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  • Archive for August, 2019

    HEARTSHIP TO HONOUR MIGRANT PEOPLES IN CORK

    Saturday, August 31st, 2019

    The relic of a human heart is to be part of a floating art installation honouring migrant peoples in Cork. Heartship – a new project by artist Dorothy Cross featuring singer Lisa Hannigan – will celebrate the contribution of the Irish Naval services to the humanitarian crisis in the Mediterranean.  On Saturday September 14 the LE James Joyce will sail up the River Lee to Cork from Haulbowline.  The lone occupant visible on deck will be Lisa Hannigan and the recorded sound of her ethereal voice will emanate from the vessel. Discovered encased in lead in a  crypt in Cork in 1863 the heart belonged to a person unknown. It was acquired by General Pitt Rivers, then stationed in Cork, and became part of the extraordinary collection of artefacts housed in the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford. “Heartship has been haunting me for the past three years” Dorothy Cross said “wishing to honour the many hearts of migrant people who disappear below the ocean surface and lie unnamed on the sea bed”.  Renowned film maker Alan Gilsenan will work with Cross to create a film to embody Heartship. This will be screened at The Crawford Gallery. Previous projects by Dorothy Cross include Ghostship, a lightship painted with phospherous paint moored for three weeks in Dublin Bay in 1999 where it glowed in the dark each night. 

    Dorothy Cross with Capt. Brian Fitzgerald of the Irish Naval Service.

    PATRICK MURPHY COLLECTION AT SOTHEBY’S

    Friday, August 30th, 2019

    Modern and Contemporary British and Irish from the collection of Patrick and Antoinette Murphy will come under the hammer across a number of sales at Sotheby’s in Paris and London. He has served as chairman for the Arts Council in Ireland and Antoinette set up the Peppercannister Gallery in Dublin. More than 30 works from their extensive collection include art by Henry Moore, William Scott, Gillian Ayres, John Bellany, Alan Davie and Sir Matthew Smith.

    As a brewer for Guinness, Patrick travelled all over the world – from London and Paris, Tokyo and New York to Kuala Lumpur and Kumasi – acquiring artworks wherever possible. He was chair on the ROSC exhibitions which introduced artists like Picasso, Lichtenstein and Rothko to Irish audiences.

    Breon O’Casey – Jungle Bird (£3,000-5,000).
    Albert Irvin – Ellington 2005 (£10,000-15,000)

    AN ATTIC SALE AT SHEPPARDS IN DURROW

    Wednesday, August 28th, 2019

    Gems in the Attic is the title of the sale at Sheppards in Durrow on September 3. The affordable sale, ideal for new collectors, consists of items from the attics, stables and storerooms of clients from around Ireland. The 753 lot catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:

    18TH-CENTURY WALNUT AND HERRING BONE INLAID HANGING CORNER CABINET (300-500)
    CHINESE QING PERIOD CINNEBAR LACQUERED VASE (200-300)

    THE COLLECTION OF EILEEN AND I.M. PEI AT CHRISTIE’S

    Tuesday, August 27th, 2019

    Seminal works by Barnett Newman, Jean Dubuffet, and Zao Wou-Ki are included in the Collection of Eileen and I.M. Pei which will come up at Christie’s this autumn. All were friends of the celebrated international architect and his wife. Their collection, acumulated over the course of their 72 year marriage, features an exceptional selecton of paintings, drawings, works on paper and sculpture. Additional works by Franz Kline,Zhang Daqian, Qi Baishi, Willem de Kooning, Henry Moore, Jacques Lipchitz, Xu Shiqi and Isamu Noguchi highlight the diversity of the couple’s aesthetic interests and influences. The full collection of 59 works is expected to exceed $25 million. It will be offered through sales at Christie’s in New York, Hong Kong and Paris.

    Eileen and I.M. Pei, Hong Kong, 1988 | Courtesy Eileen and I.M. Pei Family Archive

    AN IRISH PUB AND AN EARLY U2 POSTER

    Saturday, August 24th, 2019

    There is more than a whiff of nostalgia in Aidan Foley’s auction at Sixmilebridge Co. Clare on August 27.  The sale goes back to the days when pubs were individual rather than generic, snug refuges with  open turf, log or coal fires dotted with the occasional utterly genuine conversation piece – pastiche was unheard of – and sawdust on the floor.  Original contents from a number of such establishments offer rich pickings to collectors at Sixmilebridge.  There is a big selection of pub memorabilia from the Murray family of Limerick. They owned nightclubs and pubs and when they added the highly traditional Scott’s Bar in Kilkee to their portfolio they retained many original contents.Some of these are included in this 1,200 auction which is, Aidan Foley promises, “original stuff”, the kind of thing that collectors go for.  A fine framed advertisement for Michael Egan’s finest Irish whiskey, Limerick, Ireland is redolent of an earlier age. Aidan Foley will include some original Cunard Line luggage label stickers from a long gone travel agency, a nostalgia tinged memory of the days when people left Ireland on ocean liners never to return. An early U2 Tick Tock Tour poster will attract a different sort of collector.

    An old Irish Whiskey advertisement UPDATE: THIS MADE 900 AT HAMMER
    An early U2 poster

    HISTORY OF WOMEN AT TRIBAL ART LONDON

    Thursday, August 22nd, 2019

    Mother, Muse and Maker is the theme of Tribal Art London this year. The history of women within a tribal world where gender roles are strict is to be explored. African, Oceanic and South American tribal art all centres on performance and ritual.  Objects that go with this are tied into the rhythms of birth, puberty, marriage and death. Men tend to create works out of hard materials like wood and metal, the creative talents of women have focused on softer materials like hides, fibres and clay.  There is also a focus on women as dealers and collectors. The fair, now in its 12th year, brings together more than 20 international dealers, specialists in original purpose art from all corners of the globe.  It runs from September 4-7 at the Mall Galleries, London SW1.  

    WILLIAM SCOTT AT SOTHEBY’S

    Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

    Near Abstraction 7 is one of a number of works by William Scott at Sotheby’s Made in Britain auction on September 10. The pencil and chalk on paper, signed and dated ’75, is estimated at £6,000-8,000.

    Sotheby’s has a number of valuation days in Ireland and Northern Ireland coming up as follows:

    5th September: Impressionist & Modern Art

    6th September: Jewellery & Watches

    24th September: European Sculpture & Works of Art

    25th September: 19th Century European Paintings

    9th October: Furniture & Decorative Arts

    WILLIAM SCOTT, R.A.
    1913-1989
    NEAR ABSTRACTION 7

    HOW TO WOO NEW COLLECTORS

    Monday, August 19th, 2019

    What to do about an antique market that is seen to be either the preserve of billionaires in international sales or in the doldrums at local level?  For innovation head to New York.

    A theme evident at the Winter Show in January has re-emerged just in time for Christie’s Interiors auction in the Big Apple on August 21 and 22. At the Winter Show an easy to read system of coloured price tagging with legends like under $3,000, $5,000, $10,000 and so on was set up in an attempt to woo new young collectors. Christie’s summer interiors auction of 495 lots of furniture, decorative objects and fine art features a collaboration with Alexandra O’Neill, designer of the ready to wear line Markarian and CeCe Barfield Thompson, principal of the interior design firm CeCe Barfield Inc. Objects in the auction that provided inspiration for the designers’ capsule collections include a late 18th/19th century Dutch Delft blue and white five piece garniture, a pair of Italian marble jardiniers, a 19th century parcel gilt tray table and a pair of large button tufted couches or day beds of the Directoire and Empire periods known as recamiers. The capsule collections of dresses and homeware inspired by the objects in the auction are now being sold exclusively at Bergdorf Goodman, the luxury Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan. 

    UPDATE: Interiors totaled $2,331,375 with 89% sold by lot and 92% sold by value.The sale attracted a high volume of online bidding through Christie’s LIVE, with 59% of all lots won or directly underbid by clients participating online.  The sale saw global participation with registered bidders from 43 countries.

    A pair of large button tufted 20th century recamiers UPDATE: THESE MADE $3,000

    THE ART COLLECTION OF RENOWNED ARCHITECT AT CHRISTIE’S

    Thursday, August 15th, 2019

    The Clarke Collection, an exceptional selection of Post War and Contemporary Art including 35 works by Ed Ruscha, will come up at Christie’s in New York this autumn.

    The collection represents Laura and Fred Clarke’s lifelong passion sof self discovery through art. Clarke’s globally-renowned firm Pelli Clarke Pelli, which he established with the late Argentine-American architect César Pelli, designed the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (once the tallest building in the world), Canary Wharf in London, the World Financial Center in New York, the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, and The International Finance Centre in Hong Kong.

    “Years before we could afford to start buying,” Fred Clarke explained, “we could buy an extraordinary work of art for just a few dollars. I was a collector before I was a buyer. To be a buyer you have to have money, but to be a collector all you really need is to look and to do the work. It’s not about cost, it’s about value.” Works on paper, prints, sculpture and design will be offered across several sales beginning with a single artist sale, 35 works by Ed Ruscha on September 27.

    Ed Ruscha (b. 1937), Standard Station (Engberg 5), 1966. Screenprint in colours, numbered 41/50.

    DONEGAL MAN BY LUCIAN FREUD AT SOTHEBY’S

    Wednesday, August 14th, 2019

    Meet Donegal Man by Lucian Freud. The 2007 etching comes up at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale in September. Signed with initials in pencil it is numbered 26/46 on Somerset wove paper. The total edition includes 12 artist’s proofs. It was with Acquavella Contemporary Art in New York and the present owner acquired it from Galerie Simon Blais in Montreal in March 2008. Lot 106 in the auction is estimated at £7,000-20,000. The live auction begins on Setpember 10.

    Lucian Freud – Donegal Man