Press Release London

For Immediate Release

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | Matthew.Weigman@sothebys.com Sarah Rustin | Sarah.Rustin@sothebys.com | Leyla Daybelge | Leyla.Daybelge@sothebys.com New York Lauren Gioia | Lauren.Gioia@sothebys.com

SOTHEBYS LONDON FEBRUARY IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART EVENING SALE TO FEATURE MUSEUM-QUALITY WORKS FROM EVERY KEY PERIOD IN THE CANON
Highlights Include a Major 1933 Painting by Joan Mir, a Rediscovered Masterpiece by Gustav Klimt and a Previously Unseen Claude Monet Snowscape

Joan Mir, Peinture, 1933, oil on canvas, 7-10 million*

SOTHEBYS LONDON, Tuesday 10th January, 2012 --- On 8th February 2012, Sothebys London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale will offer a selection of works of exceptional quality and importance. Highlights include Joan Mirs monumental Peinture of 1933, estimated at 7-10 million, Gustav Klimts recently rediscovered landscape Seeufer mit Birken (est. 6 - 8 million), which has not been seen in public in over a century, a rare and atmospheric winter scene by Claude Monet, Lentre de Giverny en hiver (est. 4.5 - 6.5 million), and one of Fernand Lgers definitive compositions of the 1940s, La Jeune fille l'chelle (est. 3.8 4.5 million). The auction features a particularly strong Surrealist group, with works by Salvador Dal, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Yves Tanguy and Ren Magritte, as well as an outstanding group of paintings by German artists including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Lyonel Feininger and Otto Dix. The sale is estimated to realise in excess of 78 million. Helena Newman, Chairman, Sothebys Impressionist and Modern Art, Europe, said: We are delighted to present a wonderfully rich and varied sale to collectors, with many works of museum quality from every key period in the Impressionist to Modern canon. Many of the works are appearing at auction for the first time or returning to the market after many decades in private collections. Peinture, a monumental masterpiece by visionary Modernist Joan Mir, estimated at 7 - 10 million (illustrated above) is one of the strongest and most refined works of a series of paintings considered to hold a vital position at the pinnacle of Modern Art. It is one of the few works from this series that is not currently housed in a major museum.

Executed in Paris in 1933, it was during this intensely creative period that Mir first broke away from any discernable influences and created wholly unique works. Mir saw these works as a personal breakthrough and referred to them in a letter to Matisse as a great success that might mark a red letter day in my career. The critical reception of these paintings was unprecedented for Mir, signifying a major turning point in his career. In the same family collection since 1924, Claude Monets previously unseen Lentre de Giverny en hiver (est. 4.5 - 6.5 million, pictured on page one) depicts the snow-covered road leading into the town on the outskirts of Paris which would become synonymous with the artists most innovative compositions. Monet and his family moved to Giverny in 1883 and the present work, painted in 1885, is one of the artists first significant depictions of his new surroundings. Monets pictures from this era exemplified his interest in the transformative power of the elements on the natural world, in particular the unique properties of winter light which presented temporal and tonal challenges that appealed to Monets most profound sensibilities as a landscape painter. For most of its history, the painting has been in the famed collection formed in the 1920s by Parisian pharmacist and industrialist Henri Canonne. Following Sothebys recent sale of Gustav Klimts Litzlberg am Attersee (Litzlberg on the Attersee) for the remarkable sum of $40.4 million (est. in excess of $25 million) in the November Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York, a major highlight of the February London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale is Gustav Klimts recently rediscovered masterpiece of 1901 Seeufer mit Birken (Lakeshore with Birches). The painting (illustrated on the previous page) has not been seen in public for over a century and is estimated to fetch 6 - 8 million. Coming to auction in the year of the 150th birthday of the painter, it is a work of haunting beauty that stands at the very axis of Klimts modernism. Acquired in 1902 from an exhibition in Dusseldorf by distinguished collectors Richard and Klara Koenigs-Bunge, Seeufer mit Birken has remained in the same family for over a century. A FULL PRESS RELEASE ON
THIS WORK IS AVAILABLE FROM THE PRESS OFFICE ON REQUEST

One of Fernand Lgers definitive compositions of the 1940s, La Jeune fille l'chelle is a boldly modelled work of 1949 estimated at 3.8 4.5 million. Executed with an extraordinarily expressive palette, and contrasting the rarefied and elitist aesthetic of post-war abstraction, these paintings were intended to appeal to the public with a more comprehensible, figurative style and subject matter. The work exemplifies Lger's firm commitment to neoclassical figuration and his fascination with the expressive potential of colour the two defining stylistic factors of his work during the last decade of his life. In the present work he has rendered the pictorial elements with a sharp clarity that is characteristic of his mature work, using a vivid plane of primary colour for the background, and articulating the pictorial elements' contours with bold, black lines.

Recognised as one of Edouard Vuillards masterworks, Les Couturires (pictured on following page) is estimated at 3 - 5 million. Vuillard painted this work in 1890 at the start of his involvement with the Nabis painters who, following the example of Gauguin, eschewed traditional representation to develop their own pictorial language.

Vuillard was fascinated by the rich ambiguities of the domestic space and the figures in the work are likely to have been his mother and sister, who were his constant muses. His predilection for domestic interiors finds clear lineage in the works of the Dutch and French Old Masters, and the artist sought similar intimacy in his domestic scenes, though using entirely different means. The vibrant colour palette of the present painting is characteristic of Vuillards work of this period and with its historical motif and formal eloquence, it offers a rare glimpse into the artists revolutionary work at the end of the 19th century. Offered for sale for the first time in a generation, Georges Braques LOliveraie (est. 2 3 million) provides - with unprecedented force - a rare glimpse into the Fauve revolution at the beginning of the 20th century and Braques seminal contribution to the movement. Braque was inspired by the unrestrained colour and spontaneous brushstrokes of his contemporaries, including Matisse and Derain, though chose to depict the rich terrain of the Provenal landscape as opposed to the port towns of the South of France. Braques explosive Fauve period ended quickly when he turned to the Cubist idiom, and the rarity of his Fauve canvases make them all the more valuable to these early moments of Modernism.

Following on from the successful prices achieved by Sothebys for Surrealist works in recent sales, the auction includes An outstanding selection of Surrealist works Salvador Dals iconic oil, Oasis, estimated at 4 - 6 million, holds a vital position in the Surrealist canon and was created at the height of his successful years in New York. With a sophisticated manipulation of form and imagery that distinguishes the artist's most successful compositions, Oasis presents a dreamscape with the inimitable sense of mystery particular to the artists mature works. Dal described the composition as The visible lovers. At the approach to the oasis, Apollo and Venus materialize in empty space. By grace of the desert flower, they rise into view from the aridity of the rock. Regarded as one of Giorgio de Chirico's most successful metaphysical compositions, Ettore e Andromaca of 1925-30 (est. 2.8 4 million) is a monumental and boldly coloured work which reveals the immense effect that de Chirico's early works had upon the course of Surrealist art. The director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Alfred H. Barr, Jr., described the work as 'by far the most powerful of all Chirico's versions of this theme'. Drawing on the iconography of the metaphysical paintings for which de Chirico is best known, the present works subject is taken from Homer's The Iliad, which the artist transformed into a meditation on love and war in the early 20th century. The work depicts the last meeting between the Trojan warrior Hector and his wife Andromeda before he departs for his final, ill-fated battle - a poignant last moment between two lovers during wartime which held great meaning at the end of the First World War. Combining the mechanised aesthetic with the metaphysical space in which the scene is taking place, the subject of this work established not only one of the most enduring themes of de Chirico's painting, but also played a crucial role in the development of Modern Art. A
DEDICATED PRESS RELEASE IS AVAILABLE ON REQUEST

Yves Tanguys Deux fois du noir (est. 2 - 3 million) exemplifies the refined and personal language with which Tanguy transformed the boundaries of Modernist painting. In this oil on canvas, painted in 1941, Tanguy presents a brilliant hyper-reality that embodies the aims of the Surrealist movement. He had been invited to become a member of the Surrealist group in 1925 by Andr Breton and went on to demonstrate his accomplishment in the oeuvre with his complete command of a new personal Surrealist language. By the 1940s his work had entered a new maturity, as his forms became more complex in their refinement and the horizon lines which had supported his earlier works gave way to atmospheric perspective. With its richly complex interaction of fantastical figures and potent landscape, La Comdie de la soif (est. 1.2 - 1.8 million) is a masterpiece of Max Ernsts wartime oeuvre. The work was executed in 1941 - shortly after his arrival in New York with a sense of revelatory determination - and exemplifies the sense of excitement and possibility that the artist felt in his early years in the city. Here Ernst incorporates recognizable figures amid textured explosions of colour in a painting that demonstrates the artists profound power of expression and novelty of technique.

A STRONG OFFERING OF WORKS BY GERMAN ARTISTS

Ernest Ludwig Kirchners monumental Das Boskett: Albertplatz in Dresden (est. 5 7 million) of 1911 is a highly sophisticated blend of Brcke boldness allied with cosmopolitan allure, and its unique rendering of the cityscape secured Kirchners position as the most influential of all the Brcke artists. Executed in the same year that Kirchner and the Brcke group moved from Dresden to Berlin, the painting was one of the artists last canvases to depict the topography of Dresden - a recurrent theme in his oeuvre and the city where he came of age as an artist and as a man. The idiosyncratic colour palette renders the painting emblematic of Kirchners new-found voice and his confidence in the Expressionistic idiom. The present work represents a powerful precursor of the extraordinarily daring cityscapes which would follow in Berlin. Emil Noldes Blumengarten, ohne Figur (est. 2 3 million) is an outstanding example of the artists important early flower and garden paintings and belongs amongst his most compelling works. His technique of using thick impasto to build an almost relief-like surface marked him out to his younger contemporaries, including Kirchner and Heckel, as a truly innovative artist whose style greatly influenced their formative careers. In 1903 Nolde moved to a village on the island of Alsen, where he rented a fishermans cottage and cultivated a garden which would become the subject of some of his most important works. A fruitful, intensive phase of creativity saw Nolde adopt a new, powerful use of colour, shown in its maturity in this work of 1908.

Offered for sale for the first time, Lyonel Feiningers Mhle mit rotem Mann (est. 2 3 million) comes to auction from the Estate of the artists son T. Lux Feininger. Painted circa 1917, the work is an exceptional painting that highlights the artists individuality. Through the use of perspective and figural distortions, as well as eccentricities of colour, Feininger transforms the scene into a world where the strange and the familiar are inextricably linked to exquisite effect. Further German artists featured in the sale include Otto Dix, Alexej von Jawlensky and Max Liebermann.

FURTHER IMPORTANT SALE HIGHLIGHTS

Estimated at 1.5 - 2.5 million, Reclining Figure no. 2, Three-Piece Bridge-Prop is one of Henry Moores most important monumental sculptures. This work, conceived in 1963 and cast in an edition of six (pictured overleaf), is one of his most technically sophisticated and complex iterations on his dominant theme the reclining figure.

The importance of the present work is documented in David Finn's As the Eye Moves A Sculpture by Henry Moore, an entire book devoted to the model. The present cast is one of only two remaining in private hands others can be found in important public collections around the world including the Tate Gallery. * Estimates do not include buyers premium # # #