René Magritte La Magie Noire (1934), it will lead the sale of “surrealism and its legacy” and conduct an overestimation of 7 million euros ($8.1 million).
Nude is described as “most legendary work” by Magritte, who was acquired from the artist by World War II heroine Suzanne Spaak (who was executed by the Gestapo for helping Jewish children escape Nazi Jewish children). Spaaks is a donor to Magritte when he struggled financially to fail to sell a job within two years.
“Images in modern art rarely capture the surreal nature as powerfully as this painting,” Sotheby’s French Vice President Thomas Bompard said in a statement. “It is immediately strange juxtaposition and unexpected poetic images, La Magie Noire Embodied Magritte’s extraordinary ability to transform familiar people into weirdness. ”
Magritte’s wife George Berger is the subject of oil painting. She is portrayed as a statue with her right hand on a stone while the upper part of her body blends into the background: the sea view (the interior of the planks forms part of the background). A white dove sat on her shoulder. Sotheby’s said the work is the first of ten portraits drawn by the artist, “the female body is turned into a sky, a stone and a spirit.” Magritte wrote in a letter to French writer and poet Andre Breton: “Turn the flesh of a woman into the sky.” [is] Black magic behavior. ”
The House added: “Although artists will return to this topic throughout their careers, this first iteration is separated by its purity and poetic power.”
Suzanne Spaak’s sister Alice Lorge buys La Magie Noire In 1934, she celebrated the birth of her first child with Belgian industrialist Emile Happe. Spaak’s husband is a well-known Belgian playwright Claude who knew Magritte and commissioned a portrait of his family. He also grouped the artist a monthly allowance, which was a move of trust at the time, as few people were interested in surreal work.
Suzanne and Claude lived in Paris when World War II broke out in 1939. After the Nazis occupied the city, Suzanne joined the French resistance and became a member of the “Red Band” intelligence network. Using her wealth and resources, she helped save 163 Jewish children from deportation, hiding some Jewish children in their homes until they can be relocated safely. In October 1943, she was arrested by the Nazis along with 600 other members of the Red Band. On August 12, 1944, just a few days before the liberation of Paris, she was executed by the Gestapo in prison. She is 38 years old. In recognition of her courage and sacrifice, she was later respected by Israel and was one of the righteous people in all countries.
Claude’s artistic intuition proved right, and Surrealism turned into a major movement, celebrating the centenary of his birth last year. Major programs have been performed in Paris’s Pompidou and Modern Fort Worth Museum of Art, as well as other museums, while auction prices for surreal artists have soared recently. In 2024, Christie sells Magritte L’Empire des Lumiéres (1954) auctioned the record of painters in New York for $121.2 million.
