DUBAI: Highlights from the auction house’s upcoming Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art sale, which takes place in London on Nov. 6 and runs online from Oct. 28 to Nov. 11.
Paul Guiragossian
‘Automne’
“Profoundly shaped by his experience of exile and displacement, Paul Guiragossian developed a unique visual language that blends naturalism, modernism, and figurative abstraction to explore the human condition,” Christie’s lot essay says of the Jerusalem-born Lebanese artist. This work from the 1980s is widely considered one of his masterpieces, and has previously fetched the second-highest price for one of the artist’s works at auction. “‘Automne’ reveals the artist’s unequalled mastery of color,” the lot essay states. “With thick and elongated brushstrokes in various nuances of yellow (said to have been his favorite color), the composition reflects every facet of the human condition with radiant complexity through multiple figurative references, while simultaneously revealing the artist’s appeal for abstraction … The thick impasto applied to the canvas offers a sculptural and Expressionist quality that allows the figures to leap out of the canvas.
“(The work) oscillates between happiness and sadness,” the essay continues, “expressing hope for a brighter future while alluding to an everlasting sense of melancholy.”
