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Lot 336
  • 336

René Magritte

Estimate
350,000 - 450,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • René Magritte
  • La Tour
  • Signed Magritte (lower left)
  • Sanguine on paper
  • 14 3/8 by 17 1/2 in.
  • 36.5 by 44.5 cm

Provenance

Allan Frumkin Gallery, New York
Dr. Edward Newman, Chicago (acquired by 1984)
Private Collection, Chicago
Private Collection, Germany
Galerie Haas, Zurich
Private Collection, Switzerland 

Exhibited

Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, In the Mind's Eye: Dada and Surrealism, 1984-85, n.n., illustrated in the catalogue

Condition

Executed on cream colored wove paper, not laid down. Work is affixed to a mount at several places on verso. Top and bottom edges are deckled; left and right edges are cut. Artist pinholes at upper corners and lower left corner. Small nick to sheet at extreme lower right corner. Surface abrasion, of less than 1cm, at extreme left edge near upper left corner and one further small surface abrasion near extreme upper left corner. Faint mat stain around the perimeter of the sheet. Medium is very fresh. Overall this work is in very good condition.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

In the present work, a medieval tower twists upon itself in a snake-like, pliable manner, extending beyond the confines of the curtains intended to enshroud it. Curtains were objects of particular interest in Magritte’s Surrealist lexicon for their dual role of concealment and revelation. As Magritte told a reporter in 1964: “the sky is a form of curtain because it hides something from us. We are surrounded by curtains” (Magritte, quoted in Sarah Whitfield, Magritte (exhibition catalogue), Hayward Gallery, London, 1992, n. p., note to no. 120). Throughout his career Magritte was preoccupied by the idea of transformation and the hidden: “Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible doesn’t show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is apparent” (quoted in David Sylvester, Magritte: The Silence of the Word, New York, 1992, p. 24)

The more fluid execution of the present work is reminiscent of what is considered Magritte's "Renoir" or, as the artist himself referred to it, his “sunlit” period which dominated the years 1943-47, when the artist perceived that the greatest way to paint escapist works was via an Impressionistic style. In the present work, Magritte combines the Impressionistic draftsmanship with an entirely arbitrary, anti-naturalistic depiction of subjects and forms to create an agreeable contradiction that, true to Magritte’s form, subverts our spatial preconceptions by pushing things to their logical conclusion. Here the artist has expertly made the masonry weightless and created a paradox of figurative art with the representation of three-dimensional forms on a flat surface. As Magritte himself insists: “The all-powerful hand can do as it pleases with the heaviest stones and a wall” (quoted in David Sylvester, René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonné Oil Paintings and Objects: 1931-1948, vol. II, Antwerp, 1993, p. 377).