Anne Yeats, The Everyday Fantastic has just opened at the National Gallery of Ireland. Anne Yeats, chief designer for the Abbey Theatre, worked in oils and designed for theatre and publication. The daughter of W.B. Yeats, she was raised within the culture of the Irish Gaelic Revival. She moved between traditional and modern worlds, and drew creatively on her observations and her imagination. Anne started working at the Abbey Theatre at 16; founded Graphic Studio, Dublin in 1960; and was a founding member of Aosdána. She managed the Yeats family archive and donated part of it to the National Gallery of Ireland in 1996. Anne Yeats’s own archives and sketchbooks were donated to the Gallery by her brother Michael in 2002.The exhibition highlights creativity, experimentation and process in Yeats’s art practice across a number of decades, demonstrating the importance of artists’ archives and the role they play in an artist’s work – as a location where creativity, experimentation, failure and progress in art practice are documented. The exhibition continues until October 9, 2022.
The international autumn selling season gets underway in earnest this month. Major auction houses have been issuing previews of what to expect. Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in London on October 14, to coincide with the Frieze and Frieze Masters art fairs, will be headed by what they cheerfully describe as the most famous artwork of the 21st century, Banksy’s Love is in the Bin. Global news and instant art history happened when Girl with a Balloon was shredded just after the hammer came down on a million pound bid in 2018. It was then authenticated by Banksy and given a new title of Love is in the Bin. The new owner decided the wise thing to do was bank on Banksy and kept it. It now comes to market with an estimate of £4 million – £6 million (€4.67 million – €7.01 million).
Love is in the Bin by Banksy. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £18.5 MILLION
This is the dawning of the age of minorities and in what will be an undoubted shot in the arm for black transgender women artists MGM resorts will sell their Picasso’s in Las Vegas on October 23 and build a new collection with a focus of diversity. The art market of the future will feature artists from a more diverse range of backgrounds, particularly from groups who have been discriminated against. Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Because it Hurts the Lungs (1986) will be a highlight at Christie’s live and livestreamed 20th/21st Century evening sale including Thinking Italian in London on October 15. The title of the work is taken from a cryptic quote by Leonardo: “Why the thunderbolt kills a (man and) does not wound him, and if the man blew his nose he would not die. Because it hurts the lungs”. Winston Churchill, whose Tower at Koutoubia Mosque” sold for a record £8.3 million in March, will highlight Christie’s Modern British art evening auction in London on October 20. The Bridge at Aix en Provence was gifted to the Swiss paint manufacturer Willy Sax, who supplied Churchill with his artistic materials and would become a lifelong friend. It is now estimated at £1.5-£2.5 million (€1.75-€2.92 million).As part of a global expansion Bonhams has just opened its first dedicated saleroom on the Continent at Rue de la Paix in the heart of the luxury district in Paris. There will be a sale of Antiquities next Thursday (October 7). This will be followed one week later by a sale of Post War and Contemporary art.
According to Christie’s there is an intriguing possibility that this remarkable pair of George II giltwood console tables could be Irish. A closely related pair was supplied to Marcus Beresford, 1st Earl of Tyrone (1694-1763) for his country seat at Curraghamore, Co. Waterford and Thomas Johnsons influential Collection of Designs published in 1798 featured similar tree form consoles. These consoles come up at Christie’s Exceptional Sale in New York on October 13 with an estimate of $100,000-$150,000 (€85,3230-€127,985). UPDATE: THESE SOLD FOR $187,500
DESMOND KINNEY (1934-2014) – Early Evening, Donegal, 2000. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,200 AT HAMMER
A timed online autumn art sale runs at Whyte’s until October 18. Pictured here is Early Evening, Donegal by Desmond Kinney which is estimated at 800-1,200. Many well known Irish artists are included in this sale of affordable works. With almost 300 lots and guides from as low €80 to a top estimate of €5,000 this sale will encourage both first-time buyers and seasoned bidders to ‘click and win’ in this tempting online-only offering.
GOLD-MOUNTED ENAMEL, NEPHRITE AND ROCK CRYSTAL STUDY OF WILD STRAWBERRIES BY FABERGÉ, ST PETERSBURG, CIRCA 1900. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £325,000
AN iconic, private collection of Fabergé masterpieces from the collection of Harry Woolf takes place live at Christie’s in London on November 29 during the Autumn Russian Art sales season. There are 86 pieces from Mr. Woolf’s extraordinary Fabergé collection personally composed over a period of nearly fifty years from the 1970’s until 2019. They range from jewelled hardstone animals and decorative photograph frames, to pill boxes, scent bottles, silver pieces and jewellery. Harry Woolf is recognised for having collected only the very finest examples and has one of the most exemplary Fabergé collections known to have been curated by any private collector in the last fifty years. The study of wild strawberries pictured here is estimated at £200,000-300,000.
More than ten rare pieces from this prestigious collection (not included in Christie’s sale) are included in the forthcoming Fabergé: From Romance to Revolution exhibition at the V&A in London. This opens on November 20.
UPDATE: THE SALE REALISED £5,203,250, MORE THAN DOUBLE THE PRE-SALE LOW ESTIMATE
This Still Life by Alberto Giacometti comes up at Christie’s Paris Avant Garde sale on October 21. It is one of two lots from the collection of the late Yves Montand in the sale. The other is Vase de tournesols (Les trois soleils) by Georges Braque, estimated at €150,000-250,000. Paris Avant-Garde highlights the great masters of the 20th century who were far ahead of their time. Not relying on a predefined model of beauty, the work of these artists embodies the essence of modernity, still in the making, and breaks with traditional conceptions of art. Among the artists in the evening sale are Pierre Soulages, Marie Vassilieff, Edouard Manet, Berthe Morisot, Jean-Paul Riopelle, Alberto Giacometti and Theo van Doesburg.
Christie’s will mark FIAC week – the international contemporary art fair – with a series of 20th/21st century art sales in Paris and online from October 21-26. This includes an online sale of an unpublished set of 48 works by Balthus from the collection of Stanislas Klossowski de Rola, the artist’s son.
Coloured Rain by Basil Blackshaw made a hammer price of 96,000 over a top estimate of 50,000 at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on September 29. The highlight of the auction was Salute/Farewell to Rosses Point by Jack B Yeats which made 140,000 at hammer against an estimate of 120,000-160,000. Connemara Cottages by Paul Henry was withdrawn from the sale.
Daniel O’Neill (1920-1974) – Spanish Girl. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Spanish Girl by Dan O’Neill is on offer at the Important Irish Art sale by James Adam in Dublin this evening. It is estimated at 20,000-30,000. There is art by Jack B. Yeats, Paul Henry, Walter Osborne and William Leech in a wide ranging auction with 146 lots in total. The catalogue is online.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for September 21, 2021)
Christie’s has shattered the $100 million ceiling in NFT sales worldwide. Their first NFT auction in Asia, which closed online in Hong Kong on September 28, achieved a total of US $15.6 million. It began less than a year ago and in March 2021 Beeple’s Everydays: The First 5,000 Dayssold for $69 million setting the record for the most expensive work sold online and the third highest price for a living artist at auction. An artwork by Seattle based 18 year old trans artist Fewocious – real name Victor Langlois – made $475,000 at an online sale in June. The artist had five lots in the sale, each representing a year in his life as he discovered his gender identity between the ages of 14 and 18.
FEWOCiOUS (B. 2003)Year 4, Age 17 – His Name Is Victor made US$475,000
Guillaume Cerutti, Christie’s ceo, said: “Exceeding this $100 million milestone is huge for Christie’s and for all the creators and collectors in the NFT community. This confirms that the NFT market is here to stay. We will continue to invest in the opportunities NFTs offer us to deeply engage with new audiences and artists, an exciting new generation of collectors, and more expansive and inclusive markets.”
This is one of a pair of unusual Irish brass bound mahogany turf buckets similar to a bucket housed in Powerscourt House. The pair comes up as lot 92 at Victor Mee’s third annual Palace Collection sale in Co. Cavan today, tomorrow and Thursday. The estimate is €3,000-€6,000. There is an array of hand-picked, rare interiors items from across many periods in this auction of 1,498 lots. This online sale, held at a former Bishops Palace, has been a full year in the making. UPDATE: THESE MADE 3,000 AT HAMMER
