Four masterworks by Francis Bacon and August Rodin will headline Sotheby’s Frieze Week contemporary evening auction in London on October 16.
They are Bacon’s paintings Portrait of a Dwarf and Study for Self-Portrait (estimated to bring up to £9 million and £6 million, respectively), and Rodin’s final bronze iterations of Pierre de Wissant and Jean de Fiennes (each estimated at £600,000-900,000).
The house said in a statement that the works are from an “important private collection” and “are linked by a narrative thread that captures a century of innovation in the hands of two of the greatest artistic giants of their times.”
“Though they worked in different media and were separated by nearly a century, Rodin and Bacon share an unexpected yet powerful connection,” Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s chairman and head of modern art, said in a statement. “United by an extraordinary appreciation of the human form and an unparalleled ability to see and depict it as no other artist had before, Bacon and Rodin forged paths which changed the course of Western art and continue to influence artists today.”
The Bacon works were originally acquired directly from the artist and kept in the same collection for more than 40 years. Rodin’s bronzes were purchased from the Musée Rodin around the same time. “They portray in the original, monumental size the two most striking figures of Rodin’s seminal, multi-figural composition The Burghers of Calais, a cast of which stands proudly outside the Houses of Parliament, London, and [were] hailed as ‘Britain’s most poignant and beautiful work of modern art in a public’ [by The Guardian’s Jonathan Jones].”
Sotheby’s sent ARTnews some previously unpublished material on Bacon’s two works; audio of Eddy Batche, an art historian and one of Bacon’s closest friends while the artist was living in Paris. “That Bacon prized Portrait of a Dwarf so highly and kept it as his own property is totally unique (and not something we can say for other Bacons that have come on the market…or at least there’s no evidence of that!),” he said. “The Study for Self-Portrait is also pretty knock-out as you could say it’s a romantic image – Bacon is being much kinder to himself with this work, which feels quite different to other self-portraits.”
Branczik agreed that the portrayal of the dwarf is a special work. “It is one of the most arresting works of Francis Bacon’s career — the only painting he ever kept for himself, an extraordinary gesture from an artist who otherwise let his works go,” he told ARTnews. “Its searing immediacy stops us in our tracks, while the figure’s head, held at eye level, confronts us with unflinching directness. It was created during a period of introspection – following his lover George Dyer’s death – that produced his most profound and powerful works, which encapsulate the full force of Bacon at his height.”
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