Success Happy

A Rogues Gallery Embraced by the Artist and Now by the Collector

Summary: KLIMT S ADELE Was she or wasn t she Ronald S Lauder paid $135 million for her June 25 2006A Rogues GalleryEmbraced by the Artist and Now by the Collector By KATHRYN SHATTUCKWHAT mistress after the promises are broken and the sacrifices have taken their toll hasn t questioned her worth In the art world lately there is some payback A few mistresses of repute have fetched sums that will secure their value in the eyes of others if not the men who used and occasionally abused them On Monday Modigliani s portrait of his mistress Jeanne Hebuterne sold at Sotheby s in London for $30 million the second highest price paid for a Modigliani at auction Klimt s portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer whose relationship with the artist was described as intellectual by her sister as something more and less by others sold recently for $135 million a record price for any painting And Picasso s portrait of Dora Maar sold in New York last month for $95 million a price second only to the Klimt s Why the sudden affection for other men s women Newer collectors with capital to spend tend to go for figurative rather than abstract works said David Norman co chairman of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby s But perhaps after the gavel falls the allure is that the mistress is linked to the myth of the artist Probably the last thing you ever wanted to be was Picasso s girlfriend who would progressively see themselves subjected to tremendous distortions in his pictures Mr Norman added Picasso was married to Olga Khokhlova and having an affair with Marie Therese Walter when he began cheating on both with Dora Soon he had all but obliterated the image of Olga in favor of Marie Therese who found her own characteristics conflating with those of Dora They could literally see their features enter and exit Mr Norman said Marie Therese would watch herself mutate from true blonde to dark black which was Dora Maar literally When Picasso suggested the jealous women fight for him they wrestled in his studio It was apparently all too much for Marie Therese who killed herself four years after Picasso s death Dora became a shut in Things were going swimmingly for Marthe de Meligny when Pierre Bonnard took her as his model and eventually his lover in 1893 after which he obsessively painted her nude and usually in or near a bathtub Then Bonnard met Renee Monchaty He began inserting her into his paintings sometimes along with Marthe as in Young Women in the Garden which places the fair Renee in the starring role with the dark haired Marthe but a sliver in the lower right corner But Marthe persevered standing front and center in After the Meal a blurry Renee relegated to the background That year Bonnard finally married Marthe A month later Renee committed suicide And then there was Modigliani s Jeanne She bore him a daughter and was pregnant when he died in 1920 She threw herself from a fifth floor window to her death two days later Artists have found inspiration even in the affairs of other artists Rumor had it that Raphael the amorous Renaissance master discovered he couldn t create without his lover nearby He installed her in a room at a Roman villa where he was painting frescoes so he could visit her whenever he required a creative jolt Ingres was so fascinated by this liaison that he imagined it in Raphael and La Fornarina with Raphael s muse seated on his lap Picasso imagined their entanglements in a series of explicit drawings with Raphael s rival Michelangelo watching What didn t happen between artist and muse can be as provocative as what did I m thinking of the John Singer Sargent portraits of Lady Cholmondeley said Gary Tinterow curator in charge of modern art at the Metropolitan Museum I don t think for a minute that they ever had sex but they obviously had a very close bond And his portraits of her are exceptional among his portraits of beautiful women As for Adele Bloch Bauer who knows what went on in sittings with Klimt who once drew himself as genitalia and had a fondness for wearing a smock with nothing underneath It stands to reason that the most successful portraits are passionately felt and everything follows from that Mr Tinterow said So it s not always about sex Other passions can be engaged KLIMT S ADELE Was she or wasn t she Ronald S Lauder paid $135 million for her June 25 2006A Rogues GalleryEmbraced by the Artist and Now by the Collector By KATHRYN SHATTUCKWHAT mistress after the promises are broken and the sacrifices have taken their toll hasn t questioned her worth In the art world lately there is some payback A few mistresses of repute have fetched sums that will secure their value in the eyes of others if not the men who used and occasionally abused them On Monday Modigliani s portrait of his mistress Jeanne Hebuterne sold at Sotheby s in London for $30 million the second highest price paid for a Modigliani at auction Klimt s portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer whose relationship with the artist was described as intellectual by her sister as something more and less by others sold recently for $135 million a record price for any painting And Picasso s portrait of Dora Maar sold in New York last month for $95 million a price second only to the Klimt s Why the sudden affection for other men s women Newer collectors with capital to spend tend to go for figurative rather than abstract works said David Norman co chairman of Impressionist and modern art at Sotheby s But perhaps after the gavel falls the allure is that the mistress is linked to the myth of the artist Probably the last thing you ever wanted to be was Picasso s girlfriend who would progressively see themselves subjected to tremendous distortions in his pictures Mr Norman added Picasso was married to Olga Khokhlova and having an affair with Marie Therese Walter when he began cheating on both with Dora Soon he had all but obliterated the image of Olga in favor of Marie Therese who found her own characteristics conflating with those of Dora They could literally see their features enter and exit Mr Norman said Marie Therese would watch herself mutate from true blonde to dark black which was Dora Maar literally When Picasso suggested the jealous women fight for him they wrestled in his studio It was apparently all too much for Marie Therese who killed herself four years after Picasso s death Dora became a shut in Things were going swimmingly for Marthe de Meligny when Pierre Bonnard took her as his model and eventually his lover in 1893 after which he obsessively painted her nude and usually in or near a bathtub Then Bonnard met Renee Monchaty He began inserting her into his paintings sometimes along with Marthe as in Young Women in the Garden which places the fair Renee in the starring role with the dark haired Marthe but a sliver in the lower right corner But Marthe persevered standing front and center in After the Meal a blurry Renee relegated to the background That year Bonnard finally married Marthe A month later Renee committed suicide And then there was Modigliani s Jeanne She bore him a daughter and was pregnant when he died in 1920 She threw herself from a fifth floor window to her death two days later Artists have found inspiration even in the affairs of other artists Rumor had it that Raphael the amorous Renaissance master discovered he couldn t create without his lover nearby He installed her in a room at a Roman villa where he was painting frescoes so he could visit her whenever he required a creative jolt Ingres was so fascinated by this liaison that he imagined it in Raphael and La Fornarina with Raphael s muse seated on his lap Picasso imagined their entanglements in a series of explicit drawings with Raphael s rival Michelangelo watching What didn t happen between artist and muse can be as provocative as what did I m thinking of the John Singer Sargent portraits of Lady Cholmondeley said Gary Tinterow curator in charge of modern art at the Metropolitan Museum I don t think for a minute that they ever had sex but they obviously had a very close bond And his portraits of her are exceptional among his portraits of beautiful women As for Adele Bloch Bauer who knows what went on in sittings with Klimt who once drew himself as genitalia and had a fondness for wearing a smock with nothing underneath It stands to reason that the most successful portraits are passionately felt and everything follows from that Mr Tinterow said So it s not always about sex Other passions can be engaged

Image Dimensions: 190 x 240