The 20th and 21st centuries produced an array of artistic movements from heart artists worldwide. Names such as Francis Bacon, David Hockney, and Jean-Michel Basquiat are commonly heard names when referring to this period and the art that dominated it. Works that come from these artists tend to be seen as the top lots in any auction; however, Christie’s London has assembled an evening sale that brings the work of all these prestigious artists together.
Happening on 5 March, Christie’s 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale brings together paintings produced by artists across Europe who have left their mark and contributed to their various styles and movements when they were active.
Headlining the sale is a painting by British artist Francis Bacon named Portrait of Man with Glasses III, estimated between £6-9 million (around US$7.5-11.3 million). It is followed by an Art Deco painting by Polish artist Tamara de Lempicka titled Portrait du Docteur Boucard, estimated between £5-8 million (around US$6.3-10.1 million), an extremely rare painting of a male portrait done by a female artist, something not common at the time.
Also worth noting is the fact that out of the 51 total lots, 10 are guaranteed by third parties, and another two are guaranteed by Christie’s. This is down over half the third-party guaranteed lots from the same sale last year.
Lot 10 | Francis Bacon (1909-1992) | Portrait of Man with Glasses III, Oil and sand on canvas
Painted in 1963
36 x 30.7 cm
Provenance:
- Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London
- Marlborough-Gerson Gallery Inc., New York (acquired from the above in 1965)
- Private Collection, U.S.A.
- Thomas Gibson Fine Art, London
- Private Collection, South Africa (acquired from the above in 1972)
- Ivor Braka Collection, London
- Private Collection, UK (acquired from the above circa 1996)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £6,000,000-9,000,000 (Minimum price guarantee)* (around US$7.5-11.3 million)
Francis Bacon’s artwork is known for his haunting portraits of people that contain various themes and an almost geometric quality to them. This was especially the case during the mid-1960s when his portraits of friends became the central focus of his work, with all of them being 14 x 12 inches, including this lot.
What this painting, amongst Bacon’s large body of portrait work, does is exhibit his skill at using space, color, and texture to create this ambitious and strange portrait of the human visage. Perhaps most interesting within this painting is the figure’s mouth, which is twisted in a way that it is agape in some parts but also bears its teeth in others. This was Bacon’s main goal with this work and similar ones, as he once stated he wanted “to paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset.”
The artist’s usage of energetic brushstrokes results in the human form that we witness; however, these are contrasted by the dark space of the background and the eyes of the figure in the portrait. This negative space isn’t just used as the border to define the positive space but instead to form an interplay with the positive space on parts of the painting, helping them stand out or clashing for the attention of the audience, as seen with the dark glasses.
The void behind the painting is then sparkled with silver sand, giving a void-like texture, which the almost liquid-like human form seemingly melts into. The “liquid” nature of the painting manifests in this idea that unlike other abstract paintings of humans done by artists such as Picasso, the figures in Bacon’s work refuse to be defined or “pinned down,” instead feeling floaty and immaterial.
*This is one of two lots in this sale with a minimum price guarantee. When the lot is guaranteed by Christie's, otherwise known as a minimum price guarantee, should the lot fail to sell, Christie's will still pay the seller the minimum price.
Lot 25 | Tamar de Lempicka (1899-1980) | Portrait du Docteur Boucard, Oil on canvas
Painted in 1928
137 x 78 cm
Provenance:
- Dr Pierre Boucard, Paris, by whom commissioned directly from the artist in 1929, and thence by descent
- Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, New York, 14 November 1985, lot 278
- Acquired at the above sale, and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £5,000,000-8,000,000 (Third-party guarantee)* (around US$6.3-10.1 million)
Born in 1899 in Russian-ruled Poland, Lempicka lived in the Russian Empire until leaving for Paris following the First World War and the Russian Revolution. There Lempicka began her artistic career on the advice of her sister, and she studied under various teachers who impacted her style of art, including Maurice Denis and André Lhote. While her career grew, the specter of war still haunted her, and she would eventually leave Europe for the United States, followed by Mexico, where she passed away in 1980.
During her life, Lempicka was considered an Art Deco painter with heavy cubist inspirations. Additionally, she was an avid user of the chiaroscuro effect, where strong light and dark contrasts are used to create volume and dimension in a flat space.
All these principles are seen in this painting of Dr. Pierre Boucard, a key patron of Lempicka while she was in Paris. Dr. Boucard was an important medical figure of the time who studied digestive health and bacteria and would go on to invent a digestive aid. He was also a major fan of Lempicka’s work, whom he met in 1927, and would go on to commission several paintings and portraits of himself and his family, including himself, his daughter, and his wife.
The Boucard family portraits by Lempicka are considered one of the pinnacles of Lempicka’s work, with this painting exhibiting Lempicka’s ability to weave together the subject and their social position under her style of painting. The inclusion of scientific tools such as a glass tube and microscope is most indicative of this, with the lab coat being both a tool of science and perhaps a white trench coat, indicating his status and style.
*This is one of 10 lots in this sale with a third-party guarantee. The third-party guarantee means that a separate party has placed an irrevocable bid on the lot and will pay the same buyer premiums should they secure the lot. In the case that the price goes beyond that irrevocable bid and sells to someone else, the third party will still receive financial benefits from the sale.
Lot 9 | Amedeo Modigliani (1884-1920) | Portrait de Lunia Czechowska, Oil on canvas laid on board
Painted circa 1916-1917
46 x 37.8 cm
Provenance:
- Walther Halvorsen, Oslo & Paris, by whom probably acquired from the artist
- Galerie Bernheim-Jeune, Paris (no. 22306), by whom acquired from the above on 3 September 1920
- Biassano, by whom acquired from the above on 27 November 1920
- Jos Hessel, Paris, by 1930
- Marcelle Bourdon, Paris, by 1952; her sale, Guy Loudmer, Paris, 25 March 1990, lot 35
- Corporate collection; sale, Briest, Paris, 28 November 1996, lot 33
- Private collection, Europe, by whom acquired at the above sale
- Acquired from the above in 2003, and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £4,000,000-7,000,000 (Third-party guarantee) (around US$5-8.8 million)
Born in Italy in 1884, Modigliani was part of the School of Paris, a quasi-movement that included various immigrant artists who explored a variety of styles. While a student of antiquity and the Renaissance, Modigliani was influenced more by movements such as Cubism, Post-Impressionism, and Fauvism, creating a style unique to his work. Those who sat to have their portraits painted by Modigliani could be said to have been “Modiglianized.”
A key part of how Modigliani painted his subjects was by seeking out the nuances and variety of people. Furthermore, he prided himself on his ability to evoke the serene beauty in the people he was painting. He also always needed to paint with the person sitting opposite of him, not because he sought to capture their likeness one-for-one, but instead, he wanted to see what qualities he could abstract and paint in his own style.
Because of this, Modigliani’s pieces always had a few distinctive features to them, a large swanlike neck said to have been inspired by Renaissance paintings such as Madonna with the Long Neck by Parmigianino. This painting is no exception, with it having Modigliani’s distinctive longer neck, head, and eyes. Also, like many other portraits by the painter, the subject’s head sits at a tilt, which further accentuates the distinctive neck and adds to the artist's motifs.
As for who was Lunia Czechowska, she was a Pole born in Austria who had come to live in Paris in the early 1900s. He met Modigliani in 1916, and in fact, her husband was friends with Modigliani’s art dealer. Modigliani became infatuated with Czechowska and made repeated romantic attempts at her even though she was married. In total, he painted ten paintings of Czechowaska with him using rich colors to paint her and matching them with lighter colors for her clothes that accentuated her skin features.
Lot 18 | David Hockney (b.1937) | Between Kilham and Langtoft, Oil on canvas, in two parts
Painted in 2006
121.9 x 182.9 cm
Provenance:
- Richard Gray Gallery, Chicago
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2010
Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000 (Third-party guarantee) (around US$5-7.5 million)
Hockney is undoubtedly one of the great British artists of the 20th and 21st centuries. Born in Bradford in 1937, he became an integral part of the Pop Art movement on the British side of the Atlantic. Additionally, Hockney’s art wouldn’t just become influential but also financially successful, as in 2019 Christie’s New York sold his painting Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) for US$90.3 million, the then-record for the most expensive painting sold by a living artist.
In Between Kilham and Langtoft, Hockney continues his successful usage of his Pop Art style to paint abstractions and reimaginings of what he saw around him and pictures that he took, with this specific case being a painting of his native England. While frequently living in England throughout his life, along with the United States, Hockney never started painting his homeland until the 1990s.
This was sparked by the passing of Hockeny’s close friend and mother within a close span of each other, encouraging him to explore his love of his home country. This painting captures just that as he paints the countryside of Yorkshire, where he came from. He paints the fields and farmland in a way that has been described as both technical and evoking the space in accurate and commanding ways, all through the lens of his distinctive style.
Interestingly, while Hockney doesn't include any people in these paintings of rural England, such as farmhands, Hockney still refers to them as his “figure paintings,” perhaps seeing the scenery itself as his subject. Hockney viewed these works as portals, with him hoping that the viewer is sucked into the work and views the area as if we were actually there.
Lot 32 | Franz Marc (1880-1916) | Katzen, Rot und Weiß, Oil on panel
Painted in 1912
52 x 35 cm
Provenance:
- Levin, Berlin, by whom acquired at the Galerie Thannhauser exhibition in January 1913
- (probably) Prof. Schoene, [Berlin], by 1936
- Galerie Nierendorf, Berlin
- Senta Hildebrand, Berlin & Munich, by whom acquired from the above in the late 1930s
- Galerie Dr Rainer Horstmann, Düsseldorf & Hamburg, by whom acquired from the above in 1970
- Elinor Heins, Montreux, by whom acquired from the above in January 1970 and thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: £4,000,000-6,000,000 (around US$5-7.5 million)
A South German expressionist painter, Franz Marc, was a key figure in that movement in his native country. He published an almanac called the Der Blaue Reiter, which showcased the work of various German expressionists, creating a network of German expressionist painters that was burgeoning at the time. This painting was part of a wider body of work by Marc that perfectly illustrated his interests in wildlife, nature, and animals.
Marc sought to capture the energy that the animals exuded, particularly their emotions. While not exactly personifying them, he does capture them in a way that intensifies their facial features and expressions, something best seen with the smirk on the white cat in this painting. This profundity of emotion in these paintings was achieved by applying a degree of cubism and very bright colors to the animals he painted in order to accentuate certain ideas and emotions.
Color in this regard was very important as Marc associated certain colors with certain emotions. Spirituality was represented in blue, yellow was joy, and red was violence. This smattering of colors on this lot thus represents a complexity in thoughts and feelings Marc was perhaps feeling and seeking to paint and express.
Perhaps this dense and complex meaning and painting can be tied to what he viewed as the coming war in Europe. Regarding his famous painting Tierschicksale (1913), a painting that also exhibits a large array of colors like this lot, he told his wife that it was a premonition of the coming conflict and its horror. Marc would end up serving in the conflict, being killed in action in 1916, at the Battle of Verdun.
Lot 21 | Michael Andrews (1928-1996) | School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, Acrylic on canvas
Painted in 1978
175.5 x 175.5 cm
Provenance:
- Anthony d'Offay and James Kirkman, London
- Acquired from the above by Dr. Catherine Wills in 1979
Estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000 (Third-party guarantee) (around US$3.7-6.3 million)
The third of the British artists dominating the top six lots, Michael Andrews was born in 1928 and underwent an illustrious education in the fine arts across Europe. He studied in London and Rome before becoming an art teacher in the late 1950s. He was also part of the Norwich Twenty Group, an association of artists from the city of Norfolk, who still exist today and represent an array of art forms.
This Andrews painting is considered a masterwork and extremely rare, as it has been held in the same private collection since 1979 and occasionally appeared to the public while touring. In the work, he attempts to display human nature by portraying fish, equating the relationships and communities we form as people to a school of fish. Before starting this series of School paintings, Andrews stated that “identity and community—and identity in community; that’s my prevailing preoccupation—my prevailing idea.”
In each of the different School series paintings, Andrews sought to portray a different state of human community or interaction via his painting of fish. For example, in School II: Pike and Roach (1977), Andrews painted the tense encounter between predator and prey, while in School III: Butterfly Fish and Damsel Fish (1978), Andrews portrays ideas of uniformity but also colorful distinction.
In this lot, School IV: Barracuda under Skipjack Tuna, Andrews returns to ideas similar to those of School II, as to Andrews, the tuna are peaceful fish while the Barracuda talk under them with “warlike” intentions. They face opposite directions as Andrews uses his skill to weave together the dense background and distinct cutlass-like shape of the Barracuda into his painting.
To produce this work, Andrews would immerse himself in various photos taken of fish and underwater. He referred to short films shot underwater in the 1970s for inspiration, and he was captivated by the way color and motion worked underwater, like camouflage, noise, or even a wave of insects. As such, in this work, Andrews sought to capture more than just fish in their environment, but the balance of society and how individuals navigate it.
Other Highlighted Lots:
Lot 33 | Sigmar Polke (1941-2010) | Mondlandschaft mit Schilf, Dispersion on two different types of fabric
Painted in 1969
150 x 125 cm
Provenance:
- Heinz-Günter Prager Collection, Cologne
- Private Collection, Cologne (acquired from the above circa 1985) and thence by descent
- Anon. sale, Christie's London, 30 June 2015, lot 15
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000 (around US$3.7-6.3 million)
Lot 14 | Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) | Untitled, Oilstick on paper
Painted in 1983
127.7 x 250.2 cm
Provenance:
- Robert Miller Gallery, New York
- Private Collection (acquired from the above in 1995)
- Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, UK
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: £2,500,000-3,000,000 (around US$3.1-3.7 million)
Lot 19 | Frank Auerbach (1931-2024) | Primrose Hill - Early Summer, Oil on board
Painted in 1981-1982
101.6 x 127 cm
Provenance:
- Marlborough Fine Art Ltd., London.
- Magnus Konow Collection, Monaco (acquired from the above in 1983).
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2014
Estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000 (Third-party guarantee) (around US$2.5-3.7 million)
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie's London
Sale: 20th/21st Century: London Evening Sale
Date: 5 March 2025 | 6:00 pm (London Local Time)
Lots: 51