![Simon Gate, engraved glass bowl, model 122, Orrefors, 1923 [detail]. Photo: Bukowskis](https://images.prismic.io/barnebys/1a48de6d-7561-4707-8be8-5a410a13ad6c_Cover.jpg?auto=format,compress)
On 16 and 17 June, it's time for Bukowskis to hold its three long-awaited auctions: Modern Art + Design, Contemporary Art & Design and Important Timepieces. Creatives such as Arne Jacobsen, Finn Juhl, Axel Einar Hjorth, Ettore Sottsass and Georg Jensen, plus many more, are represented. Discover our favourites below.
Modern Art + Design
On Tuesday, 16 June, the Modern Art + Design auction will be held and here you will find a large selection of internationally-renowned artists and designers who, in some way, characterised the 20th century.
When the Danish artist and fashion illustrator Gerda Wegener moved to Paris, she began working as an illustrator for magazines such as Vogue and La Vie Parisienne. She also illustrated erotic works that came to be appreciated among Parisian art circles, while at home in Denmark her art was considered controversial and provocative. Her paintings often represent elegant and sensual women, including her wife, Lili Elbe.
The couple married when Gerda was 18 years old and when Lili Elbe was still called Einar Wegener. Lili was one of the first to undergo a successful sex reassignment in the early 1900s. The pair’s relationship inspired and was portrayed in the 2015 film The Danish Girl. The watercolour painting shown here with the title Three Women Under an Umbrella was painted sometime during the 1920s.
In terms of furniture, the Chieftain chair is the most iconic of the Danish modernist Finn Juhl. After it was launched in 1949, it became one of the most important pieces of furniture for the Danish Modern movement. Juhl drew inspiration for the chair from modern art and his intention was that it should be a contrast to the rigid and traditional furniture that characterised Danish design at the time.
Bukowskis’ catalogue features not just furniture design but also that of the decorative sort: you will find, for instance, the work of the glass artist Simon Gate, including this decorative glass bowl from 1923. Gate was active at Orrefors for 30 years and there he created modern glass art with sculptured and classical engravings.
Another stunning piece is this asymmetrical sterling silver bowl designed by Henning Koppel in 1948 and executed by Georg Jensen. It has a rounded shape and is stamped on the base with Georg Jensen’s mark.
Contemporary Art & Design
On Wednesday, 17 June, the Contemporary Art & Design auction will be held. Among the 267 objects you will find famous photographers, controversial painters, innovative designers and much more.
One such example is Keep Your 'Lectric Eye by Masayoshi Sukita.
For 40 years, Sukita and English singer-songwriter David Bowie collaborated. The Japanese photographer captured several of the rock legend's music albums covers, including Heroes, Tin Machine and The Next Day.
Though this work may look to be that of Andy Warhol, it is in fact by American painter Richard Pettibone. For over five decades, Pettibone has questioned the basic concepts of art in his carefully executed miniatures of masterpieces from art history.
As one of the pioneers in what came to be known as ‘Appropriation Art’ Pettibone produced small-scale versions of Roy Lichtenstein’s comic panels, Frank Stella’s curved lines, and Andy Warhol’s soup cans, for example. By copying artists more or less contemporary to himself he contributed important components to Postmodernism’s mix of inspiration, borrowing and re-using. In his imitations (sometimes done as exact replicas, sometimes with details added or removed) he explores the notion of ownership and the important role that material and technique plays in an artwork, as comes to the fore here with Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup Can - Vegetable Soup.
One of the most colourful contributors to the 20th century, quite literally, was Ettore Sottsass, founder of the Memphis group. His design is characterised by bold expressions and colourful materials, something demonstrated in this Nairobi cabinet.
Don't forget, Bukowskis’ Important Timepieces auction on 17 June is also not to be missed. Here you will find classic treasures, such as Rolex, Omega, Patek Philippe and much more.
