Impressionist/Modern and Contemporary ArtBy Judd Tully
Published: May 2, 2008
Portrait de Caroline, 1963 Estimate $10-15 million Sotheby’s Imp/mod “My colleagues admonish me, ‘Paint with colors,’” Giacometti, whose oils are dominated by smoky hues, has been quoted as saying. “Isn’t gray a color too?” Contemporary-art collectors seem to think so, showing their appreciation of works displaying the Swiss-born artist’s minimalist palette by driving prices for his canvases almost to the peaks achieved by his far better-known sculptures. Last November at Christie’s New York, the 1964 painting Annette au manteau (est. $5–7 million) fetched $11.2 million, and this past February at Christie’s London, his Buste, 1947 (est. £2–3 million; $4–6 million), made £5.6 million ($11.2 million). Before those two sales, the highest price for a Giacometti canvas at auction was $3.2 million. Caroline was the 62-year-old artist’s temperamental 25-year-old brunette muse and lover, whom he reportedly nicknamed Grisaille, in homage to the monochromatic tones of his oil paintings. His 1963 portrait of her—in which his affinity for gray is evident—captures her intense gaze as she sits demurely, her hands folded on her lap. In the lower left corner is a tiny burn hole made by the cigarette Giacometti, a heavy smoker, held in his left hand while painting with his right. Caroline acquired the portrait after Giacometti’s death, in 1966, but sold it later that year to Galerie Claude Bernard, in Paris. It will be of keen interest this season to compare the sale price of this painting with those of three major Giacometti bronzes being offered: Femme de Venise VIII, 1956 (est. $8–10 million), also at Sotheby’s; Grande femme debo ut II, 1960 (est. on request, about $18–25 million), at Christie’s the previous night; and La place II, conceived in 1948 and cast in 1949 (est. on request, about $12 million), also at Christie’s.
Andy Warhol Among the Hollywood legends represented in Warhol’s oeuvre, Marlon Brando turns up relatively rarely. The artist first depicted the actor in 1963, with Silver Marlon, and briefly returned to the subject in 1966, creating just eight versions of the composition, including this one. The source image for this series was a black-and-white publicity shot from the 1954 film The Wild One that shows Brando in a leather jacket and stiff-brimmed motorcycle cap, posing on his Triumph bike with a race trophy strapped to the handlebars. The film was unexceptional, but Brando created a sensation as the rebellious leader of a motorcycle gang that terrorizes a small American town. In Double Marlon, the right third of the linen canvas is filled with two identical silkscreens of this photograph stacked one on top of the other, while the left two-thirds are completely bare. The seven-by-eight-foot painting has an all-star provenance, having belonged to Charles Saatchi and, after him, Ronald Lauder, with Larry Gagosian handling several of its transfers of ownership. The anonymous consignor acquired the work in 2001 for approximately $6 million in a private transaction, according to Brett Gorvy, the international cohead of postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s; some sources say the deal was brokered by London dealer Ivor Braka. Double Marlon failed to sell when it first appeared at auction, at Christie’s New York in May 1980. It was more successful in November 1983 at Sotheby’s New York, where Saatchi bought it for $49,500 (est. $60–80,000), and in November 1992, also at Sotheby’s New York, when it was picked up for $935,000 (est. $1–1.25 million). Several other versions of the composition have appeared at auction, including a single Marlon from 1966 (est. $1.5–2 million), which sold at Sotheby’s New York in May 1999 to Jose Mugrabi for $2.6 million, and a 41-by-46-inch one (est. $4–5 million), which fetched $5 million at Christie’s New York in May 2003.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
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