Launching this week at Sotheby’s – London and New York – is a series of sales featuring treasures from the extraordinary collection of Sir John Richardson, celebrated art historian and biographer of Pablo Picasso.
John Richardson: A Scholar Collects includes paintings, works on paper, sculpture and prints spanning contemporary art, Old Masters, modern art and more, many of these objects received personally by Richardson from the leading luminaries of 20th century art such as Picasso, Lucian Freud, Andy Warhol and Georges Braque.
Best known for his three-volume biography of Picasso, Richardson was also an accomplished art dealer and auction house executive who for years was a pivotal figure in the New York art world. Passing away at the age of 95 in 2019, he left behind a Fifth Avenue loft housing a lifetime’s worth of art and objects that form his storied art collection. Richardson’s collection was amassed over the course of his varied career and wide-ranging travels, and it reveals his great eye and impeccable taste, along with an innate ability to pair art across category, time and medium. “I mix things, and they galvanize each other,” he explained during an interview.
Amongst the many highlights of the sales, which begin this week with a special single-lot Prints & Multiples auction of Andy Warhol’s 1975 portrait of The Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, inscribed by Warhol “To John R” (estimate $30,000 – $50,000), are:
A series of six prints, primarily lithographs and linoleum cuts, by Pablo Picasso dating from 1945 to 1961. The prints demonstrate Picasso’s intuitive and characteristic ability to recognise and exploit the possibilities inherent in any medium in which he chose to work. Leading the series is Picador et Taureau (estimate $25,000 – $35,000), a 1959 linoleum cut printed in black and shades of brown that dramatically depicts a bullfight. The print is #43 of an edition of 50, and is personally inscribed from Picasso to Richardson: “pour mon cher ami John Richardson / Picasso / 19.11.60.” The print was gifted to Richardson by Picasso in 1960, the year he left the south of France, where he lived since 1952 and befriended the artist;
Lucian Freud’s Self Portrait: Reflection (estimate $70,000 – $100,000), which is the only etched self-portrait by the artist and was lovingly dedicated by Freud to John Richardson: “John with love from Lucian.”
Pavel Tchelitchew’s Dancers (estimate $200,000 – $300,000), a standout painting from the artist’s early 1930s series of works inspired by circus dancers, jugglers, strong-men and other performers. The subject matter reflects Tchelitchew’s keen awareness of Picasso’s Blue and Rose Periods, examples of which he had viewed first-hand in Gertrude Stein’s apartment during his formative period in Paris in the 1920s;
French Symbolist painter Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer’s Paysage Montagneux (estimate $150,000 – $250,000), which underscores the range of Richardson’s collection. Lévy-Dhurmer is perhaps best known for his Wisteria Dining Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which was commissioned for the Paris apartment of Auguste Rateau, who also owned the present work. The monumental landscape reflects Lévy-Dhurmer’s move away from Symbolism to focus on natural scenes, many of which drew upon the work of James Abbott McNeill Whistler and Claude Monet. Significantly, this is the first appearance of the work at auction in more than 45 years.
Benjamin Doller, Sotheby’s Chairman, commented: “John Richardson was at the very centre of 20th century art, and his collection is not only a reflection of his creative sensibility, as such a central figure in the art world for decades, but the works he lived with each tell a remarkable story of the close relationships he had with so many renowned artists. His personal collection brims with the intimacy of these connections. It’s an honour and a thrill to share these works and their unique stories, as well as to preserve John’s legacy as a friend and steward of the artists that defined generations.”
Hannah Rothschild, author, arts patron and philanthropist, documentary filmmaker, and longtime friend of Richardson, said: “John Richardson was a man of ravenous appetites, prodigious curiosity and impeccable taste with a magpie-like eye. These attributes are reflected in his style of collecting—where else could you find a Lucian Freud self-portrait hung alongside a Picasso drawing in a room with a feather boa resting on a cushion made from an 18th century scrap of material found in a Paris flea market? John did everything with panache and a sense of playfulness, and he carefully curated his collection to showcase it in a thought-provoking way.”
Sotheby’s has opened bidding for the special single-lot Prints & Multiples auction of Andy Warhol’s 1975 portrait of Mick Jagger. The auction closes on 18 September.
To bid and for further information about the upcoming sales, please visit www.sothebys.com
Image: Pablo Picasso, Picador et Taureau courtesy of Sotheby’s