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Modern + Contemporary: Art & Design

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  2026-05-09 11:00:00 2026-05-09 11:00:00 America/New_York Circle Auction Circle Auction : Modern + Contemporary: Art & Design https://bid.circle-auction.com/auctions/circle-auction/modern-contemporary-art-design-21279
Circle Auction is pleased to present Modern + Contemporary: Art & Design, curated selections for your modern home. Highlighting the sale are paintings by Henri Maik, Robert Sudlow, Peter Max, Wilbur Niewald, Archie Scott Gobber, Antonio Diego Voci, and Ed Navone; contemporary realist works by Jacob Collins, Richard Maury, Jacob Pfeiffer, and Richard Thomas Davis. Pottery and prints by Robert Rauschenberg, Jacques Hnizdovsky, and Victor Babu; and modern designs by Charles & Ray Eames, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Mies van der Rohe, Florence Knoll, Eero Saarinen, and Cedric Hartman. Circle Auction info@circle-auction.com
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Henri Maik "Amusement" Oil on Canvas (1980)
Lot 20

Henri Maik "Amusement" Oil on Canvas (1980)

Estimate: $15,000 - $25,000
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Starting Bid
$10,000
[0 Bids]Bidding History
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Price Bid Increment
$0 $25
$500 $50
$1,000 $100
$5,000 $250
$10,000 $500
$20,000 $1,000
$50,000 $2,500
$75,000 $5,000
$100,000 $10,000

Henri Hecht Maik

(French, 1922-1993)

Amusement, 1980

Oil on canvas

33 1/2" x 41"

 

Signed and dated to the bottom left corner. The frame measures 37 3/4" x 45 1/4". From a private collection, acquired December 1980 from Wally Findlay Galleries, Inc. (Beverly Hills, CA), with a copy of correspondence with the gallery present.

 

French primitive painter Henri Maik is renowned for creating imaginative fantasy worlds populated with idiosyncratic animals and birds, executed in a bright palette. His paintings strike a rare balance between unassuming whimsy and sophisticated harmony. Scholars have noted the common theme of Maik's figures making direct eye contact with viewers, engaging our world as an invitation to join the flights of fancy in his imaginary jungle scenes: this is certainly true of Amusement. This work also incorporates some of Maik's most enduring iconography: in the late 1960s and early 1970s he illustrated one children's book about a lion named Flegmatique and another about a rooster entitled The Foolish Bird. The beastly nature of lions as apex predators is belied by the imagery of a family at play in a field of flowers and birds, painted in a gentle range of pinks and oranges-- one can imagine this cast of charmingly stilted characters arranged in a frame of a Wes Anderson film.

 

After serving as a Navy medic during World War II, Henri Maik spent his youth as a lumberman and actor before beginning to paint in 1956. Maik's first solo exhibition was held in Paris in 1960. Only a few years later, American gallerist Wally Findlay became the first to promote and exhibit his work in the United States. Beginning in 1964, Findlay held many exhibitions for Maik, including one-man shows at his galleries in New York, Beverly Hills, Chicago, and Palm Beach. Maik's acclaim continued to quickly mount as he showed his paintings across a litany of European galleries throughout the 1960s; by the end of that decade, he had shown his work in Paris's Museum of Modern Art three times. Today, his paintings are held in numerous museums in France and around the world, and the visibility and appetite for his work has never been stronger, with each of his 30 highest historical auction results all hammering in the last 7 years.

Condition

Excellent condition, with no in-painting, over-painting, or touch-ups apparent under blacklight inspection.

Overall Dimensions
Height: 37.75 in
Width: 45.25 in
Depth: 2.50 in

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