World Paintings

John Singer Sargent

Marionettes, 1903, oil on board, 55.88 x 72.39 cm, private collection.

Sotheby’s annual spring auction of American Art in New York will feature today an important painting by John Singer Sargent, which remained in the artist’s collection for more than 20 years before descending through his family to the present owner.

Marionettes (estimate $5-7 million) is a rare and dynamic example of the artist’s work outside of society portraiture, depicting a group of men from the large Italian American community of Philadelphia at the turn of the 20th century performing Sicilian puppet theater.

Stay tuned on twitter for the results of the sale!

Edouard Manet

Rochefort’s Escape (L’Evasion de Rochefort), c. 1881, oil on canvas, 80 x 73 cm, Musée d’Orsay.

Virulently opposed to the imperial regime, Victor Henri Rochefort founded a political newspaper, La Lanterne, in 1868. The newspaper, which was published in Brussels, was soon banned. In 1873 the journalist was sentenced to prison for his role during the Commune. His spectacular, swashbuckling escape by sea, in 1874, inspired Manet to paint this composition, six years after the event.

This and many other Manet’s masterpieces can be seen in the monumental rooms of the Doge’s Palace, Venice, from April 24 to August 18, 2013. The exhibition Manet. Return to Venice includes about 80 paintings, drawings and prints. It has been planned with the special collaboration of the Musée D’Orsay in Paris, which possesses the largest number of Manet’s masterpieces.

Pablo Picasso

Portrait of Olga, 1920, pencil on paper, 62.2 x 45.7 cm, private collection.

Marc Chagall

Vue de la fenêtre à Zaolchie, près de Vitebsk (Window at the Dacha), 1915, oil on canvas, The State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow.

This painting can be seen in Paris until July 21st, 2013. It is one of Chagall’s masterpieces featured within the exhibition Between War and Peace at the Palais du Luxembourg, Paris. Opening with the outbreak of the First World War, the exhibition seeks to illustrate four key periods in Chagall’s life and work: Russia in wartime, between the wars, exile in the United States, the post-war years and the return to France.

P.S. Thanks to my dearest Tania for the suggestion!

Marina Dieul

Le Défi (The Challenge), oil on panel, 30 x 24 inches, private collection.

Marina Dieul was born in France. She showed great interest in painting and drawing from an early age, and her family encouraged her vocation. In early 2000, she moved to Montreal, Canada, where she now lives. Her work has received numerous awards and honors.

Johannes Itten

Vorfrühling (Early Spring), 1966, oil on canvas, private collection.

Itten was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist. His works exploring the use and composition of colour resemble the square optical art canvases of artists such as Josef Albers, Bridget Riley and the expressionist works of Wassily Kandinsky.

Itten’s work on colour is also said to be an inspiration for seasonal colour analysis - the process of determining the colours that best suit an individual’s natural colouring. Itten had been the first to associate colour palettes with four types of people, and had designated those types with the names of seasons. Shortly after his death his designations gained popularity in the cosmetics industry. Today cosmetologists continue to use seasonal colour analysis, a tribute to the early work by Itten.

Umvertos Argyros (Greek, 1882 - 1963)

Near the Window, 1926, oil on canvas, 100 x 85 cm, The National Gallery, Athens.

Alexej von Jawlensky

Portrait of the Dancer Alexander Sakharoff, 1909, oil on canvas, 69.5 × 66.5 cm, Lenbachhaus, Munich, Germany.

Jawlensky was a Russian expressionist painter active in Germany. Shortly after moving to Munich he met Wassily Kandinsky and various other Russian artists, and contributed to the formation of the Neue Künstlervereinigung München - New Munich Artist’s Association - and later Die Blaue Vier (The Blue Four).