Lot n° 42
Estimation :
8000 - 12000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 26 880EUR
René MAGRITTE (1898-1967)
# Des goûts et des couleurs, circa 1962
Ink drawing, signed lower right, titled and dated on the back
17 x 13 cm
Provenance:
- Mr. Harry Torczyner, New York, friend of the artist
- Acquired from Mr. Torczyner and remained in his descendants
Bibliography:
- "René Magritte, signs and images" by Harry Torczyner, Draeger Editions, 1977 France, reproduced and described under No. 185, page 116.
- René Magritte, Catalogue Raisonné" by David Sylvester, Volume III, The Menil Foundation, Flammarion, Paris 1993, reproduced page 362, Fig b.
A certificate of the Magritte Committee accompanies this work and will be given to the buyer.
Tastes and Colours and the oil of the same title are Magritte's third variation on the 1960 curtain painting The Mona Lisa (Sylvester, No. 922; private collection), and continue a theme he had actively explored that year. However, the specific elements from which the curtains are made-fire, forest, sky, and house-date from a much earlier period and are found in The Empty Mask, 1928 (Sylvester, No. 285; National Museum of Wales), The Six Elements, 1929 (Sylvester, No. 321; Philadelphia Museum of Art), and Threshold of Freedom, 1930 ( Sylvester, No. 326; Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam).
Magritte, in his letter to André Bosmans of April 24, 1962, made a point of clarifying that for him the curtains did not represent "the idea of hiding", but rather were what was hidden. In fact, they seem to almost reveal to the viewer the elements of which they are made, and address the idea of duality that is at the heart of many of Magritte's works. "It will be an assemblage of curtains, one 'as sky', another 'as fire', another 'as forest' and another 'as house'," Magritte wrote to Bosmans in 1962. "They will appear on a dark background. Tastes and colours seems to me a good title for this picture...".
One could imagine a proverb "Of tastes and colours, there is no discussion".
Perhaps Magritte is commenting on the arbitrary nature of personal experience.
Harry Torczyner and René Magritte
Harry Torczyner (1910-1998) was an American lawyer, art critic and regular political advisor. After the war, Torczyner became a lawyer of international renown, both through his legal work with artists such as Georges Simenon, whom he advised, and as an essayist.
A great collector of modern art, Torczyner owned works by Balthus, Bacon, Alechinsky, Christo, Dibbets, Klee, Ernst, Ozenfant, Matta, Segal, De Chirico and, of course, Magritte. Most of these "painters" (as Magritte called them) resided in his international law firm (the one in New York City).
In 1957, Magritte met Harry Torczyner, a New York lawyer from Antwerp. He was also a collector and had already acquired a work by the painter in 1948, The Therapist. Torczyner became Magritte's legal advisor and played an active role in promoting his work in the United States. He was thus instrumental in the organization of the major retrospective exhibition that the Museum of Modern Art in New York devoted to the artist in December 1965. He is also the author of a monograph devoted to Magritte (Harry Torczyner, René Magritte: signes et images, Paris, Draeger, 1977).
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