Stupendous prices were paid in a
historic sale of 19th- and 20th-century avant-garde paintings collected over a
lifetime by John Hay Whitney and his wife, Betsy Cushing Whitney,
Picasso’s "Garcon à la Pipe" (Boy With a Pipe), painted in 1905, shot up
to $104.1 million at Sotheby’s during a protracted bidding match over the
telephone. That is nearly twice the previous record for the artist: the $55
million paid for "La Femme aux Bras Croisés" at Christie’s New York in November
2000.
The huge figure reflects the double iconic value that the
portrait derived from its mastery and from the aura of its owners, the very
patrician Whitneys. The portrait is perhaps the artist’s ultimate achievement.
Constantly hailed as the giant of modem art, Picasso was probably at his
greatest when working under the spell of Old Masters. The rigorous composition,
the color balance and the profound psychological probe of the young sitter place
the likeness in a category that begins with Italian Renaissance portraitists and
continues tight through the 19th century with Corot and Degas.
Bought by Whitney in 1950, the painting was seen at distant intervals in major
exhibitions dealing with the artist, from the 1967 Grand Palais retrospective in
Paris to the 1996 portrait show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The
portrait was thus both famous in art history and forgotten. This maximized its
impact.
Not least, "Garcon à la Pipe" epitomized the taste of
connoisseurs of the old school who bought on the strength of their convictions,
not on advice. They collected for the sake of the art, neither for
investment—they were already rich—nor to achieve social status, which they had
by birth. In short, the Whitney sale marked the end of an era when the old
cultivated elite of the Western world dominated the art market.
Buyers sensed the unique character of the occasion. They responded to
pictures that played each other up, linked by affinities that went beyond style
or school.
Edouard Manet’s "Les Courses au Bois de Boulogne"
(Races in the Bois de Boulogne) is as important regarding the Impressionist’s
painting as "Garcon" is within Picasso’s oeuvre. The complex composition worthy
of 17th-century masters is combined with a sketchiness in much of the detail
that already heralds the march toward Abstractionism.
The
forward thrust of the horses in the foreground and the tense postures of their
riders give the picture a vigor and an authority it shares with the Picasso. And
like Picasso’s portrait, it owes a soothing harmony to its color balance. The
Manet brought $26.3 million—a figure deemed disappointing by some only because
market prices are at an all-time high.
The same combination of
boldness in composition and harmony in the color scheme can again be detected in
Claude Monet’s "Bateaux Sur le Galet" (Boats on the Strand), painted in 1004.
Here too the work is unusual. The thrust of the Brush strokes that define the
boats and the close-up view of hulls that seem to burst out of the space in
which they are lodged create an Expressionist effect. At $4.46 million, the rare
masterpiece was worth every peony of it.
With remarkable
consistency, Whitney sought and found similar characteristics in the work of
artists that seemed least likely to display them. Odilon Redon’s admirable still
life of flowers in a vase seems compressed in a space too small to contain it.
Painted in oil rather than drawn in pastel, the still life has a brilliance in
its color harmony that is quite unusual. Curiously, "Fleurs Dans un Vase Vert"
cost a comparatively moderate $1.68 million. It was not obvious enough in the
context of that evening’s sale.
The collector’s versatility
where style, school and period were concerned was exceptional. He apparently
bought with equal relish some paintings as extraordinarily advanced for their
time as others seem rooted in timeless classicism.
"Nature Morte
au Purro II" was painted by Matisse around 1904-1905 in the contrasted colors of
the Fanves, quickly applied in juxtaposed touches. These distill form and
outline. The still life rose to $1.85 million, but did not match the highest
expectations pinned on it.
The Matisse bears a kinship of sorts
to one of Paul Signac’s most original compositions, painted in 1807. In the
small close-up view of the stem of a boat, the sea and the sky are handled as a
shower of broad greenish and bluish specks, The Signac touched a chord. At $1
million it fared better than the Matisse in comparative terms. Given their
modernity, neither picture was wildly expensive in today’s
market. |
