No sooner has Classic Week ended than the next auction series approaches at Vienna's Dorotheum: Contemporary Week, taking place from 22 to 28 May, brings together masterpieces from modern and contemporary artists, coveted timepieces, and dazzling jewels in a jewellery auction.
The latter takes place on 23 May at 1pm and will feature high-carat diamond jewellery, as well as a rounded pendant by Cartier that adopts the stylised Panthère design reminiscent of the Art Deco era. Another noteworthy lot is an antique brooch set with diamonds and rubies, given by Empress Elisabeth to her youngest daughter, Marie Valerie, on Christmas Eve 1888 to celebrate her engagement.
The opening of Contemporary Week is marked by an auction of modern art on 22 May at 6pm. Highlights include four drawings by Gustav Klimt, three of which are studies for his paintings Wasserschlangen II (1907) and Judith II (1909).
The present study for Judith II (sometimes also referred to as Salome) was created around 1908 and features an unnamed model in a seated position, which differs significantly from the exaggerated posture of the character in the finished painting. This piece showcases Klimt's skill in line drawing as well as his use of colours and white heightening at the peak of his career as an illustrator.
In the late 1920s, inspired by collage, Dadaism, and photographic experiments, Francis Picabia turned to a new group of works exploring the concept of transparency. The subjects, layered in multiple transparent layers to create dream-like compositions, were drawn from the art of Antiquity and the Renaissance. The images and titles are both ambiguous, often found in Paul Girod's publication on butterflies. For the current work, the hawkmoth, also known as Silene, served as the namesake.
The auction will also feature modern art works by Egon Schiele, Alexej von Jawlensky, Alfons Walde, and Max Oppermann, before the Dorotheum shifts to contemporary art on 23 May at 6pm. Here, Austrian and international masters like Emilio Vedova, Gerhard Richter, Arnulf Rainer, Carla Accardi, and Andy Warhol are featured.
Represented by works from various stages of his career, ZERO artist Heinz Mack is central. A recurring theme in Mack's oeuvre is the effect and exploration of light, with his approach constantly evolving. Examples can be found in the auction: In Das Meer (1972), light itself becomes a creative element as it strikes an aluminium mesh fixed between two sheets of Plexiglas. In Red Painting (2005), Mack splits light spectral colours and merges them into monochrome surfaces to form a composition, whose blurred, shimmering edges not only make the light visible but also palpable.
In 1984, Keith Haring declared his intention to detach art from being perceived as an elite activity, making it accessible to the general public. At that time, he likely hadn’t considered adorning a skateboard with his iconic stick figures, as skateboards were hardly in fashion then. However, this changed the following year when Michael J. Fox in the film Back to the Future zipped around on a skateboard, boosting its popularity once again. Two years later, Haring's work emerged, using a symbol of pop culture as the foundation for an artwork.
The contemporary art auction is further supplemented by an online auction on 24 May at 3pm.
The finale of Contemporary Week takes place on 28 May at 3pm with the auction of wristwatches and pocket watches. A highlight here is a rare Cosmograph Daytona from Rolex with a “Floating Dial,” which refers to the “Cosmograph” inscription placed at a greater distance from the rest of the text on the dial.
Contemporary Week will be held from 22 to 28 May at the Palais Dorotheum, Dorotheergasse 17, in Vienna. Previews are available there from 11 May.
