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
Dining table and ten chairs by Joseph Walsh UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A dining suite and a cabinet by Joseph Walsh will lead Sheppards four day sale live and online from Durrow, Co. Laois from next Tuesday to Friday (May 9-12). Walsh is celebrated globally and there will be international interest in lots 2039 and 2040, the last objects to be offered in this large auction of contents from Pouldrew House, located between Kilmeaden and Portlaw in Co. Waterford, as well as from other sources. The suite comprising a black walnut and silver dining table and ten black walnut chairs with sycamore backs created at the Joseph Walsh Studio in Riverstock in 2001 is estimated at €80,000-€120,000. Walshs cabinet on stand dating from the 2001-2003 period, with a walnut case and sycamore interior, comes with an estimate of €35,000-€55,000.
Pouldrew House, home from 1992 to the late Dr. Jan Mohamed who came from Singapore to work at Waterford Regional Hospital (now University Hospital, Waterford), was a magical setting for furniture, art and collectibles acquired over the years in Asia and at country house sales in Ireland. Priscilla Presley and her daughter Lisa-Marie (who died in January) came here several times for acupuncture as a result of a recommendation from the artist Gottfried Helnwein, who lives and works in Ireland and Los Angeles. Given that today is the coronation day of Charles III there might be some extra interest in decorative letters on vellum from Charles II (1630-1685) dated 1667 granting 2,400 acres in seven towns and villages in Waterford to Thomas Brightwell. The estimate is €8,000-€12,000. (Charles I was executed in 1649, but this is an aside).
Chinese yellow glazed bowl. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The many Oriental lots are headed by two Chinese Qing Dynasty hardwood palace cabinets, each estimated at €20,000-€30,000. A magnificent Zhengde yellow glazed bowl (€10,000-€15,000), a Qianlong celadon plate (€8,000-€10,000) and a decorated Chinese lacquered 12 panel palace folding screen (€3,000-€5,000) are feature pieces too.Among many collectibles and conversation pieces is a 19th century Venetian walnut throne chair (€4,000-€6,000), a late 17th century Flemish tapestry (€5,000-€8,000), an 18th century leather panelled sedan chair (€5,000-€8,000), a c1830 monumental American carved wood eagle (€3,000-€5,000) and a signed 1945 World War II war crimes investigation team pewter tankard from Singapore (€500-€800). Leading jewellery lots include a 3.70 carat three stone diamond ring (€20,000-€30,000), a four stone diamond ring (€12,000-€14,000), Colombian emerald and diamond earrings (€8,000-€12,000), a diamond cluster ring (€8,000-€12,000) and an emerald and diamond ring (€6,000-€9,000). The most expensively estimated painting is a Donegal watercolour landscape by Percy French (€5,000-€8,000). There are two mid 20th century Donegal carpets and a good selection of Oriental rugs, runners and carpets in a sale with much interest for all sorts of collectors. The auction is on view in Durrow today, tomorrow and Monday. The catalogue is online and around 500 lots will be sold on each day.
17th century Flemish tapestry. UPDATE: THIS MADE €4,300 AT HAMMER
GAETANO PESCE (B.1939) – ‘Up-5 Donna’ armchair with ‘Up-6 Donna’ ottoman. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Originally designed in 1969 this arresting armchair and ottoman by Gaetano Pesce comes up as lot 37 at Adams Mid-Century Modern sale on May 9. It is estimated at 4,000-6,000. Viewing for this timed online auction gets underway in Dublin today and continues over the weekend. The catalogue is online.
Lavinia Fontana, Minerva Dressing, 1613. Galleria Borghese, Roma
Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker, the major summer show at the National Gallery of Ireland, runs from May 6 until August 27. The late sixteenth-century Bolognese artist is widely considered to be the first female artist to achieve professional success beyond the confines of a court or a convent. Fontana was the first woman to manage her own workshop, and the first woman to paint public altarpieces and female nudes. She maintained an active career, painting for many illustrious patrons, while also taking on the role of wife and mother.
The first monographic exhibition to examine Fontana’s work in over two decades, and the first to focus on her portraits the show brings together a selection of her most highly regarded works from international public and private collections, alongside the artist’s celebrated The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, from the Gallery’s own collection. The recent conservation of this Renaissance masterpiece was supported by Bank of America.
Lavinia Fontana, Self-Portrait at the Virginal, 1577. Accademia Di San Luca
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)
This Chinese lacquered palace folding screen with 12 gilded panels comes up at Sheppards four day sale of contents from Pouldrew House, Co. Waterford and other clients in Durrow from May 9-12. Decorated with exotic birds among blossums Lot 25 is estimated at 3,000-5,000. It is from the collection of the late Dr. Jan Mohamed. Around 2000 lots are to be offered, with 500 coming under the hammer on each day. The catalogue is online. Viewing in Durrow gets underway on May 6 and the catalogue is online. UPDATE: THIS MADE €2,900 AT HAMMER
Hendrick Goltzius, after Cornelis van Haarlem. Phaeton, from The Four Disgracers, 1588.
An incomparable collection of 1,440 Dutch Mannerist prints from the Hearn Family Foundation and Charles Hack collection has been acquired by the Art Institute of Chicago. Ranging chronologically from the 1530s to about 1650 and assembled over three decades they chart the history of Dutch printmaking at the period of its greatest technical and artistic sophistication. At its heart is the work of Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617), the most significant 16th-century Dutch artist and one of the greatest draftsmen and printmakers of his age. There are works by a generation of artists who either trained with Goltzius or tried to measure up to his formidable example. His pupils — including Jacob Matham, Jacques de Gheyn, Jan Saenredam, and Jan Muller — provide a rich and varied context to Goltzius’s masterworks.
Selections of prints from the collection will start going on regular view in galleries 212a and 213a in November 2023. A large exhibition and publication is tentatively scheduled for 2027.
This large scale 1932 portrait of Marie-Therese Walter will highlight Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York on May 11. Nature morte a la fenetre was painted during a pivotal year for Picasso, who reached an extraordinary peak of creativity in 1932. Marie-Therese came to dominate every aspect of his output in the early 1930’s. This is one of the first works of an exceptional series devoted to her. One of them, Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese), sold for $103 million in 2021. The painting here was shown at the Picasso retrospective in Paris in the summer of 1932 after which it was exhibited at his inaugural museum show in Zurich. It remained in his personal collection for the rest of his life, hidden from public view until the 1980’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $41,810,000
People living in Cork might be more familiar with the work of Johnny Bugler – now exhibiting at the Lavit Gallery along with Diarmuid Breen – than they realise Bugler is the creator of the acclaimed street artwork at Singer’s Corner in Cork city centre. A graduate of the Crawford and the holder of an MA in printmaking from Camberwell College of Art his work is in the permanent collection of our National Gallery.
Diarmuid Breen, who is represented by Taylor Galleries in Dublin, graduated from DIT Sherkin Island arts programme in 2012 and took the inaugural Anita Young award at the RHA. Buglers artwork is often associated with the coast as a transitionary space between land and sea, Breen’s a subtle commentary on contemporary human experience. The collaborative show by these mid-career Irish artists is part of celebrations marking 60 years of the gallery, founded as Cork Arts Society in 1963. It runs until May 13 with an artists talk at the gallery at 1 pm on May 6.
Haze Days by Yoshitomo Nara at Sotheby’s. THIS WAS UNSOLD
The explosion of creativity in the art world in the first two decades of the 20th century has not been matched in the 21st. and it is interesting to speculate about why. A century ago the world was newly enriched by Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction, Suprematism and the rest. In the global village of today, development of the shock of the new in art does not seem to have occurred at the hectic pace of technology and other groundbreaking disciplines. Are artists stupefied by the pace of change in the world all around them? In a world where wonder is taken for granted is visual surprise and delight degraded?
Geniuses like David Hockney have demonstrated the infinite possibilities of digital art but it is not as yet a significant art market sector. It looks as if NFT’s have gone the way of cryptocurrency for now. The most innovative market focus is on overlooked women artists, non western art, ethnic, tribal and minority groups but art needs innovation, not political correctness. The impressive selection of Impressionist, Modern, Post-Modern and Contemporary art will come under the hammer at the big New York spring sales in May are mostly of the 20th century. Highly significant art from major collections like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, legendary Condé Nast co owner S.I. Newhouse and Warner Bros. Records executive Mo Ostin, among whose signings were The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Joni Mitchell, R.E.M. and Madonna, will boost these sales.
L’Empire des Lumieres by Rene Magritte from the Mo Ostin collection at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE$42,273,000
All the big names, from Picasso, Matisse and Magritte to Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama and Jean Michel Basquiat are here along with less well known but seriously doing well relative newcomers like Wayne Thiebaud and Yoshitomo Nara. But the art of today, which both auction houses have been busily promoting, is represented by just 51 lots, 27 at the 21st Century evening sale at Christie’s on May 15 and 24 at the Now evening sale at Sotheby’s on May 18.
Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $4,890,000
The Christie’s auction will be headed up by a Basquiat (born in 1960, died in 1986). There is a pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama (born in 1929), a box of ten photographs by Diane Arbus (1923-1971), a take on a Velazquez painting by Jeff Koons (born 1955), Prophet by El Anatsui (born 1944) and Untitled (We will no longer be your favourite disappearing act) by Barbara Kruger (born 1945). Art in this sale by Cecily Brown, Rashid Johnson, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and other younger artists like Vojtek Kovarik and Louis Fratino (both born in 1993) will definitely reward serious study but seems rooted in the 20th century. A powerful 1998 work by Yoshito Nara titled Haze Days will highlight the Now auction at Sotheby’s. This monumental rendering of a bandaged child – furious, foreboding and wonderfully appealing – embodies the contradictions of our culture and ourselves. The eyes have it and it is no surprise that these angst laden paintings sell for many millions of dollars. There is arresting art by Simone Leigh, Jonas Wood, Matthew Wong, Julien Nguyen, Mark Grotjahn, Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Rudolf Stingel and other names that might not yet be so well known. With this sale Sotheby’s has set out to offer heightened visibility and a relevant art historical context for a new generation of younger artists but it is the artists themselves who need to forge new paths.
Burning gas station by Ed Ruscha at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $22,260,000
