antiquesandartireland.com

Claude Monet Le Palais Contarini (£15-20 million). (Click on image to enlarge).

Monet’s 1908 view of Venice, Le Palais Contarini, sold for £19,682,500 at Sotheby’s in London tonight.  This is the highest price ever for a Venetian painting by the artist. The work was completed while Monet and his wife spent three months in Venice.  It has been widely exhibited around the world and was in the Turner, Whistler, Monet exhibition at Tate Britain in 2005.

Moments before Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Red, Yellow and Blue (1927) sold for £9,266,500. Five bidders competed for the work, which was eventually known down to a bidder on the telephone.

(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for June 6 and May 31, 2013).

Studie zu Improvisation 3 by Wassily Kandinsky is estimated at £12.18 million. CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2013 

Wassily Kandinsy’s Expressionist masterpiece Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909 was the top lot at Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art in London on June 18.  It made £13,501, 875 in a sale with an overall total of £64,076,575 over a pre-sale estimate of £52.8-75.8 million. The auction was 84% sold by lot and 87% by value and 18 works sold for over £1 million. Modigliani’s 1916 portrait of his dealer Paul Guillaume made £6,781,875. Picasso’s Femme Assise dans un fauteuil made £6,109,875 and Paul Signac’s Sainte Anne (St. Tropez) sold for £3,533,875.

Jay Vincze, head of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s London said:  “This evening’s auction saw solid results and the continuing strength of selling rates in the category at Christie’s in 2013. There was great depth of bidding on works of high quality at all price levels, with strong participation from many new and existing collectors from both traditional and growth markets, including Greater China and India. The global appeal and accessibility of Impressionist and Modern Art at Christie’s was further highlighted by the auction of ‘Picasso Ceramics’ at South Kensington which was 100% sold by lot and also attracted new bidders from around the world.”

Thomas Roberts (Waterford 1748 – 1778 Lisbon) – A LANDSTORM; A MOUNTAINOUS LANDSCAPE WITH TRAVELLERS ON A BRIDGE (£80,000-120,000).

A previously unrecorded painting by the Waterford artist Thomas Roberts (1748-1778) comes up at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master and British Paintings in London on July 4.  A Landstorm; A Mountainous Landscape with Travellers on a Bridge is from an American private collection.

In style the work belongs to a group of large scale paintings which the artist painted around 1774-5.  The theme is in two paintings commissioned by Sir Watkin Williams-Wynn for his London mansion at St. James’s Square designed by Robert Adam and considered to be one of the grandest houses in London.

Another version of this composition is at Fota House in Co. Cork.

Masterpieces of 20th century sculpture will feature at Christie’s Modern British Art evening sale on July 10 in London.  The 37 lots on offer feature artists as diverse as L.S. Lowry, Ben Nicholson, Peter Lanyon and Barbara Hepworth.  The auction will be followed by the Modern British and Irish art day sale at South Kensington on July 11. The sale will feature work from the collection of pioneering dealer Tony Reichardt.  Artists represented include R.B. Kitaj, R.A. (1932-2007), Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, R.A. (1924-2005), Victor Pasmore, R.A. (1908-1998) and Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003).  Sitting Couple by Chadwick is taken from a piece he created for the 1998 Venice Biennale.   Two figures sit apart, but appear to lean slightly towards each other.  Chadwick  understood body language to have a far greater power in conveying mood and character than facial features, which he felt to be limiting, hence the faces are blanked. The piece is estimated at £1-1.5 million.

Curved Form (Bryher II), 1961, belongs to Barbara Hepworth’s Single Form series. Estimated at £1 million  – 1.5 million it is from the collection of the late Leopold de Rothschild.  The series became  associated with Dag Hammarskjöld, the UN Secretary General who tragically died in 1961, and his relationship with Hepworth. Hammarskjöld wanted Hepworth to execute a scheme for the new United Nations building in New York. Curved Form (Bryher II), was as far  as they had got. Thus, in 1961, when the United Nations commissioned Hepworth to make a sculpture in his memory, she began with Curved Form (Bryher II) and in 1964 she delivered her largest ever sculpture, Single Form, to the United Nations.

Lynn Chadwick, R.A. (1914-2003) Sitting Couple (£1-1.5 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013.

Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975)
Curved Form (Bryher II) (£1-1.5 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013.

Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A. (1887-1976)
Industrial Landscape (£800,000-£1.2 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013.

Summer 2013 will see a major retrospective of L.S. Lowry’s work opening at Tate Britain, London. There are seven works by the Manchester artist including Industrial Landscape  (£800,000 – 1,200,000) in Christie’s sale. (Click on any image to enlarge it).

Francis Bacon Head III, 1949 (£5-7 million). (Click on image to enlarge).

The first work Francis Bacon ever sold, from the legendary first commercial show at the Hanover Gallery in Mayfair in 1949, comes up at Sotheby’s in London on June 26.  Head III 1949 is now estimated at £5-7 million. In 1949 it cost £150.  Bacon’s three studies of Isabel Rawsthorne dating from 1966 are estimated at £10-15 million.  The sale of 69 works with a combined estimate of more than £66 million features a strong selection of Post-War European masters and major British names.  

Highlights include David Hockney’s paean to his home country, Double East Yorkshire and Bridget Riley’s powerful op art masterpiece of 1964, Stretch. The cover lot of the auction is the most important collection of Andreas Gursky “Stock Exchange” photographs in private or public hands, part of his iconic series of trading floor studies.

Masterpieces by Jean Michael Basquiat and Peter Doig feature at Christie’s post war and contemporary art evening auction in London on June 25.  Both artists have recently achieved new world records at Christie’s.  The sale will feature iconic works by international post war masters including Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Yves Klein and Nicolas de Stael.

Francis Outred, head of post war and contemporary art Europe said: “Following the huge success of the New York auctions in May when Christies achieved the highest total for any auction in history, the London sales follow with a rich choice of material, presenting a fabulous opportunity to see pivotal paintings from the 1950s to today. Beyond the top lots – masterpieces by Basquiat and Doig – we have Pop paintings from key moments in the careers of Lichtenstein and Warhol, as well as rare conceptual and minimalist works by Blinky Palermo and Brice Marden. From Europe, two important works by de Staël, hidden for years, show how he changed painting in the 1950′s”.  (Click on either image to enlarge).

Peter Doig (b. 1959) Jetty Painted in 1994 (£4-6 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Lt.d, 2013.

Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988) Untitled 1982. (Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013).

PIET MONDRIAN 1872 – 1944 COMPOSITION WITH RED, YELLOW AND BLUE oil on canvas in the artist’s original frame 1927 (£4,500,000-£6,500,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE £9,266,500.

The Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale at Sotheby’s in London on June 19 will feature works from a number of private collections and is expected to bring in more than £75 million.  A view of Venice by Monet from 1908 is estimated at £15-20 million.  There are paintings by works by Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Alexander Calder from the the collection of Branco Weiss alongside Modern, Surrealist and sculptural works.

Helena Newman chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Europe, said:

With the breadth of today’s global art market in mind, we have assembled a sale that responds to the taste and demand that have been driving the success of Sotheby’s recent sales. Our Impressionist & Modern Art Sale in New York this May saw clients compete for high-calibre estate property, and our June  sale in London maintains the continuity, bringing together an extremely strong selection of works, many of which are from private collections and now come to the market for the first time in decades. We are thrilled that Claude Monet’s view of Venice will lead the sale. With its ravishing palette and modern aesthetic – which is what many of today’s top collectors are looking for – this is a work of timeless appeal. Looking at the sale in broader terms, we are offering works that span the 1870s through to 1982, supreme Impressionist works through to Modern masterpieces, from Monet to Mondrian.”

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 31, 2013).