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This large 19th century French gilt console table at Fonsie Mealy’s Killoughter House online sale on May 18 has a distinctive provenance. The triple breakfront table, measuring 102 inches wide and with white veined marble top, came from the Sir Alfred Chester Beatty estate sale at Clonmannon House near Rathnew in Co. Wicklow in 1968. That sale was conducted by James Adam, Dublin. This time around the table is lot 382 and is estimated at €4,000-€6,000. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,800 AT HAMMER
This Queen Anne style walnut chest on stand comes up at Hegarty’s sale in Bandon on May 9. It is estimated at €1,700-2,000. The online auction features a selection of antique furniture, jewellery, ceramics, garden furniture including cast iron seats and planters, a c1760 Irish silver salver by James Warren and a variety of collectible items including an August 1920 handwritten letter to Pauline Henley from a sister of Terence McSwiney who was by then on hunger strike in Brixton Prison. UPDATE: The walnut chest made 1,850 at hammer, the silver salver made 1,000 and the handwritten letter was unsold.
Here is a video on Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 40 from 1971. From the collection of Anne Marion it comes up at Sotheby’s in New York this month. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $27,265,500
The international art market is increasingly evolving towards the now. Developments happening at breakneck pace are reflected in the annual May New York sales of big league international art, livestreamed of course, and available to view around the world. Christie’s has torn up the rule book to create an entirely new category of turn of the 21st century contemporary art. Established contemporaries like Gerhard Richter and Christopher Wool will be offered alongside newcomer artists like Jordan Casteel.
This follows the discovery of a growing appetite for masterpieces by a new generation of artists reported by Christie’s in 2020. The auction house recorded no less than seven new auction records by 21st century artists in the livestreamed Hong Kong to New York evening sale last December. Many of these artists are unknown to those of us familiar with the glorious range of art from Monet to Hockney and beyond. The 21st century evening sale at Christie’s on May 11 will be led by work from artists like Martin Kippenberger, Jordan Casteel and Gerhard Richter. Mark Rothko’s Untitled, painted in 1970 during the final months of his life, will highlight the 20th century evening sale on May 13.
Even though there are growing numbers of new kids on the block there will be no shortage of names that are familiar. Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art sales will include highlights from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Clyfford Still, Warhol, Hockney, Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder, Childe Hassan, Degas, Monet, Picasso and more. An exquisite example of Monet’s Waterlilies series will highlight Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern sale and Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Versus Medici will take centre stage at the Contemporary Art evening auction. Both sales will be livestreamed on May 12. Contemporary auctions reflect the response of todays artists to our changing world and offer a fascinating glimpse of the development of abstract and figurative art from the Post-War period to the present day. To further mark the changes Sotheby’s will hold its first auction entirely devoted to women artists across the centuries later this month.
The future beckons and it looks exciting. The mix of online and live sales is here to stay. We will not go back to what was there before Covid. If a signpost to the future can be discerned it points in the direction of a more diverse and multicultural art market focused on gender equality, the rights of minorities and masterpieces waiting to be discovered by artists yet largely unknown.
Artists like John Shinnors, Markey Robinson, Mark O’Neill, Brian Ballard, Ken Hamilton, Charles McAuley, Clement McAleer, Hughie O’Donoghue, Martin Mooney and Comhghall Casey are among those whose work can be found at Gormleys online Irish art evening auction on May 11. There are 274 lots on the catalogue.
This painting of The Yard at Ross Castle, Connemara in May is from an exhibition composed of previously unexhibited works by Luke Dillon-Mahon (1917-1997) at Panter and Hall, Pall Mall, London until May 21. On graduation from Cambridge the artist studied at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and after serving in the war joined the advertising agency Mather and Crowther in London. He returned to Ireland in 1954 to help establish the Arks advertising agency. On the death of his mother Luke Dillon-Hall took over the family estate at Clonbrock, Co. Galway, moved there permanently in the 1970’s, and downsized to a home near Moycullen in 1976. Instrumental in forming the Galway branch of The Samaritans he became its Irish director. After moving to Galway he painted more but few of his works were exhibited. The artist Derek Hill saw a number of them in the 1990’s and offered to arrange an exhibition, but this idea was rejected. Since 2011 there has been several successful exhibitions in the UK, including one at the Star Gallery organised by the Sir Denis Mahon Foundation. The late renowned art historian Denis Mahon was his cousin.
A rare and early rugby painting by L S Lowry comes up at Sotheby’s inaugural British Art: Modern/ Contemporary live-stream auction in London on June 29. Painted in 1928, Going to the Match is among the earliest known depiction of one of Lowry’s most iconic and timeless subjects – that of spectators thronging to a sporting occasion. Famed for his images of football, it is significant that it is a rugby match he chose to paint first, no doubt testament to the importance of the Rugby League to Northern communities. The red flag seen flying by the ground, as well as the red scarves worn by several of the crowd members, hints at the Salford Red Devils – Lowry’s local team. It is estimated at £2-£3 million.
Edgar Degas’ Danseuse rose (circa 1896, estimate: £2,500,000-3,500,000)and Femme sortant du bain (circa 1886-88, estimate: £1,300,000-1,800,000) will feature in Christie’s 20th and 21st Century evening sale next June 30. Together, they represent Degas’ exploration of two of the themes he found most enduring – that of the dancer at rest and the intimate gestures of a woman bathing. Through the second half of his career, pastel had become Degas’ favoured medium, its materiality allowing him to build up complex layered colour schemes in his compositions. These two works on paper illustrate not only the evolution of Degas’ technique over the course of a decade, reflecting his mastery of the medium, but also the growing importance of working in series within his practice at this time. Danseuse rose and Femme sortant du bain have remained in the same private collection for over 20 years and have not been seen publicly since the 1990s.
Alberto Giacometti’s Homme qui chavire will highlight Christie’s 20th and 21st Century evening sale in London on June 30. Conceived in 1950, and cast a year later, Homme qui chavire pictures a man in the moment before he either falls to the ground, or conversely, rises from the earth to ascend upwards. The unbalanced figure expresses the violence and fatality that man cannot escape: the bent legs, the long arms helplessly arched out, the head thrown slightly back. It is one of the greatest of Giacometti’s now iconic elongated, attenuated figures that emerged after the end of the Second World War. This is one of six recorded casts, with other examples now held in museums including the Kunsthaus, Zurich, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, and Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence. The last example of this important sculpture to be offered at auction was over a decade ago, in 2009, and it achieved $19.4 million. Since that time, Christie’s has set the world auction record for an Alberto Giacometti sculpture with L’homme au doigt which realised over $140 million in May 2015. This one will be offered with a pre-sale estimate of £12-18 million.
Homme qui chavire was formerly in the collection of the American artist Lillian Florsheim (1896-1988). She acquired it in December 1951, from one of Giacometti’s most important dealers, Galerie Maeght. It remained in her collection for the rest of her life, before being sold by her family in 1998, where it was acquired by the present owner. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £14,468,000
No matter what the weather turns out to be like over the May Bank Holiday weekend the hunter gatherers of the world of collecting will find plenty to occupy themselves with at Aidan Foley’s four day sale online from Sixmilebridge on May 1, 2, 3 and 4. Furniture ranges from a Linley designed sycamore twin pedestal dining table to Victorian card tables and oval gilt mirrors.There is a range of collectibles from U2 ephemera, tour promotional materials and U2 T-shirts to a gold cigarette case inscribed: “to Captain L A Wilkins by Viscount Trenchard and the directors of the United Africa Company Ltd. in commemoration of his actions in escaping from the Germans in France May 1940 – July 1941”. The Highland Cradle by the Cork artist John Brennan is estimated at €1,500-€2,000 and there is art by Louis le Brocquy, Patrick Copperwhite, George Gillespie, Ivan Sutton and others. More than 2,000 lots are scheduled to come under the hammer.
