme of head and bust sculptures throughout the 1950s and 60s. Grand buste de Diego avec bras (pictured left/right) is a prime example from this period. Giacometti’s paintings were also an important part of his work at this time: “There is no difference between painting and sculpture.' I have been practicing them both indifferently, each helping me to do the other. In fact, both of them are drawing, and drawing has helped me to see. ” (Alberto Giacometti, quoted in Yves Bonnefoy, Alberto Giacometti, A Biography of His Work , Paris, 1991, p. 436) In his dramatic and haunting oil on canvas Diego , his brother’s slender head is juxtaposed with his broad, voluminous bust. While this portrait of the artist’s brother reflects the influence of the post- war Existentialist movement with its connotations of isolation of the 3 individual within a large solitary space, as well as Giacometti’s own reworking of themes from his Surrealist past, both of the remarkable works by the artist to be offered in the sale reflect the intense relationship the two brothers enjoyed throughout their lives. Henry Moore, perhaps the most prominent of British sculptors of the 20 th century, continues to hold strong appeal for collectors around the world. His important monumental bronze Reclining Connected Forms of 1969 incorporates two recurring themes in Moore’s art: a dichotomy between internal and external forms, and the theme of mother and child. The work, other casts of which are in major museums around the world, is estimated at £1,500,000-2,500,000. IMPRESSIONIST AND POST-IMPRESSIONIST WORKS Exemplary works by Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Édouard Manet, and Paul Signac are highlights of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works to be offered, each marking new departures of their own kind. Claude Monet’s Argenteuil, fin d’après-midi , 1872 (pictured right/left, est: £3.5-4.5 million), painted at the dawn of the Impressionist movement in the early 1870s, is one of Monet’s first major landscapes of his new home just outside of Paris. Depicting the leisure activity of the time and especially of this particular town, the present work was one of Monet’s first major compositions on the theme of boats on the water and the popular promenade of Argenteuil. Monet devoted several canvases to the subject in the early 1870s, delighting with his fellow painters in representing the symbols of progress that sprung from this period of prosperity due to advances in industry, technology and the standards of living. As was characteristic of his best Impressionist landscapes, Monet painted this work on location, setting up his easel along the river bank in order to capture the fleeting effects of light and shadow glistening on the surface of the water. Its sale coincides with the close of a dazzling exhibition of Monet’s work at the Grand Palais in Paris, which attracted record numbers of visitors and reaffirmed the artist’s towering status among the greatest painters of all times. 4 Pierre-Auguste Renoir ’s La Lecture, deux femmes aux corsages rouge et rose (est: £2-3million) is undoubtedly among the most successful of Renoir’s late large-scale works. It comes to the market with an exceptional history: in 1954, the painting was sold at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris to a private English collector in whose family possession it has remained until now. Its first museum showing since 1938 was in the Philadelphia Museum of Art's landmark exhibition Renoir in the 20th Century held in 2010.