LONDON.- A major work by surrealist painter Rene Magritte that has not been on public display for a quarter of a century could fetch £50 million ($64 million) at auction next month.
The auction house Christies announced on Saturday that it will offer Lami intime (The Intimate Friend) in a sale that will take place on March 7 in London and that will commemorate a century of the surrealist movement in art.
The painting includes several of the Belgian artist’s signature motifs, such as a man in a bonnet and fluffy white clouds against a blue sky. In this painting, completed in 1958, the man appears from behind, looking towards a mountainous landscape. In the foreground, a baguette and a glass of wine.
Olivier Camu, Christie’s vice president for impressionist and modern art, said the highly poetic and dreamlike painting is one of Magritte’s most important works in private hands. Last publicly exhibited in Brussels in 1998, it is up for auction for the first time since 1980, and has a pre-sale estimate of between £30 million and £50 million ($38 million to $64 million).
This year marks the centenary of André Breton’s Surrealist Manifesto, which defined a revolutionary artistic movement characterized by disturbing juxtapositions and paradoxical statements, as in Magritte’s most famous work, a painting of a pipe titled This Is Not a Pipe.
Now it has become common to think about the subconscious, psychology, psychoanalysis… but it was they who opened the doors, said Camu.
According to Camu, Magritte, who died in 1967, has become the most sought after of all the surrealists. Unlike his contemporaries, such as Salvador Dali, there are few specific cultural or religious references in his work.
Magritte never explained anything, says Camu, even the titles of his paintings were suggested by friends.
In Magritte there is never a trace of religion, or of a particular history, or of anything, he said. They are totally conceptual paintings, clean, powerful, disturbing, wonderful, silent. They are accessible to everyone.
This claim is supported by the increase in prices for Magritte’s work in recent years, which reached a record figure of 59.4 million pounds (79.8 million dollars at the time) for Lempire des lumires (The empire of light) at a Sothebys auction in 2022.
The work that will go on sale in March comes from the collection of the late Gilbert Kaplan, founder of the publication Institutional Investor–and his wife, Lena Kaplan.
The painting will be exhibited before the sale at Christies in Los Angeles on February 3, 5 and 6, in New York from February 9 to 14, in Hong Kong from February 21 to 23 and in London from February 1 to 7. March.
FUENTE: AP
