Market Preview
A rediscovered Watteau, a poetic Turner and pioneering Op Art go under the hammer this month, and London dealers present Master Drawings, including Lucian Freud’s portrait of a young criminal.
Susan Moore, Sunday, 22nd June 2008
The life of a Riley
London’s summer contemporary art season slips into July this year. Sotheby’s 1 July sale offers anything but a postscript, not least Bridget Riley’s Chant 2. Billed as the most important painting by the artist ever to come to auction, it is her first essay in pure colour. As such, it must rank as a pivotal painting for an artist who went on to explore to stunning effect the gamut of perceptual and emotional responses to colour. Until then, this Op Art pioneer had limited herself to contrasts of black and white, later mediated by greys. This characteristically large-scale work, executed in 1967, was part of a show at the 34th Venice Biennale the following year that won her the International Prize for Painting. It has been in most subsequent retrospectives ever since. Chant 2 now takes its bow at Sotheby’s with an estimate of £2m-£3m.
1 Boy in a Red and Blue Jacket by Lucian Freud (b. 1922) c. 1945. Pencil, coloured chalks and pastel on brown Ingres paper, 63.5 x 48 cm. Stephen Ongpin Fine Art at Master Drawings in London (5-11 July). Enquiries: +44 (0) 20 7930 8813
2 Bajan riñendo (They Go Down Quarrelling) by Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (1746-1828), after 1796. Brush and grey wash, with scraping, 23.4 x 14.3 cm. Christie’s, London, Old Master and 19th-Century Drawings (8 July), estimate: £800,000- £1.2m. Enquiries: +44 (0)20 7839 9060
3 La Surprise by Jean- Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), c. 1718-19. Oil on panel, 36.3 x 28.2 cm. Christie’s, London, Old Master & British Pictures (8 July), estimate: £3m-£5m. Enquiries: +44 (0) 20 7389 282
4 Chant 2 by Bridget Riley (b. 1931), 1967. Emulsion on canvas, 231.1 x 228.6 cm. Sotheby’s, London, Contemporary Art (1 July), estimate: £2m-£3m. Enquiries: + 44 (0)20 7293 5000
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