Sotheby’s will sell ten works from the Matthew and Carolyn Bucksbaum collection as part of its marquee fall auctions, with six works by René Magritte, Jean Dubuffet, Salvador Dalí, Joan Miró, and Paul Klee featured as part of its Modern Evening auction on November 20.
“Masterpieces like this are so [rare], it’s really only death that separates the owners from something as special as this,” Sotheby’s Senior Vice President, Vice Chairman, Head of Impressionist & Modern Art, Julian Dawes told ARTnews. “They’re impossible to find.”
The group of six works for the evening sale has a total estimate of $18 million to $24 million, led by Magritte’s Le Jockey perdu (1942) with an estimate of $9 million to $12 million and Dubuffett’s Restaurant Rougeot II (1961) with an estimate of $6 million to $8 million.
Dawes also called Le Jockey perdu (1942) “perfect” and “an incredibly important painting” for being the same subject to a 1926 work Magritte called his first-ever Surrealist painting, The Lost Jockey (Le jockey perdu).
“It’s slightly different in the way that he’s executed the painting, but he’s returning to this subject that, at its root, is about sort of like confusion and chaos,” Dawes said, noting it’s the only oil version of this subject and the artist’s L’empire des lumières(1954) sold for $121 million last November. “We are regularly seeing paintings of this scale, and perhaps even of lesser quality, selling between $10 million and $20 million so it’s a sweet spot for Magritte and something that I think there’s a huge audience for.”
The painting was also previously in the collection of William Copley, an artist who was also an important and trendsetting early collector of Surrealist art. “Some of the most important and famous surrealist works of art were in Copley’s collection over the years,” Dawes said. “This work was even photographed in his home in the 1960s.”
Le Jockey perdu also went on display in Abu Dhabi last week as part of the most expensive art exhibition the auction house has ever hosted in the Middle East.
Jean Dubuffett’s Restaurant Rougeot II (1961). Courtesy of Sotheby’s
Dubuffett’s Restaurant Rougeot II (1961), from the artist’s popular Paris Circus series, depicts scenes of joy in the city after the Second World War, with people going out, having fun, spending time with friends and families. Notably, the work is one of just three paintings depicting the iconic restaurant on the Boulevard Montparnasse. The sister painting Restaurant Rougeot I (1961) now belongs to the Fondation Dubuffet in Paris after the artist kept it for himself his entire life.
Dawes called Restaurant Rougeot II “one of the rarest and most important things” at Sotheby’s on a “purely analytical basis” in decades.
“It’s really one of a kind,” Sotheby’s executive vice president, chairman for contemporary art, Grégoire Billault told ARTnews, who noted the third version belongs to one of the top European collector and this will likely be the last one available for public purchase.
“We’ve seen prices for the Paris Circus series, up to $25 million for a picture which is not that much bigger than this one and not much more interesting,” Billault said. “This is really, and I’m not using those words lightly, one of the best Jean Dubuffet picture to ever come up at auction. So yeah, I think this is going to be an amazing test for the market.”
“This is one of those pictures that you can’t believe they’re gonna show up one day,” Billault added. “I’ve been at Sotheby’s for 25 years; I’ve never, ever seen a picture like this.”
When ARTnews asked about the calculations for the estimates, Dawes emphasized the rarity of both Le Jockey perdu and Restaurant Rougeot II, the demand from private collectors and institutions, as well as the “fantastic condition” of both works from being displayed in the Bucksbaums’ specially-designed home in Chicago for several decades.
The Bucksbaums also purchased Dubuffett’s Restaurant Rougeot II in the early 1980s, and Magritte’s Le Jockey perdu in the early 1990s, well before momentum around these artists grew to what it is today. “They were not following trends whatsoever,” Dawes told ARTnews. “It was clearly just guided by this passion and instinct. And as a result, it’s amazing that we’ve arrived at this moment when the each of the works represent some of the most desirable material on the market today.”
Dalí’s Personnage aux tiroirs (circa 1934-38) has an estimate of $700,000 to $1 million. The oil painting features a signature motif of Dalí with drawers opening from the human figure. It was one of four panels for a decorative screen commissioned for Cécile Éluard, the daughter of Gala, Dalí’s wife, and her first husband, the poet Paul Éluard. “This panel is the only one to have appeared at auction in the past thirty years,” according to a press release from Sotheby’s.
Joan Miró’s Personnages et oiseau devant le soleil (1939). Courtesy of Sotheby’s.
The other lower-priced items in the group are Miró’s Femmes, oiseau, étoiles (1942), with an estimate of $1.2 million to $1.8 million; Miró’s Personnages et oiseau devant le soleil (1939) with an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000; and Klee’s Kopf (Head) with an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000.
Femmes, oiseau, étoiles is on a “very specific, flocked paper” with a “velvet-like” feeling the artist chose for pastels. “It’s this very tactile object that you can only really kind of understand its presence when you’re standing in front of it and getting up close, and it has this warmth that is impossible to photograph.” Dawes said. “There are many, I think, special moments and details in this collection, and that was undoubtedly what made living with the collection so so rewarding. But you know, other people will now have a chance to experience that for themselves.”
The couple also has consigned four works that will be offered as part of Sotheby’s Contemporary Day sale on November 19 and its Modern Day sale on November 21.
Fernand Léger‘s Les Constructeurs au vélo (1950) has a low estimate of $120,000 to $180,000; Henry Moore‘s Seated Shelter Figures (1941) has an estimate of $300,000 to $500,000; Pablo Picasso‘s Profil de Jacqueline au foulard (Baer 1033) (1955) has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000; and Anselm Kiefer‘s Schwarze Galle (circa 1995-1996) and an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000.
A lifelong couple dedicated to art and philanthropy
Matthew and Carolyn “Kay” Bucksbaum were together for more than six decades. Matthew transformed a family grocery business into General Growth Properties, the second-largest shopping mall operator in the U.S.
The couple also supported many causes in Chicago and Aspen, including a gift of $42 million to establish the Bucksbaum-Siegler Institute for Clinical Excellence at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and the founding of the Bucksbaum Photography Center at the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Bucksbaum also built “a remarkable private collection” of modern art, old masters and antiquities, displayed at their home in Chicago, which was designed with leading architects Stanley Tigerman and Margaret McCurry.
According to Sotheby’s, the couple also worked with lighting designer Sylvan R. Shemitz (best known for his work on Grand Central Terminal in New York, and the Jefferson Memorial in Washington D.C.) to illuminate works so that, in Shemitz’s’ own words, they would “echo the sky and Lake Michigan’s beaches, visible in the distance.”
