Courtauld loans bring a £33.66m Magritte back into public view
Man Ray and Picasso join the Reuben Collection display. Auction records clarify the history of Magritte’s L’ami intime, while its route into the lending collection remains unconfirmed.
Updated
Man Ray’s Black Widow (1915) and three Picassos are among the loans in Modern Painting from the Courtauld and Reuben Collections, which opened at the Courtauld on 18 September. The display extends the gallery’s account of modern painting through works lent from the Reuben Collection, bringing paintings held privately into public view.
The Courtauld says Black Widow was last exhibited in Britain more than 50 years ago. Painted in New York, it shows Man Ray working through painting and Cubism before the photographic career for which he is better known. The gallery records its earlier titles as Invention-Nativity and Nativity. It also identifies two Picasso portraits, of Marie-Thérèse Walter (1937) and Dora Maar (1939), as works not previously exhibited in Britain; a still life dated 1942 accompanies them.
The display includes Magritte’s L’ami intime (The Intimate Friend), a painting whose recent market history adds another dimension to its return to public view. Christie’s offered the 1958 canvas from the Gilbert and Lena Kaplan Collection in London on 7 March 2024. Its own published result is £33.66 million including fees. Kabir Jhala’s contemporary report in The Art Newspaper distinguishes that total from the £29 million hammer price and records the successful telephone bid through Christie’s specialist Giovanna Bertazzoni. The report does not name the buyer.
Christie’s catalogue traces the painting from Magritte to dealer Alexander Iolas in December 1958, then through Mario Tazzoli and Max Wasserman. At Sotheby’s in London in March 1980, it passed to Georges Marci; the Kaplans acquired it from him that year. The catalogue also records exhibitions at the Tate in 1969 and the Hayward Gallery in 1992. Its appearance at the Courtauld is therefore renewed British access to a familiar work, rather than a British debut.
The Courtauld now credits L’ami intime to the Reuben Collection. Taken together, the museum’s announcement and auction records establish the earlier sale and the present lender, but they do not prove that the Reubens were the anonymous 2024 buyers or exclude an intervening transaction. The duration and individual terms of these loans are also unspecified in the announcement.
The loans form part of a wider institutional partnership. Gareth Harris reported in The Art Newspaper in October 2025 that the Reuben Foundation had given the Courtauld £30 million, then its largest financial donation. That report described plans to share works from the family collection alongside support for the institute. The cash gift, the present loans and the museum’s ownership of its own paintings are distinct arrangements.
The Courtauld’s 18 September Instagram announcement calls this a temporary display and confirms that it is included with gallery admission, in the Katja and Nicolai Tangen 20th Century Gallery. Its compressed description groups the Picassos under the Second World War; the individually dated museum release is more precise and is followed here. No closing date is specified in the release.
Sources & further reading
Christie’s: L’ami intime, lot 6469568
Christie’s: René Magritte’s L’ami intime
The Art Newspaper: Christie’s London evening sales (Kabir Jhala)
The Art Newspaper: Courtauld receives landmark £30m donation (Gareth Harris)
Rehs Galleries: Christie’s London Art Of The Surreal Sale
The Courtauld: Modern Painting display now open (@courtauld)
