At auction Magritte's masterpiece: L'Ami intime starts at an estimate of £30-50 million

The world’s largest auction house, Christie’s, will auction the 1958 work L’ami intime by René Magritte (Lessines, 1898 - Rue des Mimosas, 1967). Estimated at £30-50 million, the painting is the centerpiece of The Art of The Surreal Evening Sale, the annual auction devoted to surreal and Dada art, to be held in London on March 7. Presented to coincide with the centenary of the Surrealist Manifesto, drafted by André Breton in October 1924, L’ami intime is being auctioned for the first time since 1980. The figure of a man in a bowler hat made its first appearance in Magritte’s work in the 1926 painting Les rêveries du promeneur solitaire (Reflections of a Lonely Wanderer). This figure became a recurring symbol in Magritte’s art, representing the bourgeois, the faceless masses, the common worker and the lonely vagabond. In L’ami intime, the man in the bowler hat, seemingly ordinary but at the same time mysteriously anonymous, is portrayed as a silhouette seen from behind.

Magritte’s work, belonging to the Gilbert and Lena Kaplan Collection, was last exhibited in Brussels in 1998 at the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique. It will be on display at Christie’s LA from Feb. 5-6, at Rockefeller Center in New York from Feb. 9-14, and in Hong Kong from Feb. 21-23, with a pre-sale exhibition in London from March 1-7. Gilbert Kaplan, (New York, 1941 - Manhattan, 2016) founder of the publisher Institutional Investor in 1967, was an influential entrepreneur and passionate connoisseur, as well as an amateur conductor. He conducted Gustav Mahler’s Second Symphony at New York’s Lincoln Center on his company’s 15th anniversary, earning considerable acclaim. After the sale of Institutional Investor, he went on to conduct symphony orchestras, teach at Juilliard, one of the leading music and performing arts schools in the United States, and lecture. His passion for music was also evident through the Mad About Music radio program on WQXR. Two of the men close to Gilbert Kaplan’s heart were Gustav Mahler and René Magritte. Kaplan served on the board of Carnegie Hall for more than 30 years and established a scholarship program at Harvard’s Department of Music, which continues to support students today.

“It is an honor,” says Olivier Camu, vice president of Impressionists and Modern Art at Christie’s London, "that the Gilbert Kaplan family has entrusted this masterpiece that they have held for more than 40 years. René Magritte, of all the Surrealist artists, is the most internationally sought after. L’ami Intime belongs to one of two series of paintings with Magritte’s most iconic subjects, the other being his Empire des lumières. L’ami Intime is one of the most powerful and impressive of the few iconic images left in private hands, a tour de force of the artist’s hyperrealistic technique. Extremely poetic, silent and mysterious, especially given the unknown identity of the subject along with its evocative title. We anxiously await the market’s reaction to this exquisite painting, the likes of which have not been seen at auction since Torczyner’s sale of Magritte paintings in 1998."

At auction Magritte's masterpiece: L'Ami intime starts at an estimate of £30-50 million

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