The Vanthournout Collection Auction Catalog * Sotheby's * MINT 2006. Original Limited Edition Sotheby's Auction Catalog > The Vanthournout Collection, Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, said: “ The Vanthournout Collection is the result of the 40-year-long single-minded pursuit of quality by two extraordinary collectors, following their own instincts and their remarkable eye, to acquire the art that appealed to them. The Collection has the distinction of representing the aesthetic range of two artistic generations of European and American Modern and Contemporary Art. Few collections have continued to grow over the years as the Vanthournouts’ has, with acquisitions of Expressionists in the 1960’s right through to the acquisition of a Damien Hirst dot painting in the last few years. ” Anthony Grant, Sotheby’s international senior specialist of Contemporary Art, continued: “The Vanthournout Collection is a testament to connoisseurship - international in its scope and ahead of its time. It proves that works from varying decades and cultures, in a variety of mediums, iconic in its selection can coexist under one roof. In the Vanthournout Collection the avant-garde European painting of Francis Bacon and Piero Manzoni, the reductive minimalism of Josef Albers, Robert Ryman, Carl Andre, Dan Flavin, Sol Lewitt and Robert Mangold, and the bold Pop and conceptual works of Tom Wesselmann, Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Artschwager and John Baldessari, inform the paintings and sculpture from the most recent decade by artists such as Gerhard Richter, Jean Michel Basquiat, Cindy Sherman, Gilbert and George, Damien Hirst, and Anish Kapoor.” The Vanthournout Collection. Highlighting the Collection is one of the Vanthournouts’ earliest acquisitions, a Francis Bacon masterpiece, Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe (pictured on page 1), 1968, which was partly based on Henrietta Moraes, a key member of Bacon’s inner circle and a fellow regular at Soho’s Colony Club in London, which Bacon frequented. Bacon is considered Britain’s pre-eminent painter of the last half century, excelling in the area of figurative art and portraiture. Bacon preferred to paint while sequestered in his studio, relying predominantly on the combination of memory and photographic material. This monumental painting is one of Bacon’s first forays into the great proving ground of Western art: the reclining female nude. In Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe, flowing hair and the riotous body manifest on its surface an inner turmoil as his expressive subject writhes in the grips of a very modern nightmare, a drug trip, although Bacon claimed that the syringe had a purely visual purpose with no sinister connotations. In Bacon’s painting, which combines ecstasy and overdose, pleasure and pain, sleep and death, he achieves a level of pure mastery and a visual poetry that is shocking and beautiful, brutally honest and yet profoundly empathetic, making Version No. 2 of Lying Figure with Hypodermic Syringe a masterpiece with few equals in the whole of his long and stellar career. The work is estimated to sell for $9/12 million. Another cornerstone of the Contemporary offerings is Gerhard Richter’s large-scale, brightly-colored painting Maria (544-4), 1983 (pictured here, est. $2.5/3.5 million). Richter’s creative vision, one that is centered on the artist’s process and procedures as well as how the mechanics of painting affect the dynamic and structure of composition, is evident here in a superlative example of his love affair with the physicality of paint. Its extraordinary interplay of brilliant explosions of fizzing color with dynamic sequences of soft, undulating grounds, injects this painting with a visual momentum that is unsurpassed in this period. This beautifully printed numbered and limited edition catalog consists of 131 pages ( with many many photographs , illustrations , essays and detailed comprehensive information on many pieces in the collection ) and is printed in lush 6 color production on heavy 120 gsm semi-sheen high-end art paper. Softcover measures 9" inches wide by 11.75" inches high , this is a rare limited edition catalog by Christie's that is now out of print. Will be carefully wrapped in bubble-wrap and double-boxed and shipped via Priority Mail with Delivery Confirmation and Tracking. Please email with any questions before purchasing if you are unsure about something. We ONLY accept Money Orders , Cashiers Checks or U.S. Cash as payment ( we do NOT accept personal checks or online payment at all ). Please email about local pick-up , we are located in NYC in Times Square. All International Customers MUST email us before purchasing this item.
