PARIS.- Sotheby’s announced the sale, on 18 May at Sotheby’s in New York, of a masterful work by Simon Hantaï, M.D.4 (Mariale), 1962, estimated at $2 to 3 million, from the artist's most iconic series. M.D.4 will be the fifth work in this cycle sold by the company since 2013.
After the world auction record set by a Mariale in December 2016 at Sotheby’s Paris (€4.4 million), M.D.4 is now entering the company's major evening sales in New York: a key date for leading international contemporary art collectors. Here, for the first time, a work by Simon Hantaï will be seen alongside others by great international artists of the post-war period.
Works from the Mariale series, executed by the artist between 1960 and 1962, are extremely rare. There are only 27 of them, of which a third already belong to museums. The four paintings entitled M.D. belong to the last group of the series. M.D. 4 is the final work from this series, and the most accomplished in the view of the artist, who pushed his subtle play with two colours to an extreme. "[..] Standing out dramatically from the series and sweeping all before it, there is nothing more alive or solemn, nor a red, reddish, orangey burnt sienna of greater transparency or gravity, nor a division more tragic or topical, than the highly serial Mariale M.D.4." Dominique Fourcade.
M.D.4 was unveiled in two major retrospectives devoted to Simon Hantaï in Europe. The first, in 1999, was staged by the Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte in Münster, Germany, and the second by the Centre Georges Pompidou nearly 15 years later, in 2013. Since then, Hantaï has been acclaimed by the top international institutions, and recognised as a key artist in the history of 20th century art. Simultaneously mysterious, spiritual and sensual, the painter's work is undoubtedly some of the most inspiring and significant art of the second half of the 20th century.
Since 2010, Sotheby's has transformed Hantaï's market, achieving pricesof over one million for several of his major works. In each of our sales, the artist has thus benefited from global exposure through our company's network, enabling his works to garner new world records.
Mariales - the first "pliages"
Starting in 1960, Hantaï introduced a totally revolutionary method, which he continued to use for the rest of his life, exploring its various possibilities: "pliage", or folding. From then on, his work contained a random, unpredictable element resulting from his momentarily suspended gaze. The first canvases produced in this way were more precisely crumpled, and the accessible parts were covered with a single colour. Then, once unfolded, the parts left in reserve were painted in turn, generally in a more neutral tone that contrasted with the lively colour of the first layer of paint, giving the entire work the look of a stained-glass window. The religious allusion was confirmed by the name Hantaï gave to this series, Mariales, referring to the protective mantle worn by the Virgin in various mediaeval and Renaissance works. Over two years, the artist painted 27 Mariales in all, varying his protocol through the increased complexity of the folding process or application of colour.
