Five of the ten best places in the auction of modern and contemporary art at Karl & Faber in Munich are occupied by classic modern art. Two impressions of young women outdoors by Renoir, for which a German private collection confirmed the lower estimates with the hammer prices of 350,000 and 300,000 euros, were top lots. Max Ernst's “Oiseaux” on a pigeon-blue background also found their way into a German private collection, they raised 250,000 euros (estimate 250,000 / 350,000). The “blue boy with a scythe”, which Wilhelm Morgner embedded in an ornamental color mosaic in 1911, demonstrated its pulling power with a jump to 180,000 euros (100,000 / 150,000). Likewise Kandinsky's title woodcut for the “Blauer Reiter” almanac from 1911: As a rare hand-printed copy of the first state, it drove at the age of 80 thanks to a room bidder.000 euros a double the upper tax for the paper works.

Munch's fourth and final version of his woodcut “The Kiss” followed for 120,000 euros (120,000 / 150,000).

Then the sunny watercolor “Antibes, vue depuis la pointe Bacon” by Paul Signac climbed to 72,000 euros (25,000 / 30,000).

“Organic Forms (Striding)”, Rudolf Belling's sculpture inspired by Umberto Boccioni's Futurism in 1921, was worth an impressive 60,000 euros (25,000 / 35,000) when bidding on the telephone.

An Internet bidder in Spain won the bid for Eduardo Chillida's hard-fought fireclay block "Oxido 62" for 230,000 euros (120,000 / 160,000).

"Burial in autologous blood"

Among the contemporaries, Joannis Avramidis' bronze "Head with Spatial Areas I" performed solidly with 87,000 euros (80,000 / 120,000). A wooden “magician”, which Balkenhol dressed in a star-dotted coat, came in just over his estimate at 52,000 euros. Some works by the Italian neo-avant-garde around Lucio Fontana came from a former Italian private collection. “Volume” by the artist Dadamaino was well received: she created it in 1960 with black paint and a section of the canvas; it brought in 28,000 euros (25,000 / 35,000). Agostino Bonalumi's three-dimensional “Rosso” was also honored with 50,000 euros and Paolo Scheggi's three-layer blue “Zone Riflesse”, which remained in Munich at the hammer price of 180,000 euros.

An “important American private collection” was sold for 180,000 euros for Warhol's portrait of Hartmut Stöcker, ex-gallery owner and husband of collector Ingvild Goetz (180,000 / 120,000).

Günter Brus' large-format color drawing “Bestattung im Eigenblut”, a Documenta contribution from 1982, marked an outlier when she almost doubled her upper estimate at 130,000 euros.

A market-fresh collection of mostly abstract white works, compiled by Hans Burchard von Harling, found dazzling sales: a collaged folding wrapping paper by Herbert Zangs from 1953 came to 22,000 euros (8000 / 10,000), as did a black and white collage by Blinky Palermo same estimate.

Managing director Rupert Keim puts the turnover of the modern and contemporary section at 9.8 million euros.

High revenues for the graphic arts

He reports a turnover of 2.5 million euros for the auction of Old Masters and Art of the 19th Century, making it the highest turnover in this section at Karl & Faber to date. The most expensive was Hans Thomas Jüngling, who in 1896 embodied "loneliness" naked and withdrawn on a rock by the sea: After a fierce battle, one of the fifteen bidders, a Berlin collector, granted 115,000 euros, almost five times the lower estimate. Alone by the sea is John Roddam Spencer Stanhope's “Andromeda”; In 2018 she was returned to a stake at Sotheby's, now for 80,000 euros (80,000 / 120,000) in an "important German private collection". Christian Friedrich Gilles moves to Belgium, a sky study sketched casually in oil over trees and poplars, rapidly increased from 3,000 to 22,500 euros. The work in oil on cardboard leads,like a number of other lots, the Le Claire art dealer in the provenance information, the Hamburg neighbors of the Karl & Faber branch there. This also includes Friedrich Nerly's "View from Olevano on the Volksberge", painted around 1834, which brought it to 19,500 euros (5000/6000). The black lace cap and the “pile ribbon” around the neck mark the “woman in Dachau costume” as a widow, which Carl Spitzweg's previously unknown study, which was rewarded with 16,000 euros (12,000 / 15,000), portrays.The black lace cap and the “pile ribbon” around the neck mark the “woman in Dachau costume” as a widow, which Carl Spitzweg's previously unknown study, which was rewarded with 16,000 euros (12,000 / 15,000), portrays.The black lace cap and the “pile ribbon” around the neck mark the “woman in Dachau costume” as a widow, which Carl Spitzweg's previously unknown study, which was rewarded with 16,000 euros (12,000 / 15,000), portrays.

The most successful lot among the Old Masters was Heinrich Carl Brandt's portrait of the twelve-year-old Prince of Bavaria and later King Maximilian Joseph von Pfalz-Zweibrücken with a hammer price of 26,000 euros (15,000 / 18,000). Once again, graphic prints generated high sales - as was the case with Dürer, whose copperplate engraving of Saint Eustachius went to America for 110,000 euros (120,000 / 150,000); his "prodigal son" hit the tax center with 55,000 euros. Rembrandt's etching of “Readers” went from 15,000 to 36,000 euros. Lucas van Leyden's copperplate engraving of the “milk maid”, which bidders from five nations cheered from 1800 to 13,000 euros, caused a surprise.