ZURICH.- The Impressionist & Modern Art auction at Koller on 28 June enjoyed excellent results, with the majority of works selling at or above their upper estimates. René Magritte’s “Les voies et moyens” was painted in 1948 for an exhibition of the artist’s work in Paris. It represents a rare departure from Magritte’s habitual style, during what he called his “Période vache”, and changed hands for CHF 440,000, against an estimate of CHF 250,000/400,000. “Paysage de Corbières” by Max Ernst, another artist from the Surrealist movement, sold for CHF 116,000, and Oskar Kokoschka’s portrait of Ann Windfohr sold for CHF 146,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of CHF 60,000/80,000. A light-flooded landscape by Alfred Sisley, “Autour de la forêt, juin”, circa 1885, fetched CHF 800,000.

The Swiss Art auction on 28 June featured works by almost all of the greatest names in Swiss painting of the 19th and 20th centuries. Several works by Cuno Amiet from the Loeb Collection were offered, including a striking “Fruit Harvest” from 1912, which sold for CHF 775,000, and a spring landscape from 1938 which garnered CHF 98,000. Giovanni Giacometti painted “Skier” in 1899, but its extremely modern look helped to push the sale price to almost double the pre-sale estimate, at CHF 488,000. Giacometti’s five-metre-long Panorama from Muottas Muragl did not reach its reserve price during the auction, but Koller is in post-sale negotiations with a buyer for this major work. Two early and significant works by self-taught painter Adolf Dietrich, “Red clouds in the evening on the lake” and “Full moon over the Utersee” fetched CHF 183,000 and 171,000, and a view of a farm by Appenzell painter Johann Jakob Heuscher sold for ten times its upper estimate and set a new auction record for the artist at CHF 51 000.

The results of the Post-War & Contemporary auction on 29 June totalled over 100% of the pre-sale estimates. Robert Mangold’s “Red with Green Ellipse / Black Frame”, 1988/89, sold for CHF 317,000 against an estimate of CHF 180,000/240,000. Two mid-1980s works by Louise Nevelson in black-painted carved wood, “Cloud II” and “The City”, fetched CHF 73,000 and CHF 66,000. A 1947 work by Jean Fautrier, “La Passoire”, doubled its pre-sale estimate at CHF 208,000. Italian post-war art continues to be sought-after, as witnessed by two works Pierre Dorazio, “Mimet”, 1962, which sold for CHF 88,000 (estimate CHF 30,000/40,000) and an untitled work form 1963 that changed hands for CHF 33,000 against an estimate of CHF 18,000/24,000.

Pop Art once again dominated the Prints & Multiples auction, with works by Andy Warhol, Keith haring and Jeff Koons all hotly contested. Warhol’s “Apple” screenprint fetched CHF 110,000, and Koons’s Animals II, a series of three balloon animals, more than doubled its estimate at CHF 54,000. Keith Haring’s “Pop Shop II” set of four lithographs also more than doubled its pre-sale estimate at CHF 56,000.