From Canaletto to Hockney, these visionary artists from the collection of Paul G. Allen have been inextricably linked to place
‘When you look at a painting, you’re looking into a different country, into someone else’s imagination — how they saw it’ — Paul G. Allen
From Canaletto’s Venice to David Hockney’s Yorkshire, certain artists throughout history are inextricably linked to the locales they immortalized in their work, giving us a window into their unique perspective.
As an avid art collector, Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft, was drawn to images of landscapes and locales by artists from a range of periods and styles. He recognised that a work of art was not just a record of place but a glimpse into the eye of its creator. ‘When you look at a painting, you’re looking into a different country, into someone else’s imagination — how they saw it,’ he once said.
Through Mr. Allen’s collection, which will be offered in an unprecedented auction at Christie’s New York on 9 November 2022, we come to better understand these visionaries whose iconic depictions have come to define these locales in our collective imagination.
CANALETTO & VENICE
Of all the artists who have found inspiration in Venice, no one is so closely associated with the city as its native son Canaletto. Born Giovanni Antonio Canal in 1697, Canaletto would go on to become the greatest vedutisti — or view painter — of the 18th century.
Canaletto’s portrayals of the Piazza San Marco were some of his most celebrated works. In The Piazza San Marco, Venice, looking east towards the basilica, Canaletto showcases the central square from the tower of the church of San Geminiano, providing a bird’s-eye view of the activity below.
Giovanni Antonio Canal, called Canaletto (1697-1768), The Piazza San Marco, Venice, looking east towards the basilica. Oil on canvas. 24½ × 37½ in (62.2 × 95.3 cm). Estimate: $5,000,000-7,000,000.
While known to alter topographical details to achieve better geometric harmony, Canaletto provides a highly accurate rendering in this work. Within the frame are St. Mark’s Basilica; the Campanile, the tallest structure in Venice; the Palazzo Ducale, the Doge’s residence, and other recognizable Venetian landmarks.
Canaletto also took pains to include details of quotidian life, adding laundry drying on clothing lines, market stalls and figures moving about the square, imbuing the scene with the bustling energy of the city. Nearly three centuries later, many of the sites rendered by Canaletto still look largely the same. While elements of Venetian life have certainly evolved, the spirit he evokes within these masterpieces will forever be associated with the great Italian city.
VINCENT VAN GOGH & ARLES
In February 1888, Vincent van Gogh moved to Arles, a small city in the south of France. Needing a change from Paris and seeking the bright light of Provence, Van Gogh boarded a train headed south.
Inspired by the pastoral Provençal landscape, Van Gogh’s style matured in Arles, evolving into the expressive brushstrokes and bright colour palette for which he is praised today. In Verger avec cyprês (1888), his love of nature is translated through luminous colours and delicate brushstrokes.
Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890), Verger avec cyprès, 1888. Oil on canvas. 25¾ × 31⅞ in (65.2 × 80.2 cm). Estimate on request.
The painting comes from a group of 14 canvases that showcase different views of an orchard in bloom. Painted just months after Van Gogh had arrived in the south, the series demonstrates his fascination with the landscape. In its expansive and meticulous rendering of a passing moment in spring, Verger avec cyprês evokes a keen sense of place.
Though he was only in Arles for about 15 months, Van Gogh’s time in the south would prove to be the most prolific of his career. Here he produced some of his most famous works, including The starry night over the Rhone (1888) and Bedroom at Arles (1888), forever linking himself to the Provençal city.
PAUL CEZANNE & AIX-EN-PROVENCE
The landscape around France’s Aix-en-Provence is dominated by the peak of Mont Sainte-Victoire. A symbol of the region, it was also a singular obsession for Paul Cezanne. A native of Aix, the artist moved back to the southern city from Paris, where he had lived and worked for many years, in 1886. He would remain there until his death in 1906. Over those twenty years, the topography of the countryside influenced Cezanne’s artistic development and, in turn, the future of modern art.
Paul Cezanne (1839-1906), La Montagne Sainte-Victoire, 1888-1890. Oil on canvas. 25⅝ × 31⅞ in (65.2 × 81.2 cm). Estimate on request.
La Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1888-1890), one of dozens of paintings of the mountain by Cezanne, presents an unimpeded, more abstracted view of the landmark. Through a dramatic composition and stripped-down details, the artist conjures the sensation of being embedded in the scenery. With colour applied in a geometric, meticulous manner, the painting was a precursor to the Cubist movement.
Cezanne’s return to Aix marked a rediscovery of his homeland. Seeing it through new eyes, he was instrumental in crafting an image of Provence for the outside world. Even today, though the city does not hold a single of Cezanne’s painting, tourists flock to the destination to see the natural beauty that inspired many of his masterpieces.
PAUL SIGNAC & BRITTANY
In 1891, Paul Signac arrived in the small French fishing village of Concarneau, where he declared himself to be ‘wild with happiness’ in a letter to the critic Félix Fénéon. While living in Concarneau, Signac created a quintet of seascapes known as La Mer: Les Barques that showcase his masterful skill and love of being on the water.
The works within the series, which all have musical titles, are bound by their visual harmony. Luminously rendered, they are the most important of Signac’s pointillist paintings, demonstrating the pinnacle of the revolutionary painting technique pioneered by Georges Seurat — whereby small dots of colour form a single image.
Paul Signac (1863-1935), Concarneau, calme du matin (Opus no. 219, larghetto), 1891. Oil on canvas. 25⅞ × 32 in (65.7 × 81.3 cm). Estimate: $28,000,000-35,000,000.
Throughout the his life, Signac painted dozens of scenes depicting life along the coast of Brittany. In Concarneau, calme du matin (Opus no. 219, larghetto), he has rendered a fleet of sardine boats, their colourful sails dotting the horizon. Through varying cool tones, Signac portrays the rippling surface of the water and clear morning sky punctuated by warm touches of yellow and orange.
As Signac’s work evolved, he would return to the region’s coast again and again, later using watercolour and pencil to record the unique setting he so loved.
GUSTAV KLIMNT & ATTERSEE
Like many Viennese of his era, Gustav Klimt spent his summers outside of the city for what was known as sommerfrische. During these periods he resided in Litlzberg, a small village on Lake Attersee in Austria, with the Flöge family. The Flöges included his brother’s widow, Helene, and her younger sister Emilie, who became Klimt’s companion and muse.
In Litlzberg, Klimt departed from the portraits of wealthy female patrons he is best known for. Reveling in a subject that was just for himself, he distilled his wonder at the surrounding forest, lake, meadows, farmhouses, gardens and valleys in paint.
Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), Birch Forest, 1903. Oil on canvas. 43⅜ × 43¼ in (110.1 × 109.8 cm). Estimate on request.
In Birch Forest (1903), the artist uses his distinctive style to draw us into the calm tranquility of the natural landscape. The square canvas is characteristic of almost all his works from Attersee. Using a cardboard stencil ‘seeker,’ Klimt framed his compositions by isolating small sections of the view. With his forest scenes, he also removed traditional markers of perspective, fully immersing the viewer in his world.
Today, many of the scenes that Klimt captured on canvas can be seen along Attersee’s Artist Trail. The nearby Gustav Klimt-Centre, which opened in 2012, offers further insight into the artist’s beloved sommerfrisches along the shores of Attersee.
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE & THE AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
When Georgia O’Keeffe made her first trip to the American southwest in 1929, she was awestruck by the landscape. Compelled to paint her surroundings, O’Keeffe purchased a car, which she named Hello, learned to drive and turned the vehicle into a mobile studio.
Over the next five decades until her death in 1986, New Mexico would be among O’Keeffe’s primary muses. In 1949, she permanently moved to the state, settling in Abiquiu, north of Santa Fe, and maintaining another property on the edge of Ghost Ranch.
Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986), Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds, 1936. Oil on canvas. 20 × 30 in (50.8 × 76.2 cm). Estimate: $4,000,000-6,000,000.
From her earliest works in the region, O’Keeffe’s infatuation with the splendour of the southwest is palpable. In 1936’s Red Hills with Pedernal, White Clouds, she depicts Pedernal, a narrow mesa visible from her home at Ghost Ranch. The painting captures the vastness of the American desert through her trademark distillation of form and colour.
An indelible link between the artist and the southwest remains to this day. Her home and studio in Abiquiu, now a museum, and the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe reinforce her connection to the area that defined more than 35 years of her artistry.
THOMAS HART BENTON & MARTHA’S VINEYARD
‘Martha’s Vineyard had a profound effect on me,’ wrote Thomas Hart Benton in his autobiography An Artist in America. ‘It freed my art from the dominance of narrow urban conceptions and put me in a psychological condition to face America.’ Arriving on the Massachusetts island in 1920, Benton was met with a sparsely populated outpost full of fishermen and farmers. A far cry from the vacation destination of today, the Vineyard enthralled Benton, and he would return every summer until his death in 1975.
Thomas Hart Benton (1889-1975), Nashaquitsa, 1953. Oil on canvas. 22¼ × 27¼ in (56.5 × 69.2 cm). Estimate: $1,500,000-2,500,000.
Though Benton is often associated with Regionalism and the American Midwest, his time in Martha’s Vineyard played an enduring role in his development. During his summers there, he painted a range of subjects, from local residents to the coastline, livestock, waterways and houses.
In Nashaquitsa (1953), Benton portrays a sailboat docking at Nashaquitsa Pond, exemplifying the everyday American subject matter favoured by the artist. Instantly recognizable as a Benton, the work demonstrates his naturalistic style — influenced by the Spanish master El Greco —imbued with a flowing sense of motion typical of the artist’s oeuvre.
DAVID HOCKNEY & YORKSHIRE
In 1964, David Hockney left his native Bradford, in West Yorkshire, England, for the sunshine and insouciance of California. It was there that he made a name for himself as an artist, first for his iconic paintings of pools and later for his portraiture.
David Hockney (b. 1937), Queen Anne’s Lace Near Kilham, 2010-2011. Oil on canvas. 67 × 102 ¼ in (170.2 × 259.7 cm). Estimate: $8,000,000-12,000,000.
Returning to the Yorkshire region in the early 2000s, Hockney underwent a rediscovery of his home and laid down his appreciation in paint. Through these landscapes, the artist captures the energy and ever-changing nature of the outdoors. The works, often painted en plein-air, immerse the viewer in the beauty of the English countryside. In Queen Anne’s Lace Near Kilham (2010-2011), Hockney elevates the horizon line and uses multiple viewpoints, giving the impression that we are moving through the meadow of flowers ourselves.
Known for his experimentation across styles — painting, set design and even works on iPads — landscapes represent a departure for Hockney. In these works, we see an artist both reengaging with his native England and uncovering the beauty of the natural world through a new genre.
Source: Christie’s