Picasso's Muse & Kirkeby's Nature

Picasso's Ceramic Art

"Every child is an artist. The challenge is how to remain so as an adult.” The famous quote comes from Pablo Picasso, and whose artistic work would be more appropriate to have as part of the year’s last international auction on modern art? We present four of Picasso’s ceramic works, where he repeats the familiar motifs from his paintings, such as the abstract faces and mythological figures.

The ceramic vase "Tripode" from 1951 belongs among Picasso's largest and most sculptural works in this medium. In 1946 he began a 25-year-long artistic collaboration with the potter couple Suzanne and Georges Ramié in the French town of Vallauris. Suzanne Ramié shared Picasso's artistic vision and was like him interested in past forms of expression. With inspiration from a Cypriot vase from about 2000 B.C., she created in 1950 the archetype, which "Tripode" is based upon. Pablo Picasso further developed the idea and decorated the vase in his characteristic naive style and with the face of his muse and lover Francoise Gilot as inspiration. The vase was purchased in Ramié’s workshop in 1965 and has been in the possession of the same family ever since.

One of Picasso's other familiar motifs is the mythological faun, who plays the double flute, a "diaule". The image can be seen on the faience dish "Joueur de diaule" from 1947.

"Scandinavia's Greatest Living Painter"

This moniker has rightly been placed upon Per Kirkeby, and with him we take a step in a completely different direction. The offered painting is a great work without a title, which he painted on Læsø in 1995, and with its golden and green colours it has references to the landscape of the Danish island. Kirkeby's approach to painting is portrayed in the filmmaker Jesper Jargil’s award-winning documentary about the artist from 1996, where you get a good insight into Kirkeby’s lengthy work process with this type of painting. Over several months he goes to and from the painting in a combination of destruction and construction of the image. With an estimate of between DKK 800,000 and 1 million the painting is the highest valued painting by Kirkeby, which we have ever had for sale.

Jorn’s American Inspirations

"La Caresse atroce" (the atrocious/cruel caress) is the title of the highlight among the works of Asger Jorn. It was created in 1960 - a time where Jorn turned his gaze across the Atlantic and towards the great American artists such as Jackson Pollock. Both were interested in automatic drawings, "drip painting", canvases on the floor and an experimental application of the paint, which the offered piece is also characterized by. In 1962 the painting was exhibited in New York at the Lefebre Gallery – the gallery that promoted Jorn's art in the United States. Represented at the auction is also a folder with a number of Jorn’s etchings entitled "Occupations 1939-1945", which was exhibited at the Galerie Rive Gauche in Paris in 1960 and is a powerful commentary on the atrocities of World War II.

Auction: 1-2 December at Bredgade 33 in Copenhagen

Preview: 19 - 23 November at the same address

See the full selection of modern art

See the full selection of the auction

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