{"id":6509,"date":"2014-04-16T18:57:04","date_gmt":"2014-04-17T01:57:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=6509"},"modified":"2014-04-16T16:58:59","modified_gmt":"2014-04-16T23:58:59","slug":"huguette-m-clark-family-treasures-to-be-auctioned-at-christies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=6509","title":{"rendered":"Huguette M. Clark Family Treasures to be Auctioned at Christie’s"},"content":{"rendered":"

Notable artwork from the estate of the late Huguette M. Clark<\/a>\u2014whose Bellosguardo\u00a0<\/a>Estate in Montecito was donated\u00a0to the people of Santa Barbara as a\u00a0center for \u201cthe fostering and promotion of the arts\u201d and is in the process of being developed\u2014will be presented at Christie’s New York<\/a> beginning early next month.<\/p>\n

According to a release from Christie’s, “Four masterworks by Claude Monet <\/a>and Pierre-Auguste Renoir <\/a>will be presented in the evening sale of Impressionist & Modern Art <\/i>at Christie\u2019s New York on May 6, followed by a dedicated sale titled An American Dynasty: The Clark Family Treasures <\/i>on June 18. Highlights of the collection will be shared with the public through a series of preview exhibitions around the globe in the coming weeks, beginning with an unveiling of the Impressionist and Modern works at Christie\u2019s London that runs through February 4, 2014. The total collection is expected to realize in excess of $50 million.”<\/p>\n

Among the pieces up for auction May 6 are:<\/p>\n

\"Nymph\u00e9as<\/a>

Nymph\u00e9as by Claude Monet, courtesy Christie’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Nymph\u00e9as<\/em> by Claude Monet | Estimate: $25,000,000-35,000,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Huguette Clark purchased Claude Monet\u2019s Nymph\u00e9as <\/i>in 1930 in New York from the Durand-Ruel Galleries, whose Paris branch had jointly acquired the work with the Galerie Bernheim-Jeune directly from the artist ten years earlier. A splendid example of the artist\u2019s pre-eminent theme \u2013 his beloved lily pond at Giverny \u2013 Clark\u2019s Nymph\u00e9as <\/i>was painted in 1907, during an intense creative period in Monet\u2019s career. The artist had enjoyed a celebrated career in Paris as the leading artist of the Impressionist movement when he moved with his family to the small farming community of Giverny in 1883 and began working on the elaborate gardens that would inspire him for the last two decades of his life. Between 1905 and 1908, Monet worked feverishly to complete more than 60 increasingly abstract views of the pond, equivalent to about one every three weeks. The painting is distinguished by its strong color contrasts, aggressive brushwork, and novel vertical format. One\u00a0contemporary critic enthused about the Nymph\u00e9as <\/i>series, \u201cThere is no other living artist who could have given us these marvelous effects of light and shadow, this glorious feast of color.\u201d Since entering the collection of Huguette Clark, the\u00a0present Nymph\u00e9as <\/i>has remained out of the public eye. The international tour in anticipation of the May auction will be the first time the painting is publicly exhibited since 1926.<\/p>\n

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\"Jeunes<\/a>

Jeunes filles jouant au volant by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, courtesy Christie’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Jeunes filles jouant au volant<\/em> by Pierre-Auguste Renoir| Estimate: $10,000,000-15,000,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Renoir painted Jeunes filles jouant au volant circa <\/i>1887, after a three-year period of intense questioning of Impressionist methods and experimentation with his own techniques. Renoir reintroduced traditional notions of draftsmanship into his art. Seeking to give the human form a more monumental presence, he focused increasingly on contour, which he used to silhouette his figures sharply against the background. Jeunes filles jouant au volant <\/i>is among the most complex compositions from this period of Renoir\u2019s work, depicting five contemporary female figures playing a racquet sport in a\u00a0rural landscape. The result is an intentional hybrid of timelessness and modernity, the idyllic and the everyday, which gives the painting its particular power.<\/p>\n

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\"Chrysanth\u00e8mes<\/a>

Chrysanth\u00e8mes by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, courtesy Christie’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Chrysanth\u00e8mes<\/em> by Pierre-Auguste Renoir| Estimate: $3,500,000-5,500,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pierre-Auguste Renoir\u2019s Chrysanth\u00e8mes <\/i>was purchased in November 1929 by Huguette Clark and her mother, Anna Eugenia La Chapelle, just two weeks after the Wall Street Crash that would begin the Great Depression. The painting, executed circa <\/i>1876-1880, is one of five large-scale paintings of chrysanthemums that Renoir produced by 1884. In the early 1880s, Renoir painted a sequence of elaborate floral compositions that number among the boldest and most fully resolved still-lifes of the artist\u2019s career. Renoir relished the opportunity to depict still-lifes, as they allowed him to paint more freely and develop his techniques. While part of the appeal of chrysanthemums for Renoir was surely practical (the flowers are hardy and do not wilt easily), they also\u00a0carried a potent iconographic significance. Chrysanthemums had strong associations with East Asia in the artist\u2019s day, and Renoir, being well aware of the vogue for japonisme, <\/i>may have chosen this particular flower to heighten the appeal of his paintings to collectors.<\/p>\n

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\"Femme<\/a>

Femme \u00e0 l\u2019ombrelle by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, courtesy Christie’s<\/p><\/div>\n

Femme \u00e0 l\u2019ombrelle<\/em> by Pierre-Auguste Renoir| Estimate: $3,000,000-5,000,000<\/strong><\/p>\n

Renoir\u2019s Femme \u00e0 l\u2019ombrelle <\/i>was painted in 1873, a critical point in both the artist\u2019s career and in the history of the Impressionist movement; this was the same year Renoir helped found the Soci\u00e9t\u00e9 Anonyme Coop\u00e9rative des Artistes, Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc., <\/i>a group which later came to be known as the Impressionists. Throughout the 1870s, one of Renoir\u2019s favorite subjects was the contemporary young woman in a secluded garden oasis, often holding a parasol, a crucial accoutrement for the bourgeois woman. Few of his sitters, however, have the arresting presence of the young woman in Femme \u00e0 l\u2019ombrelle<\/i>, who may in fact be Monet\u2019s wife, Camille. In addition to having an art historical significance, the work also has noteworthy\u00a0provenance, having first been owned by Erwin Davis, one of the pioneering collectors of Impressionism in the United States.<\/p>\n

For more information about the auction click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u2014Leslie Dinaberg<\/p>\n

Originally published in\u00a0Santa Barbara SEASONS<\/a>\u00a0on April 15, 2014.<\/p>\n

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