There is more than a sense of history repeating itself in this 1945 work by Nevill Johnson at Sotheby’s Irish Sale in Paris from April 25-May 2. The work was included in Johnson’s solo exhibition with Waddington in April 1950 and reflects his response to the inhumanity and destruction of war. The road sign acts as a signifier of the human figure, and also represents a modern civilisation that seems to have vanished, a road sign standing where no roads remain. A post-atomic cloud floats above a desert of stones, with hills in the distance; the skeletal, lizard-like form in the foreground is likely to be derived from a piece of the driftwood that Johnson collected. It comes up as lot 23 at Sotheby’s with an estimate of €7,000-€10,000. There is work by Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, Colin Middleton, Patrick Scott, F E McWilliam, John Behan, Rowan Gillespie and others. The catalogue is online.
A Shining Palace by William Leech (1881-1968) is among the leading lots at Sotheby’s Irish Auction in Paris this year. Sales in 2022 and 2023 drew bidders from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, Austria and other European countries. In 2024 Sotheby’s will hold a third instalment of this sale from April 25-May 2 with a number of private tours and artists talks while the sale is on view in Paris. Work by Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, Sir John Lavery, Gerard Dillon, FE McWilliam, Melissa O’Donnell, Rowan Gillespie, Orla de Bri, Gareth Reid, who was Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Decade and a group of works by Patrick Scott from the artist’s estate will feature. The auction remains open for consignments until the end of March. Highlights will be on view at Sotheby’s, Molesworth St., Dublin next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (March 26-29).
Barry Flanagan – Acrobat on Pyramid. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €127,000
Acrobat on Pyramid by Barry Flanagan (1941-2009) is among the highlights at Sotheby’s Contemporary Discoveries auction in Paris. The sale, which focuses on artwork from the 1960’s to today, is open for bidding from today until February 20 and includes pieces by Andy Warhol, Simon Hantaï, Bernar Venet, Zao Wou-Ki, and Olivier Debré. Acrobat on Pyramid is incised with the artists monogram, numbered AC/2 and bears the Dublin Art Foundry mark. Executed in 2000 it is the artist’s proof number 2 from an edition of 8 plus 4 artist’s proofs. The estimate is €100,000-€150,000.
François-Xavier Lalanne – Oiseau d’argent c1990 UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR €76,200
Highlights of the Karpidas collection to be sold at Sotheby’s in Paris next Monday and Tuesday include stellar works by Claude and Francois-Xavier Lalanne, Marlene Dumas, Damien Hirst, George Baselitz, Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and Nan Goldin. Manchester born Karpidas is an international collector who has surrounded herself with artists for decades. Her home on the Greek island of Hydra has long been a getaway for artists, collectors and curators. There will be an evening sale on October 30 and a day sale on October 31.
René Magritte – La Valse Hésitation (1955). UPDATE: THIS MADE €11,177,000
René Magritte’s Masked Apples will make their auction debut at Sotheby’s in Paris on October 19 with an estimate of €10-15 million. This is the highest ever estimate for a work of art at Sotheby’s in France. La Valse hésitation depicts two masked apples shrouded in night-time shadows, against the backdrop of a bright blue sky peppered with Magritte’s characteristic clouds. The motif was conceived in the early 1950s, at the same moment as his most important series – L’Empire des Lumières – was similarly seeking to capture the paradox of day meeting night.
The painting has not been seen in public since 1979, where it was the subject of an exhibition at the Galerie Isy Brachot, and has since been treasured in three private collections in the artist’s homeland of Belgium. It is coming to the open market for the first time. The apple is central to Magritte’s oeuvre – and the countless iterations he inspired in popular culture. Here, the apple – an intimate object familiar from the centuries-old artistic tradition of the still life and harking back to the Garden of Eden – is transformed into a mysterious, anthropomorphic character. With the addition of a simple mask, without any facial features, Magritte opens to the door to countless possibilities.
Sotheby’s Paris Modernités auction on 19 October will present works by artists from the emergence of the European avant-garde to the Post-War period, showcasing the modernist movements across Europe and the overlapping dialogues within this rich artistic moment.
Come on the dawn by Jack B. Yeats. UPDATE: THIS MADE €241,300
What could be better. Springtime in Paris is again enlivened this year with a feast of Irish art at Sotheby’s. Come on the dawn, a 1951 work by Jack B. Yeats (€200,000-€300,000) leads a sale supported by a global marketing campaign with Sotheby’s displaying Irish art to Paris and the world. This second edition celebrating cultural links between Ireland and France follows on from the success of an inaugural sale in 2022 which saw strong international bidding and a new world record for a work on paper by Mainie Jellett. Artists from the 19th century to the present day feature in the 2023 selection which includes Irish painters abroad and contemporary artworks. Paintings by Roderic O’Conor, Sir William Orpen and Sir John Lavery are on view alongside art and sculpture by Sean Scully, Louis le Brocquy, Rowan Gillespie, Orla de Bri, Peter Curling, Maser, Melissa O’Flaherty, Richard Hearns and Jack Coulter. The catalogue, with 50 lots, is online. The sale, now on view at Sotheby’s Paris headquarters on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore, takes place on May 10.
Feeling the grass by Peter Curling. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Sir William Orpen R.A., R.H.A. – The Normandy Cider Press. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR €36,100
This 1900 oil on canvas by Sir William Orpen comes up as lot 12 at Sotheby’s Irish art sale in Paris. The sale is on view in Paris. It opens for bidding today and runs online until May 10. This painting was once in the collection of Oliver St. John Gogarty, who acquired it from the artist. It is estimated at €30,000-50,000.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for April 2, 2023)
Harry Kernoff – La Place du Tertre Montmartre at Sotheby’s Irish art sale in Paris. UPDATE; THIS MADE €50,800
Art by Harry Kernoff, Hughie O’Donoghue and Rowan Gillespie will feature among a strong selection at Sotheby’s second Irish art sale in Paris in May. Highlights from the auction will be on view at Sotheby’s on Molesworth St. in Dublin on April 3, 4 and 5. Already consigned are works by William Leech, Roderic O’Conor, John Yeats, Louis le Brocquy, Sean Scully, Patrick Scott, Basil Blackshaw, Camille Souter, LM Hamilton, Jack Coulter, Maser and Richard Hearns.
In his painting La Place du Tertre, Montmartre Harry Kernoff discreetly places himself wearing his customary trilby hat in a cafe named Jeune Peinture. It is estimated at €40,000-€60,000. Hughie O’Donoghue’s Medusa III (€15,000-€20,000) is from a series in which he engages with the past using personal records of his father’s experience of World War II to create intense and emotionally powerful images. Given that the book was first published in Paris Ripples of Ulysses, Study, 1999 (€10,000-€15,000) by Rowan Gillespie is especially apt. It relates to two life sized James Joyce sculptures, one at the Merrion Hotel, Dublin the other at Regis University, Denver. The artist places Joyce at the centre of his masterpiece, Ulysses, the words of which ripple outwards in 18 concentric circles. The sculpture spins because it is never ending.
Hughie O’Donoghue – Medusa III at Sotheby’s Paris. UPDATE; THIS WAS UNSOLD
Incrementum 2020/2023 by Richard Hearns is estimated at €8,000-€12,000. Born in Beirut during the civil war and adopted as an infant by an Irish UN peacekeeper the Burren based painter has said his dual heritage has inspired his paintings. He is considered to be one of the most exciting abstract painters working in Ireland today by Sotheby’s. The inaugural Irish art sale in Paris in May 2022 saw strong international bidding and a world record for a work on paper by Mainie Jellett. It also led to the return of many Irish artworks to this country. The success of that sale, which coincided with the centenary of the World Congress of the Irish Race in 1922, has spurred Sotheby’s on to repeat it in 2023. All international exposure of Irish art is to be welcomed. Bidding for this sale opens online on May 4 and runs until May 10. The auction will be on view at Sotheby’s, Paris on those dates.
The most important set of Don Quixote volumes to come to auction in thirty years is to be offered at auction on December 14 at Sotheby’s Paris, in conjunction with rare books dealer Jean-Baptiste de Proyart. Estimated at €400,000-600,000, this extraordinary offering comprises spectacular editions of both volumes of Cervantes prized work, presented in matching English bindings dating to 1750. With a shared provenance traceable back over 320 years, they are among the oldest known sets of both volumes together.
Beloved for its liveliness and panorama of Spanish society, Don Quixote became legendary almost immediately when released, with the author achieving fame throughout Europe and the New World, and the book being widely copied and pirated by at least three separate publishers. In the four hundred years since its publication, there are few characters who can have been as mythologised as Don Quixote. The subject of countless books, plays, performances, statues and works of art, he has been – and continues to be – both a fixture in the popular imagination and an inspiration to the great writers and thinkers of the world.
As the four Folios of Shakespeare are the highest prize of English book-collecting, and the Foligno Dante of Italian, so the early editions Don Quixote printed during of Miguel de Cervantes’s lifetime – are the highest prize of Spanish book-collecting. This edition of the world’s first modern novel is from the library of Jorge Ortiz Linares (1894-1965).
Harry Kernoff, R.H.A. – Sunday Evening – Place du Combat, Paris – sold for 94,500
A 1937 oil by Harry Kernoff – Sunday Evening, Place du Combat, Paris – sold for €94,500 over a top estimate of €60,000 at Sotheby’s Ireland / France : Art and Literature sale in Paris today. Roderic O’Conor’s Rocks and Foam, St. Guénolé sold for €352,800; Pieta by Mainie Jellett made €88,200 over a top estimate of €25,000; A Sandhill near Tralee Bay by Jack B Yeats made €50,400 as did Bottle Still Life by William Scott and The Newly Married Man by Sean Keating made €44,100. The sale total was €928,116.
