A Picasso painting valued at about $140 million is the centerpiece of a new type of auction at Christie’s, combining Modern and contemporary artworks spanning 100 years, that will kick-start its postwar and contemporary sales in New York in May.
5月份，佳士得拍卖公司(Christie’s)的一场新型拍卖会把时间跨度为一百年的现代和当代艺术作品聚集在一起，其中重头戏是一幅估价约为1.4亿美元的毕加索油画。这场拍卖会将为佳士得纽约战后和当代系列拍卖会拉开序幕。

Scheduled for May 11, “Looking Forward to the Past” is an evening sale of about 25 lots organized by Loic Gouzer, of Christie’s postwar and contemporary art department. Mr. Gouzer was also the specialist responsible for Christie’s much-hyped “If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday” auction of 35 works by fashionable contemporary names, which raised $134.6 million last May.
“期待往昔”拍卖会(Looking Forward to the Past)定于5月11日晚举行，将有约25件拍卖品，组织者是佳士得战后和当代艺术部的卢瓦克·古泽(Loic Gouzer)。他也为去年5月佳士得大肆宣传的拍卖会“假如我活着，那就周二见”(If I Live I’ll See You Tuesday)担任专家，该拍卖会包括热门当代艺术家的35件作品，共拍出1.346亿美元。
Postwar and contemporary has been the biggest-grossing auction category at Christie’s since 2011. But as the prices of works by the most desirable late-20th- and early-21st-century artists rise and rise — Christie’s Nov. 12 contemporary sale in New York took in $852.9 million — certain collectors (and auction house specialists) have been looking over their shoulders at earlier art with a new appreciation of its historical importance and rarity.
从2011年起，战后和当代艺术成为佳士得收益最大的拍卖门类。但是随着最受欢迎的20世纪末和21世纪初艺术家作品价格不断上涨（去年11月12日，佳士得的纽约当代艺术拍卖会共拍出8.529亿美元），某些收藏家（和拍卖公司专家）亦开始回望更早期的艺术品，重新品鉴它们的历史重要性和罕见性。
“I recently went to the reopened Picasso Museum and was blown away by what I saw,” said Mr. Gouzer, 34, who has collaborated with Christie’s Impressionist and Modern specialists to create the experimental format. “In a world where your latest iPhone is out of fashion in 10 days, everything he did still looked so relevant and fresh.”
“前不久，我去参观重新开放的毕加索博物馆(Picasso Museum)，再次感到震撼，”34岁的古泽说。他和佳士得的印象派、现代主义专家们合作创造了这种试验性的拍卖方式。“如今，连最新的iPhone十天后都可能过时，而毕加索创作的一切仍然很有价值，让人耳目一新。”
“Traditionally, people would start by collecting Impressionist and Modern art, and then trickle down to contemporary,” Mr. Gouzer added. “Recently, we’re seeing the contrary. Collectors start with contemporary, and then they start to look for other works that have quality, relevance and freshness.”
“过去，人们通常是先收藏印象派和现代艺术，然后慢慢转向当代作品，”古泽说，“最近，我们看到相反的做法。收藏者们先收藏当代作品，然后开始寻找其他高品质、有价值、新颖的作品。”
Picasso, who died at 91 in 1973, has nevertheless traditionally been included in auctions of Impressionist and Modern art. But Christie’s said that the broadening client base at the week of contemporary art sales in New York was crucial in persuading an unidentified seller to come forward with Picasso’s 1955 canvas “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’),” around which the auction house fashioned its “Looking Forward to the Past” sale. Inspired by Eugène Delacroix’s 1834 Orientalist masterpiece, “Women of Algiers,” this was one of a number of works Picasso produced in the 1950s and 1960s in response to earlier artists he admired. This particular painting was last seen on the market in November 1997, when it was bought by the London dealer Libby Howie, on the behalf of a client, for $31.9 million at Christie’s auction from the collection of the Americans Victor and Sally Ganz.
毕加索于1973年去世，享年91岁，他的作品通常在印象派和现代艺术拍卖会上拍卖。不过，佳士得称，纽约当代艺术拍卖周的客户群在不断扩大，因此才能劝说未透露身份的卖家同意拍卖毕加索1955年的油画《阿尔及尔女人（O版）》(Les Femmes d’Alger [Version ‘O’])。佳士得围绕这件作品组织了“期待往昔”拍卖会。20世纪五六十年代，毕加索以欧仁·德拉克鲁瓦(Eugène Delacroix)1834年的东方主义杰作《阿尔及尔女人》(Women of Algiers)为灵感，创作了《阿尔及尔女人》系列作品，向他钦佩的前辈们致敬。《阿尔及尔女人（O版）》上一次出现在市面上是在1997年11月的佳士得拍卖会，当时它是美国人维克多和萨莉·甘兹(Victor and Sally Ganz)的收藏品，被伦敦交易商莉比·豪伊(Libby Howie)代客户以3190万美元的价格买走。
Christie’s new valuation of about $140 million on this opulent Picasso ranks as one of the highest estimates ever put on an artwork at auction. Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies of Lucian Freud,” which sold for a record $142.4 million at Christie’s in November 2013, carried a presale estimate of more than $85 million. Christie’s has guaranteed the seller of “Les Femmes d’Alger (Version ‘O’)” an undisclosed minimum price. It would not specify whether this guarantee had been funded by the auction house or by a third party.
佳士得对毕加索这件华丽作品的最新估价约为1.4亿美元，是拍卖公司对艺术品的最高估价之一。2013年11月，弗朗西斯·培根(Francis Bacon)的《卢西恩·弗罗伊德肖像画习作三联画》(Three Studies of Lucian Freud)在佳士得拍卖会上拍出史上最高的1.424亿美元，当时的预估价为8500万美元。佳士得已向《阿尔及尔女人（O版）》的出售者担保了一个未公布的最低价，不过它不会具体说明这份担保是由佳士得还是第三方出资。
The seller is a European collector who acquired the work at the Ganz auction, according to Christie’s. Other works in Mr. Gouzer’s sale include a 1950s Mark Rothko abstract, estimated at about $40 million, and a 1902 Monet series painting, at about $35 million. Works by Piet Mondrian, Egon Schiele, René Magritte and Martin Kippenberger will also be included.
据佳士得说，卖家是一位欧洲收藏家，此人在甘兹的拍卖会上购得这件作品。这一次古泽组织的拍卖会上还会有马克·罗思科(Mark Rothko)20世纪50年代的抽象画，估价在4000万美元左右；莫奈(Monet)1902年的系列油画，估价约为3500万美元。另外还有皮特·蒙德里安(Piet Mondrian)、埃贡·席勒(Egon Schiele)、勒内·马格里特(René Magritte)和马丁·基彭贝格(Martin Kippenberger)的作品。
“This reassessment of the importance of what’s gone before is fascinating,” said Wendy Goldsmith, an art adviser in London who was the international head of 19th-century European art at Christie’s from 2000 to ’03. Ms. Goldsmith, along with many dealers and advisers, has noted a cooling of demand for the young abstract painters. “There is a feeling that people are already saturated with the new and the young,” she said, “and so they’re looking back.”
“这种对过去作品重要性的重新评估非常吸引人，”伦敦艺术顾问温迪·戈德史密斯(Wendy Goldsmith)说。2002年至2003年，她曾担任佳士得19世纪欧洲艺术部的国际主管。戈德史密斯和很多交易商、顾问都注意到人们对年轻抽象画家作品的需求在降温。“人们似乎已经拥有足够多年轻人的新作品，”她说，“所以他们开始回望过去。”
Last week, Mr. Gouzer posted an image of a 1938 Picasso painting of Dora Maar on Instagram. That work will be in his sale with an estimate of more than $50 million. But there are still gaps, Mr. Gouzer said. “I’m still looking for a 1960s Carl Andre.”
上周，古泽在Instagram上发布了毕加索1938年的油画《多拉·马尔》(Dora Maar)的图片。这幅作品也将出现他的拍卖会上，估价在5000万美元以上。不过，古泽说，还存在一些空白，“我还在寻找卡尔·安德烈(Carl Andre)20世纪60年代的作品”。