From left: Alberto Burri Grande Legno e Rosso, 1957-59 and Joan Miró Femme dans la nuit, 1945 on view at Phillips Berkeley Square in London
This season in New York and London, we invite everyone to become an auction insider with first looks at upcoming sale highlights. On view from Friday 28 September through Friday 5 October—in conjunction with our 20th Century & Contemporary Art Day & Evening Sales at Phillips Berkeley Square—are a group of works from artists spanning the twentieth century, each of which will come to auction on 15 November in New York.
Visit Phillips Berkeley Square to see these pre- and post-war paintings and sculpture by Jean Dubuffet, Carmen Herrera and Alberto Burri, among others, or read our specialists' insights below.
Giorgio Morandi Natura Morta, 1930
Inviting us into the ethereal microcosm of the Giorgio Morandi's famous tabletop still-lifes, Natura Morta is an exceptional painting by the Italian artist that powerfully conveys the new formal direction the artist was beginning to take in the 1930s. Distinguished as one of the largest still-life paintings in the artist's oeuvre and the largest of only five painted in 1930, Natura Morta was exhibited in some of Morandi’s most seminal exhibitions, including his solo presentation at the XXXIII Venice Biennial in 1966. The work was notably held in the collection of Duchess Marguerite Caetani di Sermoneta and her heirs ever since its acquisition. Living between France and Italy, the American-born Duchess was a passionate patron and collector of the arts who played a crucial role in championing Morandi's work.
Joan Miró Femme dans la nuit, 1945
Joan Miró's Femme dans la nuit is a remarkable painting that art historian Charles Stuckey has heralded as the Catalan master's Guernica. Painted against the backdrop of World War II, it belongs to Miró's acclaimed series of 14 large paintings created between 26 January and 7 May 1945, of which other examples reside in institutional collections including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Dusseldorf and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. Painted on 22 March in Spain, Femme dans la nuit is an important example from this group, its singular importance reflected in its inclusion in the artist's seminal retrospective at the Musée national d’Art moderne in Paris in 1962. It was acquired in in 1947 by Pierre Matisse, Miró's most significant art dealer from 1933.
Jean Dubuffet Mademoiselle Mine Orange, 1950
Painted in March 1950, Jean Dubuffet's Mademoiselle mine orange is one of a handful of female portraits the artists created in the months leading up to his highly acclaimed series Corps de Dames. Drawing the viewer in with its raw immediacy and unusual chromatic vibrancy, but also humorous undertones, the crudely etched portrait depicts a woman with a wide-eyed stare, toothy grimace and loop-like hair that would come to characterize many of the figures in Dubuffet's Corps de Dames shortly thereafter. This will be the first time that Mademoiselle mine orange will be shown in public since its inclusion Dubuffet's seminal retrospective at Kunsthalle Schirn, Frankfurt, in 1990-1991.
Jean Dubuffet Le Malentendu, 1976
Formerly in the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, Jean Dubuffet's Le Malentendu, 1976, is a striking example of the artist's celebrated late series, Théâtres de mémoire. Recalling the frenzied action and kaleidoscope of color of his earlier Paris Circus series as well as the interlocking cellular components of the l'Hourloupe cycle, Le Malentendu powerfully encapsulates Dubuffet's continued nuanced engagement with the theme of mental landscapes to explore the vicissitudes of memory. As Hilton Kramer aptly noted of Théâtres de mémoire, "the artist is offering us a kind of Proustian remembrance and grand summation of the imagery and ideas that have remained his abiding interests for some 35 years."
Alberto Burri Grande Legno e Rosso, 1957-59
Monumental and absorbing in scale, Alberto Burri's Grande legno e rosso, 1957-1959, is a masterwork of exceptional quality. This colossal painting features the combination of wood and fire that Burri had only recently introduced into his work, placing it at the vanguard of his oeuvre. Remaining in the same family's ownership since its acquisition from the famed Galleria La Tartuga in Rome shortly after its exhibition there, Grande legno e rosso has rarely been seen publicly. It was notably included in the critically-acclaimed 2015 retrospective of Burri's work held at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, making the presentation if this picture at auction only the second occasion it has been shown publically since 1960.
Carmen Herrera Blanco y Verde, 1966
Carmen Herrera's Blanco y Verde, 1966, is the most significant painting by the artist to come to auction. Prominently exhibited in Herrera's retrospective at the Kunstsammlung NRW, Dusseldorf, in 2017-2018, it is one of the few paintings still in private hands from Herrera's seminal Blanco y Verde series that she created between 1959 to 1971. Of the 15 known paintings from that series, other examples are included in such prominent collections as the Tate, London, The Whitney Museum of American Art, the Smithsonian, D.C. and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Considered by Herrera herself as the most important series, it closely relates to her most recent sculptural body of work, the Estructuras, that are currently on view at Lisson Gallery in New York.
Henri Laurens La Lune, 1946
Henri Laurens' La Lune is a beautiful example of the French artist's biomorphic and organic approach to sculpture. Executed in 1946, the white marble sculpture is exemplary of Laurens' hopeful and hedonistic outlook following the end of World War II. Referencing the theme of the moon from Greco-Roman mythology, Laurens has here rendered the female figure with the roundness of the full moon. La Lune marked a significant period in the artist's career — he was represented at the Venice Biennale in 1948 and 1950, and in 1951 a major retrospective of his work was mounted at the Musée National d'Art Moderne in Paris in 1951.
Viewing 28 September - 4 October
30 Berkeley Square, London (map)
Friday 28 September 10am-6pm
Saturday 29 September 10am-6pm
Sunday 30 September 12pm-6pm
Monday 1 October 10am-7pm
Tuesday 2 October 10am-8pm
Wednesday 3 October 10am-6pm
Thursday 4 October 10am-2pm