"Bruno Romeda’s sculptures from the jazzman Bobby Short’s villa" - Interenchères Magazine • Besch Cannes Auction •

"Bruno Romeda’s sculptures from the jazzman Bobby Short’s villa" - Interenchères Magazine

12/19/19
XX° century

Bruno ROMEDA, 1933-2017
Circle, 2005

On the occasion of his last prestigious auction of the year, Jean-Pierre Besch will present at auction, on December 30 in Cannes, three monumental sculptures by Bruno Romeda, two of which come from the former villa of the famous New-York jazzman Bobby Short. Estimated at 35000 to 50000€, they reveal simple geometric forms, characteristic of the work of the Italian artist, who died in 2017.

Last August 15 in Cannes, a bronze by Bruno Romeda (1933-2017) pulverized its estimate (19000 – 22000€), finding buyer at 100400€ (including fees), under the hammer of Jean-Pierre Besch. Dated 2009, it was acquired directly from the Italian sculptor, who died in February 2017 and exhibited in the most prestigious places from the Metropolitan Museum in New York to the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nice. On 30 December, the auctioneer will propose to the bidders three new sculptures, two of them from Mougins' Villa Manhattan, formerly owned by the famous New York jazzman Bobby Short. Romeda and his friend the American plastic artist Robert Courtright, with whom he shared his Provencal mas in Opio, maintained privileged relations with the great people of this world, the architects, artists, gallery owners such as Léo Castelli or the talented singer Bobby Short,” explains Jean-Pierre Besch.

Bruno Romeda (1933-2017), Triangle, 1992.

Unique bronze print with antique green patina. Signed and dated «Romeda 92 PU». 234.5 x 233 x 10 cm.

Origin : Villa Manhattan de Mougins, former property of Bobby Short.

Estimate : 35000-45000€

All three made in bronze, these works are characteristic of the work undertaken by the artist from 1950s around the simplest geometric shapes – the square, the circle, the triangle. Displaying lines purified with voluntary irregularities, his sculptures seem to have been traced by hand of a simple line. With a set of worn shadows, their curves and lines cut and energize the space, before their tiny contours do not merge with the nature that surrounds them, in a scholarly dialogue between the empties and the full ones. What to say of Romeda, if one does not take into account the fascination of the emptiness to which he has never stopped yielding and that he immediately imposes us as an absent mirror,” wrote art historian and critic Pierre Restany.

Bruno Romeda (1933-2017), Square

Sculpture. Bronze print with antique green patina. Signed «Romeda». 203.5 x 193.5 x 6 cm.

Origin : Villa Manhattan de Mougins, former property of Bobby Short.

Estimate : 35000–45000€.

Estimated from 35000€ to 50000€, these sculptures will be the star trio of the last prestigious sale of the year of the Besch Cannes Auction, dedicated to Impressionists and contemporary artists. They will be put on sale alongside works of art no less exceptional such as a watercolor drawing of Francis Picabia (1879-1953), estimated between 30000 and 35000€, oil on panel by Eugène Boudin (1824-1898) estimated between 50000€ and 60000€, or a village view painted by Bernard Buffet (1928-1999) and estimated between 70000€ and 100000€.