The Kodl Gallery offered 210 works of art, and for the first time since the establishment of the Czech Republic, 100 percent of the items were sold, said Terezie Kaslová on behalf of the gallery. The total starting amount of 98 million crowns was increased to almost 280 million crowns for all works sold.
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In addition to Fill’s most expensive work, collectors were also interested in two other paintings by him. The new owner paid 19.4 million crowns for the dramatically conceived canvas Wrestling from 1938 from the series Fighting and Wrestling, while the starting price was two million crowns. The early canvas U zrcadla from 1907 was sold for 2.8 million crowns.
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Four canvases by Václav Špála from the 1920s were sold at millions of prices. The most expensive piece sold in the auction was the double-sided canvas Krajina u Veltrus / Koupání se žena. The buyer paid 12.2 million crowns for it, the price grew from the raised three million crowns. The painting Spring was taken by the new owner for three million crowns and Summer for 4.3 million crowns. The canvas on the Vltava rose from a starting amount of 2.5 million to 7.2 million crowns.
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A painting by Emil Filla The head of an old man from 1914
Photo: Kodl Galerie, CTK
The five-million mark was surpassed, for example, by the large-format work of one of the most prominent Czech post-war authors, Mikuláš Medek. František Foltýn’s Abstract Composition sold for 6.5 million.
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Kupka’s drawing cycle went to the auction with the highest starting price of 25 million crowns. Already before the auction, collectors showed interest in the painting, so the price started at 28 million crowns in the hall, and those interested bid on it by 200,000 crowns by telephone and the Internet, up to the final 42.6 million. The buyer must add a 20% auction surcharge to them.
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Kupka dominates the domestic auction ladder with his later, abstract paintings of the summer. So far, the last record was set a year ago, when his composition called Divertimento II from 1935 sold for 90.2 million crowns.
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The Toyen Serenade painting will also be auctioned during the auction weekend.
Photo: exhibition catalog
The Encyclopedia of Man and the Earth was published in France between 1904 and 1907. Kupka’s drawings were written between 1904 and 1909 at the request of the author of this six-volume human history, Élisée Recluse (1830–1905), a French geographer and anarchist. In his latest scientific work, completed by his nephew Paul Reclus, he tried to summarize the history of mankind from prehistoric times to the present with a critical view, as evidenced, among other things, by anticipating environmental issues or the fight for animal rights.
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The painting by the painter Toyen called Serenade, which dates from 1924, was sold in Prague on Saturday for 49 million crowns, including an auction surcharge. Another work by the author, entitled Breathing Sleep, which she painted in the post-war period, found a buyer at a cost of 18.15 million crowns, said Kateřina Sokolová, on behalf of the organizing company Adolf Loos Apartment and Gallery. The company held its first auction at its new headquarters in the former Expo restaurant in Letenské sady and sold most of the items on it.
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