Valentine Hugo - Editions & Works on Paper New York Thursday, February 15, 2024 | Phillips

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  • “The theatre seemed to be shaken by an earthquake…There was something wonderful about the titanic struggle which must have been going on in order to keep these inaudible musicians and these deafened dancers together, in obedience to the laws of their invisible choreographer. The ballet was astoundingly beautiful.”
    —Valentine Hugo

     

    In the quote above, Valentine Hugo, neé Gross, marvels at the full-bodied energy of the crowd on the opening night of composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky’s new ballet Le Sacre du Printemps (The Rite of Spring), performed by the Ballets Russes at the Theâtré des Champs Elysées in Paris on May 29, 1913. Hugo avidly depicted dynamic and delicate movement of dancers through drawing, particularly at the beginning of her career. In 1909, she discovered Nijinsky and was immediately enthralled by his choreography’s agility and emotion. His dances and dancers inspired a series of drawings, prints, and paintings in which Hugo masterfully illustrates the gestural grace of their movements, like quick snapshots taken in the blink of an eye. While Nijinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps played at the Theâtré des Champs Elysées, Hugo exhibited 100 of her pastels in the theater’s foyer to accompany the show. Man Ray emphasizes her intrinsic link to the Parisian art world: “Valentine Hugo, called The Queen of Diamonds, is influenced by the most brilliant painters, poets and musicians of our time.”i She played host to her contemporaries’ artistic endeavors, taking on the role of confidant and muse for many, including poet and playwright Jean Cocteau and composer Erik Satie. Hugo would later explore Surrealism, guided by friendships with André Breton, Salvador Dalí, and Max Ernst.

     

    This drawing in graphite depicts the ballerina Maria Piltz mid leap while dancing in Le Sacre du Printemps on opening night. Piltz was cast as the Chosen Maid, sent to be sacrificed at the end of the ballet. In simple marks, Hugo captures the almost weightless nature of the dance, the dancer’s body lifted in ascension. The notes below allow the viewer to imagine the sound accompanying her serpentine movements. The ff sempre, written between the clefs, tells the musician to play strong and stable as Piltz remains fluid, bereft with the grief of her character’s impending sacrifice.

     

     

    “I’m not interested in style... I’m interested in looking.”
    —Robert Bechtle

     

    The collection of Robert Bechtle and Whitney Chadwick, assembled over their nearly forty-year marriage, reflects Bechtle’s legacy as a preeminent Photorealist along with Chadwick’s expertise as a historian and scholar. With works by Wayne Thiebaud, Ed Ruscha, and Leonora Carrington, among others, their extensive collection of editions and works on paper represents many of Bechtle’s fellow Bay Area artists, notable names in Pop, and female figureheads of Modernism and Surrealism whom Chadwick championed through her writings and teachings.  

     

    Known for his tightly detailed renderings of suburban landscapes and vintage cars, Bechtle is considered one of the founding Photorealists, a set of artists who used photographs as a point of departure for their hyperrealist art. Such interest in notions of realism permeate the works on offer, presenting a multitude of the artistic methodologies for interpreting the world: a visual interpretation of the musicality and movement of a ballet, postmodern representations of landscape, a surreal memory of a childhood home, and even different artists’ renditions of Bechtle himself. Following his passing at the age of 88 in 2020, Bechtle’s legacy persists through his collection, inspiring the continued search for unexpected beauty in the everyday.

     

     

    Translated from the original French, “Valentine Hugo appelée, La Dame de Carreau, est marquée par les peintres, les poètes, et les musiciens les plus géniaux de notre temps,” May Ran quoted in Victoria Combalía, Dominique Rabourdin, and Nadine Ribault, Valentine Hugo: Le Carnaval des Ombres, p. 12.

    • Provenance

      Decor Gallery, London
      Acquired from the above by the present owner

Property from the Robert Bechtle and Whitney Chadwick Trust, San Francisco, California

11

Lot offered with No Reserve

Untitled (Dancer with Music Notes)

1913
Unique graphite drawing, on wove paper.
7 1/2 x 5 in. (19.1 x 12.7 cm)
Signed with initials 'V.G' in pencil for 'Valentine Gross', framed.

Full Cataloguing

Estimate
$1,000 - 1,500 

Sold for $381

Editions & Works on Paper

New York Auction 15 February 2024