
NEW YORK — Two works by Pablo Picasso are up
for auction at Sotheby’s, a sculpture and a painting of
important women in his life that could fetch $65 million.
Tete de femme (Dora Maar) is a 31.5-inch
(80-cm) bronze bust made in 1941 that is estimated to sell for
$20 million to $30 million, the auction house said.
La Lampe from 1931 features the likeness of
his mistress, Marie-Therese Walter, and should bring in $25
million to $35 million, Sotheby’s said.
Both works come from Picasso’s family and
have never been offered at auction. Before the November 7 sale
in New York, the pieces will be on view at Sotheby’s in New York
on November 2-7.
"Marie-Therese Walter and Dora Maar are the
two women who inspired Picasso’s art more than any others and
their reigns in his life and oeuvre overlapped," director of
sale Emmanuel Di Donna said in a statement.
Di Donna called the painting a vibrantly
colorful ode to classicism that was produced as Picasso began to
concentrate on Walter, who would become the primary focus of his
art and a disruption in his marriage to Olga Khokhlova.
The sculpture of Dora Maar, his longtime
companion, is a respectful and idealized portrayal "without any
of the abstraction that characterized his more menacing
depictions of her as the weeping woman," Sotheby’s said.
Sotheby’s also announced the November 14 sale of Jeff Koons’s
Hanging Heart, a 3,500-pound, nine-foot sculpture estimated to
sell for $15 million to $20 million in a sign that contemporary
art can also bring in top dollar. – Reuters