On 19 and 20 June at the Cologne auction house Lempertz, all eyes will be on the works of modern and contemporary artists, which will be auctioned in day and evening sales.
The two-day event will kick off with an auction dedicated to photography, with works by well-known photographers such as Heinrich Kühn, August Sander, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Horst P. Horst, Robert Capa and Will McBride.
While Alfred Stieglitz takes a critical look at the deck of an immigrant ship, Edward Weston zooms in on the natural aesthetics of a halved kale head. Later on, the evening sale is dedicated to modern and contemporary art with many well-known artists whose works have shaped the 20th century.
Two highlights include a pastel drawing of a dancer by Edgar Degas and an early landscape work by Piet Mondrian.
The recently-discovered painting by Mondrian comes from the young artist's early creative phase when he grappled with Impressionism and worked in a very naturalistic way.
While Mondrian devoted himself to the rural surroundings of his Dutch homeland at the beginning of the 20th century, Paula Modersohn-Becker did the same in the Worpswede artists' colony and included portrayals of the people living there.
August Macke's Flower Box with Cactus dates from 1912 and focuses on a colourful flower box at the window, which shows Macke's turn to more abstract representation (he had joined the newly founded Der Blaue Reiter the year before).
In addition to another still life by Lyonel Feininger, the most expensive work in the sale comes from Pablo Picasso. The large-scale preliminary drawing of two nude women standing was a study for the painting Deux Femmes Nues se Tenant from 1906 (now in a private collection), and drawn during the time when the young artist began working on his famous Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Juan Gris was an enthusiastic fan of the Cubism movement developed by Picasso and Braque and remained dedicated to the style for his short life. The present still life of Raisins, Carafe et Livre dates to 1922.
An interesting work is also the oil on wood Le Gulf Stream by Max Ernst. It was painted in 1954, a creative phase of the artist, in which he dealt with the element of water.
Robert Indiana's Six, made of multicoloured aluminium, comes from an edition of six copies (plus two artist's proofs), which are based on a design from 1980.
Other highlights of the sale come from international artists such as Raoul Dufy, Per Kirkeby, Karel Appel, Horst Antes, Marcel Broodthaers, Alexej von Jawlensky, Aristide Maillol, Maria Lassnig and Yan Pei-Ming.
More works will be offered on 20 June from well-known artists like Franz Marc, Otto Dix, Hermann Max Pechstein, Marc Chagall, Natalia Goncharova and the recently deceased Christo.
Particularly noteworthy is a humorous drawing by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, depicting his interest in medical matters and human nature, and the gouache Nude with Arms Behind the Head form Marianne von Werefkin, a significant personality and artist of the expressionist avant-garde in Germany.
The auctions will take place on 19 and 20 June in Cologne, Germany, and on 27 June the auction will offer sales of Asian Art and netsuke from the Albert Brockhaus Collection.