After many spectacular results for works by Max Beckmann, Grisebach is once again able to offer a painting by the artist in museum quality this season. The "Brown Sea with Seagulls", created in 1941 in exile in Amsterdam, is valued at € 1,200,000 to 1,500,000, making it the most expensive work of art on offer at auction in the current autumn season in Germany.
One of the house's traditional focal points is German Impressionism, which is represented in particularly impressive abundance in this auction with high-calibre works by Lesser Ury, Lovis Corinth, Leo Putz and a total of eight paintings by Max Liebermann (estimates up to € 400,000 / 600,000). The auction's "Selected Works" includes a Neo-Occidental painting by Rudolf Schlichter that has been lost for decades but has now resurfaced: painted in 1928, it depicts the famous actress and wife of Bertolt Brecht, Helene Weigel. Weigel is depicted as the protagonist in Bertolt Brecht/Elisabeth Hauptmann's bitterly wicked comedy "Mann ist Mann" (€ 200,000 / 300,000). The highlight of German post-war art is a spectacular major work by Ernst Wilhelm Nay, the almost 2 x 3.5 m composition "Chromatische Scheiben" from 1960 (estimate € 800,000 / 1,200,000).
This time, a separate catalogue is dedicated to artistic treasures in small formats from two centuries. A small sensation in "Small is Beautiful" on 30 November are three extremely rare postcards with depictions of animals by Franz Marc to his artist friend Erich Heckel from 1913 (estimate € 100,000 / 200,000 each).
In total, over 1,600 works of art from the fields of Photography, ORANGERY, Modern Art and Contemporary Art will be offered in the autumn auctions at Grisebach with a median estimate of € 24.2 million.
Micaela Kapitzky