Harald Sohlberg, Autumn at Leangbukten, Oslofjord (Höst ved Leangbukten, Oslofjord), 1926. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Harald Sohlberg
Charlotte Gibbs, London Head of Auctions & Specialist, Head of Evening Sale
Depicting an ethereal, twilight moment on the banks of the Oslo Fjord, Harald Sohlberg’s Autumn at Leangbukten, Oslofjord (Höst ved Leangbukten, Oslofjord) is a masterwork from one of Norway’s most beloved Modern painters. Imbuing his canvases with luminescent and ethereal Nordic light, Sohlberg’s landscapes are both poetic and profound. Through the crystalline brushstrokes forming the wispy branches of the tree against the ebbing glow in the horizon, the present work showcases the artist’s handling of light and dark to depict the Norwegian coastal sky. Included in Sohlberg’s major self-titled exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 2019, this notable example is coming to auction alongside the Collection of Ambassador John. L. Loeb Jr. this season, reflecting a renewed institutional focus on Scandinavian Modernism.
Andy Warhol
Andy Warhol, Mao, 1973. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Babak Ibbetson, Researcher & Writer
I have selected Andy Warhol’s Mao for my specialist pick because the series signaled a decisive moment for the artist’s career and documented a significant shift in global foreign policy. After Warhol was nearly killed in 1968 following an assassination attempt, the infamous Mao series boldly motioned his full return to non-commissioned painting. Mao was realized at a time when the subject’s likeness was heavily circulated in the press, when Nixon became the first sitting President of the United States to visit the People’s Republic of China in 1972. Executed at the turning point of American and Chinese international relations, in the same impulse as his earlier portraits of American icons, Mao speaks to the force of media, the power of the image and the possibilities of the silkscreen.
Robert Longo
Robert Longo, Untitled (Gothic Tree), 2018. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Poppy Redfern, Administrator, Seller Services
Stoically towering over the viewer, Longo’s Gothic Tree imposes a feeling of grandeur that is worthy of the attention the image commands. The subject matter instantly calls on an ancient association of life and enlightenment, and the powerful forces of nature. Here, Longo presents a series of beautiful paradoxes — a symbol of life, ominously in a cycle of decay, the play of the foreground and negative space, and a subject so mighty, rendered from such a fragile and delicate material. Despite his working method having roots in photography, it is the work’s evocation of High Baroque masterpieces that seems so captivating to me — through the stark areas of white, situated against rich and deep tenebrism, we are presented with something so undeniably mesmerizing.
El Anatsui
El Anatsui, Zebra Square, 2007. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Christopher Phang-Lee, Cataloguer
For my specialist pick, I have to choose El Anatsui’s monumental Zebra Square from 2007. Standing in front of its intricate, interlocking folds, I’m confronted by the artist’s characteristically dense woven tapestry of found bottle caps, shimmering indeterminately in the light. Meditative yet emotive, it is a vibrant, hypertactile work defined by a cogent sense of cascading rhythm. In his bottle cap series, Anatsui challenges the formal boundaries of traditional art categories by weaving together a fabric-like cloth of cascading metal slivers and giving discarded objects new meaning. This form is deeply rooted in his cultural background and Ghanaian material culture, recalling traditional, handwoven Kente cloths. In the artist’s hands, Zebra Square makes manifest the special alchemy of artmaking, making metal malleable and transforming trash into treasure.
Thomas Schütte
Thomas Schütte, Head, 1977. Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, London.
Eloise Buchanan, Sale Manager
The psychological depth evident in Thomas Schütte’s Head is profoundly compelling. Through distortion and a rejection of idealization, Schütte explores the tension between repulsion and beauty within representations of the human condition. The monumental face — marked by furrowed brows and tightly-closed eyes — conveys evident unhappiness, yet this anguish is offset by the refined ceramic form and wicked green glaze. Curiosity and empathy are immediate, prompting the viewer to question if beauty can emerge from emotional discomfort. Coming from an important private European collection, Schütte’s work will be the focus of a major solo exhibition at the Kunstsammlung Düsseldorf in November later this year.
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