A painting by Spanish artist, Juan Gris, was sold in Christie’s, New York recently and set a new record for a work by a Spanish painter.
Violin et Guitarre attracted a price of $25.5 million, beating the painter’s previous record of $20.8 million set in 2008 for his 1915 work Livre, pipe et verres.
This would have delighted Gris, for whom Violin et Guitarre was something of a personal favourite. It was painted during the summer of 1913 when Gris was staying in the south of France and undergoing an artistic transformation that would ultimately result in his conversion to synthetic Cubism, a process that involved the extensive use of papier collé, a type of collage.
Gris frequently painted stringed instruments, especially violins. Later he would design sets and costumes for Sergei Diaghilev, founder of the Ballets Russes.
Juan Gris was born José Victoriano González-Pérez, but spent most of his life in France, choosing to change his name in order to make it easy to pronounce for his French friends and colleagues.
He died in 1927 aged just 40, leaving behind a prodigious output which still attracts high prices whenever it is offered at auction.
