RENOIR : MADAME HENRIOT

Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) worked as an apprentice painter, painting flowers on porcelain plates. Having saved some money, in 1862 Renoir entered the Atelier Gleyre and there made friends with Monet, Sisley, Bazille and later Pissarro and Cézanne. Renoir achieved recognition earlier than his friends.

In 1879-80, he sent several portraits to the official Salon, among them Portrait of the Actress Jeanne Samary and Portrait of Mme Charpentier and Her Children. In the 1880s, he abandoned Impressionism for what is often called the “dry style”. In 1886, the art dealer Durand-Ruel exhibited 32 of Renoir's paintings in New York, thus opening the American market for Impressionism. Renoir died in Cagnes on 3 December 1919 and was buried in Essoyes.

This picture painted in 1876 is an oil on canvas (65.9 x 49.8 cm.) represents Henriette Henriot, an actress at the Odéon theatre in Paris. Renoir painted several portraits of her, notably a Madame Henriot in a boy costume (below).
The picture above was sold in 1962 for £ 5,500 only and fetched £ 33,875 in a sale in Tokyo, Japan in 1969. It is now on the walls of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, a gift from the Adele R. Levy Fund.

Renoir was one of the great worshippers of the female form, and he said `I never think I have finished a nude until I think I could pinch it.' One of his sons was the celebrated film director Jean Renoir (1894-1979), who wrote a lively and touching biography (Renoir, My Father) in 1962.

Currently most Renoir's works sell in between $100,000 and $ 2 million.

BONNARD : L'INDOLENTE

Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) was born at Fontenay-aux-Roses, near Paris, into the family of a high-ranking official in the French War Ministry. After an idyllic and happy childhood, in 1886, Pierre entered the University of Paris to study law. In 1893, he met 16-year-old Marthe de Méligny, of whose real name of Maria Boursin Bonnard was not aware of until they got married 32 years later. From their meeting a large part of his art revolved around her notably this veritable hymn to voluptuousness.

This woman spread out for all to see after lovemaking is the epitome of unveiled intimacy, violent, passionate and sombre and, in the end, very "fin de siècle" ; she is certainly his Marthe.

After seeing this painting, the famous art dealer and publisher Ambroise Vollard asked Bonnard to illustrate a collection of Paul Verlaine's poetry. His paintings of the late 1890s are very personal and intimate like this Indolente (1899).

In 1918 Bonnard was made the honorary president of a society of young French painters. In 1926 he bought a house named 'Le Bosquet' at Le Cannet on the Côte d'Azur. The house remained his main place of residence and work until his death. The same year, 1926 year, he visited the USA.

In 1983 this picture sold for £ 302,400 ($471,744). It is an oil on canvas, 96x106 cm now in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

DE KOONING : TWO WOMEN

Willem de Kooning ( 1904 – 1997) was an abstract expressionist painter, born in Rotterdam. His early artistic training included eight years at the Rotterdam Academy of Fine Arts and Techniques. In the 1920s he worked as an assistant to the art director of a Rotterdam department store. In 1926, De Kooning entered the United States as a stowaway on a British freighter and in 1927 he settled in Manhattan. In October 1935, De Kooning began to work on the WPA (Works Progress Administration) Federal Art Project, and he won the Logan Medal of the arts.

Developing a bold style of gestural paintings, he produced figure paintings and abstract, urban landscapes throughout the 1950s. In the following decade, pastoral themes replaced the urban violence of his earlier expressionist work. In 1963, de Kooning moved from a Manhattan loft to his newly built studio in the East Hampton community of the Springs. The North Atlantic light and flat beaches of Long Island inspired the luminous paintings of de Kooning's later career.

He made many canvasses about women, all distorted and rather monstruously looking. For that reason, he has sometimes been accused of being a woman-hater.

Known for his draftsman's hand and "bravura brushstroke," de Kooning never settled into a single style. "You have to change to stay the same," he would say, and following his own wisdom, he constantly reinvented himself.

In the 80s, Willem de Kooning was diagnosed with, in all probability, Alzheimer's disease. After his wife, Elaine, died on February 1, 1989, his daughter, Lisa, and his lawyer, John Eastman were granted guardianship over a Wilhem De Kooning, alcoholic and sick.

Woman-hater or not, his work was appreciated and sought after well before his passing : in 1983, this picture of Two Women fetched $1.2 million on auction.

When Willem de Kooning died in 1997, he was remembered as the first modern art star. His giant, eruptive works, long career and turbulent lifestyle made him one of the most complex and romantic figures of the 20th century.

MONET : CHARING CROSS BRIDGE

French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) painted in 1901 this oil on canvas (25x36 ins) representing Charing Cross bridge in London.

In 1899 Monet began painting London scenes, seeking to elicit an emotional response through the use of color and light. Monet wrote, "The Thames was all gold. It was beautiful, so I set to work in a frenzy following the sun and its reflections in the water."

Monet stayed in London after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 with his friend Alfred Sisley and both were impressed by Turner's and Constable's work.

This picture is part of the Ryerson collection and was auctioned off in 1963 for $ 64,680.

DALI : TELEPHONE - HOMARD

This is not a joke nor a painting but a real telephone receiver made by Salvador Dali (1904-1989) in the form of a lobster in 1936. In the early 1930s, Dalí promoted the idea of the Surrealist object, of which this is a classic example. The Surrealists valued the mysterious and provocative effect of such unexpected conjunctions. Dalí, in particular, believed that his objects could reveal the secret desires of the unconscious. Lobsters and telephones had strong sexual connotations for him, and he drew a close analogy between food and sex. He made this Lobster Telephone for Edward James, the British collector who was the most active patron of Surrealist artists in the 1930s, notably of Salvador Dali.

In 1981 the Tate Gallery Liverpool bought it for £ 19,000 ($42,940). Prior to the sale, in the 40s, this curious phone was at the house of Edward James in London where he used to host lots of artists or their relatives. At the beginning of the war, Elsa Schiaparelli's niece, Bianca, was staying at James' s house but the Italian designer warned James that she was a spy. When Italy declared war on Britain, the police came to the house and saw Bianca talking to a friend with this telephone. At the end of the conversation, she hung up saying "good bye, darling." They were so convinced that they had encountered a mad woman talking to a lobster that they left without questioning her."