NEW YORK.- Sotheby’s announced today that it would auction 44 paintings from the Greentree Foundation, which was created in 1982 by the late Mrs. John Hay Whitney following the death of her husband John Hay Whitney. The sale will include major works by Edouard Manet, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Sir Alfred J. Munnings and John Singer Sargent. It will also include Picasso’s extraordinary Garçon à la Pipe (Boy with a Pipe), which was painted in 1905 and is one of the most beautiful and powerful pictures from the early years of the artist’s career. Most of the paintings will be auctioned in a single owner evening sale in New York on Wednesday May 5th, with the Collection itself estimated in excess of $140 million.
"World-renowned for their philanthropy, Mr. and Mrs. Whitney donated numerous major Impressionist and Modern works to the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and the Yale University Gallery," said Richard Schaffer, President of the Greentree Foundation. "The current manifestation of the Whitney family’s longstanding philanthropic impulse is the Greentree Foundation. When Mrs. Whitney died in 1998, she left the Whitney family home in Manhasset, Long Island, known as Greentree, and much of her personal property to the Foundation. She had instructed the Foundation’s trustees that she and Mr. Whitney hoped that Greentree would be preserved and utilized for public purposes, particularly matters of international relations. The Foundation currently hosts high-level international meetings at Greentree devoted to the furtherance of peace, human rights and international cooperation. This year, the foundation will undertake the extensive renovation of a building complex at Greentree to convert it into a meeting facility. The proceeds from the auctions will be used to fund these activities at Greentree and other charitable and educational programs of the Foundation."
"Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney were among the foremost collectors in the United States and their art collection was one of the greatest American collections of Impressionist and Modern Art of the 20th Century," said Bill Ruprecht, President and Chief Executive Officer of Sotheby’s Holdings, Inc. "This is the most extraordinary group of paintings that Sotheby’s has ever had the opportunity to auction and it is a great privilege for us to continue our long-term relationship with the Whitney family, which has included three memorable sales."
Highlighting the auction is Garçon à la Pipe (Le jeune apprenti) by Pablo Picasso. Painted in 1905 when he was 24, soon after he had settled in Montmartre, Garçon à la Pipe is described by Charles Moffett, Co-Director of Impressionist and Modern Art at Sotheby’s as "without question, one of the most beautiful of the artist’s Rose Period paintings and one of the most important early works by Pablo Picasso ever to appear on the market." The work depicts a young Parisian working boy holding a pipe in his left hand, perhaps as an emblem of maturity, rather than a purveyor of tobacco smoke. The haunting mood that characterizes this portrayal of an adolescent boy, typifies the melancholy charm of the artist’s Rose period. "It is this haunting ambiguity that has ensured for Garçon à la Pipe its status as one of Picasso’s most celebrated images of adolescent beauty and as a masterpiece of his early years," said Mr. Moffett.
Although the model for this work has sometimes been identified as an actor, it seems likely that he was an adolescent known as "p’tit Louis," who was frequently to be found at the Bateau Lavoir in Montmartre, along with, in Picasso’s own words, other "local types, actors, ladies, gentlemen, delinquents….He stayed there, sometimes the whole day.
He watched me work. He loved that." The painting probably began as a study from life in Picasso’s immediate surroundings, but was dramatically transformed in a moment of sudden inspiration. One month later, when Picasso added the crown of a garland of roses, the young boy who might light his pipe becomes a slightly more mature adolescent who gazes absently into space, a mysterious presence, framed with two large bouquets on the wall behind him. Garçon à la pipe is estimated to sell for more than $70 million.
Courses au Bois de Boulogne, described by Mr. Moffett as "one of Edouard Manet’s greatest paintings" was painted in 1872 at a time when memories of the Franco Prussian War (1870-71) were still fresh, and a sunny day at the races was therefore a particularly welcome respite. Here the artist captures the throngs of stylish spectators in vigorous strokes of paint, that contrast with the more carefully rendered horses and jockeys. More than a sporting painting, the present work is a prime example of Manet’s interest in compositions that were subjects from modern life.
Indeed, the anonymous, faceless figures in the crowd at Longchamps could serve as illustrations of "the perfect flâneur" as defined in Baudelaire’s famous essay, "The Painter of Modern Life." The spectator-filled carriages recall his description of "innumerable carriages from which slim young men and women garbed in eccentric costume authorized by the season, hoisted up on cushions, on seats, or on the roof, are attending some ceremony of the turf which is going on in the distance." Interestingly, the top-hatted figure in the lower-right corner is thought to be Manet’s fellow racing enthusiast, Edgar Degas. This is the last and finest of Manet’s treatments of equestrian subjects. The large (28 ¾ x 36 ¼ ins.) canvas is estimated to sell for $20/30 million.
Degas produced a large number of works devoted to equestrian subjects, with his interest in horses, jockeys and racecourses increasing in the 1880s. Equestrian subjects were interesting to the artist because of the many ways in which they are analogous to ballet dancers, the dance, and the stage, focusing as they both do on highly specialized training, gestures and movements that are codifiable and repeated.
Degas’ fascination with the "choreography" and rituals of the racetrack was evidently shared by Mr. Whitney, whose interest in horse racing is legendary. He not only owned outstanding equestrian paintings by Gericault, Degas, Manet and Munnings, but the Whitney family’s Greentree Stable produced many of the greatest and most successful thoroughbreds of the 20th century. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Whitneys also owned two of Degas’ best racing paintings, Avant la course, painted circa 1882-88, and La promenade des chevaux, circa 1892. The paintings are estimated to sell for $5/7 million each.
Frederic Bazille’s Pot de Fleurs is widely acclaimed as one of the greatest flower paintings of the Impressionist movement. Estimated at $4/6 million, this work has been exhibited widely and included in virtually every important publication on the Impressionist movement.
The May 5th evening sale will also feature a group of four paintings by Sir Alfred J. Munnings, PRA, which are of remarkable quality and beauty. The "Red Prince Mare," which dates to 1921, is described by Ben Hall, who heads Sporting Paintings for Sotheby’s, as "one of Munnings’ most impressive and significant compositions, simultaneously monumental and personal." The work depicts a mare, Rosemary, being saddled before a point-to-point race. The rich red of the riders’ jackets, the shimmering brown of Rosemary’s coat, and the royal blue of the blanket create a dazzling synthesis of light and color, with Munnings’ combination of broad and precise brushstrokes further enhancing the movement of the ensemble. Rosemary, by Red Prince II, was owned by the artist’s wife Violet Munnings, who can be seen in the center of the canvas. The painting, which captures perfectly the anticipation and fervor before the race, is estimated to sell for $4/6 million. Also by Munnings are
Leaving the Paddock at Epsom Downs, which is estimated at $600/800,000, Before the Start, estimated to sell for $500/700,000, and The Winner, painted circa 1910 and estimated at $500/700,000.
Another highlight is William Blake’s The Good and Evil Angels Struggling for Possession of a Child, a monotype with pen and black ink and watercolor, one of a group of twelve compositions known as the Large Color Prints datable to 1795-1805. All are hand-colored monotypes, the largest and most successful works on paper that Blake had made to date. In the composition, the bound figure is Orc, a symbol of energy and associated with the human body, while the figure holding the child is Los, Orc’s father, who is a symbol of reason and associated with the soul. There is little consensus on the meaning of the series as a whole, yet like most of Blake’s works from his mature period, it has its roots in religious and historical themes but is transformed by Blake’s imagination into a complex personal vision of remarkable power.
The present work, which is estimated to sell for $1/1.5 million, is one of only four of these monotypes remaining in private hands.
Sotheby’s sale of American Paintings on May 19th will include seven works from the Greentree Foundation. The highlight is the iconic portrait Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife, by John Singer Sargent, described by Dara Mitchell, Director of American Paintings at Sotheby’s as "one of Sargent’s most daring and modern portraits." Widely acclaimed and extensively reproduced, the work was painted in 1885, when Sargent was spending much of his time away from his studios in Paris and London, at the artists’ colony at Broadway, in the Cotswolds. It is imbued with "an impressionistic vitality and spontaneity lacking in the formal commissioned portraits that had earned Sargent his reputation until that point." Sargent painted it while visiting Bournemouth, the resort town on the coast of England where Stevenson, the Scottish novelist, poet and author of Treasure Island, and his wife Fanny lived. It was a gift from the artist to the Stevensons, whose delight in it is described by Fanny in a letter of August 1885 to her mother-in-law as "like an open box of jewels." It is estimated at $5/7 million.
Mr. and Mrs. John Hay Whitney - Betsey Maria Cushing was born in Baltimore in May 1908, one of three daughters of Dr. Harvey Cushing, renowned neurosurgeon and professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins, Harvard and Yale Universities, and his wife, Kate Crowell. From 1930 to 1940, Betsey Cushing was married to James Roosevelt, the eldest son of Franklin Delano and Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1942 she married John Hay Whitney, the son of Payne and Helen Hay Whitney.
John Singer Sargent, Robert Louis Stevenson and His Wife John Hay, Mr. Whitney’s maternal grandfather, served as secretary to President Abraham Lincoln, Ambassador to Great Britain, and Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Mrs. Whitney, who died in March of 1998, was a philanthropist in many fields. Her commitments to medicine included a number of institutions, most especially North Shore University Hospital, The New York Hospital and Yale University School of Medicine.
Mr. and Mrs. Whitney were major art benefactors, donating many significant Impressionist, Modern and American Paintings to the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and the Yale University Art Gallery. Of their art collection, which is regarded as among the finest in private hands, John Russell has written: "This was the collection of two people who did not collect to impress, or to fill gaps, or to hoard. They collected what touched them directly." "His was fundamentally a private and a companionable view of painting. Sometimes the result was as strong as a major museum: there was an upstairs sitting room at Winfield House (the residence of the United States Ambassador to the Court of St. James), for instance, which had as great a concentration of first-rate Fauve paintings as can be found in any American institution. But they were not forced upon the visitor’s attention with trick lighting and spurious ’installation’. They were simply there, as household familiars. It seemed then, and it seems still, the best way to treat wonderful paintings." In 1982, following the death of her husband, Mrs. Whitney established the Greentree Foundation.
John Hay Whitney was a man of extraordinary accomplishment in business and philanthropy. Among the many organizations he founded were J.H. Whitney and Company, the oldest venture capital firm in America; the Whitney Communications Corporation; and the John Hay Whitney Foundation "to help people achieve social and economic justice, with particular focus on those who experience discrimination in our country because of race, gender or economic condition." He was a colonel in the Army Air Forces during World War II and was awarded the Legion of Merit and Bronze Star. Like his grandfather, he also served as Ambassador to Britain, being asked by President Eisenhower to be Ambassador to the Court of St. James in 1956, a post he served in for four years. Mr. Whitney was Editor-in-Chief and Publisher of The New York Herald Tribune from 1961-1966 and Chairman of the International Herald Tribune from 1966 until his death in 1982.
