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    GREAT SHOWS AT NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND AND IMMA

    Saturday, July 16th, 2022
    Rembrandt van Rijn – Self-portrait with beret, wide eyed 1630 (etching) Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

    Rich pickings for art lovers at summer exhibitions in Dublin range from remarkable drawings on loan from the Rijksmuseum at the National Gallery of Ireland to an artistic examination of the science fiction of the present at IMMA. Intimate insights into 17th century life in the Netherlands can be seen at Dutch Drawings: highlights from the Rijksmuseum which opens at the National Gallery today.  This rare loan exhibition selected from the world renowned collection in Amsterdam offers 48 works by 31 different artists. Among them are Rembrandt, Hendrick Avercamp, Nicolaes Berchem, Jacob van Ruisdael, Gerard ter Boch, Ferdinand Bol and Albert Cuyp.

    This show offers Irish audiences a unique opportunity to view at close quarters works which range from studies of plants and animals, daily life, portraits, architecture and landscape. This art conveys a strong sense of what life as it was lived then was like.  Drawing was a portable and inexpensive medium.  There are differing techniques with works in graphite, ink, watercolour, chalks, etchings and woodcuts plus a small number of prints by Rembrandt. The exhibition shows artists striving to understand the world around them.  It continues at the National Gallery runs until November 6.

    Aelbert Cuyp – View of Dordrecht c1650. Rijksmuseum Amsterdam.

    The exhibition at IMMA is concerned with insights by artists into the world as we know it now.  On show here is a cross section of works produced between 2022 and 2018 by The Otolith Group, a London based collective founded in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun.  Otoliths are bodies in the inner ear involved with sensing gravity and movement. These pioneering artworks utilising film, video and multi-screen installations address contemporary, social and planetary issues, the disruptions of neo-colonialism, the way in which humans have impacted the earth and the influence of new technology on consciousness. The exhibition is entitled Xenogenesis (the production of an organism unlike the parent) and it reflects the commitment by the artists to creating what they think of as ‘a science fiction of the present’ through images, voices, sounds and performance.  Themes are both universal and relevant to contemporary life.
    IMMA director and curator of the exhibition Annie Fletcher said: “The Otolith Group’s films and installations address the forces and events that have shaped our world while offering inspiring examples and models  of how we might collectively imagine a different future”.

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    CHRISTIE’S ACHIEVES $4.1 BILLION IN FIRST HALF OF 2022

    Wednesday, July 13th, 2022
    Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, painted in 1964, made a record $195 million at Christie’s.

    Global sales at Christie’s in the first half of 2022 reached $4.1 billion, made up from $3.5 billion in auction sales and $0.6 billion in private sales. This is the best performance since 2015 and even surpasses the first half year of 2018 when Christie’s sold the Rockefeller Collection. Andy Warhol’s Short Sage Blue Marilyn was the most valuable lot sold, at $195 million. There was remarkable results for major collections like those of Thomas and Doris Ammann, Anne H. Bass, Rosalind Gersten Jacobs and Melvin Jacobs and Hubert de Givenchy. The sell through rate across all auctions was 87%. A strong influx of new and younger clients was noted. In the half year so far 30% of all buyers are new to Christie’s, and 34% of these new buyers are millennials.

    Philanthropic sales raised nearly $440 million with $13.7 million in aid to Ukraine. The outlook for the autumn is good, led by the Ann and Gordon Getty Collection in New York.

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    PORTRAIT OF CATHERINE MCGUINNESS ENTERS NATIONAL COLLECTION

    Tuesday, July 12th, 2022
    Catherine McGuinness (b.1934), former Supreme Court Judge and member of the Council of State of Ireland by Miseon Lee © Miseon Lee. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland.

    A new acquisition at the National Gallery of Ireland celebrates the contribution to Irish society by former Supreme Court judge Catherine McGuinness. A portrait of Justice McGuinness, commissioned by fellow members of the legal community and painted by artist Miseon Lee, is the latest addition to the national portrait collection at the Gallery.  The portrait, on display at the gallery from today, was unveiled in the presence of the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins.

    Catherine McGuinness (née Ellis) was born in Belfast and educated at Alexandra College, Trinity College Dublin and the King’s Inns. She was called to the Bar in 1977, and to the Inner Bar in 1989. She worked for the Labour Party in the 1960s, but was elected an independent candidate to Seanad Éireann for the Dublin University constituency in 1979, and served a senator until 1987. In 1988 she was appointed to the Council of State by President Patrick Hillery, a position she held until 1990. In 1994, she became the first woman to be appointed as a judge of the Circuit Court, and two years later was elevated to the High Court. In January 2000, she was promoted to the Supreme Court, where she served as a judge until 2006. She was appointed adjunct professor of law at NUIG in 2005, and in the same year became President of the Law Reform Commission, a position she held until 2011.

    In 2009, McGuinness received a Lord Mayor’s Award for her ‘contribution to the lives of children and families through her pioneering work’, and was chosen as one of the People of the Year the following year. McGuinness has served on the Employment Equality Agency, the Forum for Peace and Reconciliation, the National Council of the Forum on End of Life in Ireland, and in 2011 was appointed Chairperson of the Campaign for Children. She has given her name to academic fellowships and prizes at the Children’s Rights Alliance, and the University of Limerick.

    Artist Miseon Lee lives and works in Dublin and is a portrait specialist. She has been shortlisted for the annual portrait prize at the National Gallery of Ireland on three occasions and the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery, London twice. She has shown her work in both solo and group shows in Ireland, the UK and South Korea. Her work was also shortlisted for the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year in 2013, and the Davy Portrait Awards in 2010. She was awarded the James Adam’s Salesroom Award and the Keating/McLaughlin Award for Outstanding Artwork at the RHA in 2010 and 2012 respectively.

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    IF ONLY THIS DJINN CHAIR COULD FLY

    Sunday, July 10th, 2022
    Djinn lounge chair by Olivier Mourgue. UPDATE: THIS MADE 400 AT HAMMER

    Anyone travelling by air this summer quickly learns one harsh truth.  Those of us paying the piper do not call the tune.  Which makes one lot at de Veres online art and design auction, which runs until July 12, of great if impractical interest.  It won’t fit in your carry on bag but lot 16 at de Veres is this Djinn lounge chair by Olivier Mourgue for Airborne International.  Just the thing when your flight has been cancelled and you have been abandoned.  The estimate is just €400-€600. There are chairs by Charles and Ray Eames and Ligne Roset, Italian sofas, contemporary tables and antique desks but most of the 146 lots in this sale are artworks.  All of them are at highly affordable prices as this is one of a number of sales by de Veres designed for those who are dipping their toes into the market for the first time.  Among the art lots are a number of mid century set designs by Reginald Grey for theatres like The Gate, The Globe and The Pike.

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    AFFORDABLE ART AND DESIGN ONLINE AT DE VERES

    Friday, July 8th, 2022
    Kieran Crowley – Here it comes. UPDATE: THIS MADE 300 AT HAMMER

    Here it comes by Kieran Crowley is lot 19 at de Veres online art and design auction which runs until July 12. This is an online only affordable sale of 146 lots, ideal for those starting a collection. The oil on board illustrated here is estimated at €300-500.

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    CHEVAL MIRROR FROM HOWTH CASTLE AT EACRETT AUCTION

    Thursday, July 7th, 2022
    19th century cheval mirror with brass candle holders

    This 19th century mahogany cheval mirror is among the lots from Howth Castle at Sean Eacrett’s online sale from Ballybrittas, Co. Laois on July 9. The sale includes a number of lots from the attics and basements at Howth Castle. The mirror illustrated here, lot 295, is estimated at €300-€500. There are 720 lots in the auction, which includes contents from houses in Kildare, Dublin and Wicklow.

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    PORTRAIT BUST OF HENRY GRATTAN MAKES £13,860 AT SOTHEBY’S

    Tuesday, July 5th, 2022
    Peter Turnerelli (Belfast 1772-1839 London) -Bust of Henry Grattan (1746-1820)

    THIS 1813 marble bust of Henry Grattan sold for £13,860 over a top estimate of £12,000 at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master Sculptures and Early Jewellery in London today. The prime version of Turnerelli’s portrait of Henry Grattan is in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Born in Dublin in 1746 Henry Grattan was a brilliant politician and orator who, in his mid-thirties backed by the Protestant Volunteer movement, declared an independent parliament for Ireland. “Grattan’s Parliament” did not last long and when rebellion broke out in 1798 he was blamed by conservatives for having stirred up resentment against the status quo. He opposed the Act of Union in 1800, but this did not prevent him from later sitting as a MP in London. While he continued his efforts on behalf of Ireland his great days as a parliamentarian were over and he died in 1820.

    The bust is likely to have been acquired by Grattan’s contemporary Charles Kinnaird, 8th Lord Kinnaird. He was a prolific art collector who assembled one of the great Scottish collections of antique statuary and pictures. Many of his paintings, which included works by Rubens, Titian and Poussin, had come from the collection of Philippe Égalité, duc d’Orléans.

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    A SHIPWRECK AND THE ONE THAT DID NOT GET AWAY RECALLED

    Sunday, July 3rd, 2022
    A gilt console table and other lots from Aidan Foley’s sale

    A 1940 shipwreck off Cape Clear and the Irish record for a specimen river brown trout are recalled at Aidan Foley’s  two day auction at Sixmilebridge, Co. Clare on July 4 and 5.  The trout, weighing 20 lbs, was caught in the River Shannon at Corbally, Limerick in February 1957 by Major Hugh L Place. The sale includes items from the Place family, who had strong connections to the Limerick Steamship Company, which named its ships after locations in Limerick.

    The SS Maigue, travelling from Limerick via Fenit to Liverpool with a cargo of bacon, struck a rock near Cape Clear in January 1940 and was beached at South Harbour.  Badly damaged she was refloated that May, sold for scrap and broken up in Dublin. An unsigned painting of the ship is included in the auction along with a collection of fishing rods by John Enright, Castleconnell owned by Major Place.  Old fishing flies with a 1945 note by Major Place who believed them then to be 100 years old might make an interesting catch. Antique lots in the auction include two console tables, a metal Armada chest, Irish swords by Johnson of Dublin, an Adams style desk and a large club fender. The catalogue for this sale of 1,700 lots is online and the auctions will be live and online.

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    BARBARA KRUGER AT DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK

    Saturday, July 2nd, 2022
    BARBARA KRUGER – Installation view, David Zwirner, New York, Courtesy David Zwirner.

    The artist Barbara Kruger powerfully engages directly with viewers through her distinctive visual language. Kruger utilises images, text, and technology as tools of communication to reveal and question established power structures and social constructs. An exhibition of recent works runs at David Zwirner, New York until August 12. It features nine large-scale video works and installations, as well as sound installations and vinyl wallpaper, that not only reaffirm the cultural prominence of Kruger’s iconic visual language but also reveal the radical inventiveness and lasting relevance of her incisive work with pictures and words.

    ‘Untitled (Our people are better than your people)’ – first shown as part of the ‘World Morality’ show at Kunsthalle Basel – uses language to thematise the powerful influence exercised upon human identity by the media and politics.

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    A €360,000 LACQUERED SCREEN AT ADAMS ASIAN SALE

    Wednesday, June 29th, 2022
    LÊ QU0C L0C (VIETNAM, 1918-1987) – A Mekong river landscape with a village

    Described as rare and important this six fold Mekong river scene by Le Quoc Loc made a hammer price of €360,000 at the James Adam sale of Asian art in Dublin today. This screen is typical of the artist’s work, in the sense that the predominant tones are red and dark brown combined with gilt. It depicts a bird’s eye-view animated landscape, as seen from the top of a hill, crossed by Mekong river arms. The in-depth perspective is created by a succession of grounds. In the first two the artist used a gilt lacquer to depict trees, including palm trees. In the middle on the left, is a traditional thatched houses hamlet. Then come Mekong river arms. The composition may roughly be described as being divided into two parts by a diagonal going from the upper left corner to the lower right corner – thereby creating two triangular shapes – and playing with empty and full. The estimate for the screen was €200,000-€400,000.

    (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for June 25,2022)

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