(English) Sotheby's Paris | The Collection of Marianne and Pierre Nahon | 250 pieces will pay homage to the career and vision of these great 20th century art dealers | Live sale: 19-20 March + Online: 15-25 March

Press Release

Paris

| 33 (0)1 53 05 53 66 | Sophie Dufresne |[e-mail] | 33 (0)1 53 05 52 32 | Claire Jehl |[e-mail]

The Collection of Marianne and Pierre Nahon

Art is life

Francis Picabia, Mélibée, 1931, estimate: €2.5-3.5 million

Sale in Paris on 19 and 20 March 2019

Online sales 15-20 March 2019

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Paris, 18 February 2019 - Renowned as tireless supporters of the New Realism movement and amongst the most illustrious representatives of Figuration Libre and Figuration Narrative, Marianne and Pierre Nahon were also some of the first to exhibit work by Andy Warhol, George Segal, John de Andrea and Jeff Koons in France.

Agrément N° 2001 - 002 du 25 octobre 2001

Sale conducted by Oliver Barker, Aurélie Vandevoorde and Olivier Valmier

On 19-20 March, fifteen years after the Secret Garden of Marianne and Pierre Nahon was auctioned at Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, their chateau in Vence, Sotheby's is delighted to offer property from their private collection. Sotheby's will pay homage to the career and vision of these great 20th century art dealers through some 250 pieces that have lived with Marianne and Pierre Nahon in their homes in Paris, Venice, and Vence, some of them for decades.

Marianne and Pierre Nahon, a life dedicated to art

Art has always been an important part of the lives of Marianne and Pierre Nahon. Initiated by Patrick Waldberg and Robert Lebel, historians of the Surrealist movement and close to André Breton and Marcel Duchamp, Pierre Nahon's passion for art began in his teenage years. He acquired his first work of art at age 15 - a watercolour by Francis Picabia - and so began both his collection and his vocation.

A few years later, upon his return from the Algerian War, he met Marianne Bayet, whom he later married on 10 December 1960. Over the next decade or so, Marianne worked in the film industry and Pierre Nahon in advertising, where his work notably consisted in producing films about several artists.

Collectors with a true love of art, they soon realised that they could turn their passion into their business. In 1973, they left their respective careers behind and opened the Galerie Beaubourg, located near to where the Centre Georges Pompidou would open five years later.

At that time, the New Realists were at the very cutting edge of Contemporary art. Although less known to the public, they were renowned in the art world, but lacked representation by dealers. Still in their early days as art dealers, within a few months Marianne and Pierre Nahon were representing César, and then Arman, followed by Jean Tinguely, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle and Daniel Spoerri. Working with Arman, who had been living in the USA for more than ten years, they expanded their transatlantic contacts to include George Segal, Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein.

For just over three decades, the Galerie Beaubourg would be the epicentre of Marianne and Pierre Nahon's exhibitions showcasing the most innovative art of their time with tireless support for their artists. They built upon subversive works, with many of the pieces which are now in the most important museum in the world.

Francis Picabia's Masterpiece

Painted around 1931, Mélibée (Estimate: €2.5-3.5 million) is without a doubt Picabia's most masterful Transparency. It was in 1927 and 1928 that Picabia found inspiration in a process in which different patterns and images are superimposed upon each other, and produced his first Transparencies. Following the eccentric work of the Dada years, this new cycle marked a return to the traditional medium of oil painting, and ushered in a new, more structured and poetic pictorial interpretation, drawing on sources and influences from ancient Greco-Roman aesthetics and the Italian Renaissance.

A painting of momentous pomp, Mélibée came to be seen as one of the masterpieces of the second Transparencies series, which began in 1929. Similar to other Transparencies, Mélibée is inspired by both classical literature and the paintings of the Italian Renaissance. The title of the piece, Mélibée, can be traced back to a tragicomedy by Fernando de Rojas (1502), which was extremely popular throughout Spain: La Celestina, a tale of the unhappy loves of Calisto and Melibea. A monumental female face borrows its features from the Madonna in Piero della Francesca's famous painting Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels (1472, Pinacoteca di Brera), and in Mélibée, the viewer can find the same lines and features on the face, as well as the characteristic positioning of the Virgin's hands.

Here Picabia delivers, at the height of his artistic powers, his most imposing Transparency, with perfect harmony between the secretive enigma of the subject, the masterfully superimposed patterns, and the visual intensity of the composition.

Andy Warhol & Jackie

A major painting by one of the greatest artists of the 20th century, Studies of Jackie, 1964 (Estimate: €1-1.5 million) is key to understanding the iconic Jackie series, which occupies a place of its own in the Warhol world.

On 22 November 1963, with Warhol having just signed a few of his first masterpieces, a tragic event unfolded in Dallas, when the 35th President of the United States was assassinated. Fascinated by the frenzied media coverage of the dramatic event, Warhol decided to document them by collecting every photo of the First Lady he could find in the press, retaining only eight which he would use in the famous series that produced Studies of Jackie. Studies of Jackie is clearly intended to illustrate these eight historic shots, transposed onto a monumental and particularly imposing medium, while simultaneously providing a telling depiction of Warhol's venomous fascination with American society and its decline.

Daniel Buren, Photo-souvenir: signe contre signe A.R.T, 1972-1985

Daniel Buren's only figurative piece, Photo-souvenir:

signe contre signe A.R.T, 1972-1985 (Estimate upon

request) was designed for a conceptual art exhibition at

the Basel Kunstmuseum in 1972, and created in

September 1985 for the famous Beijer collection in

Stockholm.

The letters covered in stripy white and green fabric form an ensemble of three huge sculptures. For their creator, however, they primarily form a structure that tends towards the abstract, to the extent that, depending upon the exhibition space and the available distance between the viewer and the piece, may become illegible. If viewers can move far enough back, Daniel Buren believes that the whole piece becomes "a modest homage to H.O.L.L.Y.W.O.O.D., the letters which overlook the LA neighbourhood of the same name".

Portrait Relief by Yves Klein

In February 1962, Yves Klein decided to create three relief portraits, life-size casts of his New Realist acolytes: Arman, Martial Raysse and Claude Pascal. As with his Anthropometries, Klein decided to use the naked body, stripped of any external attributes, to make these reliefs which evoke remains of classical Greco-Roman sculpture.

Covered in IKB pigment and mounted upon a majestic golden canvas, this

relief portrait is of the poet Claude Pascal (Estimate: €300,000-€500,000), who Yves Klein worked with several times during his career. It was completed just a few months before the tragic death of the artist, who was planning to complete the series with a fourth and final portrait in the same pose, but this time covered in gold pigment and mounted on a canvas.

César

The evening sale also includes eight works by César, including a Peugeot Compression (Estimate: €250,000-€350,000) and a Vénus de Villetaneuse

(Estimate: €80,000-€120,000). César is one of the best-known, but also most revolutionary, New Realists. He began making his scrap-metal sculptures in the early 1950s; mixed pieces, welded together. For over a decade, most of his sculptures would be made in Villetaneuse, in a studio made available to him by a local industrialist.

Anselm Kiefer

Herr und Leander, 1990 (Estimate: €500,000-€700,000) reflects Anselm Kiefer's fascination with telluric forces. Throughout his whole career, Kiefer never stopped questioning man's place in the universe through his pieces which bring a unique touch of the epic into modern art. Famous for his use of mediums rarely used in painting, here Kiefer uses one of his favourite materials - lead - to produce a timeless scene.

Robert Rauschenberg

An iconic piece from the Urban Bourbon series, created by Robert Rauschenberg between 1988 and 1996,

Chaperone, 1988 (Estimate: €300,000-€500,000) illustrates his work with panache. Its monumental size, its composition that is at once expressionist and pop, and its palette are enhanced by one of the artist's favourite techniques: transferring photography onto huge anodised aluminium plates, which are then polished and glazed to produce a hypnotic piece of art.

The Collection of Marianne and Pierre Nahon

Art is life

Paris, 19 and 20 March 2019

Online sale from 15 to 25 March 2019

Viewing from 14 to 19 March 2019

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*Estimates do not include buyer's premium. Prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer's premium and are net of any fees paid to the purchaser where the purchaser provided an irrevocable bid.

Images are available upon request

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