After four days of consecutive auctions, the Contemporary evening auction tipped Sotheby’s weeklong series over one billion US dollars. The $210.5 million Contemporary evening auction in New York last night was powered by towering figures of contemporary art, with Francis Bacon’s triumphant finale to his Pope paintings realising $46.3 million. Also leading the sale were: Cy Twombly’s Untitled ($38 million), Andy Warhol’s Elvis ($21.6 million), Ed Ruscha’s Cold Beer Beautiful Girls ($18.8 million) and Georg Baselitz’s Women of Dresden – Visit from Prague ($11.2 million, a new artist record). The evening’s final lot, Sean Scully’s Song ($2 million), earned the artist a new auction record.
The Now evening auction realised $72.9 million. Work by women artists achieved $28 million (nearly double the $10.3–14.4 million estimate) and work by artists of colour realised $35.1 million (above the $15.9–22.9 estimate) or nearly half of the auction’s total sale value. In one energetic hour, nine out of 23 lots set records: Adrian Ghenie’s Degenerate Art ($9.3 million), Matthew Wong’s The Night Watcher($5.9 million), Avery Singer’s Happening ($5.3 million), Christina Quarles’s Night Fell Upon Us Up On Us ($4.5 million), Jennifer Packer’s Fire Next Time ($2.3 million), Simone Leigh’s Birmingham($2.2 million), Anna Weyant’s Falling Woman($1.6 million), Lucy Ball’s Special Guest ($907K, in her auction debut), and Virgil Abhloh’s Unique” Efforescence” Desk ($151K for a dedicated work of art).
BEACHED BOATS AT BRIGHTON ATTRIBUTED TO JOHN CONSTABLE. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Beached Boats at Brighton, a painting attributed to one of Britains most enduringly popular artists John Constable (1776-1837), is the top lot at Shepards three day Great Irish Interiors sale from May 24-26. The oil on board in a gilt frame is estimated at 20,000-30,000. From a private family collection at Littlehamton in Sussex Sheppards say it is likely to have come from one of the sales at Fosters who sold the contents of Constable’s studios on behalf of his family from 1838 to 1875. The tiny work measures just three and a half by four and a half inches. The sale of 1,204 lots features art, antique furniture and a wide variety of collectibles. The catalogue is online and viewing gets underway in Durrow tomorrow.
The Train through the Woods by Jack Butler Yeats. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A painting by Jack B Yeats once in the collection of actor Peter O’Toole comes up at Bonhams sale of Modern British and Irish Art in London on June 22. Painted in 1925 The Train through the Woods is estimated at £40,000-60,000. There is art in the sale by Hughie O’Donoghue and Sir John Lavery.
Mid 18th century Irish side table. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
A fascinating collection of antique furniture and art comes under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London on May 26. Monte Alverno: An Irish Private Collection will offer a collection of English and Irish furniture from a Dalkey home with views over the Irish Sea. There is some beautifully carved and patinated Irish furniture from the mid 18th century through to later pieces by Hicks of Dublin as well as gilded mirrors and Chinese works of art.
Among the Irish furniture lots of note is a pair of George III style demi lune side tables, a mid 18th century open armchair, a pair of Regency convex mirrors by Richard Jackson, a George II style side table by Hicks, a Regency telescopic extending dining table, a harlequin set of 15 George II style dining chairs and a George III oval cut glass mirror. A B. Yeats, William Scott, John Luke, Patrick Swift, James Arthur O’Connor and other renowned Irish artists. The catalogue is online.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 4, 2022)
Einstein by Mr. Brainwash. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,800 AT HAMMER
Einstein by Mr. Brainwash comes up as lot 17 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current online auction of Irish art, which goes on view in Skibbereen from today. It is estimated at 5,000-7,000. The catalogue for the sale of paintings and sculpture, which runs until May 23, is online now.
Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564). A nude man (after Masaccio) and two figures behind him with inscriptions ‘Pietro Faccini’ (twice, on the mount, probably by Genevosio); with inscriptions ‘Pietro Facini/Collection Borghèse’ and ’86’
A nude young man (after Masaccio) surrounded by two figures by Michelangelo made €23,162,000 at Christie’s in Paris today. This is the most expensive work by the artist to have ever sold, the highest price ever achieved for a work on paper offered on the European continent, and the third highest price for an Old Master drawing ever sold.
This unpublished drawing, one of the most exciting discoveries made in the field of Old Master drawings in recent decades, is an important addition to a small group of drawings by Michelangelo from the 1490s, copied from works by earlier Florentine masters. ‘He drew for many months from the pictures of Masaccio in the Carmine,’ Giorgio Vasari wrote in his 1568 life of Michelangelo, referring to the paintings by the early fifteenth-century painter Masaccio (1401-1428) in Santa Maria del Carmine in Florence’s Oltrarno quarter, ‘where he copied those works with so much judgment, that the craftsmen and all other men were astonished, in such sort that envy grew against him together with his fame.’These drawings can be dated to the time when Michelangelo enjoyed the protection of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and later of his son Piero de’ Medici, who encouraged the young artist’s study of antique sculpture and early Renaissance art in the years immediately preceding the creation of some of his most famous works, such as the Pietà in Saint Peter’s, Rome (1498-1499), and the marble David in the Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence (1501-1504).
The drawing was first recognised as the work of Michelangelo in 2019 by Furio Rinaldi, then a specialist in Christie’s department of Old Master Drawings. Paul Joannides, Emeritus Professor of Art History at Cambridge University and author of the complete catalogues of drawings by Michelangelo and his school in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the Musée du Louvre, was able to study the original, and supports the attribution. Sold in 1907 at the Hôtel Drouot in Paris as a work of the school of Michelangelo, the drawing escaped the attention of all scholars until its recent rediscovery. It is probably the earliest surviving nude study by the artist.
Pablo Picasso – Femme nue couchée SOLD FOR $67,541,000
Picasso’s Femme nue couchée was the top lot at Sotheby’s Modern evening auction in New York last night. It made $67.5 million in a sale which realised $408.5 million. This was the third highest total for an auction at Sotheby’s. Monet’s view of the Grand Canal in Venice with Santa Maria della Salute made $56.6 million and The Glade by Paul Cezanne made $41.6 million. There were artists records for Milton Avery’s The Letter ($6.1 million) Leonora Carrington’s The Garden of Paracelsus ($3.3 million) and Jared French’s The Double ($1.1 million) and Robert Motherwell’s Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 59($1.2 million) set an auction record for a work on paper by the artist.
Mark Rothko – Untitled (signed and dated 1960) made $48 million
The sale of 30 lots from the Macklowe Collection achieved $246.1 million at Sotheby’s in New York last night. When added to the results of the November auction the total comes to $922.2 million, making this the most valuable collection ever sold at auction. Highlights last night included Mark Rothko’s Untitled, which made $48 million, Gerhard Richter’s Seestuck (Seascape) which made $30.2 million, Andy Warhol’s Self Portrait which made $18.7 million, and Willem de Kooning’s Untitled which sold for $17.8 million.
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.
Paul Cezanne – Clairiere (The Glade) at Sotheby’s in New York next Tuesday. UPDATE: THIS MADE $41,688,500
THE big game hunters of the global art world are out in force right now. There are rich pickings for the super rich in a stellar round of May sales in New York sales showcasing major artistic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. At Christie’s last Monday evening Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn from the collection of Thomas and Doris Ammann of Zurich sold for a record $195 million (€184,421,250). The 40 square inch canvas became the most expensive 20th century artwork ever sold. In 1964 Warhol developed a time intensive new process and used it to create a limited number of portraits – including Shot Sage Blue Marilyn – before abandoning the technique. The painting has been exhibited at galleries including the Guggenheim, New York, the Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. The 36 works from this collection realised $317.8 million (€300,610,198), All proceeds will directly benefit the Ammann Foundation’s global efforts to create healthcare and education programmes for children.
With everyone from Monet and Degas to Balthus and Wayne Thibaud Christie’s delivered in style this week. At this stage the running total for their Marquee Week spring sales is $1.36 billion. The Post War and Contemporary art day sale yesterday achieved $97 million.
Next it is the turn of Sotheby’s. Their six sales with 800 lots carry a combined estimate of over $1 billion (€950,800,000) on a level with their record setting season last November. Then the Macklowe Collection of 35 artworks made $676 million (€642.9 million) after real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his wife Linda were ordered by a judge to sell their collection and split the proceeds during their 2018 divorce trial. Another 30 works from their collection come up next Monday evening with artists like Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Sigmar Polke, Donald Judd, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Anselm Kiefer, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Andy Warhol.
The Modern evening auction on Tuesday is the most expensively estimated in the category at Sotheby’s for 15 years. It will feature one of Monet’s finest Venetian works, a 1932 portrait of Marie Therese Walter by Picasso and The Glade by Paul Cezanne. These three works alone are expected to bring in around $150 million (€142.6 million).
On Thursday the Now evening auction and the Contemporary evening auction will bring this months series of marquee evening auctions to a close. The Now sale will open the evening with ten consecutive works by women artists including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Christina Quarles, Jennifer Packer and Tracey Emin. Highlights of the Contemporary evening auction are Study for Red Pope 1962, 2nd version 1971 by Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly’s large scale Untitled from 1969, a silkscreen of Elvis by Andy Warhol and Cold Beer Beautiful Girls, a quintessential text painting by Ed Ruscha. Who could ask for anything more?
Francis Bacon Study of Red Pope 1962, 2nd version, 1971 at Sotheby’s, New York next Thursday evening. UPDATE: THIS MADE $46,284,500.
