A 1961 painting by the artist has crossed the $ 20 million mark at auction at Sotheby’s. The sale lasted eleven minutes. “A historic day,” said Benoit Decron, director of the Soulages museum in Rodez.
A battle between five bidders lasting eleven minutes, Tuesday evening at Sotheby’s in New York, has propelled Pierre Soulages beyond the $ 20 million mark. Precisely $ 20,141,700 for “Painting 195 x 130 cm, August 4, 1961”.
The artist who never gives a title, apart from the dimensions and the date of completion of the work, smashed the record of $ 10.6 million already set in New York in November 2018 at Christie’s with a canvas of the same “red period”, dating from 1959. The buyer of the record painting is not European, but Sotheby’s has not confirmed this information.
“It is a historic day for Pierre Soulages and for his museum, a tremendous recognition!” exclaims Benoit Decron, who heads the Rodez museum. “Soulages even surpasses Nicolas de Staël and becomes the first of his generation. He is of course very honored but he always remains very balanced vis-à-vis records. A work of art is not the golden calf. “
Soon 102 years old
“Art and money don’t always go hand in hand”, Pierre Soulages has often said. The artist, who is approaching his 102nd birthday, on December 24, learned Tuesday morning in his house in Sète, the record. “I have just learned of the considerable price of one of my paintings in New York. I am touched by the interest shown by the bidders for my work”, soberly indicates Soulages, requested by Midi Libre. “It is not usual that the prices of a French painter compete with those of the great American artists”.
Kept for more than 30 years in a private collection, the featured painting belongs to the most sought-after period, the years 1957-1963, when the artist used colored backgrounds (red, blue, yellow) under a black layer, creating by scratching oppositions and transparencies, arousing explosive energy through its composition. If they are negotiated for tidy sums in galleries, the outrenoirs are still very far from the auction records.
“More than half of Soulages’ total production, around 1,800 canvases, was made from outrenoirs from 1979 onwards. Previous works are becoming scarce and are therefore more sought after”, Benoit Decron analysis. Which explains that when the Soulages museum opened, the insurance value of the walnut husks was around 100,000 euros: “Today they are exchanged from 450,000 to 500,000 euros”. “The museum has 140 of them. The only downside is to see the price of insurance still go up for exhibitions”, s’amuse Benoit Decron.
Myth of prices
The latter quotes a memory of Pierre Soulages who exhibited a painting in Copenhagen in 1951. The cost of packaging and transporting the work was almost equal to its market value: “750 crowns was not a lot. That is why the myth of prices must be put into perspective.”
In New York, in the prestigious Sotheby’s sale, Pierre Soulages’ painting came in third position behind Monet’s “Coin du bassin aux nymphéas” ($ 50.8 million), “Diego y yo” by Frida Kahlo (34 , 9 million, another record), and ahead of a Calder mobile (19.7 million). Artists long gone.
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