Georges Vantongerloo (1886-1965), Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de orangé, vert, violet

Georges Vantongerloo (1886-1965)
Composition émanante de l'équation y=-ax2+bx+18 avec accord de orangé, vert, violet
signed with the monogram (lower right); signed 'G. Vantongerloo' (on a piece of the original stretcher attached to the crossbrace)
oil on canvas
46 7/8 x 24 5/8 in. (119.1 x 62.5 cm.)
Painted in Paris in 1930

Special Notice
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Provenance
Sylvia Pizitz, New York, by 1962.
Galerie Tarica, Paris.
Hubertus Wald, Hamburg, by whom acquired from the above on 27 February 1973.
The Hubertus Wald Charitable Foundation, Hamburg; sale, Christie's, London, 7 February 2012, lot 7.
Galerie Gmurzynska, Zurich.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.

Pre-Lot Text
ABSTRACTION BEYOND BORDERS: WORKS FROM A DISTINGUISHED PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION
From Paris to Munich, Berlin, Milan and Hanover, in the opening decades of the Twentieth Century, a number of artists created art that radically differed from those of their predecessors. Working across Europe, these pioneering provocateurs, radicals and trailblazers – Georges Braque, Francis Picabia, František Kupka, to name just a few – shunned the last vestiges of illusionism to instead create unprecedented works with no visible, recognisable or definable subject matter. Liberating colour, line and form from their centuries-old descriptive role, they overturned pictorial tradition, embarking on an abstract adventure that would come to define art of the Twentieth Century. Crossing geographical boundaries, encompassing a variety of media, and often blurring traditional distinctions of painting and sculpture, abstraction spread with an extraordinary speed, transforming artistic practice forever.
From the initial steps towards a new artistic language, to the paradigmatic embodiment of this concept, this diverse group of works embodies this varied, experimental and groundbreaking path of abstraction, demonstrating the variety of ways that artists across the globe embraced this radical practice. Braque’s cubist composition, Cartes et cornet à dés presents the origin of this move towards a new, non-representational artistic language. Along with Picasso – the pair, ‘like mountain-climbers roped together’, as Braque recalled of this frenzied period of seismic innovation – the artist undermined conventional notions of perspective, opening the door to a whole new way of depicting the world.
As rebellious as the cubists’ rejection of the centuries-old rules of representation, Picabia’s playful collage Sans titre (Pot de fleurs) uses the very materials of art making to parody the mimetic traditions of art, creating a semi-abstract play of colour and line. Far removed from any trace of the recognisable world, Kurt Schwitters’ rare Merz relief, Das Richard-Freitag-Bild dates from the height of his involvement with the International Constructivist movement. It was executed during a period when he was codifying Merz – the one-man art movement that he created in 1919 – into a utopian Constructivist language of form, taking the deconstruction of Dada and combining it with the aims of Constructivism. Following the same aesthetic, Georges Vantongerloo’s perfectly composed De Stijl composition embodies the tenets of geometric abstraction. In addition, Kupka, one of the leading pioneers of non-representational abstraction, is represented in this collection with a rare composition entitled Series C, III, Elevation, a work that marries his elegant abstract idiom with the deeper, spiritual dimension that was often the source of his abstractions.
By contrast, Magritte, an artist whose unique form of Surrealism serves as the very antithesis to the development of non-representational abstraction, is represented in this group with an important early painting, Les signes du soir. A pictorial trompe l’oeil riddle, with this painting Magritte confuses, undermines and questions the entire nature of representational painting, paving the way for the conceptual art that dominated artistic production of the post-war era.
From the purely formal – Schwitters and Vantongerloo – to the spiritual, mystic or surreal – Kupka, Jawlensky, Magritte and Picasso, this collection, assembled with the eye of an aesthete, encapsulates the multi-faceted nature and pioneering spirit of modernist abstraction throughout the Twentieth Century. Their curiosity, daring eclecticism and pioneering spirit of exploration nearly 100 years ago paved the way for artists and collectors today.

Literature
M. Seuphor, La peinture abstraite, Paris, 1962, no. 77, p. 317 (illustrated p. 66).
Exh. cat., Georges Vantongerloo, Bilder und Plastiken, Dusseldorf, 1971 (illustrated n.p.).
M. Seuphor, L'art abstrait 2, 1918-1938, Paris, 1972, no. 111, p. 233 (illustrated p. 195).
A. Z. Rudenstine, 'Georges Vantongerloo', in The Guggenheim Museum Collection, Paintings 1880-1945, vol. II, New York, 1976, p. 665 (illustrated; with incorrect ownership).
H. Bauer, ed., Die grosse Enzyklopädie der Malerei, vol. VIII, Freiburg, 1978, p. 2770 (illustrated vol. I, Freiburg, 1976, p. 4; with incorrect ownership).

Exhibited
Paris, Abstraction-Création, 1934.
Basel, Kunsthalle, konstruktivisten, January - February 1937, no. 60, p. 14 (titled 'composition: y=ax2+bx+c').
New York, Rose Fried Gallery, Group Exhibition, January 1951, no. 14, n.p.
New York, Rose Fried Gallery, Coincidences, January - February 1952, no. 20, n.p.
Buffalo, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Plus by Minus: Today's Half-Century, March - April 1968, no. 212, n.p. (illustrated; titled 'Composition with Accord of Orange, Gold, Green, Violet' and dated 'circa 1922').
Munster, Westfälisches Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, abstraction création, 1931-1936, April - June 1978, no. 1, p. 277 (illustrated p. 278; titled 'Komposition über die Gleichung y=ax2+bx+18'); this exhibition later travelled to Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, June - September 1978.
Zurich, Kunsthaus, Georges Vantongerloo: A Travelling Retrospective Exhibition, April - May 1981, no. 61, p. 54 (illustrated).
Paris, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, L'art en Belgique, Flandre et Wallonie au XXe siècle, un point de vue, December 1990 - March 1991, no. 279, p. 524 (illustrated p. 178).
Hamburg, Kunsthalle, The Wald Collection: Showpieces of 20th Century Painting, September - November 2003, no. 42 (no catalogue).
Duisburg, Stiftung Wilhelm Lehmbruck Museum - Zentrum internationaler Skulptur, Für eine neue Welt: Georges Vantongerloo und seine Kreise von Mondrian bis Bill, October 2009 - January 2010, no. 69, pp. 118 & 281 (illustrated p. 118).