LONDON.- Sotheby’s will hold an inaugural 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective sale in London on 12 November 2014, featuring modern art from countries across Europe and around the Mediterranean by artists who have a strong regional following but are not yet part of the international mainstream. Leading the sale is a group of works by artists who were at the forefront of the intellectual avant-garde in Europe between the First and Second World Wars. Their principal occupation was the exploration of non-figurative art and in the pursuit of art’s highest form of purity they decreed that painting must be abstract. The auction, comprising 74 lots, also features a strong selection of early twentieth-century figurative works by artists who had assimilated the tenets of impressionist and cubist painting.

Tessa Kostrzewa, Sotheby’s Head of Auction Sales, 20th Century Art, said: “We are thrilled to present the inaugural 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective sale, which will become an annual feature of our sale calendar, focusing primarily on artworks from the 1920s through to the 1960s with a special focus on cubism, abstraction, constructivism and other avant-garde works by members of the Bauhaus, Der Sturm, De Stijl and Osma.”

Non-Figurative Art
Dutch artist César Domela (1900-1992) was one of the most innovative and influential artists working in Europe during the mid-twentieth century. He became a prominent member of the De Stijl group with Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. Composition néo-plastique, painted in 1926 – two years after his first encounter with De Stijl – is one of Domela’s most significant works. Estimated at £400,000-600,000, it is one of the few paintings from the early 1920s remaining in private hands and one of a small group produced by the artist during this period. De Stijl, founded in 1917, advocated a new pictorial language, independent from figurative representation and centered on the basic elements of geometry and neutral or primary colours. Mondrian named this new style of painting ‘Neoplasticism’, and in its elements, Domela’s Composition néo-plastique conforms to these criteria. Restricting his palette to blue, yellow and grey, in juxtaposition with the black and white on which the picture is structured, Domela introduces diagonal lines, in opposition to Mondrian’s firm belief in the absolute harmonic value of horizontal and vertical lines. Cutting the sides of the canvas at different angles, the diagonals introduce a dynamic effect to the composition, adding a vivid sense of movement to its rigorous geometric structure. The painting bears testimony to Domela’s determinedly independent approach.

German artist Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (1897-1963) strove to achieve his notion of ‘absolute art’ through his exploration of non-figurative art. He maintained that abstraction was a requisite if art was to reach its highest form of purity. Composition no. 56, painted in 1930, is a striking example of non-figurative tensions and contrasting elements. Estimated at £120,000-180,000, the work can be considered as anticipating Op-Art. The almost monochromatic palette is contrasted by the muted yellow piercing through the surface of the canvas, and a trompe-l’œil effect is achieved by contrasting different hues of white. Vordemberge-Gildewart’s intention was to make demands on the viewer through surface and composition. At the forefront of the intellectual avant-garde, his name is linked to the most prominent conceptual artists active in Europe in the twentieth century.

Mikusláš Medek (1926-1974) was one of the most significant personalities of the Czech visual arts in the twentieth century. Undeterred by the strictures of the Communist government of the day, he was persistent in his quest for creative freedom. The grandson of one of the country's greatest nineteenth-century painters, Antonin Slavicek, and son of a fallen general of the Czech army, Medek faced a difficult upbringing both during and after the Second World War. First persecuted by the Nazis, and then by the Communists, he was prevented from completing a formal artistic education, but inspired by the Surrealists, Medek set off to find his own very personal and idiosyncratic abstraction, as represented in Three Difficult Absences, produced in 1964 (estimate: £40,000-60,000).

Figurative Art
Painted in Paris circa 1914, Cubist Figure by Otakar Kubin (1883-1983) is an important rediscovery from the artist’s Cubist period. It was acquired in the 1920s by Georg Antheil (1900-1959), the American-born avant-garde composer of German descent, and has remained in the same family collection ever since (estimate: £80,000-120,000). Initially a member of the Prague avant-garde group Osma (The Eight), Kubin moved to Munich in 1907, where he worked and exhibited at Galerie Der Sturm and with Der Blaue Reiter, before making France his permanent home in 1912. On leaving Berlin for Paris in 1923, Antheil crated up the pictures that he had amassed, including by all accounts Cubist Figure, and sent them for safe keeping back to America. As he humorously recounts, however, he could not recall to whom he had sent them. It was a full 16 years later that the mystery was solved when he received a letter from Mary Louise Bok, his early patron in Philadelphia, who had discovered a large box in the cellar marked ‘Hold for George Antheil’. Having been living in Hollywood since 1936, Antheil was delighted to be reunited with his precious art works.

Sea by Hungarian artist Károly Ferenczy (1862-1917) was painted in 1904 in Lussingrande on Lussin Island (Lošinj), Croatia. Generally considered the father of modern Hungarian art, Ferenczy is one of the most important Hungarian Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters. Whilst he was a fairly prolific artist, most of Ferenczy’s important works are in museum collections in Hungary, and it is extremely rare to be able to offer a major work by the artist on the international art market. Lussingrande became a popular winter resort in the nineteenth century due to its mild climate, and it is likely that Ferenczy visited the island as a tourist. The distinctive rocks of its coastline are masterfully depicted by Ferenczy in the lower left corner of Sea in sculptural swirls of rich impasto. However, most of this poetic composition is devoted to capturing the beautiful, intense blue of the Adriatic surrounding the island, and the clear blue sky. The horizontal lines of rich bands of sky and sea give the painting an almost abstract quality. Ferenczy painted only a few pure landscapes and only two sea views, including this painting, are known. Sea, estimated at £80,000-120,000, was purchased in 1922 by Jozsef Lukacs, a prominent Hungarian financier, collector and patron of the arts, and has remained with his descendants ever since.

Estimated at £140,000-180,000, Pfälzische Weinernte (Wine Harvest in The Palatinate) by German artist Max Selvogt (1868-1932) was painted circa 1920 en plein air near the Slevogt property at Neukastel, above Leinsweiler in the Rhineland-Palatinate. Slevogt, together with Max Liebermann and Lovis Corinth formed the triumvirate of German Impressionists. Slevogt’s painterly style changed dramatically following his visit to the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris where he saw the works of the French Impressionists. He increasingly turned to plein air landscape painting, developing a new, impressionist style with vivid colours and thick, lively brush strokes which became the hallmark of his mature works. The diagonal upsweep gives a dynamic flow to the composition, emphasised by the grape-pickers climbing the hill almost hidden beneath the lush vines, depicted in great swathes of emerald swirls of impasto. The masterful capturing of light is a common element in Slevogt’s depictions of the Palatinate countryside, accentuating the beauty of the landscape.