antiquesandartireland.com

A time capsule collection of art treasures assembled in the 1950’s is estimated to bring in more than $65 million at Sotheby’s in New York next month.  Seminal works by Paul Cezanne and Amadeo Modigliani are included in the collection of Alex and Elisabeth Lewyt.  The sale of 200 works will benefit a charitable foundation to be established in their name.  They will be offered in a series of Impressionist and Modern Art sales.

Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art department in New York, commented:  “The Lewyts’ connoisseurship is reflected in the exquisite quality of works from a roll call of key Impressionist and Modern artists – from Renoir, Degas and Pissarro through Picasso, Braque and Matisse.”

Paul Cézanne – Les Pommes Painted in 1889-90.($25-35 million). Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $41,605,000.

L’Amazone – Painted in 1909. Signed Modigliani ($20-30 million). (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: THIS MADE $25,925,000.

Auguste Renoir Petite baigneuse ($150,000-250,000). Click on image to enlarge.

Fernand Léger Trois femmes à la table rouge ($5-7 million). (Click on image to enlarge).  UPDATE: THIS MADE $7.2 MILLION.

A Léger from the collection of Madonna, who has a passion for art, is to be auctioned for charity.  Proceeds from the sale of Fernand Léger’s Trois femmes à la table rouge estimated at $5-7 million will benefit the Ray of Light Foundation to support girls’ education projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries.  The painting will feature at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern evening art sale in New York on May 7.

Madonna acquired the work at Sotheby’s in New York in 1990 and it has been in her collection since. “I have chosen to auction this painting called “Three Women” by Fernand Léger and donate all the proceeds to support girls’ educational projects in Afghanistan, Pakistan and other countries where female education is rare or nonexistent” she is quoted as saying. “I cannot accept a world where women or girls are wounded, shot or killed for either going to school or teaching in girls’ schools. We don’t have time to be complacent. I want to trade something valuable for something invaluable – Educating Girls! Knowledge is power. Let’s change the world!”.

UPDATE: THIS MADE $7.2 MILLION IN A SALE WITH A $230 MILLION TOTAL.

Gerhard Richter Domplatz, Mailand 1968 ($30-40 million). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $37,125,000

Domplatz, Mailand a 20th century masterwork by Gerhard Richter will highlight Sotheby’s spring Contemporary Art evening auction in New York on May 14.  From the Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago the work came about through a commission from Siemens Elettra to produce a monumental work for their Milan offices in 1968. More than nine feet square the canvas was Richter’s most ambitious work to date and the largest figurative work he had created. It now stands as the epitome of his 1960’s phote-painting canon.  

The painting hung at Siemens for 30 years.  It was acquired by the Pritzker family at a Sotheby’s auction in London in 1998. It subsequently hung in their Park Hyatt Hotel in Chicago for over a decade. It is being sold by the Hyatt Hotels Corporation and is estimated at $30-40 million. The sale comes just seven months after Sotheby’s established a new benchmark for Richter with Abstraktes Bild (809-4) selling for $34.3 million. Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s worldwide head of contemporary art said: “This is the work the market has been waiting for and its sale is certain to be an historic event”.  Hyatt intends to continue to exhibit high quality art and will apply a portion of the proceeds to fund selected new acquisitions.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $37,125,000.

Sotheby’s auction of British and Irish art takes place in London on May 23. It will feature a number of works by leading Irish artists. Here is a small selection (click on any image to enlarge it):

Roderic O’Conor – Red Rocks and Sea (£200,000-300,000).

Sir William Orpen – Noll; Son of Oliver St John Gogarty signed and dated Orpen 1913 (£100,000-150,000).

Louis Le Brocquy – Allegory, Aubusson Tapestry (£60,000-80,000).

Andre Derain – Madame Matisse au kimono courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2013. (Click on image to enlarge).

A portrait by André Derain of Madame Matisse will highlight Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York on May 8.  Madame Matisse au kimono, a high fauve masterpiece, is estimated at $15-20 million. It is the most important portrait by Derain ever to appear at auction.  The painting is from the summer of 1905 when Derain and Matisse embarked on a frenzy of painting in Collioure that would change the course of modern art.  Derain painted Amélie Matisse in August 1905 prior to the  Salon d’Automne exhibition, when fauvism exploded.  The work has been in a private European collection for the past 40 years.

Derain depicts Amélie in the elegant, patterned Japanese kimono which she often wore and in which she was painted by her husband, as well as several of his other fauve colleagues. The abstracted background of greens and reds serves to heighten the imposing presence of the sitter, and calls to mind the same colors that Matisse used in in the background of his famous portrait of Mme Matisse, La Raie Verte, painted in September 1905, and now in the Copenhagen Staatens Museum for Kunst.

UPDATE:  The work failed to attract a single bid and was unsold in an auction which generated $158.5 million.  The top lot was  Le Petit Patisier by  Chaim Soutine which made just over $18 milion.  A total of 44 out of 47 lots on offer found buyers.

A total of 165 lots of Irish art will come under the hammer at James Adam on March 26. Here is a small selection. The catalogue is on-line.

Felim Egan (b.1952) Abstract, (1,000-1,500). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

William Scott RA (1913-1989) Untitled, c.1962 (10,000-15,000).  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

Basil Blackshaw HRHA RUA (b.1932) Arthur Stringer I (10,000-15,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 11,000

Louis le Brocquy HRHA (1916-2012) Garlanded Goat (1949-50) Colour inverted Aubusson Tapestry (45,000-55,000).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 47,000

Douglas Alexander RHA (1871-1945) In County Kerry Watercolour (800-1,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 800

Martin Mac Keown (1931-2003) Geraniums on the Windowsill (800-1,200).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 700

The Howitzer in Action by Sir William Orpen sold for £98,500 at Sotheby’s.

A pencil and watercolour war work by Sir William Orpen sold for £98,500 over an estimate of £12,000-18,000 at Sotheby’s in London.  Completed in 1917 The Howitzer in Action was from the collection of renewed arbiter of taste and London club owner Mark Birley (1930-2007).

The contents of Mr. Birley’s London home, Thurloe Lodge in Kensington, doubled pre-sale expectations to sell for a combined total of £3,854,619 over an estimate of £1.2 million to £1.8 million.  Over 850 people registered to bid and there was fierce competition both in the room and on the phone. More than over 85% of the 496 lots sold exceeded their high estimates and only five lots were unsold.