Copenhagen
Bruun Rasmussen
27 September:Nordic Masters + Design
This unusual kidney-shaped coffee table (est DKr200,000-DKr400,000, $32,500-$63,000) was designed by Finn Juhl in 1945 when the Danish architect and designer was in his early 30s. It is a unique piece, made to order for the cabinetmaker Niels Vodder, Juhl’s long-term collaborator. As with all Juhl’s designs, it combines slick modernist style with practicality; the light blue glass top contains a hot plate (lest that coffee go cold), a container with glass lid, and a tambour door rolls back to reveal a hidden yellow compartment. Bruun Rasmussen has a photo of the table in situ at the Copenhagen Cabinetmakers' Guild Exhibition at the Designmuseum Danmark in 1945. In a contemporary review in the design magazine Nyt Tidsskrift for Kunstindustri, it is described in breathy tones: “One is allowed to play around with colour, glass and steel, when the result comes together as a whole—an artwork, liberated from all remnants of time and tradition—one can always afford to dream.” A.B.
Courtesy Sotheby’s, New York
New York
Sotheby’s
26 September:Collection of Edward Albee
A nude by the American artist Milton Avery is a highlight of Sotheby’s sale of the collection of the late playwright Edward Albee. The painting, Meditation (1960) (est $2m-$3m), epitomises the artist’s experiments with chromatic abstraction, or colour field painting, fusing figurative and reductionist elements. The movement emerged in New York in the late 1940s and gained momentum with the Abstract Expressionists in the 1950s, with whom Avery was associated. Albee acquired the work from the Grace Borgenicht Gallery, New York, and it has since been exhibited in the Brooklyn Museum, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art and National Collection of Fine Arts (now part of the Smithsonian Institute), both in Washington, D.C. The sale contains more than 100 lots, including works by Jean Arp, John McLaughlin and Wassily Kandinsky. The sale, estimated to fetch around $9m, will benefit Albee’s foundation in Montauk, Long Island, which grants residencies to writers and artists.G.Ai.
Courtesy of Christie’s Images
Paris
Christie’s
12-14 September:Collection of Alberto Pinto
A voracious collector, the late interior designer Alberto Pinto (1943-2012) filled his lavish Parisian home with an eclectic, maximalist mix of works of art from the antique to the contemporary. Christie’s will disperse the contents in a 1,000-lot, three-day sale, from Renaissance paintings and furnishings to contemporary works of art and a huge collection of antique linen. One highlight is a curule stool draped in bronze gilded and patinated crocodile skin (2008) (est €80,000-€120,000) by the French designer Claude Lalanne, a characteristic piece of surreal, animal-themed sculptural furniture. In 2011, the third edition of the chair, from the collection of the colourful American socialite Dodie Rosekrans, achieved $207,000 with premium (est $100,000-$150,000) at a Sotheby’s New York sale. The Pinto sale includes two other bronze pieces with gold patina by the artist: a lotus-and-monkey table (2007) (est €100,000-€150,000) and a Bureau Croco (2008) (est €120,000-€180,000).G.Ai.