Art Gelender

The collections of the Castle of Gourdon: a museum for sale

In Paris, Palais de Tokyo, took place Tuesday, March 29, 2011, the first auction of private collections in the castle of Gourdon, comprising one of the most beautiful set in the world of Art Nouveau and Art Deco.

Sales, which are spread over three days, are due to closure of the Museum of Decorative Arts Gourdon Castle, located in southern France, near Nice.

For this event in Paris, Christie’s sales orchestra, the first consisted of 78 batches of exceptional pieces of Art Deco furniture.

The record sales went to the « chaise longue aux skis » (couch to ski) called the « Maharaja » by Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann, 1929, sold for 2,865,000 euros ($ 4,025,123).

The « table à jeux et suite de quatre chaises » (game table and four chairs) by Jean Dunand, estimated between 3 and 5 million euros ($ 4,241,836 to 7,069,727) has however been able to find a buyer.

The most lively auction also came back with two pieces of Emile-Jacques Ruhlmann. One for a cabinet called « cave à liqueur » (liquor cellar), from 1926, estimated between 300,000 and 400,000 euros ($ 423,000 to 564,000) and sold for 1,498,600 euros ($ 2,105,428). The other for a convenient « Lassalle » from 1925, estimated between 500,000 and 700,000 euros ($ 705,000 to 987,000) and sold for 1,801,000 euros ($ 2,530,278).

Finally, several pieces of Robert Mallet-Stevens (hairdresser, a pair of easy chairs, armchairs, …) were preempted by the Centre of National Monuments.

More informations : www.christies.com

Castle Gourdon : www.chateau-gourdon.com

The most expensive painting to be sold at auction Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso is presented to the public for the first time ever in the UK at Tate Modern in London. The work has been lent to Tate from a Private Collection and be on display in a new Pablo Picasso room on Level 3.

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is one of the sequence of paintings of Picasso’s muse, Marie-Thérèse Walter, made by the artist at Boisgeloup, Normandy, in the early months of 1932.

Picasso first encountered Marie-Thérèse Walter in January 1927 but their relationship had to remain secret from his wife, Olga. Although Picasso had long disguised his affair with Marie-Thérèse Walter, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust is among the group of works which openly chart the obsessiveness between the lovers. It was painted on 8 March 1932 and is the most intense among the group of large nudes completed in single, sometimes consecutive, days and marking a high-point of Picasso’s creative energy. The setting (probably in the sculpture studios of the Château de Boisgeloup outside Paris) includes a secretive curtain that provides the screen onto which the sculptural bust casts a double shadow. It is as if the white of the foreground nude was, literally as well as metaphorically, illuminating the space.

After many years in private hands, Nude, Green Leaves and Bust was sold at Christie’s, New York on 4 May 2010 to a private collector for a world record price of $ 106.5 million (76.5 million €). Before it was sold, the work had been in the collection of LA based collectors Sidney and Frances Brody for almost six decades. They had acquired the work in 1951 from Paul Rosenberg, whom in turn had acquired it from the artist in 1936. During that period it had been exhibited publicly only once, in 1961, to commemorate Picasso’s 80th birthday.