AO Auction Preview: Picasso and Gauguin Lead Impressionist & Modern Art Sales at Sotheby's & Christie's in London February 7-8th, 2011
Sunday, February 6th, 2011
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Pablo Picasso, La Lecture, 1932 (est. £12–18 million), via Sothebys.com
February’s round of major art auctions begins in London next week with Impressionist & Modern sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. On Tuesday evening Sotheby’s will offer forty-two lots estimated to bring between £55-79 million. Sotheby’s will also hold a 60-lot sale of Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary works titled “Looking Closely: A Private Collection” on Thursday, February 10th that is expected to fetch up to £54 million. All the works in that sale are from the collection of George Kostalitz, a Geneva-based collector who died last year. Christie’s forty-six lot evening sale on Wednesday is estimated to bring £54-80 million and, as was the case last year, will be immediately followed by a thirty-one lot auction of Surrealist works estimated to fetch an additional £19-28 million. While it is uncertain whether these auctions will produce a buzz-worthy sale on par with last year’s £65 million paid for Giacometti’s L’Homme Qui Marche I, both houses are offering a number of strong works led by canvases by Picasso and Gauguin.
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Alberto Giacometti, Diego, 1958 (est. £3–5 million), via Sothebys.com
more images and story after the jump…