On 8 April, a stand-alone auction of the Collection Lise et Roland Funck-Brentano will open 20th and 21st Century Art Week at Christie’s Paris. Lise and Roland Funck-Brentano, both leading figures of the Paris Bar Association, were for decades patrons and collectors within the Parisian modern art scene, and their collection carries a pre-sale estimate of €4.5 million to €7 million.
The sale is led by two lots: a polychrome wooden work by Sophie Taeuber-Arp, estimated at €1.9 million to €2.5 million, and a 1954 painting by Pierre Soulages, estimated at €1 million to €1.5 million. The collection also features three works by Picabia, a composition by Hans Hartung (€200,000 to €300,000), a pair of Fauteuils Élysée by Pierre Paulin (€80,000 to €120,000), and works by Calder, Poliakoff, Herbin and Kupka.
Liselotte Kahn (1929 to 2020) was born in Germany and arrived in France in 1936 before finding refuge in Switzerland. She met Roland Funck-Brentano (1929 to 2013) while studying law in Paris, and in 1954 the couple founded what became one of the leading corporate law firms in the city, specialising in the development of European Community legislation. Their ties with artists often went beyond friendship, as they defended the careers and legal interests of many, including Victor Vasarely.
The lead lot, Relief rond en quatre hauteurs, is one of three works by Sophie Taeuber-Arp in the collection. Completed in 1937, it was acquired directly from the artist’s studio by Michel Seuphor, who gave it to the Funck-Brentanos in 1987 in gratitude for their help with a legal matter. Ten wooden reliefs by the artist are known and only three remain in private hands. The work was included in her first major retrospective at the Musée d’ Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1967 and in the 2021 to 2022 exhibition organised by MoMA, Tate and the Kunstmuseum Basel. It is estimated at €1.9 million to €2.5 million. The current auction record for Taeuber-Arp was set in Paris in 2003 at €1.2 million.
Kinetic art is well represented, with examples including Vibration by Jesús Rafael Soto (€200,000 to €300,000) and a group of six works by Victor Vasarely that have never been offered on the market. A close friend of the couple and a client of their firm, Vasarely is represented here by donations made against legal advice and by direct acquisitions from his studio. Two large-format oil paintings are estimated at €150,000 to €200,000 each, among them Kepler-II of 1974, emblematic of the Vega period. Other works cover lesser-known periods, including Collage de papier et découpe de bois from the Belle Isle period (€5,000 to €7,000) and Senanque-Har from the Cristal-Gordes period (€40,000 to €60,000).
The sale will be followed by the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening auction on 9 April, and by day sales of Impressionist and Modern Art on 10 April and Post-War and Contemporary Art on 11 April.
(Press Release)
