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    BONHAMS LOS ANGELES TO OFFER ESTATE OF AUTHOR JACKIE COLLINS

    Monday, February 20th, 2017

    The estate of author Jackie Collins is to be auctioned by Bonhams in Los Angeles on May 16 and 17.  More than 1,000 lots will come under the hammer in a sale entitled Jackie Collins: A Life in Chapters.  Bonhams  Vice-President Leslie Wright commented:  “Jackie Collins lived the lifestyle about which she wrote, and the sale  will provide an exclusive insight into the real woman behind her unforgettable characters. Her books were loved by millions of readers world-wide. This is their chance to own a piece of the magic.”

    The sale is expected to realise around $3 million and will include jewellery, fine art and sculpture.  Among the lots are a collection of bronzes including Nude with Shawl by Josef Lorenzl ($18,000-25,000); works by the English painter, Beryl Cook, including Tango in Bar Sur ($20,000-30,000) and Train Station Café ($ 20,000-30,000);  Jackie’s bespoke special edition 2002 Jaguar XKR Sportscar finished in metallic gold ($ 15,000-20,000) and a selection of entertainment and career-related memorabilia taking in first editions of Jackie’s works and a selection of designer clothes.  Among the jewellery is a 6.04-carat diamond and platinum ring ($100,000-150,000), an Art Deco diamond, emerald, stone and platinum necklace at ($40,000-50,000),  signed pieces by Cartier and Nardi  and watches by Patek Philippe, Harry Winston, Chanel and Chopard. Here is a small selection:

    The fireplace at her Beverly Hills living room.

    A diamond solitaire ring ($100,000-150,000).

    Beryl Cook artwork.

    A portrait of Jackie Collins in the style of Tamara de Lempicka ($3,000-5,000)

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    INAUGURAL PASSION AND DESIRE SALE MAKES £5.3 MILLION

    Friday, February 17th, 2017

    The inaugural Erotic: Passion & Desire sale at Sotheby’s in London – featuring over 100 lots of fine art, photography, sculpture and design – brought a total of £5,297,000 over a  combined pre-sale estimate of £3.1-4.6 million.  The top lots were two sculptural masterpieces which established auction records.  In an intense bidding battle, collectors clamoured to acquire Jacques Loysel’s La Grande Nevrose,  considered to be the sculptor’s definitive masterwork. This sensual marble, retained by Loysel in his Paris atelier until his death in 1925 and not seen on the market since, made £1,868,750. The estimate was £120,000-180,000.

    A rare surviving work by Sarah Bernhardt – a rediscovered marble relief of Ophelia  – sparked frenzied bidding, driving the final sale price to £308,750, six times its pre-sale low estimate (£50,000-70,000). The highest price for a contemporary sculpture in the sale was achieved when Antony Gormley’s  Pole II which made £320,750. A Roman marble group of two lovers c1st-2nd centuries AD  made £236,750. Further highlights included works on paper by Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, who forged a new path in fearless depictions of the naked figure. Schiele’s Akt (Nude) made £224,750 and Klimt’s pencil drawing Half-nude reclining to the right made £175,000.

    Sarah Bernhardt – Ophelia

    Jacques Loysel – La Grande Névrose

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    PAUL HENRY’S CAREER AS ILLUSTRATOR RECALLED AT WHYTE’S UPCOMING SALE

    Thursday, February 16th, 2017

    Paul Henry RHA (1876-1958) PORTRAIT OF AN ELDERLY LADY, c.1904-1905  UPDATE:THIS WAS UNSOLD)

    This finely drawn Paul Henry charcoal portrait of an elderly lady recalls a period when the artist worked as an illustrator for a newspaper.  It is lot 28 at Whyte’s upcoming sale of Irish and International Art at the RDS, Dublin on February 27.  According to catalogue notes by Dr. S.B. Kennedy it was almost certainly for the weekly journal To-day, founded in 1893 by Jerome K. Jerome. Unsurprisingly the journal had a literary bias and scope for illustration.  Henry worked on a “types” series in 1904-05.  All of these drawings showed his debt to Whistler, his former teacher in Paris, whose funeral he had attended in 1903.

    The “types” series  began with The Unfortunate, a drawing of an elderly pauper reading a paper by the Thames Embankment at dusk.  It was followed by The Grandmother, The Ballad Singer, The Crank and others. The work is estimated at 5,000-7,000.

    Whyte’s sale of 187 lots features work from many major artists of the last two centuries. The catalogue is on line.  Viewing at the RDS gets underway on February 25.

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    FIRST SOLO EXHIBITIONS IN IRELAND FOR GRAHAM, GOLDIN AND LEIRNER

    Tuesday, February 14th, 2017

    Hilma af Klint, Altarpiece, No 1, Group X, Series Altarpieces, 1915 , Oil and metal leaf on canvas, Photo: Albin Dahlström / Moderna Museet.

    Leading international artists Rodney Graham, Nan Goldin and Jac Leirner  will have their first solo exhibitions in Ireland at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin this year.   At the launch of IMMA’s 2017 exhibition programme today director Sarah Glennie said: “Through our landmark international group show As Above So Below: Portals, Visions, Spirits & Mystics we are also especially pleased to bring to IMMA the work of several 20th century masters including Hilma af Klint, Kandinsky, František Kupka and Sigmar Polke. Also featured are the works of cult artists James Lee Byars, Ira Cohen and Cameron, and some of the most influential artists living and working today, including Steve McQueen and Bruce Nauman among others. Many of whom have never exhibited in Ireland before.”

    “We saw in 2016 the valuable role contemporary artists can play in helping us to understand our times, and the opportunity for their work to create a space for reflection, debate and difference. We are committed to creating this important space within Irish life and to welcoming audiences, from across Ireland and beyond, into a dynamic and evolving experience of contemporary art and contemporary life.”

    Opening just before Easter As Above, So Below is a large show with over 200 works, including an exciting series of new IMMA commissions, supported by Matheson, from Irish artists Grace Weir, Alan Butler and Eoghan Ryan and international artists Linder Sterling, Hayden Dunham, Nora Berman, John Russell and Stephan Doitschinoff”.

    Among the other projects in 2017 is a William Crozier Retrospective which is due to open next October, a show by Irish artist Vivienne Dick from June 16 to October 15 and ROSC 50 from May 5 to June 18 which will examine the ambition, reception, controversies and legacy of the ROSC exhibitions, which had a significant impact on the development of contemporary art in Ireland.   These exhibitions took place in a range of venues approximately every four years between 1967 and 1988.

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    BASELITZ MASTERPIECE SET TO BREAK RECORD

    Tuesday, February 14th, 2017

    A masterpiece by German painter Georg Baselitz is set to break the record at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening auction in London March 8. Mit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag), 1965, from the artist’s ground-breaking ‘Heroes’ series, is a painting that cemented the artist’s reputation as one of the most provocative and compelling voices of the post-war era.  It is estimated at £6.5-8.5 million. It is one of an outstanding group of 17 works by German artists to feature, representing around a quarter of lots on offer. Further highlights include Gerhard Richter’s desolately beautiful Eisberg (£8-12 million), Anselm Kiefer’s monumental Athanor (£1.5-2.5 million), Sigmar Polke’s Pop-inspired Die Schmiede (£1-1.5 million), and works by   Martin Kippenberger, Wolfgang Tillmans, Albert Oehlen, Thomas Schütte, Günther Förg, Günther Uecker and Michael Krebber.

    Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s Head of Contemporary Art, Europe said “Seismic moments of social and political change in history have always created seismic changes in art, something we undoubtedly see in post-war Germany. Many of these artists tackled challenging; some might say profound, subject matter, while at the same time creating new visual languages which redefined European art history.”

    The market for German contemporary art has gone from strength to strength in recent years, led by the £30.4 million achieved for Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild at Sotheby’s London in 2015, a record for any living European artist. Richter is just one from a wave of German post-war masters defining today’s contemporary art market.

    • Over the last 5 years there has been a 31% increase in the number of bidders on German Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s auctions worldwide.
    • In Sotheby’s flagship Evening London contemporary sales in 2016, around 20% of the works offered were by German artists.
    • At Sotheby’s October 2016 ‘Frieze Week’ sales in London, the 9 works offered by German artists accounted for 43.3% (£20.76 million) of the overall sale total.
    • In the last two years alone, new auction records have been set for Wolfgang Tilmans, Gerhard Richter, Albert Oehlen, Thomas Schütte, Georg Baselitz, Martin Kippenberger, Günther Uecker, Sigmar Polke, Michael Krebber and Günther Förg.

      Georg Baselitz – Mit Roter Fahne (With Red Flag), 1965  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £7.5 MILLION

      Anselm Kiefer – Athanor

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    JOHN SINGER SARGENT’S PORTRAIT OF IRISH LAWYER AT BONHAMS

    Monday, February 13th, 2017

    Charles Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen by John Singer Sargent.

    A portrait of the distinguished Irish lawyer and statesman, Charles Russell, Baron Russell of Killowen, by John Singer Sargent comes up at Bonhams 19th Century European, Victorian and British Impressionist Art sale in London on March 1. It is estimated at £60,000-80,000. Russell (1832-1900) was regarded as the finest advocate of his age. In 1888-89, he successfully defended Charles Stewart Parnell against false allegations that he had condoned the Phoenix Park Killings, in which the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Lord Frederick Cavendish, and the Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland Thomas Burke were stabbed to death in 1882. He was a close associate of the Liberal leader Gladstone and a fellow supporter of Home Rule for Ireland.  He was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England, the first Catholic to hold the post.

    Sargent’s portrait was painted in 1900, the year of Russell’s sudden death and is being sold with the painter’s correspondence with the sitter. It has been in the Russell family ever since.  Another version of the Sargent portrait hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Bonhams Director of 19th Century Paintings, Charles O’Brien, said, “Russell was a key figure in political, legal and diplomatic life in the last quarter of the 19th century when Britain was arguably at the height of her global standing. Sargent’s use of contrasting light and dark creates an image of a strong, capable, rather stern man, that perfectly conveys Russell’s great eminence.”

    UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £125,000

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    KLIMT MASTERWORK TO LEAD SOTHEBY’S LONDON SALE

    Sunday, February 12th, 2017

    Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) – Bauerngarten painted in 1907

    Gustav Klimt’s Bauerngarten will lead Sotheby’s highest value Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in London on March 1.  One of his finest landscapes it was first exhibited at a pivotal moment for the artist in Vienna in 1908. It was acquired just two years after the Kunstschau show in Vienna by the National Gallery in Prague.  Last year the painting, at auction for the first time in two decades, was a highlight at the Painting the Modern Garden exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

    Helena Newman, Global Co-Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department & Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe, said: “Gustav Klimt is one of the most desirable artists today and his iconic masterpieces are revered and recognised the world over. The star of this season’s offering is undoubtedly Klimt’s luminous Bauerngarten, dating from the artist’s celebrated and much-loved golden period and from the same year as his famous golden Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I. Innovative in its composition and jewel-like in its exquisite blaze of colours, it is one of the artist’s greatest masterpieces ever to come to auction. Most of the artist’s oil paintings of this calibre are in major museums around the world with only a handful works of this importance having appeared at auction in the last decade.”

    The estimate for the work is in excess of $45 million. Klimt ranks among the few artists whose works have sold for over $100 million.

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    CARAVAGGIO OPENS AT NATIONAL GALLERY OF IRELAND

    Saturday, February 11th, 2017
    The first of two of this years highly anticipated exhibitions at the National Gallery of Ireland – which amounts to an embarrassment of riches by Caravaggio and Vermeer – opens today in Dublin.   Beyond Caravaggio brings together over 40 works including four by Caravaggio as well as significant works by those artists he influenced. It runs from today until May 14.
    It will be followed in June by a show which will bring together 60 paintings from around the world, including no less than ten by Vermeer. This represents almost a third of his surviving oeuvre. Vermeer and the Masters of Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry will include work by Gabriel Metsu, Jan Steen, Gerard ter Borch, Pieter de Hooch and Frans van Mieris.  Organised by the National Gallery in conjunction with the Louvre and the National Gallery of Art in Washington it will run from June 17 to September 17.

    Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610) Boy bitten by a Lizard, 1594-5 The National Gallery, London © Copyright The National Gallery, London 2017

    Francesco Buoneri (or Boneri) called Cecco del Caravaggio (c.1589–after 1620) A Musician, c.1615 The Wellington Collection, Apsley House (English Heritage)
    Photo: Apsley House, London © Historic England

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    ADAM CLAYTON’S BASQUIAT AT CHRISTIE’S

    Friday, February 10th, 2017

    Jean-Michel Basquiat Untitled (1982) UPDATE: THIS MADE £2,225,000

    Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982) from the collection of U2’s bassist Adam Clayton is to be a major highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art evening auction in London on March 7. Held for over twenty-five years in Clayton’s collection, Untitled featured on the front cover of the catalogue for the exhibition Basquiat Drawings held in 1990 at The Robert Miller Gallery in New York.  A deeply poignant self-portrait, the work offers a rare insight into Basquiat’s psyche at a pivotal moment in his career: a tear drops from his eye; his arms seem to pierce his body like an arrow. Basquiat depicts himself as a martyr: a Saint Sebastian-like figure for the contemporary age.  It is estimated at £1-1.5 million.

    Adam Clayton: “There was a group of them – there was Basquiat, there was Keith Haring, and obviously Warhol was the granddaddy of the whole movement. The idea that these young painters without any gallery experience could make their mark on the streets of New York – could go to the hippest night clubs, could mix with musical culture – was very exciting to me. It was where I came from – I always thought music and art went hand in hand together.”

    Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art EMERI: “On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of U2’s Joshua Tree, an album which was a thorough exploration of the band’s political and spiritual relationship with the United States, it is a rare privilege to showcase this work which Adam Clayton acquired during his first months of moving to New York.  Unlike other self-portraits by Basquiat it articulates his fragility as a figure who is coming to terms with his new position in the world and injects the deepest pathos into the narrative of his dramatic trajectory from anonymous graffiti artist to international art superstar.”

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    MAX ERNST LOAN EXHIBITION AT SOTHEBY’S LONDON

    Thursday, February 9th, 2017

    Max Ernst (1891-1976) – Le Chaste Joseph

    A special exhibition of loaned works by Surrealist Max Ernst (1891-1976) will go on public view at Sotheby’s in London from February 13 to March 2.  The exhibition coincides with Sotheby’s Surrealist art evening auction on March 1.  The eleven works showcase a dynamic period in the Paris art scene from 1921-28 when Ernest was the foremost surreal artist in the city.  They are on display in London for the first time in almost three decades.

    Ernst’s fascination with nature – and in particular, birds and forests – will be brought into the spotlight with this exhibition. The paintings have remained in private hands since they were painted.

    Samuel Valette, Sotheby’s Senior Specialist in Impressionist & Modern Art, commented: “We are honoured to have been loaned a selection of Max Ernst’s greatest works to present a public exhibition that places a much-deserved spotlight on the artist who was at the very forefront of the Surrealist movement’s aesthetic innovation. Presented in a specially created gallery display to evoke Ernst’s magical yet dark account of the first time he entered a forest, this small but gem-like show will envelop visitors in Ernst’s mastery of the natural and the fantastic. It provides a greater understanding of the artist himself and his profound influence on many of the greatest artists who followed him.”

    With over half of these works still in their original constructed frames designed by Ernst himself, the paintings present an incomparable insight into the most innovative period of the artist’s career. The jewel of the exhibition is Le Chaste Joseph, loosely based on an account in the Old Testament – one of the greatest masterpieces by Max Ernst in private hands.

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