An early Giacometti leads Herbert Lust’s collection at Christie’s
The US$20m-30m bronze anchors November’s sale. New reporting separates Lust’s friendship with the artist from this particular work’s ownership history.
A standing bronze by Alberto Giacometti, estimated at US$20m-30m, will lead Christie’s sale of works from the collection of Herbert Lust in New York this November. The auction house expects the wider collection to exceed US$50m, with an evening selection and a dedicated day sale followed by further offerings in New York, London and Paris. These are expectations, not realised prices.
Figure, demie grandeur (no. 2) was conceived around 1949 and cast that year by Alexis Rudier. Christie’s identifies the 119.4cm bronze as number one from an edition of five. According to the auction house, it is the only known cast of the sculpture made by that foundry.
Richard Whiddington’s reporting for Artnet adds a distinction to the story of collector and artist. Much of Lust’s Giacometti collection, acquired directly from the artist, was given to the Tel Aviv Museum of Art in the early 2000s. This bronze was acquired elsewhere. The accounts checked here do not identify its earlier owner or the date on which Lust bought it.
Vanessa Fusco, Christie’s head of Impressionist and Modern art, told Artnet that the figure marks Giacometti’s movement away from Surrealism and towards the elongated standing women that became central to his work. Her assessment comes from the selling house, but explains why the cast matters beyond its estimate. Artnet reports nine works for the evening sale and about 50 for the day auction.
The collection reaches well beyond Giacometti. Christie’s illustrated account includes Frank Stella’s Les Indes Galantes, a 1962 square painting estimated at US$7m-10m, and Hans Bellmer’s Jointure de boules, La Poupée, made in 1934-36. The Bellmer appeared in the 1936 exhibition of Surrealist objects at Galerie Charles Ratton.
Christie’s is working with The Fine Art Group on the dispersal. The sale brings objects from several strands of Lust’s collecting back to market, while leaving the forthcoming catalogue to supply a fuller account of their individual histories.
Sources & further reading
Christie's press and historical-art editorial
Artnet News: Herbert Lust’s Giacometti collection at Christie’s (Richard Whiddington)
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