Animals are trumps
Antoni Clavé. Le coq. Öl auf Hartfaserplatte. 
1945. 72,8 x 60 cm. Taxe: € 30.000-40.000.
Antoni Clavé. "Le coq". Oil on hardboard 1945. 28,6 x 23,6 in. Estimate: € 30,000-40,000.
Antoni Clavé’s "Le coq" is cock of the walk at Ketterer Kunst auction
Hamburg, 07 October 2008, (kk) - Carrying an estimate of € 30 000-40 000, Antoni Clavé’s "Le coq" is literally cock of the walk. Dating from 1945, this oil painting is to lead off at the Ketterer Kunst auction of Modern Art & Post-War/Contemporary Art in Hamburg on 24 and 25 October 2008.
Clavé’s 1940s paintings reveal a number of stylistic influences: Bonnard, Vuillard, Rouault and especially Picasso, whom he met in 1944. In picture-filling close-up, "Le coq" is reminiscent of contemporaneous Picasso compositions while the intense, glowing palette and the pastose handling of paint recall Rouault.
Jörg Immendorff Mann mit Affenmaske und Pinsel in Schneekugel
Immendorff. "Man with Monkey Mask and Brush in Snow Globe". Colour serigraphy with acrylic on canvas. 2000. 31,8 x 25,1 in. Estimate: € 20,000-25,000.
Animals are also trumps with Jörg Immendorff. "Mann mit Affenmaske und Pinsel in Schneekugel" ["Man with Monkey Mask and Brush in Snow Globe"], measuring 81 x 64 cm, a colour serigraphy with acrylic, is to enter the lists carrying an estimate of € 20 000-25 000. "To me, the monkey has always been a second self. It is both ridiculous and sagacious and stands for opposite extremes," thus the artist.
Also featuring in the Post-War/Contemporary Art division is a 1971 David Hockney colour lithograph "Coloured flowers made of paper and ink" with a floral motif. In this delicately coloured yet vibrant work (estimate: € 18 000-25 000), the object and the drawing fuse on the picture surface to develop a graphic effect.
At € 18 000-24 000, the estimate for the K.R.H. Sonderborg oil painting "Ohne Titel" ["Untitled"] is in the same range. The artist’s handling of subliminal flow attests to his stylistic affinities with Informel. Although the work expresses rhythm and movement, its content defies concrete interpretation.
Contemporary Art is rounded off with a portfolio (22 poems by Jean Cassou with lithographs by Dix, Ernst, Miró, Nay et al.; estimate: € 18 000-20 000) and works by Alberto Burri (estimate: € 14 000-18 000), Salvador Dalí (estimate: € 14 000-16 000), Keith Haring (estimate: € 18 000-20 000), Markus Lüpertz (estimate: € 15 000-20 000), Neo Rauch (estimate: € 18 000-24 000) and others.
The Modernen Art division, with a separate catalogue entitled Modern Art , will lead off with a 1907 Käthe Kollwitz pencil drawing carrying an estimate of € 20 000-28 000: "Vergewaltigte Bauersfrau" ["Peasant Woman, Raped"]. This is a study for an etching, which the artist did in winter 1907-08 as the sixth and penultimate work in her "Bauernkrieg" ["Peasants’ War"] cycle.
A George Grosz pen-and-brush drawing in India ink can be yours for € 16 000-24 000. His 1926 "Charakterstudien" ["Character Studies"] reveal the artist as an highly critical observer of his times. Here he has drawn a realistic, no-holds-barred picture of contemporaries.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluffs "Fensterausblick" ["View from the Window"] is by contrast optimistic and appropriately colourful. This watercolour and India-ink drawing was probably done around 1968 because the candlestick, which is the decisive element of this composition, also occurs in another work by the artist, which he himself dated to that year (estimate: € 14 000-18 000).
Apart from the Max Klinger portfolio "Ein Handschuh" ["A Glove"], which carries an estimate of € 14 000-18 000 and "Der weiße Blumenstrauß' ["Bunch of White Flowers"] by Marc Chagall (estimate: € 12 000-15 000) and "Blumenstilleben" ["Flower still life"] by Maurice de Vlamnick (estimate: € 12.000-15.000), the Modern Art division is also featuring works by Julius Bissier, Tamara de Lempicka, Otto Modersohn, Pablo Picasso, Renée Sintenis, Lesser Ury and Heinrich Zille.
Pre-sale viewings of selected works have been scheduled for the following dates, times and venues:
07.-10.October, 11 am - 7 pm
11. October 11 am - 5 pm
Ketterer Kunst, Fasanenstr. 70, Berlin
13.-15. October11 am - 5 pm Ketterer Kunst, Prinzregentenstr. 61, Munich
Alle Werke werden gezeigt:
18. October11 am - 5 pm
20.-22. October11-17 Uhr
Ketterer Kunst, Am Meßberg 1, Hamburg
Auction:
24 October, from 4 pm (Modern Art)
25 October, from 3 pm (Post War)
Ketterer Kunst, Am Meßberg 1, Hamburg