However, while it provides a world price for the anonymous Australian vendor it is yet another loss to Australia's international art heritage that due to distance and history has always been a little on the light side.
It might have best been left undiscovered and perhaps one day been presented by its undisclosed owner to a public institution for tax relief under the Australian Cultural Gifts Program.
However, Mr Geoffrey Smith, one of the partners, is an incredible sleuth having had a career in academia and business which has granted him access to some of the best art collections in Australia.
Christie’s has had a much longer history of sending Australia’s art “treasures” overseas for sale having turned over Australian attics thoroughly when the company set up a branch in Australia in 1968.
But Christie's have reduced their activities in Australia and their Sydney representative Ronan Sulich has resigned to freelance.
One of Christie's early promoters in Australia was Len Voss Smith who sought to interest Australian collectors in the School of Paris of which Soulages was a member, through minor sales of their work.
The find surprises, in that while the appeal of so many paintings by School of Paris artists is because they are so "easy to live with", this work might not be.
The informal school’s members often show scenes of Paris itself such as around Montmartre, bridges across the Seine or the flower markets.
The work sold by Christie's was acquired by the vendor three years after it was painted in 1950, and has been in Australia since that date, having been acquired by the present owner’s father from the Galerie Louis Carré & Cie Paris, when it was included In a major exhibition that toured to Australia.
It was the first exhibition to showcase contemporary French artists in Australia and included major examples by Picasso, Miró, Léger, Braque and Le Corbusier. The Canberra Times called it: “the provocative event of the art season”, warning its readers that “a masculine antipodean palate, accustomed to a diet of realism, may find some of the paintings sophisticated to a point of being effete."
The State Library of New South Wales copy of the 1953 exhibition catalogue of French Painting Today in which the painting is reported to have been shown, does not appear list the work amongst the 119 works, some of which are tapestries. The exhibition went to all state capitals. and the painting is believed to have been added to the show later.
The last time the painting was publicly seen was in Hobart. The freighter Merino, carrying the 119 paintings was salvaged after running aground off the Tasmanian coast on Christmas Day in 1952. The catalogue introduction ’says the exhibition was being insured by the French organising body during its trip to and from Australia by Australian partners. Sir Charles Lloyd Jones, the painter, collector and draper of the retailing family had proposed the exhibition.
Pierre Soulages is an acquired taste and such an early acquisition Down Under, only three years after it was painted, is doubly surprising.
Soulages has enjoyed placement in an increasing number of private collections recently as he reached the grand old age of 100. He has been promoted into those collections as the artist of the period who was "missing". The centenarian has been self promoting a museum showcasing his work in the south of France.
Etienne Sallon, specialist in charge of the Christie's sale said: “We are very proud to offer this luminous and vibrant painting by Soulages, which has been unseen by the public since its acquisition in 1953 when it toured to Australia for the exhibition French Painting Today.
"This fantastic rediscovery illustrates the artist’s early career and his first uses of black bars in oil paint, giving transparency, light and dynamism to the canvas. By offering this important painting in Paris, we will pay a beautiful tribute to Pierre Soulages who just celebrated his 100th birthday last December.” he added.
