Around €5 million worth of Irish art changed hands at Sotheby’s successful day of sales of Modern British and Irish Art and online Irish art today. The top Irish lot was Early Morning, Tangier by Sir John Lavery which made £340,000. The most expensively estimated Yeats of the sale, A Nor’ Western Town, estimated at £350,000-£550,000 and from the collection of Sir Michael Smurfit, failed to find a buyer. A Welcome by Yeats by £226,800 and Paul Henry’s West of Ireland Landscape made £327,600. The Village by the Lake by Paul Henry sold for £277,200.
At the online Irish art sale Lavery’s portrait of Mrs. Charles Baker made £214,000 and his Study for St. Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg made £113,400. The Face of Victory by Yeats made £100,800, and Engravings by Yeats made £88,200. A Woman Thinking by Sir William Orpen made £81,500 and The Great Blasket by Paul Henry made £75,600. Are You There by Rowan Gillespie made £107,200, Eruption by Cian McLoughlin made £52,920, Heaven is a Place on Earth by Jack Coulter made £42,329 and Cook Shack by Leah Hewson made £8,190.
AFTER the bidding battle Orpen’s After the Ballwas knocked down for a hammer price of 310,000 at de Veres sale of outstanding Irish art in Dublin this evening. Lakeside Cottages by Paul Henry made 215,000 and a still life by Roderic O’Conor made 150,000. The Waterfall by Jack B Yeats made 135,000 but Fishing Boats, Dugort by Paul Henry was unsold. Night Rider by Basil Blackshaw made 90,000, Cottages Connemara by Paul Henry and Forgive us our trespasses by Gerard Dillon each made 75,000, Coastal Narrative III by Donald Teskey made 40,000, Winter Trees by Paul Henry made 80,000 and Roderic O’Conors Still Life with Cauliflower, vase of flowers and a platter made 65,000.
John Shinnors – Girl and White Umbrella. UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,000 AT HAMMER
Girl and White Umbrella by John Shinnors is lot 56 at Dolan’s November online auction which runs until the evening of November 29. It is estimated at 4,000-6,000. The sale features art by Sean Keating, Sir William Orpen, Kenneth Webb, Mat Grogan, John Morris and many other artists. There is a selection of fine Irish whiskeys as well as antique furniture and collectibles among 252 lots on offer. The catalogue is online.
A Cork silver tablespoon by Isaac Solomon. UPDATE: THIS MADE 220 AT HAMMER
More than 400 lots will come under the hammer at the Lynes and Lynes online sale in Carrigtwohill on November 27. The silver section includes a Cork silver tablespoon by Isaac Solomon, a Georgian silver ladle by Richard Sawyer, Dublin and a heavy tray by William Egan of Cork. Victorian pieces include a three door Victorian secretaire, an antique couch and an oak and brass hall stand. A pair of early 19th century porcelain plaques stamped Franz Xaver Thallmaier of Munich have an estimate of €2,000-€3,000. There is a Hornby train collection and comics from the 1950’s include The Dandy, The Beano, The Rover and The Eagle. More than 30 lots of books includes Evelyn Bolster’s History of Cork in four volumes and correspondence between Eamon de Valera and Jenny Dowdall of Cork. There will be interest too in a heavy cast iron water trough, a pair of old iron gates and an early plough by Pierce of Wexford. The catalogue is online.
An important group of 17 paintings from the collection of Sir Michael Smurfit is at the core of Sotheby’s sales of Modern British and Irish Art and Irish Art online in London on November 23. Then 17 works carry a pre-sale estimate of €1.3 million – €2 million. Overall Sotheby’s estimate that more than 70 Irish works, from the 19th century to the present day and ranging from paintings to sculpture to ceramics, will make €3 million – €4.6 million. Sotheby’s has run a global campaign in support of these sales which feature Ireland’s most famous painters, Jack B. Yeats, Sir John Lavery, Sir William Orpen, Paul Henry, Louis le Brocquy and Gerard Dillon as well as contemporary artists like Jack Coulter. Most of these works have emerged from private collections and many are making their first appearance at auction. The most expensively estimated Irish painting in the auction is a 1936 oil on canvas by Yeats entitled A Nor’ Western Town (€412,000-€650,000). From a private collection in Ireland it was exhibited at a Yeats one man show in London in 1936 and at the National Gallery in 1942. Two Paul Henry’s, Connemara Landscape (€177,000-€236,000) and West of Ireland Landscape (€142,000-€212,000) are from a private US collection.A Welcome and South Pacific, both by Yeats and from the Smurfit collection, are estimated respectively at €177,000-€295,000 and €236,000-€354,000. Other highlights from Smurfit include Morning Tangier by Sir John Lavery and Image of W.B. Yeats by Louis le Brocquy. An oil on board by Gerard Dillon from a private collection in Northern Ireland is entitled Across from Inishlacken and estimated at €94,500-€142,000.The online sale features a 1949 Yeats entitled The Face of Victory (€83,000-€119,000) and The Newly Married Man by Sean Keaing from 1919 (€71,000-€95,000), both from a UK collection. The Artist’s Studio by Roderic O’Conor (€95,000-142,000) and Sir William Orpen’s Portrait of Grace (€59,000-€83,000). are both from the Smurfit collection. On the contemporary side there is a bronze by Rowan Gillespie entitled Are You There? (€47,300-€71,000) and Heaven is a Place on Earth by the Belfast artist Jack Coulter. Both of these works were made this year.
Rowan Gillespie – Are You There? at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE €107,100
Outstanding Irish art at de Veres will come under the hammer next Tuesday evening. This is a very good sale with top lots by Paul Henry estimated at €200,000-€300,000 and works by Roderic O’Conor and William Orpen each estimated at €150,000-€250,000. At Bonhams sale of Important British and Irish art at Bond St. in London on November 24 there are important works by William Scott, Paul Henry and John Luke. Bonhams Modern British and Irish art sale in Knightsbridge on Tuesday features a number of Irish artists as well.
On November 29 Whyte’s may yet steal the show this art selling season with a large scale late Yeats painting. Shouting, at €1.5 million – €2 million, is the most expensively estimated Irish artwork ever to come to auction. And James Adam will have a great sale on December 8.
This portrait of a young lady with a blue scarf is the catalogue cover lot for the James Adam sale of Fine Asian Art in Dublin next Tuesday (November 23). It is by Vu Cao Dam (1908-2000) who graduated from the fine arts school of Hanoi in 1931, in which year he participated in the Paris International Exhibition. He settled in France where he was mostly known for his sculpture. Influenced by Fauvism and the Paris School his creations lie on the edges of Asian traditions, particularly Chinese and Vietnamese art. This c1950 portrait is estimated at €30,000-€50,000. The sale of 440 lots is split into four sections, Arts of China and Himalaya, Arts of Vietnam and South-East Asia, Asian Painters and Arts of Japan and Korea.
Nice to See You Again by Yoshitomo Nara made $15.4 million and was the top lot at Sotheby’s Now evening auction in New York last night. The monumental work epitomises the artist’s career-long exploration of themes of innocence, adolescence, and universal angst. Ostensibly innocuous, the rosy-cheeked, wide-eyed, kawaii girl peers toward the viewer with startling intensity; as one notices her chubby fist brandishing a knife however, any assumptions of vulnerability are undermined. Set against a vibrant periwinkle background Nara’s archetypal child is concurrently innocent and violent, docile and unruly, illustrating the radical potential of subversive and anarchic youth. The Now Evening Auction focussed on art executed in the last 20 years and brought in $71.8 million.
Sean Scully – Untitled (1993). UPDATE: THIS MADE £37,800
Untitled (1993) by Sean Scully comes up at Sotheby’s online auction of Irish art which opens today and runs until November 23. The watercolour and pencil on paper is estimated at £25,000-£35,000. The sale features a selection of works by contemporary artists in Ireland across paintings, sculpture, ceramics and pottery.
John Shinnors – Small Scarecrow, Striped Kites. UPDATE: THIS MADE 15,000
Small Scarecrow, Striped Kites by John Shinnors is lot 20 at de Veres sale of Outstanding Irish Art on November 23. The auction has now gone on view at Kildare St. in Dublin and the catalogue is online. There are major works by Roderic O’Conor, Paul Henry, Sir William Orpen and a number of other leading Irish artists. This work is estimated at €8,000-€12,000.
THE Modern evening auction at Sotheby’s in New York totalled $282.9 million. Claude Monet’s Coin du bassin aux nympheas was the top lot of the evening. It made $50.8 million. Frida Kahlo’s Diego y yo made $35.5 million, a new record both for the artist and for Latin American art.
