Kurt Cobain “Smells like Teen Spirit” Fender Mustang guitar. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $4.5 million
Kurt Cobain’s Fender Mustang electric guitar, Madonna’s Material Girl dress inspired by Marilyn Monroe, the original drum kit used in the pre-Beatle group The Quarrymen and Bruce Springsteen’s handwritten lyrics for “Born to Run” are all due to come under the hammer this month. Popular culture is big business – and in our global village auction houses are cashing in on the big time. Julien’s Auctions, conveniently located in Hollywood, leads the charge. Their Music Icons sale live and online from the Hard Rock Cafe in New York on May 20, 21 and 22 offers dedicated fans of all ages a heady mix. For the information of us non specialists the Quarrymen was formed by John Lennon in Liverpool in 1956 as a skiffle rock and roll group. Ultimately it evolved into the Beatles. Another lot sure to attract attention from around the world is a single sheet of handwritten lyrics by Bruce Springsteen for Glory Road, later re-named Born to Run. Kurt Cobain’s legendary blue “Smells Like Teen Spirit” music video 1969 Fender Mustang electric guitar will appeal to a different generation.
Madonna’s Material Girl dress UPDATE: THE COMPLETE ENSEMBLE SOLD FOR $287,500
Christie’s Magnificent Jewels sale in Geneva tonight achieved a total of CHF68,990,650 / $69,668,694 / €65,939,460, led by The Rock, which sold for CHF21,681,000 / $21,894,082 / €20,722,133. Weighing 228.31 carats, The Rock is the largest white diamond ever to be sold at auction.
The Red Cross Diamond realised CHF14,181,250 / $14,320,624 / €13,554,068, with a significant portion of the proceeds benefiting the International Committee of the Red Cross. The auction was 98% sold by value and 92% sold by lot, and witnessed global participation with registrants from 20 countries across 4 continents. The next generation of collectors were active with millennial collectors comprising 50% of new registrants to the sale.
Georgina Hilton selling Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild
Christie’s say that results from their 21st Century evening sale in New York last night demonstrate a clear demand from collectors globally and growing confidence in the market for emerging contemporary artists. The auction was led by the monumental canvas by Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1994 which made $36.5 Million. The auction was 114% sold above the low estimate with strong depth of bidding, averaging six bidders per lot.
The opening lot – Summertime by Anna Weyant achieved $1.5 Million – more than seven times its low estimate of $200,000 – after eight minutes of competitive bidding. Shara Hughes’s Spins from Swiss also established a new record, achieving $2.94 Million against a low estimate of $500,000. The monumental canvas Green Room by Matthew Wong set a record of $5.34 million, doubling its high estimate. Portrait of a Lady (After Louis Leopold Boilly) by Ewa Juszkiewicz made a record $1.56 Million (estimate: $200,000-300,000), benefitting POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. An NFT by Refik Anadol, Living Architecture: Casa Batlló made $1.38 Million.
Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn made $195 million to become the most expensive 20th century artwork ever sold at Christie’s in New York last night. The painting was the final lot of the single-owner Thomas and Doris Ammann Collection which featured 36 lots and totalled $317.8 million.
Proceeds from the entire sale of this Zurich collection will benefit charities providing urgent medical and educational services to children. The buyer of Warhol’s Marilyn has been invited to partner with the Ammann Foundation and play an active role in fulfilling its global mission for children’s aid, with the opportunity to nominate the charities to which 20% of the work’s proceeds will be allocated, subject to the Foundation’s final approval.
Warhol’s colourful reproductions of Monroe’s photo portrait — originally a publicity still from her 1953 movie “Niagara” — are among his most recognisable works. Warhol first began creating silkscreens of Marilyn Monroe following her death in August 1962. He would create reproductions of her visage multiple times in bright colours, often with the features somewhat askew. In 1964, he developed a more refined and time-intensive screen printing technique, antithetical to the mass production he was best known for, and created a limited number of portraits of the Hollywood legend of which Shot Sage Blue Marilyn is one. This technique was so difficult that he never returned to it again.
Bloomberg is reporting that it was bought by the art dealer Larry Gagosian. The previous record price for a piece of American artwork was $110.5m for a skull painting created in 1982 by Jean-Michael Basquiat. The previous record for a 20th Century work of art was set in 2015 when a 1955 painting by Pablo Picasso – Les Femmes d’Alger (Version O) – sold for $179.4m, including fees.
Irish William IV Mahogany Three Pod Dining Table. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,800 AT HAMMER
This 20 foot long Irish William IV dining table is among the top lots at Matthews original country house clearance auction on May 10. The executors sale of the estate of the late Trevor Fitzherbert of Rockfield, Athboy Road, Kells, Co. Meath offers a total of 950 lots and is on view at the property. The dining table is lot 348 and is estimated at €3,000-€5,000. The catalogue is online.
Roderic O’Conor – Rocks and Foam, St. Guenole, 1893. UPDATE: THIS MADE 352,800
A May celebration of Ireland by Sotheby’s in Paris will introduce Irish art to new European audiences and mark an important centenary. Bidding on Ireland / France: Art and Literature opens May 9. The online sale runs until May 16 and will be on view in the French capital from May 11 until May 14. The newly founded Irish state took part in a week long international conference in Paris in 1922 titled The World Congress of the Irish Race. Irish politicians, diaspora delegates, writers, artists and musicians all turned up with the intention of promoting Ireland on the world stage and highlighting our artistic and cultural uniqueness. The auction this month – staged in addition to the annual sale of Irish Art by Sotheby’s to be held in London next November – coincides with the centenary of that congress.
In 1922 the then capital of the art world was witness to a major, month long Irish art exhibition of three hundred works at Galeries Barbazanges.Sotheby’s will avail of the viewing to exhibit three works on loan from private collections. Two of them, The Rosary by Grace Henry and Market Day Mayo / The Long Car by Jack B Yeats, painted respectively in 1910 and 1920, were exhibited at l’Exposition d’Art Irlandais at Galeries Barbazanges. The third, The Bridge at the River Grez, was painted by John Lavery in 1883. Among the literary offerings are copies of Ulysses (first published in Paris in 1922) and Dubliners by James Joyce; Molloy, Malone Dies and The Unnameable by Samuel Beckett and Stories of Red Hanrahan by William Butler Yeats. There is a death mask of James Joyce by Victor McCaughan.
William Scott – Bottle Still Life, 1958. UPDATE: THIS MADE 50,400
Irish art on offer at this auction spans different generations and styles. There are paintings by Jack B Yeats and Louis le Brocquy, Sir John Lavery and William Scott. Among our leading contemporary artists there is sculpture by Dorothy Cross, Rowan Gillespie and Patrick O’Reilly with painting by Hughie O’Donoghue and John Noel Smith. Cow up a Tree by the west Cork based Australian artist John Kelly is estimated at €24,000-€35,000. A French cafe scene from 1937 by Harry Kernoff – Sunday Evening, Place du Combat, Paris – is estimated at €40,000-€60,000. Head of a Breton boy by Roderic O’Conor dates to 1883 and is estimated at €60,000-€80,000. Work by Evie Hone, Mainie Jellett, Charles Lamb, Sean Keating, Sean O’Sullivan, Aloysius O’Kelly, Sean O’Sullivan, Sarah Purser, Mary Swanzy, William Orpen and Leo Whelan features too.Among the most expensively estimated lots are Rocks and Foam, St. Guenole, 1883 by Roderic O’Conor (€300,000-€500,000), A Stranger by Sir John Lavery and Quatre Poires by Roderic O’Conor each estimated at €120,000-€180,000 and Statue of the Fragonard, Grasse, 1920’s by William Leech (€30,000-€50,000). There is much here to interest the French, the Irish and members of the Irish diaspora and their descendants located right around the globe.
Helly Nahmad is offering this Francis Bacon Pope at TEFAF New York which runs from today until May 12. It is among a number of stellar highlights at the fair which features world class dealers. Bacon worked on his pope paintings, variations on the magnificent portrait of Pope Innocent X, for more than 20 years. There is work by Frantisek Kupka, Claude Lalanne, Louise Bourgeois, Edvard Munch, Marc Chagall, Yves Klein, Lucio Fontana, Giorgio Morande, Jean Prouve with Charlotte Perriand, Roy Lichtenstein, Anselm Kiefer to be seen here.
TEFAF New York was founded in early 2016, originally as two annual art fairs in New York at the Park Avenue Armory — TEFAF New York Fall and TEFAF New York Spring. Today, TEFAF New York is one singular, annual fair that encapsulates modern and contemporary art, jewellery, antiques, and design, featuring around 90 leading exhibitors from around the globe. Tom Postma Design, celebrated for its innovative work with leading museums, galleries, and art fairs, has developed designs for the fairs that interplay with the spectacular spaces while giving them a lighter, contemporary look and feel. Exhibitor stands will flow throughout the Armory’s landmark building encompassing the Wade Thompson Drill Hall and extending to both the first and second floors of the Armory’s period rooms, creating a fair of unprecedented depth and impact in New York City.
This Chinese Ming blue and white bowl, Chenghua (1447 – 1487), is the most expensively estimated lot at Sheppard’s sale of Chinese ceramics and Asian works of art on May 12. The body is decorated with striding Kui dragons in mutual pursuit prancing through scrolling foliage. Measuring 9 cms high and 17 cms in diameter it is estimated at €20,000-€30,000. The catalogue for this sale of 255 lots is now online.
THIS CHINESE QING PERIOD CANTON ENAMELLED JARDINIERE MADE 20,000 AT HAMMER AS DID A CHINESE CLOISONNÉ ENAMEL CHARGER
This Pugin style oak confessional box is one of the more unusual collectibles items of furniture to come up at auction in Ireland for some time. It is at €3,000-€5,000 the most expensively estimated lot at Victor Mee’s online sale of antique furniture, decorative interiors and ecclesiastical items from Clonliffe College Seminary in Dublin on May 10. Among a total of 628 lots are an ebonised Steinway grand piano, a Regency five pillar dining table and a 19th century oak pulpit with wrought iron balustrade.
The Dublin archdiocese has offered its former seminary at Clonliffe in Drumcondra for the accommodation of Ukranian refugees.
THIS REGENCY MAHOGANY FIVE PILLAR DINING TABLE MADE 10,000 AT HAMMER
Fleur de lys brooch by JAR courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2022
Twelve jewels by JAR from the estate of Ann Getty will highlight Christie’s Magnificent Jewels live sale in New York on June 8. Ann Getty’s striking group of jewels by JAR is one of the largest and most important private collections of works by the visionary designer, Joel Arthur Rosenthal to appear at auction. The group is expected to achieve in the region of $1.5 million. JAR’s masterfully crafted jewels are beloved by collectors as sculptural works of art. Evocative of 18th and 19th century design, they draw inspiration from historic architecture, intricate textiles, art and nature, and are often defined by their exquisite palette of signature pavé stones. From the diamond and gem-set fleur-de-lys brooch reminiscent of a sublime medieval stained-glass window, to the carved agate Zebra brooch adorned with a royal headdress, Ann Getty’s collection of JAR jewellery perfectly captures the artist’s early years of design and exploration and includes stunning examples of his most important creative themes.
