1910s Art

Work on watercolor paper Golden wooden frame with glass pane 50.5 x 55.5 x 2.5 cm

Etching realized by Pierre Girieud (1876-1940). Good condition with foxing, on a yellowed paper included a white cardboard passpartout (50 x 70 cm). Hand signed on the lower right corner. Pierre Girieud was a French painter (Marseille 1875 - Nogent-sur-Marne 1948). Follower of P. Gauguin, friend of Cézanne and Van Gogh, he painted still lifes, landscapes of Provence, naked, in a massive, archaic style, with influences of Italian Renaissance painting.

stamped 'Renoir' (Lugt 2137b; lower right)

Work on paper without frame

This recently rediscovered expressionist drawing by László Moholy-Nagy is part of a small group of drawings made by the artist early in his career, in Vienna and Berlin. The use of interlaced curves, typical of the artist's technique, gives this hieratic portrait a magnetic radiance, while the absence of any connection with the rest of the body evokes a profane Holy Face. 1. From Hungary to Chicago, the ardent life of László Moholy-Nagy Moholy-Nagy was born in Borsod, now known as Bácsborsód in Southern Hungary, in July 1895. He studied law in Budapest in 1913, when he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army to serve as an artillery officer on the Italian and Russian fronts. While serving at artillery observation posts, Moholy-Nagy was able to execute numerous drawings, recording his traumatic war experience, on the reverse of military-issued postcards which he could easily carry with him. In 1917, he was seriously wounded and hospitalized. The following year (around 1918 at the age of 23), he abandoned his plans to become a lawyer in favour of a career as an artist, with the encouragement of his friend, the art critic Iván Hevesy. The drawings executed in those early years reveal Moholy-Nagy's powerful Expressionist lines. In his autobiography of 1944, Abstract of an Artist, Moholy-Nagy explained his early figurative style, writing that contemporary art in those days was too chaotic and that and all the '-isms' were incomprehensible and puzzling to him. He was, however, experimenting with Dadaist compositions already in 1919 and then moved to Vienna and later to Berlin, where he would soon make his first works in his Constructivist style of the early 1920s. In Berlin he met photograph and writer Lucia Schultz who became his wife the next year. In 1922 he met Walter Gropius. During a vacation on the Rhome with Lucia, she introduced him to making photograms on light-sensitized paper. Walter Gropius invited him to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1923 where he replaced Paul Klee as Head of the Metal Workshop. The Bauhaus became known for the versatility of its artists and Moholy-Nagy was no exception: throughout his career, he became proficient in the fiels of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, film-making and industrial design. In 1928 Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus and established his own design studio in Berlin. He separated from his first wide Lucia in 1929. In 1931 he met actress and scriptwriter Sibylle Pietzsch. They married in 1932 and has two daughters, Hattula (born 1933) and Claudia. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he was no longer allowed to work there. He moved his family to London in 1935. In 1937, on the recommendation of Walter Gropius, Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago to become the director of the New Bauhaus, but the school closed in 1938. Moholy-Nagy resumed doing commercial design work, which he continued for the rest of his life. In 1939 Moholy-Nagy opened the School of Design in Chicago, which became in 1944 the Institute of Design, becoming part of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1949. Diagnosed with leukemia in 1945, Moholy-Nagy died of the disease in Chicago in 1946. 2. Description of the artwork This drawing presents us with a frontal representation of a man in his thirties, whose penetrating gaze seems to stare at us. The face is highly symmetrical and is modelled by curved black lines. The very high forehead and the slightly dilated left pupil reinforce the very expressive character of the face. Like the Holy Face which appeared on the cloth stretched out to wipe Christ's face by Saint Veronica, only the model's face is represented on the cardboard piece. The curved lines that define the face, hollowing out the temples, the eyelids, the cheeks and the area around the mouth, create a kind of magnetic radiation around a median point located between the eyebrows. In some respects, this face may evoke one of the most famous representations of the Holy Face: the extraordinary engraving by Claude Mellan...

L'Amore dei Tre Re is a colored lithographed original manifesto on cardboard, realized in 1913 by the Italian artist Luigi Caldanzano. Printed by Offi...

Rembrandt Bugatti Léopard au repos [Leopard at rest] Lost-wax cast bronze, blackish-brown patina 31,5 x 49 x 13,5 cm Signed on the base with foundrym...

Original antique advertising poster for the Colonial Exhibition Semarang 1914 Java featuring a stunning image of a lady in a traditional batik clothing with jewellery and a headdress...

Photographic portrait with autograph signature and date 1912 of Wilhelm of Sweden, Prince of Sweden and Norway, and son of Gustav V. Marked by the photographer “Atelier Jaeger/Stock...

The New Year's Cake is an original modern artwork realized after Kitagawa Utamaro (1753 –1806) and printed around 1910. Original Bijinga reprint (double page book). From the famou...

Sir Alfred James Munnings, P.R.A., R.W.S. (1878-1959) 'The hunt' Signed and dated 'A.J. Munnings. 1913.' (lower right) pencil, watercolour and bodycolour on a prepared sheet of paper...

Signed in pencil, from the edition of 20 to 25 that accompanied Max Jacob's 'Le Phanérogame' in December 1918. With wide margins (the version issued with the...

Lesser Ury (1861-1931) Auf dem Kanal 1912 pastel on board 49.2 x 34.9 cm signed and dated 'L.Ury.1912.' (lower left) Price: $25,000 USD Provenance: Sale: Christie's London, 30 June 2000, lot 42 Collection of Simone and Jean Tiroche (acquired at the above sale) Thence by descent Sale: Christie's London, 19 June 2013, lot 199 Private collection, UK (acquired from the above sale) Notes: Dr Sibylle Gross has confirmed the authenticity of this work. Lesser Ury, a German-Jewish Impressionist...

Roger de la Fresnaye (1885-1925) Nature morte à l’oeuf 1910 oil on board mounted on panel 66.2 x 50.9 cm signed and dated ‘R de la Fresnaye.10’ (upper right) Price: $157,500 USD (in...

Image dimensions: 16 x 24 cm. Hand signed. Edition of 100 prints on Hollande paper. From the collection: “Croquis du Front Italien”, published in Paris by D'Alignan editions. Anselm...

Edition of 50 Signed and dated lower right

Edition of 200 Signed, dated and numbered

Drypoint on off-white laid paper Edition of 75 Signed & dated in pencil

Signed and dated lower left Titled lower right Provenance: Gifted by the Artist to Martin Doyle Gifted to Mrs Darlington Thence by descent

Signed & dated lower right. Dedicated in pencil to 'Sir Michael Sadler' upper left. From the edition of 25

Suzanne VALADON Grandmother and Nude Louise Original engraving (drypoint) Handsigned in pencil (and also printed signiture in the plate) On BFK Rives vellum 47 x 37 cm (c. 18.5 x 14...

The Terra Nova Held Up in the Pack, 13 December 1910 (I) Stamped with Scott Polar Research Institute blind stamp and numbered on reverse Platinum Print Available in two sizes: 14 ...

Beautiful Broken Ice, Reflections and the Terra Nova, 7 January 1911 Stamped with Scott Polar Research Institute blind stamp and numbered on reverse Platinum print Available in two...

Familie Eichelhardt - August Sander (Black and White Photography) Photographer's label affixed to mount Silver gelatin print, printed c. 1913 11 x 8 1/2 ...

Signed lower right