Works by and about twentieth century artists performed especially well at our sale of Art, Press & Illustrated Books on Thursday, December 1. Of the top 20 lots in the sale, only two were published before 1900. The sale also broke several auction records.
Lot 197: Gustav Klimt, Das Werk von Gustav Klimt, 50 collotype plates with ten heightened in gold and silver, Vienna & Leipzig, 1918. Sold December 1, 2016 for $60,000.
The highlight of the sale was a rare limited edition of Das Werk von Gustav Klimt, 1918, the only monograph published in the artist’s lifetime. Another outstanding lot was a preparatory proof of László Moholy-Nagy’s Composition which was published in the Belgian avant-garde magazine Het Overzicht, circa 1924.
Lot 178: László Moholy-Nagy, Composition (for Het Overzicht), linocut proof, circa 1924.
Sold December 1, 2016 for $17,500, a record for the work.
Lot 128: Leopoldo Méndez & Ramón Alva de la Canal, Horizonte, 9 of 10 issues, Jalapa, 1926-1927. Sold December 1, 2016 for $22,500.
Also in the sale was the most complete set ever to come to auction of the Mexican Stridentist journal Horizonte, 1926-27. Contributors included Diego Rivera and Rufino Tamayo. Stridentism was a radical avant-garde art movement founded in Mexico City in 1921, formed out of the momentum of the Mexican Revolution; Horizonte was their outlet. The set sold for $22,500.
Lot 173: Le Corbusier, Die Farbenklaviaturen von Le Corbusier, color sample book, first edition, Basel, 1931.
Sold December 1, 2016 for $6,000, a record for the work.
Auction records were set for a scarce first edition of Die Farbenklaviaturen von Le Corbusier, 1931, a wallpaper sample book designed by the artist to allow people to create harmonious color combinations in their homes.
Lot 23: Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Sensitive Plant, hand-colored engraving on vellum, Guild of Women Bookbinders, London, 1898. Sold December 1, 2016 for $5,250.
Several works made their auction debuts, including Percy Bysshe Shelley’s The Sensitive Plant, 1898, one of ten copies printed on vellum for the Guild of Women Bookbinders. The ornate Insel-Verlag edition of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra, 1908, designed and bound by Eleanore Ramsey, went to a collector for $15,000.
Lot 101: Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Insel-Verlag edition, 1908. Sold December 1, 2016 for $15,000.
Lot 203: Mary M. & Earl H. Lyall, The Cubies’ ABC, New York & London, 1913. Sold December 1, 2016 for $4,750.
Further highlights included a first edition of the satirical alphabet book skewering the 1913 Armory show, titled The Cubies’ ABC, by Mary M. and Earl H. Lyall, which brought $4,750. Douze Quatrains, 1930, by Pierre Bragenell, with 12 erotic pochoirs attributed to Gerda Wegener, was purchased by a collector for a record $5,500. Another record was set for a scholarly compilation by Hsiang Yüan-Pien titled Noted Porcelains of Successive Dynasties, 1931, which garnered $5,250. Kurt Schwitters’s Die Silbergäule, Merz 8. Die Kathedrale, 1920, with seven lithographs, also performed well, selling for $4,420.
Lot 233: Kurt Schwitters, Die Silbergäule. Merz 8. Die Kathedrale, with seven lithographs, Hannover, 1920.
Sold December 1, 2016 for $4,420.
Browse the catalogue for full results.
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