Alice Tériade Collection, Sale 20 October 2007 | News

ALICE TERIADE Collection

PRESTIGE SALES OF MODERN & CONTEMPORARY ART OCTOBER 2007, Auction on 20 october 2007

25 July 2007

Claude Monet (1840-1926): Iris Jaunes, 1924-1925. (détail); Estimation: €1,000,000-1,500,000

A highlight of Artcurial’s modern art sale on 20 October 2007 will be 15 works from the Alice Tériade Collection, reflecting the friendship between the Tériades and leading 20th century artists.

Works by Claude Monet, Alberto & Diego Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, Francisco Bores, Pablo Gargallo, and Henri Laurens bear witness to the role played by Alice & Efstrafios Tériade at the heart of modern art, in a collection that was the natural offshoot of their lives spent in the company of great artists…

The works on offer have an intimate feel: gifts, one-offs, direct purchases, private commissions, works with a history one could only dream of… each one tells the tale of friendship, and accompanied the Tériades in their private world…

The total value of the ensemble is estimated at €1.9-2.9m.

Part of this magnificent collection was donated to the Musée Matisse in Le Cateau-Cambrésis by Alice Téraide in 2000—the 27 illustrated art books published by Tériade, 500 original engravings, and 26 issues of Verve.

Tériade — The shepherd of beauty

“The publisher is a very strong man, with a great influence on artists, especially when he loves books so passionately that he builds his life around them”¹
Henri Matisse on Tériade

Tériade left the mark of his personality and freedom of spirit on some of the 20th century’s leading art magazines, and numbered among the most prominent publishers of his era.

He was both art critic and publisher of genius, who struck up a dialogue between artists and the arts, pioneering a new approach for illustrated books by offering artists “a space of their own” ². He was perfectly in tune with the masters of the time, and enjoyed their esteem. He had no peer when it came to “marrying the approach of each creator”³ and, as publisher, paid perfect homage to Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, Pierre Bonnard and Alberto Giacometti, to name but a few.

Looking back on his exceptional career, Tériade claimed merely that he owed everything to friendship: “I wanted my books to be like a garden; without friendship I could have done nothing” ⁴.

To artists, he was the unassuming protector of modern genius, which he captured in special books that felt more like poems. Elitys ⁵, in his poem Villa Natacha, called him a “prince who does not show himself but whose presence is intensely felt.” Jean Leymarie, in an Eloge penned in his honor, dubbed him a “shepherd of beauty^”6. Tériade turned his very life into a work of art—a symbol of meeting and sharing.

The Tériade odissey

Tériade’s odyssey started in Greece in 1915. Born Efstrafios Eleftheriades in Mitilini in 1897, the only son of landowners, he left for France (where he shortened his name to Tériade) at the age of 18, enticed by Paris which he likened to the New Athens⁷, discovering Le Tout Montparnasse and a veritable passion for art.

In 1926 Tériade joined Les Cahiers d’Art. “This is truly painting’s Golden Age” he declared. “We can but submit to the attraction of its simple laws, the charm of its verve, and the creative vigor of its debates” ⁸. By 1931 he had written over forty articles for the celebrated review, as well as a monograph on Fernand Léger. From 1928 to 1933 he also wrote in L’Intransigeant with Maurice Raynal.

The late 1920s saw some decisive encounters. Tériade’s powers of understanding earned him the esteem of the artists who entertained him and confided in him. He became friends with Matisse, Maillol, Picasso, Miro, Chagall, Braque, Reverdy and, above all, Alberto Giacometti.

In 1933, with publisher Albert Skira, Tériade founded the Surrealist magazine Minotaure. Faced with the growing influence of André Breton and his group, he quit in 1936 after launching a new monthly, La Bête Noire, with Maurice Raynal. At the same time Tériade also founded the review Voyage en Grèce.

In 1937 Tériade conceived the “most beautiful magazine in the world”—Verve. Twenty-six issues would appear until 1960. The leading painters and poets contributed, making each issue a work of art in its own right: “Verve is both the garden of color and the conch of the word”⁹ as Jean Leymarie put it.

In 1943 the illustrated art book was reborn under Tériade. From then until 1975, he designed 27 books of unequalled beauty, each a publishing landmark: five with Chagall, four with Matisse, three with Laurens and Miro, two with Gromaire and Léger, and one each with Beaudin, Bonnard, Rouault, Villon, Juan Gris, Le Corbusier, Picasso & Giacometti. Tériade opened books to color, and turned them into spaces offered to artists; each book is the story of a special relationship.

In 1945 Tériade bought the Villa Natasha at St-Jean-Cap Ferrat. It became a haven for Matisse, Bonnard, Picasso, Giacometti and Laurens, among others. Here they produced a variety of works for their host: “One of the purest marvels of art lies in its everyday familiarity”¹⁰.

1949 saw the birth of a love that would never wane when Tériade met Alice Génin, the woman who would become his wife. She was 20 years younger than him and “dazzled by the simplicity of this man, so brilliant and cultivated” who offered her “the certainty of having the ideal companion by my side.”According to Jean Leymarie, she was the one“to whom he would ask nothing, but from whom he expected and received everything”and who “would enable him to pursue his life’s work” ¹¹.

The 1970s were a time of apotheosis for Tériade. In 1973, the exhibition Hommage à Tériade opened in Paris; over the next nine years it moved between London, Budapest, Italy and Spain. In 1979 Tériade attended the inauguration of the museum named after him in Mitilini. His journey reached its end in 1982; he is buried in Montparnasse.

Claude Monet (1840-1926): Iris Jaunes, 1924-1925; Estimation: €1,000,000-1,500,000

Yellow Irises (1924-25), a major painting by Claude Monet, heads the ensemble (est. €1m-1.5m). It came from Monet’s studio in Giverny and was acquired by Tériade from the artist’s son Michel Monet.

This large canvas (150 x 130cm) was shown at the Monet exhibition at the Kunsthaus in Zurich in 1952, then at the Homage to Monet exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1980. Tériade reproduced it in Verve alongside other works by Monet and a text by Gaston Bachelard.

Monet paid tribute to the iris one last time shortly before he died. The iris was very much an Impressionist emblem at Giverny and, along with the water-lily, the only flower that inspired Monet to produce whole series of paintings. The first, done between 1914 and 1917, celebrated yellow and mauve irises; the second, in 1924-25, ran to a dozen canvases portraying above all yellow irises.

Irises lent Monet’s painting a meditative feel reminiscent of Hokusaï. With its chromatic harmony and row of flowers shown from the front, Yellow Irises evokes some of the prints by the Japanese master that Monet owned.

Alberto Giacometti, perhaps closer to Tériade than anyone is represented by six works. “It was with Giacometti, whom he knew and admired from his very first exhibition, that Tériade had his most frequent and intense conversations”points out Jean Leymarie, who evokes a “fraternal link between the two men” ¹². Giacometti saw in Téraide a kindred spirit able to understand his work, and derived real support from their friendship. Evidence of this includes his many portraits of Tériade and the monumental sculpture of a tall, slender goddess that he offered him, and which Tériade placed in the gardens of Villa Natasha. They also worked together on an exceptional book, Paris Sans Fin, the fruit of much labor and a close friendship.

Alberto Giacometti: Femme nue sur socle, circa 1953; Estimation: €200,000-300,000

Among works by Giacometti is Femme Nue sur socle (c.1953), in bronze with brown patina (est. €200-300,000), one of two épreuves d’artiste in addition to the eight castings made by Susse, with Alice Tériade’s approval, from the plaster original that long welcomed visitors to the couple’s apartment on Rue de Rennes, and was shown at the Giacometti retrospective at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1991-92; Alice Tériade donated it to the Alberto & Annette Giacometti Foundation, where it is now kept. Femme Nue sur socle is a perfect illustration of Giacometti’s new direction in the early 1950s, when he moved away from wiry figures and placed fresh emphasis on volume, going beyond the mere manifestation of physical being to attain a deeper reality.

Giacometti’s genius as a sculptor is also illustrated by his Suspension aux Personnages (c.1950), made specially for Tériade—an exceptional, luminous sculpture marrying iron, plaster, cones and figures (est. €200-300,000). This is far from just a light: It was designed as a sculpture with finely wrought figures, the plaster effacing the boundary between a work of art and an item of furniture. The light it casts is more a way of presenting the sculpture than its overriding purpose. Suspension aux Personnages held pride of place at Villa Natasha.

Suspension à Quatre Eclairages en Forme de Cônes, in iron and plaster (est. €70-100,000); Lampadaire à l’Etoile (c.1950), in bronze with gilt patina (est. €40-70,000), made for Jean-Michel Franck; Pied de Lampe à l’Etoile (c.1975), in bronze with gilt patina (est. €10-20,000); and the plaster Lampe à Piétement Géométrique from c.1935 (est. €5000-8000) all bear witness to Alberto Giacometti’s talent as decorator.
Diego Giacometti’s Petite Suspension Conique, in bronze with gilt patina (est. €25-40,000), completes the ensemble.

Pablo Picasso, who often worked with Tériade, is represented by two works from the 1950s, inspired by his favorite themes of women and bullfighting. La Pique (1951), in ink wash on paper (50.5 x 66cm), signed and dated, was acquired from the prestigious Galerie Louise Leiris (est. €100-150,000). It offers a fresh take on the bullfight theme, brilliantly capturing fever-pitch tension inside the ring.It used to hang in the small lounge on Rue de Rennes.

Large Vase with Nudes (1950), a bulbous, broad-rimmed vase in red faïence painted with white slip, is one of 25 numbered versions bearing the Madoura stamp and inscription Vallauris mai 50. It was kept in the Villa Natasha, where it was lit by Giacometti’s Suspension aux Personnages (est. €40-80,000).

The sale includes three canvases by Francisco Bores, one of several young artists to whom Tériade offered keen support. Tériade paid tribute to Bores’ talent from his very first exhibition at the Galerie Percier in 1927, in a long article in Les Cahiers d’Art, and regularly extolled his work, swiftly becoming acknowledged as Bores’ most fervent advocate. The links between the two men, who were introduced to each other by Picasso, were best illustrated in Verve, and in the monograph of the artist by Jean Grenier published by Tériade in 1960.

The 1964 Still Life with Carafe (est. €20-40,000), a hefty 89 x 116cm, was shown at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1966. Card-Players (1928), a more modest 92 x 73cm, were purchased by Tériade from the artist (est. €20-30,000). The small still life Flower-Pot with Lemon (1955), 73 x 60cm, was bought from the Galerie Louis Carré (est. €20-35,000).

Henri Laurens, a regular at the Villa Natasha where he installed one of his sculptures and presented it to his host, is represented by an Etude de Personnage (est. €6000-12,000), a small figure study on paper in pencil and watercolor, 34 x 25.5cm.After Tériade, Alberto Giacometti spoke of Laurens’ talent in Verve in 1952, describing him as a sculptor so obsessed with his art that “his very way of breathing, touching and feeling have become an object, become sculpture” ¹³.

¹ Henri Matisse, op. cit. in Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, réalisé par Mme Alice Tériade, 2002, p. 53.
² Tériade, op. cit. in Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, p. 32.
³ François Chapon, op. cit. in Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, op. cit. p. 5.
⁴ Tériade, op. cit. in Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, op. cit. p. 62.
⁵ Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, op. cit. p. 57.
⁶ Ibid, op. cit. p. 63.
⁷ Ibid, op. cit. p. 7.
⁸ Ibid. op. cit. p. 8.
⁹ Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, op. cit. p. 18.
¹⁰ Ibid. op. cit. p. 54.
¹¹ Ibid. op. cit. p. 31.
¹² Jean Leymarie, Eloge de Tériade, op. cit. 22.
¹³ Alberto Giacometti, op. cit. in Verve, volume VII, décembre 1952.