The Stockholm-based auction house Uppsala Auktionskammare will be presenting their ‘Modern and Contemporary’ sale, the most ambitious and prestigious sale in their history. From 9-12 November, the auction house will present two private collections: ‘An Important Private Collection – Including Wesselmann, Christo and Fontana’, which contains international art and design, and ‘The Gerschman Collection’, which showcases masterpieces by Swedish modernists like Sigrid Hjertén and Leander Engström, along with important international works.
There will be five sessions in total, beginning with ‘An Important Private Collection’ and moving on to international art, prints, Swedish art and design. Exciting works by artists such as Andy Warhol, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Jan Tarasin and Donald Baechler will all come under the hammer, and the robust design session includes pieces by notable Scandinavian designers as well as an exceptional collection of ceramics by Pablo Picasso.
Lucio Fontana revolutionised the art world, creating pieces inspired by space travel and the cosmos that reflected the tremendous technological leaps made during the post-war period. His Natura series emerged during the end of the 1950s, comprising bronze and terracotta sculptures. The spheres appearing at auction were created in pairs, one slashed open and one with two holes, allowing the viewer to gaze within their inner cores. These ruptures acted as a philosophical statement for Fontana, and he said that when he contemplated the cuts he felt like “a man freed from the shackles of matter, man at one with the immensity of the present and of the future”.
Female nudes are one of the most enduring subjects in art, and Tom Wesselmann made them his most iconic works with his celebrated Great American Nude series from the 1960s. He revisited nudes throughout his career, and his Stockinged Nude with Fishbowl from 1982 is reminiscent of his earlier series. This work differs with its inclusion of a background, and the bright colours and bold shapes transform the traditional odalisque into an intriguing modern woman. She is anonymous, marked only by female sexual signifiers. This reflects Wesselmann's status as a Pop Artist, as she is less of an idealised woman than an abstracted, almost advertorial, female figure.
Works by Lucio Fontana and Tom Wesselmann will both appear in ‘An Important Private Collection – Including Wesselmann, Christo and Fontana’ that will be auctioned during an evening sale on 9 November. The collection is the result of a lifetime love of modern and contemporary art, comprising pieces bought entirely for passion rather than investment.
On 10 November, the day will begin with the International Art session before moving on to Prints. One exceptional work in the International Art session is Peinture I, a painting by the Canadian artist Jean-Paul Riopelle. Born in Montreal, he completed his artistic training at the École des Beaux-Arts and the École de Meuble during the 1940s before becoming involved in the group Les Automatistes, a collection of Canadian artists working adjacent to the European Surrealists.
Riopelle gained international recognition with his powerfully expressive abstract works, which he later described as “abstract landscapism”. Paintings like Peinture I from 1964 are marked by Riopelle’s dramatic impasto technique, which he achieved by dragging colours straight from the tubes across the canvas and scraping the surface with a palette knife. The result is a rhythmic and dynamic arrangement of colours and textures, and Peinture I is a monumental and joyful composition.
After the Swedish Art session on 11 November, the Design session will take place on 12 November. Nearly 250 lots will come up for auction, including an intricate tray table by the Swedish artist Anna Petrus. Petrus had her debut exhibition in 1916 at the Swedish General Art Association, where she showed expressive graphics and sculptures that contrasted with the dramatic allegorical works popular at the time. Her sculptures in particular showed a new ideal, but after many of her works were tragically destroyed in a fire she travelled to North Africa for fresh inspiration. This trip sparked her interest in designing trays and tray tables in copper, tin and brass, modelled after the smoking tables she encountered.
The tray table appearing during the sale was made around 1922-25, and the metal depicts a graceful female figure holding out an apple to a child. The lush detail is reminiscent of Persian handwriting illuminations, and in fact the table once belonged to Otto Ruben, a Persian consul in Stockholm.
Although weaving is often considered pure folk art, Kaisa Melanton pioneered large, post-modern textiles that are in a class of their own. She designed The Archipelago Carpet for the Swedish Embassy in Paris, and the example coming up for auction is an expansive area rug. The geometric background is overlaid with colourful organic shapes that are clearly reminiscent of islands floating in the sea. The splashes of red, orange and blue contrast beautifully with the neutral tones, and the result is a balanced and compelling work of art.
The Austrian artist Dagobert Peche originally trained as an architect, but his career became based on his extraordinary talent as a designer of decorative arts. He created wallpaper and textile designs as well as furniture, jewellery, glass objects, toys, and much more. The vase presently offered was one of fourteen made, and only one of two made with this décor, as evidenced by an entry in the model books in the Wiener Werkstätte archive preserved at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.
The architect and designer Carlo Scarpa is remembered for his innovative use of traditional techniques, combining time-honoured crafts and materials with contemporary manufacturing processes. Scarpo studied architecture at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, and acted as director of the Venini Glassworks from 1932 to 1947. His Corroso vase is a perfect example of his oeuvre: he used the ancient art of glassmaking to create a textured, cloudy pink object that is thoroughly modern.
The ‘Modern and Contemporary’ sale will be held at Uppsala Auktionskammare’s location at Nybrogatan 20 in Stockholm from 9-12 November. The full catalogue is online, and in-person viewing is available from 2-8 November.