“The tower was his liberated muse, his Eve of the future… The Tower addresses the universe.”
—Sonia DelaunayRobert Delaunay was four years old when the Eiffel Tower was erected in Paris in the public green space known as the Champ de Mars for the 1889 the Paris International Exposition; with its soaring wrought iron girders, the tower stood as a symbol of progress, innovation, and modernity. Scaffolding upon its progressive reputation, Delaunay explored the developments of Cubist fragmentation in his renditions of the tower, presenting the landmark and its surrounding buildings from various perspectives simultaneously. In La Tour (The Tower)—a lithograph based on a painting presently in the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum—the tower becomes mountainous through Delaunay's eye, infused with the dynamism of modern life: the structure’s towering presence is accentuated by framing it with tall buildings and placing smaller, shorter buildings – rendered from a more aerial perspective – at its base. As a result, the tower seems to soar, bending and distorting the surrounding city as it climbs into a fractured sky. Meanwhile, the buildings bracketing the tower frame the image like window drapery.
Robert Delaunay, Eiffel Tower (Tour Eiffel), 1911, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York. Image: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation/Art Resource, NY/ Scala, Florence Like the soaring vaults of Gothic cathedrals, the Eiffel Tower is a uniquely French symbol of invention and aspiration; Delaunay’s La Tour celebrates the enthusiastic feeling for progress that pervaded the modern Parisian metropolis, just as the sight of the monumental structure itself remained visible throughout the capital city.
Provenance
Henri M. Petiet inkstamp on the reverse (Lugt 5031)
Galerie Kornfeld, Bern, Switzerland, Kunstwerke des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts Gegenwartskunst, June 13, 2013, lot 289Literature
Jacqueline Loyer and Charles Perusseaux 3
163
La Tour (The Tower) (L. & P. 3)
1925
Lithograph, on cream Japan paper, with full margins.
I. 24 1/4 x 17 1/2 in. (61.6 x 44.5 cm)
S. 25 5/8 x 20 in. (65.1 x 50.8 cm)
Signed 'R. Delaunay' and annotated 'epreuve d'artiste' in pencil, additionally titled and dated in the stone, a rich impression, from a small edition, unframed.
Estimate
$18,000 - 25,000
editions@phillips.com
212-940-1220
Editions & Works on Paper
New York Auction 16 - 17 April
