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The evening sale of Important Irish Art at James Adam in Dublin on March 27 offers a broad selection of 166 lots. The earliest painting in the auction is a 1760 landscape by George Barret senior and there is a good selection of mid-20th century art and sculpture. The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:
See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for March 16 and March 22, 2019.
A cinematic masterpiece by Jean-Léon Gérôme will lead Sotheby’s annual Orientalist Sale in London on April 30. Rider and His Steed in the Desert is a unique work in Gérôme’s oeuvre. Dating to 1872 this highly charged picture captures both the stoicism of the North African tribespeople and a heroic struggle between man and nature. Estimated at £1-1.5 million the oil is one of five works by Gérôme in a sale comprising 79 paintings, watercolours and sculptures that together offer fascinating historical insights into the Arab, Ottoman, and Islamic worlds during the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Claude Piening, Sotheby’s Head of Orientalist Paintings remarked: Rider and his Steed, the highlight of the sale, is an especially powerful and emotional image of a moment of tenderness between man and beast against the backdrop of the sun-drenched desert. Cinematic in its conception even before the medium of film existed, with its wide-angle perspective and bright luminosity, the viewer is drawn into the scene which engages our imagination and our empathy.
Tralee shows Jack B. Yeats in the last and most romantic phase of his early style. The 1924 work comes up at de Veres evening sale of Irish art at the Royal College of Physicians on Kildare St., Dublin at 6 pm on March 26 with an estimate of 150,000-200,000. Against a background of post sunset fading light it shows an old man gazing reflectively at the water with young people passing by. It can be read as a comment on the past and the future. Emigration had been halted since 1914 by the First World War and the war in Ireland which followed. In 1924 cheap fares to America saw a flood of young people leaving the country. The painting was previously owned both by Sean Lemass and Charles Haughey.
(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for Marcb 21, 2019)
Many of this country’s finest painters and sculptors from the last 250 years feature at the James Adam evening sale of Irish art in Dublin on March 27. The Children’s Fairing by Erskine Nicol is a masterpiece of Victorian artistic storytelling which brings a sense of luxury to a muddy harbour market. It is an atmospheric work where the viewer becomes a spectator as the seller offers fruit to a passer by and possible purchaser. Dating to 1870 and exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1871 it was once in the collection of the Lady Lever Gallery at Port Sunlight at The Wirral and is estimated at 15,000-20,000.Art of a different order is available in FE McWilliam’s Leg Figure. The bronze dates to 1977 and is estimated at 6,000-10,000.The earliest work in the sale is a large oil by George Barret senior dating to about 1760. The spectacular landscape, probably by the Dargle on the Powerscourt estate, features anglers and figures including a baby and a dog. It carries an estimate of 50,000-80,000.
The catalogue is online. Among 166 lots is work by sculptors like John Behan, Rory Breslin, Bob Quinn, Stephen Lawlor and Patrick O’Reilly.
A number of Irish collections have contributed to de Veres evening sale of Irish art which takes place at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin on March 26. The sale of 140 lots at de Veres includes two Enignum chairs by the Cork based internationally renowned designer Joseph Walsh each estimated at 8,000-12,000. The collection of singer Brian Kennedy includes nine works by Patrick Scott. There is art by Jack B. Yeats, Mainie Jellett, Louis le Brocquy, John Doherty, Felim Egan, Kenneth Webb, Markey Robinson, William John Leech, Patrick Hennessy, Lady Beatrice Glenavy, Dan O’Neill, Colin Middleton, Tony O’Malley, Charles Tyrrell and many others.
A pen and India ink drawing on paper by Pablo Picasso from the collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art comes up at Christie’s, Paris on March 28. Dating from October 1932 the work is part of the important but little-known series of India ink on paper addressing the theme of Joueurs de flûte et nus couchés.
It represents Picasso muse Marie-Thérèse Walter. The relationship between Picasso and the young Marie-Thérèse is thought to have begun as far back as 1927. Many years later, she would tell Life Magazine, “When I met Picasso I was 17. I was an innocent young gamine. I knew nothing – life, Picasso, nothing. I had gone shopping at the Galeries Lafayette and Picasso saw me coming out of the metro. He simply grabbed me by the arm and said: ‘I’m Picasso! You and I are going to do great things together’”
The drawing underscores the amorous excitement Picasso felt in that pivotal year, as illustrated in the exhibition Picasso 1932 – Année érotique held at the Musée Picasso in Paris and at the Tate London in 2017-2018. The drawing was gifted by the artist to his dealer Daniel-Henri Kahnweiler, before being donated to MoMA by American painter Eve Clendenin in 1961. It is being sold to benefit the MoMA acquisition fund.
Banksy will lead a world class array of work by some of the most talked about and renowned artists of today at Julien’s spring edition of the triannual live and online Street and Contemporary art auction in Beverly Hills on April 25. Two important works by Banksy, Hayne Street Ghetto Rat ($60,000-80,000) and Blowpop Records ($8,000-10,000) will feature alongside art by Invader, Mr. Brainwash, KAWS, Damien Hirst, Shephard Fairey, Sandra Chevrier, Takashi Murakami, Ai Weiwei, David Hockney, Alec Monopoly, RETNA, D*Face, FAILE, Max Zorn and others.
SD_10 (aka The Mothership) ($60,000-80,000) a monumental tile mosaic by the French street artist Invader was created in 2010 on the facade of the Art Center Building in San Diego as part of the exhibition Viva la Revolucion: A Dialogue with The Urban Landscape organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (SD). The building is currently being remodeled and the mural must be sold in order to protect it from demolition.
Other highlights include Mr. Brainwash’s Madonna ($10,000-15,000) an original acrylic work on canvas featuring the same base image of Madonna created by Brainwash for the cover of the Celebration album; Pablo Picasso’s master work Wood-Owl ($20,000-30,000) a painted earthenware vase from a limited edition of 500; Damien Hirst’s I Love You ($10,000-15,000) a screenprint from a limited edition of 14; and Shephard Fairey’s Obey with Caution ($8,000-10,000) a unique artist’s proof.
Oil paintings and antique furniture from a Georgian residence in Kinsale will form the bulk of lots at the Lynes and Lynes auction in Carrigtwohill, Co. Cork next Saturday (March 23). The executors sale of contents from DeCourcey House at Scilly will feature books of Cork interest including Somerville and Ross first editions and two lots from the White Star liner RMS Celtic which ran aground in Cork Harbour in 1928. Lot 100 is a large 17th century portrait in the manner of Sir Anthony van Dyck (10,000-15,000). There is a battle scene in the manner of Paul de Vos (Flemish 1595-1678) (1,500-3,000) and an oval military portrait. An Irish 19th century rent table in the style of Williams and Gibton is estimated at ,500-2,000. Other furniture includes an Irish early 19th century gothic style bookcase (600-1,000), a set of 12 Cork 11-bar dining chairs (3,000-4,000) and an arched gilt 19th century overmantle mirror with twin side columns (2,000-3,000). Books include Adventures Amidst The Equatorial Forests and Rivers of South America and In the West Indies And the Wilds of Florida by Villiers Stuart of Dromana on the River Blackwater. Sketches in India taken at Hyderabad and Secunderabad by Captan Allan N. Scott comes with 101 photographs and Geology Familiarly Illustrated by CMW from 1859 contains 31 hand coloured lithograph scenes. Two ships chairs on metal bases from the RMS Celtic are estimated at 200-300 and a ships library table is estimated at 200-300. A cased model of a Stena Line ferry is estimated at 1,500-2,000. The silver on offer includes a George III fox head stirrup cup, London 1802 (2,000-3,000). Among the books is a long run of Capuchin annuals including the year 1966.
This charcoal and pastel portrait of Movita by Sean Keating comes up at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on March 27. Forever associated with Cobh boxer, actor and tenor Jack Doyle – the Gorgeous Gael – Maria Movita Castenada was a Mexican actress who starred in the Hollywood films Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Fort Apache (1948). Movita came to Ireland in the 1940’s as singing partner to Jack Doyle (1913-1978). They married at Westland Row Church in Dublin and their double act drew sell out crowds when they toured this country and Britain. Sean Keating would have known Movita and Doyle as they were fellow habitues of the Wicklow Hotel in Dublin. The couple divorced in 1945 and Movita went on to marry Marlon Brando. She died aged 98 in 2015. The portrait is estimated at 1,200-1,600.
An online auction of affordable art by Morgan O’Driscoll runs until March 19. The catalogue is online. Here is a small selection:
