• The Foxes (Die Füchse) (illustrated above, left), a seminal, museum quality work by a father of 20^th Century Modernism, Franz Marc, will be offered for sale by Christie’s on 1 March, with an estimate on request in the region of £35,000,000. In 2021, The Foxes was restituted to the heirs of Kurt and Else Grawi of Berlin, victims of Nazi persecution, who owned the painting from 1928 to 1940

• Francis Bacon’s Triptych 1986-7 (1986-87, estimate: £35,000,000-55,000,000, illustrated above, right) is being offered at auction for the first time, coinciding with the Royal Academy’s seminal exhibition ‘Francis Bacon: Man and Beast’ in London

• Pablo Picasso’s surrealist masterpiece, La fenêtre ouverte (1929, estimate: £14,000,000-24,000,000), a self-portrait of the artist with his great muse Marie-Thérèse, will be offered at auction for the first time, leading The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale

• Lucian Freud’s intimate and tender portrait, Girl with Closed Eyes (1986-87, £10,000,000-15,000,000) will also make its auction debut

• Antony Gormley’s Root is offered as part of Christie’s ongoing initiative Artists for ClientEarth. Several works are being offered to raise funds for private foundations and museums including the Volkart Foundation and the Museu Vila de Vassouras

• The 21^st edition of the Art of the Surreal Evening Sale will include five paintings by René Magritte, led by La lumière du pôle (1926-27, estimate: £5,500,000-7,500,000)

• Christie’s continues to establish cultural dialogues between major international art hubs, launching the key 20/21 Marquee Weeks this year with the 20/21 Shanghai to London sale series

• The sale series will incorporate 20th / 21st Century: Shanghai Evening Sale, 20th / 21st Century: London Evening Sale and The Art of the Surreal • Evening Sale and is estimated to achieve a total in excess of £200,000,000

SHANGHAI AND LONDON - Launching the 20/21 Marquee Sale Weeks in 2022, Christie’s March season will establish a dialogue between the cities of London and Shanghai. The 20/21 Shanghai to London series of sales will also be live and livestreamed to our salerooms in Hong Kong and New York. This unique platform showcases the finest examples of art that span the dynamic art movements and artists of the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

20^TH / 21^ST CENTURY: LONDON EVENING SALE

FRANZ MARC
Franz Marc’s 1913 masterpiece The Foxes, will be offered for sale at Christie’s on 1 March 2022 with a pre-sale estimate on request (in the region of £35,000,000). Filled with a vivid play of vibrant colour and prismatic form, The Foxes is a masterpiece of Modernism, which has graced several great collections over the course of its life, most recently the Kunstpalast Museum in Dusseldorf, before its restitution to the heirs of Kurt and Else Grawi.

MASTERPIECES BY BACON AND FREUD: THE SCHOOL OF LONDON

An extraordinary meditation on the passage of time, and a rhapsody on the solitude of the human condition, Triptych 1986-7  (1986-87, estimate: £35,000,000-55,000,000, illustrated page one) stands among Francis Bacon’s last great paintings. Across three monumental canvases, his most rare and celebrated format, he entwines imagery drawn from the annals of twentieth-century history with a poignant, retrospective view of his own life and art. In the year that marks the centenary of the artist’s birth, Lucian Freud’s masterpiece of frank, tender observation, Girl with Closed Eyes (1986-87, £10,000,000-15,000,000, illustrated left) will also make its auction debut. The painting is among the most exquisite of Lucian Freud’s triumphant 1980s portraits. Reclined on a bed in the artist’s Holland Park studio, the sitter, Janey Longman, is caught as if in a reverie. In addition, a rare work on paper held in the same family collection for more than half a century, Lobster (1944, estimate: £1,300,000-1,800,000) is an exquisite showcase of Lucian Freud’s early practice.

KEITH GILL AND TESSA LORD, HEADS OF SALE, CHRISTIE’S 20^TH / 21^ST CENTURY: LONDON EVENING SALE: “We are thrilled to launch the 20/21 Marquee Weeks this year. The 20^th / 21^st Century: London Evening Sale provides Christie’s London with a unique global platform, connecting our clients worldwide and offering them the opportunity to acquire exquisite masterpieces in a dialogue, which spans 150 years of pioneering artistic vision from Lucian Freud to Flora Yukhnovich and from Franz Marc to Jadé Fadojutimi. We look forward to welcoming clients in person and virtually from across the globe to our London galleries and saleroom.”  

BRITISH ART: RILEY, HIRST, BANKSY AND BROWN
Offered from the Neumann Family Collection, Bridget Riley’s Reverse (1963, estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000, illustrated above, right) alternates triangles of black and white across a hypnotic expanse. The painting was acquired in 1965 and has been unseen in public since then. Acquired from the artist in 1993, and held in the same private collection since, Swimming Form in Endless Motion (1993, estimate: £1,400,000-1,800,000, illustrated below, left) is an early example from Damien Hirst’s ‘Science for All’ series, restaging the artist’s iconic use of the shark, first seen in The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living (1991). Created in 1995, the year that Hirst won the Turner Prize, Ashtray Head/Fallen Empire (estimate: £800,000-1,200,000)  is a work which confronts mortality, combining elements to create a surreal and striking vanitas. Executed in 2006, Happy Choppers (estimate: £3,000,000-5,000,000, illustrated below, right) is a rare painterly iteration of one of Banksy’s most iconic motifs. One of only three variations, it depicts a squadron of Apache Attack helicopters, or ‘choppers’. Originally part of the Saatchi Collection, Cecily Brown’s The Girl Who Had Everything (1998, estimate: £3,500,000-5,500,000, illustrated above, left) captures the euphoric flourishing of the carnal, gestural abstraction that would come to define her oeuvre.

PORTRAITURE: FROM SCHIELE TO BOAFO
Egon Schiele’s Stehender männlicher Akt mit verschränkten Armen (Selbstporträt) (1912, estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000, illustrated page four, left) is one of a spectacular group of nude self-portrait watercolours that explore the expressive potential of the lone, contorted figure as an entirely new means of portraiture and self-expression. In Amoako Boafo’s Yellow Blanket (2018, estimate: £400,000-600,000, illustrated page four, right) the artist depicts himself in elegant repose, absorbed in a book: reclined on the title’s yellow blanket, his lithe, supple figure has the grace of a neoclassical nude. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Jeune femme en costume oriental devant une table à thé (1909-10, estimate: £4,500,000-6,500,000) depicts a curvaceous young sitter, whose figure dominates the composition, assuming a relaxed pose and tranquil expression.

CHARITABLE COLLABORATIONS
Exquisite works by Marc Chagall and Sergio Camargo are being sold to benefit the new Museu Vila de Vassouras, Rio de Janeiro,  which will open in 2023 after four years of restoration and reconstruction of the old Hospital da Santa Casa de Vassouras. In L’esprit des roses (Au-dessus des fleurs) (1926, £2,200,000-3,200,000, illustrated below, right), Chagall enlarges the bouquet to enormous proportions, allowing it to fill the canvas with its vibrant play of pigment and thick, gestural brushstrokes. Exhibited in the 1966 Venice Biennale, Untitled (Relief no. 21/52) (1964, estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000) is an important early example of the white reliefs that brought Sergio Camargo to global prominence during this period. Painted in 1920, Composition (estimate: £5,000,000-7,000,000, illustrated below, left) encapsulates Fernand Léger’s renowned ‘mechanical period’, which served as a potent visual manifesto of the artist’s post-war beliefs and aims as an artist. The painting is being offered by the Volkart Foundation, Switzerland to raise funds for their cultural programmes. The Berggruen Family Collection are offering Pablo Picasso’s Jeune homme de profil (1944, estimate: £100,000-150,000) to secure funding for New York’s Carnegie Hall. Following the sale of Cecily Brown’s There'll be bluebirds in October 2021, Root (2016, estimate: £350,000-550,000) has been generously donated by Antony Gormley and White Cube as the part of the ongoing sale series Artists for ClientEarth. This landmark new collaborative initiative is designed to propel the art world in the fight against climate change and has raised more than £4,000,000 to date.

CONTEMPORARY PAINTING
Sparkling with supernatural mystery, D with Raven (2015, estimate: £20,000-30,000) is a compelling, jewel-like work by the Romanian painter Victor Man. The composition of Flora Yukhnovich’s Tu vas me faire rougir (You’re going to make me blush) (2017, estimate: £250,000-350,000) is derived from Jean-Honoré Fragonard’s The Swing (c. 1767) (Wallace Collection, London).  You Spell Me (2010, estimate: £150,000-200,000) is an early dreamscape by Shara Hughes demonstrating the complex, playful interior scenes which occupied her between 2006 and 2014, and which ultimately propelled her to international acclaim.

WORLD OF WOMEN
Woman #5672 (2021, estimate: £300,000-500,000) is one of the rarest in World of Women’s 10k-piece collection, and the only NFT to be offered in the sale. The ethereal skin tone, combined with her crisp formal attire imbues her with the mystique of a René Magritte portrait, magnifying her powerful, otherworldly energy against a backdrop of swirling red and turquoise curves.

THE ART OF THE SURREAL EVENING SALE
PABLO PICASSO’S LA FENÊTRE OUVERTE 

Presented at auction for the first time, La fenêtre ouverte (1929, estimate: £14,000,000-24,000,000, illustrated left) is a large, seminal work from Pablo Picasso’s Surrealist period. Towering in the foreground of this painting are two highly abstracted figures. On the right stands a plaster bust of the artist’s great lover and muse of this time, Marie-Thérèse Walter. The object on the left is an abstracted, symbolic representation of Picasso himself forming the letter ‘E’, as in Español, and aiming the arrow of Cupid at his muse. Two spires of the church of Sainte-Clotilde are identifiable in the background. John Richardson, the artist’s biographer, has suggested that this work therefore depicts the recently discovered secret Left Bank apartment that Picasso and Marie-Thérèse shared as one of their hideaways during their clandestine relationship.

OLIVIER CAMU, DEPUTY CHAIRMAN, IMPRESSIONIST AND MODERN ART, CHRISTIE’S: “Held in the same European collection for half a century, this powerful and explosively coloured painting from the highpoint of Picasso’s Surrealist period and two years into his clandestine love affair with Marie-Thérèse, represents a brilliant fusion of the different passions and inspirations that defined the artist’s life at the end of the 1920s. We are thrilled to present this powerful painting by Picasso to the market for the first time as a major highlight of the 21st edition of The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale. Having built the international appetite for Magritte paintings in this market defining sale, dedicated to the art of the surreal, for more than two decades, we are delighted to offer five paintings that showcase the breadth of his exceptional vision. The group is led by the magical and mysterious La lumière du pôle. The sale also includes masterpieces by Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst, Joan Miró, Francis Picabia, and Yves Tanguy, amongst others.”

RENÉ MAGRITTE
In René Magritte’s La lumière du pôle (1926-27, estimate: £5,500,000-7,500,000, illustrated above, left) De Chirico’s influence can be felt in the disquieting, unsettling atmosphere Magritte conjures and the sparse, expansive, stage-like space of the scene, as a pair of cracked and partially broken fashion mannequins stand amidst a desert-like landscape of steep-sided sand dunes. La méditation (1936, estimate: £2,200,000-2,800,000) was previously in the collection of Edward James, the English collector and patron of Surrealism. In La belle hérétique (1963-64, estimate: £700,000-1,000,000), Magritte returned to one of his most beloved images, a seated coffin, which had become a central part of his oeuvre. La mémoire (1948, estimate: £1,200,000-1,800,000) is one of the most enduringly mysterious of the artist’s images and a theme which the artist himself considered among the most successful of his many creations. L’endroit du décor (1965, estimate: £400,000-700,000) offers a captivating example of Magritte’s unique approach to portraiture, illustrating his ability to infuse the familiar genre with the striking, magical idiom of Surrealism. 

PAUL DELVAUX
Rife with potential narrative interpretations, Le soir tombe (1970, estimate; £1,000,000-1,500,000, illustrated above, right) exemplifies the mystery of Paul Delvaux’s artistic vision, and highlights key themes within Delvaux’s oeuvre. This surreal, night-time cityscape is presented at auction for the first time by the collectors who commissioned it from the artist 50 years ago.

JOAN MIRÓ
Glowing with intense colour, Personnage et oiseau (1963, estimate: £1,800,000-2,500,000) encapsulates the style, handling and subject matter of Joan Miró’s late work. Personnage, oiseau, étoile dans un paysage (estimate: £1,500,000-2,500,000) is a triumphant canvas created by Joan Miró in April 1978, which the artist personally donated to his Foundation in Barcelona shortly after its completion.

FRANCIS PICABIA
With her dark hair swept back into a low chignon, the curving neckline of her off-the shoulder dress and the red accents of her accessories, the woman at the heart of Francis Picabia’s Jeune fille (1912, estimate: £400,000-700,000) exudes an exotic elegance that recalls the costumes of Spanish flamenco dancers.

ENRICO DONATI
In Untitled (1985, estimate: £80,000-120,000), by Enrico Donati, an enigmatic, richly coloured form springs to life amidst the deep blue landscape, its bright glowing hues and shifting textures captivating the eye as it bursts forth in a great flowing arc. The painting is being sold by Walter Anderson Museum of Art, Ocean Springs, Mississippi to raise funds for future acquisitions.