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 Alberto Giacometti's painted bronze "Chariot", one of six
that the Swiss sculptor made in the 1950s, is expected by
Sotheby's to sell for more than $100 million when it goes under
the hammer at an auction in New York next month.
The limestone "Tete" (Head) by the Italian Amedeo Modigliani,
who scavenged the stone he carved from a Metro construction site
in Paris in the early 1900s, is expected to fetch in excess of
$45 million.
"It's quite a room," Simon Shaw, co-head of contemporary and
modern art for Sotheby's said of the gallery where the
Giacometti and Modigliani dominated the floor space.
Three paintings by Mark Rothko were hung on the walls and a Van
Gogh "Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies" was visible in
an adjoining room.
In anticipation of the opening next week of the annual London
Frieze art show, where galleries from throughout the world show
their wares to the world's moneyed art collectors, Sotheby's
brought together offerings that will appear at several sales in
the coming months.
In addition to paintings and sculptures, both contemporary and
old masters, the items on display include a Patek Philippe watch
known as "The Henry Graves Supercomplication".
Sotheby's describes it as "the most famous watch in the world" -
and also the most expensive, with an estimated value of almost
10 million pounds.
The stars, though, are the Giacometti and the Modigliani, which
Shaw said exemplify the huge increase in value for sculpture in
recent years, a trend which began in 2010 when a life-sized
bronze "Walking Man" by Giacometti sold in London for 65 million
pounds, almost four times its pre-sale estimate.
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"He's one of those artists like (painter Francis) Bacon who's been
reappraised and with hindsight he is understood to have captured or
represented a particular historical moment in the way that (Andy)
Warhol represents the 1960s, Jeff Koons the 1980s or Damien Hirst
the early 2000s," Shaw said.
He said Giacometti was inspired by the Egyptian sculptures that he
saw in the galleries of the Louvre in Paris, and had made his
goddess riding a chariot as "an image of hope and renewal".
Unusually for Giacometti, but in keeping with Egyptian sculpture,
the figurine atop the chariot is bathed in a golden patina and the
details of her hair, eyes, nose and mouth have been painted onto the
bronze.
Shaw said the Modigliani was one of a group of "temple goddesses"
that the artist kept in his Paris studio where he used to place
candles atop them at night and he and his friends "prayed in front
them and did a ritual thing".
The bust is instantly recognizable as a Modigliani for the elongated
face. Shaw said the form showed the influence of African and
Etruscan art on the artist, who is probably better known as a
painter because for most of his life he could not afford stone for
sculpting.
The limestone used for the "Tete" was one of several stone blocks
that Modigliani and his friends would take at night from
construction sites for the Paris Metropolitain.
What Modigliani and Giacometti had in common, Shaw added, was that
"they're both inspired by the antique".
(Editing by Larry King)
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