Selected 20/21: from André Derain to Germaine Richier via Simon Hantaï and Joan Mitchell

As Art Basel Paris returns to the Grand Palais, Artcurial offers Modern and Contemporary art collectors a new opportunity with Selected 20/21, during which an exceptional painting by André Derain.

This auction will feature a hand-picked selection of major works, from the early years of the 20th century to the avant-garde of the 21st, with outstanding pieces by Joan Mitchell, Simon Hantaï and Jean Fautrier.

Among the highlights of this sale is a monumental masterpiece by sculptor Germaine Richier: her famous Don Quichotte, created in 1950-1951. 

Alongside La Tauromachie and La Montagne, Don Quichotte stands out as one of Germaine Richier's major monumental works. In this piece, the sculptor, fully mastering her art, reinvents Cervantes' hero to express the tragic dignity of human existence, as noted by Alain Jouffroy. Richier excels in exploring hybridisation: the slender silhouette of the hero, which evokes a human being, is transformed by legs moulded from long branches of trees. This transformation creates an 'enchanted resemblance', presenting a Don Quichotte of the forest, as its original title suggested.  

From a French private collection, this example of Don Quichotte presented at Artcurial benefits from a well-documented history. In nearly thirty years, only four examples of Don Quichotte have been offered at auction.

For the first time ever, André Derain's rare 1905 painting Le Port de Collioure will be auctioned. This iconic painting was recently exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and at the Museum of Houston in spring 2024, in the exhibition Vertigo of Color: Matisse, Derain and the Origins of Fauvism.

In the summer of 1905, André Derain joined his friend Henri Matisse in Collioure, a small Catalan fishing port. Together, they produced a series of paintings in pure color, now considered masterpieces of the French avant-garde movement known as Fauvism. Like all the works Derain created that summer, Le Port de Collioure was acquired by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard after the famous Salon d'Automne of the same year.

This painting is one of the rare treasures from this key period in art history, still in the possession of a private collector at the dawn of the 20th century.

Twentieth-century contemporary art will be celebrated through two emblematic figures of the Parisian gallery Jean Fournier: six works by Joan Mitchell, and the artwork Etude by Simon Hantaï. In 1955, gallery owner Jean Fournier befriended Simon Hantaï, whom he supported and exhibited until his own death in 2006, playing a crucial role in the evolution of the artist's work.

Among the masterpieces, Les lignes colorées by Jean Fautrier illustrates the “haute pâte” technique developed by the artist as early as 1940. Heaps of plaster, colored with oil, watercolor, pastel or pigment, are applied with a spatula to sheets of marouflaged paper, giving his work a rapidity of execution characteristic of his art.

Exhibition
From October 14 to October 18, 2024 - 11am-6pm

Auction
Selected 20/21
Friday, October 18, 2024

Contact
Sophie Cariguel
Tél. +33 1 42 99 20 04