On April 11th, Aguttes will showcase the Asian art scene by presenting around thirty works by artists such as Zao Wou-Ki, Wang Keping, and Chu Teh-Chun. The catalog will also include creations by Fabienne Verdier, Lucio Fontana, and André Marfaing, as well as a selection of about twenty works on paper and around ten sculptures...

THE ASIAN SCENE: WANG KEPING, ZAO WOU-KI, CHU TEH-CHUN...

Around thirty works celebrate the Asian scene. Among these essential signatures of our sale are those of Zao Wou-Ki, Wang Keping, Chu Teh-Chun, Kim Sou, Wang Yan Cheng.

Contemporary Chinese sculptor, Wang Keping, a passionate self-taught artist, co-founded the group Xing Xing - The Stars - in 1979 with Ai Weiwei, Ma Desheng, and Huang Rui. Their early sculptures stand as political talismans, opposing the Communist Party and advocating for freedom of expression. Among his iconic works, "Silence," a face symbolizing censorship, was banned.

The artist, born near Beijing, settled in France in 1984 and now creates more personal works. He favors wood as his medium and draws inspiration from Taoist philosophy, ancient Han dynasty statuary, and Chinese folk art. As evidenced by "Buste," the artist reveals the essential forms of his subjects through the veins, knots, and fissures of the wood. Carefully selected, each section bears witness to this privileged relationship with nature, which is also reflected in the meticulous treatment of the surface of the works, polished and burned with a blowtorch to create a smooth and soft texture.

WANG KEPING (né en 1949)
Buste, 2005
Maple wood
46 x 29 x 28 cm
PROVENANCE
Galerie Zürcher, Paris, 2006
Private collection, France
Estimation: 30 000 - 50 000 €

Robert Jacobsen, Roger Desserprit, César, Tony Matelli, Igor Mitoraj… other sculptors will be featured alongside this artist.

While Les Franciscaines currently presents a monographic exhibition dedicated to Zao Wou-Ki (until May 26, 2024, in Deauville), Aguttes will showcase on April 11th an ink work by this iconic painter of lyrical abstraction, dating back to 1984. This piece embodies a kind of quintessence of Zao Wou-Ki's work, illustrating his quest for a radical aesthetic. An ode to vulnerability, it bears witness to the artist's total technical mastery. Creating a work on a square meter of rice paper, the artist brilliantly accomplishes a feat of technical prowess. Over time, the artist synthesizes the aesthetic teachings of ancient China with the influences of the artists of the new school of Paris, exercising a free art between lyricism and abstraction. This Chinese artist naturalized French quickly found his place among the greatest names in contemporary art, as well as among the top sales on the secondary market.


ZAO WOU-KI (1921-2013)
Sans titre, 1984
Ink on rice paper, signed and dated bottom right.
105 x 105 cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Paris
Galerie Oriane, Paris XVIe
Estimation : 80 000 - 120 000 €

Georges Mathieu, Lucio Fontana, Panamarenko, Roger Bissière, Robert Combas, César, Antonio Segui, Henri Michaux... Discover around twenty works on paper in our upcoming sale.

BETWEEN THE WEST AND THE EAST, THE WORK OF FABIENNE VERDIER

« Ce code physique essentiel m’a toujours fascinée dans l’acte de peindre à la verticale, puisque dans l’écoulement de l’encre à la verticale, on joue avec cette gravité qui est pour moi primordiale. Et j’ai donné ma vie à cet acte vertical. Lorsque s’écoule l’encre sur la toile, la forme naît peut-être par l’attraction comme toutes les formes qui naissent sur notre petite Terre et dans l’Univers ; il y a là une chance d’être en harmonie. »

Interview with Fabienne Verdier, Germain Viatte, Art passion 42/15, p. 12 – 23.

Le jeudi 6 avril 2023, Aguttes décrochait un nouveau record mondial pour l'artiste Fabienne Verdier, avec l'œuvre Cercle – Ascèse, adjugée 362 970 €. Née en 1962, Fabienne Verdier étudie aux beaux-arts de Toulouse, acquérant de solides bases. En quête d'une poésie des traits simples, elle complète son parcours académique à Chongqing dans les années 1980, où elle débute un apprentissage de la calligraphie chinoise. Elle s’entoure des plus grands maîtres de la région, et son voyage initiatique se déroule sur neuf années. Elle vit en immersion totale, dans une Chine encore sous influence communiste. Au travers de ses divers enseignements, Fabienne Verdier apprend à comprendre les mouvements de l’eau, de la nature, des arbres et des pierres. De retour en France, elle allie la verticalité de la calligraphie chinoise à la monumentalité de la peinture occidentale.

On Thursday, April 6, 2023, Aguttes achieved a new world record for the artist Fabienne Verdier, with the work Cercle – Ascèse sold for €362,970. Born in 1962, Fabienne Verdier studied at the Fine Arts School of Toulouse, acquiring a solid foundation. In search of a poetry of simple lines, she furthered her academic journey in Chongqing in the 1980s, where she began learning Chinese calligraphy. She surrounded herself with the greatest masters of the region, embarking on a nine-year initiatory journey. She lived in total immersion in a China still under communist influence. Through her various teachings, Fabienne Verdier learned to understand the movements of water, nature, trees, and stones. Back in France, she combines the verticality of Chinese calligraphy with the monumentality of Western painting.


FABIENNE VERDIER (born in 1962)
Tectonique, 2017
Ink, pigments, and varnish on canvas mounted on panel, signed, titled, dated, and bearing the label of Galerie Alice Pauli on the back.
178 x 118 cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Belgium
Estimate upon request

FABIENNE VERDIER (born in 1962)
Tectonique, 2017
Ink, pigments, and varnish on canvas mounted on panel, signed, titled, dated, and titled on the back.
178 x 118 cm
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Belgium
Estimate upon request

OTHER GREAT SIGNATURES

Born in 1899 in Argentina, Lucio Fontana studied sculpture in Italy. By 1930, he held his first exhibition, gaining attention for his ability to merge sculpture and painting, blurring the boundaries between artistic disciplines. "Concetto Spaziale," estimated at €50,000 - €70,000, bears witness to and illustrates the artist's unique style, with its scratches and incisions on paper. Created two years before the artist's death, this late work demonstrates Fontana's spontaneity of gesture as well as the spherical form of his sculptures. Concetto Spaziale refers to almost all of Fontana's works from 1948-1949 onwards. Fascinated by the exploration of space, the artist developed his spatialist theory in the 1940s.

LUCIO FONTANA (1899 - 1968)
Concetto Spaziale, 1966 - 1968
Scratches and incisions on paper
47 x 60 cm
A certificate of authenticity from the Lucio Fontana Studio, dated October 10, 1969, will be provided to the buyer.

PROVENANCE
Collection Anne Lejemtel, Paris
Private collection, Belgium
BIBLIOGRAPHY
L. M. Barbero, Lucio Fontana : Catalogue Raisonné of the works on paper, 2013, Skira, vol. III, p. 973, r., l'oeuvre est répertoriée sous le code 66-68 DSP 106
Estimation : 50 000 – 70 000 €

André Marfaing (1925-1987) attended sculpture and painting classes in Toulouse, after studying law, before settling in the Paris region. Over the years, he crossed paths with prominent figures of the new school of Paris such as Pierre Soulages, Fernand Léger, Maurice Estève, Alfred Manessier, Roger Bissière, and Gérard Schneider. These encounters significantly influenced his style, which evolved from figuration to abstraction, and in 1953, he created his first abstract work.

Abstraction, 1974 demonstrates how the 1970s marked a turning point in the artist's work, with a more contained and mastered gesture. The artist abandons oil in favor of acrylic, and his works become more meditative, minimalist, ascetic, and architectural. This large acrylic painting offers a captivating immersion into the artist's artistic evolution and stands out for the rare presence of an ochre-colored background, an unusual choice in Marfaing's palette. At first glance, the observer notices the artist's exceptional control of gesture. The meticulously structured lines and forms reveal a profound understanding of the balance between void and fullness. In the center of the painting, the pictorial material thickens and draws attention without detracting from the overall harmony of the composition. The absence of a white background, often associated with compositions of this period, reinforces the remarkable character of this work.

Many of his works circulate on the art market, appearing in auction houses and numerous art fairs such as Art Paris, FAB Paris, Art Basel, BRAFA, and Modern Art Fair. Additionally, they are also held in various institutions: the MAM (Paris), the Centre Pompidou, and the Fondation Gandour (Geneva).


ANDRE MARFAING (1925-1987)
Abstraction, 1974
Acrylic on canvas, signed and dated bottom right, dated and bearing the reference 7717 from Galerie Ariel as well as the reference from the artist's archives January 74.1 on the back.
115 x 89 cm
This work is listed in the artist's catalogue raisonné under number 0996 and bears the reference January 1974-1.
PROVENANCE
Galerie Ariel, Paris
Vente Me Martin du Nord, 24 mai 1989
Private collection, France
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Catalogue raisonné "André Marfaing paintings 1948 - 1986", éditions Skira, 2022, p.288
Estimation : 60 000 - 80 000 €

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Our Post-War & Contemporary Art auction will also celebrate the Supports/Surfaces movement through works by Pierre Buraglio and Claude Viallat.
Often referred to as the "painter without a brush," Pierre Buraglio is known for iconic works such as "fenêtres - Double fréquences" (windows - Double frequencies) and "portes de 2 CV Citroën" (doors of 2 CV Citroën cars). Since the late 1970s, the window, a metaphor for an opening to the world in painting since the Renaissance, has occupied a prominent place in his work. Similarly, the door of the 2 CV Citroën car, quintessential to his art, symbolically represents a popular landscape.
From Claude Viallat, the founder of the Supports/Surfaces movement and close to Buraglio, "Œuvre sans titre" (Untitled Work) dates back to 1982, the year in which the artist presented his first exhibition at the Centre Pompidou. Coming from the Jean Fournier gallery, it marks a significant turning point in Viallat's career. This canvas without a stretcher, a true blend of techniques including acrylic, embroidered fabric, and passementerie, reflects the artist's iconic aesthetic with its bright and cheerful colors.
The approach of Supports/Surfaces distinguishes itself by an equal interest in the materials used, creative gestures, and the final artwork, relegating the subject to the background. Since 1966, the artists have been questioning the traditional support of painting. These artistic reflections find echoes in similar movements, notably in American minimal art and Italian Arte Povera.


PIERRE BURAGLIO (Né en 1939)
Porte de 2CV, 1992
Metal and stained glass, signed and dated on the back.
100 x 80 cm
We thank the artist for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work.
PROVENANCE
Private collection, Paris
Estimation : 10 000 - 15 000 €

Upcoming auction
Thursday, April 11, 2024 at 3:00 PM.
Click here to discover all the lots

Public exhibition:
Monday, April 8th to Wednesday, April 10th: 10:00 AM - 1:00 PM and 2:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Thursday, April 11th: 10:00 AM - 12:30 PM

For any further information or to include a lot in your next auctions, please contact
Ophélie Guillerot
Head of department - Expert
+33 1 47 45 93 02
guillerot@aguttes.com

Paul Rigaud
Specialist
+33 (0)1 41 92 06 48
rigaud@aguttes.com