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Edvard Munch (1863–1944), Young Woman on the Beach, sold for £2,133,875 at Christie’s in London.

There was a new world record for a print by Edvard Munch today.  Young woman on the beach from 1891-92 sold for £2,133,875 at Christie’s.  It was bought by Galleri K of Oslo for a European private collector.

Tim Schmelcher, Head of the Prints department, London and Murray Macaulay, Head of Prints Sale London: “This result confirms an entirely new level of value for the most important and sought-after prints, joining the ranks of the four most expensive printed works at auction – all sold at Christie’s within the last two years. We are also thrilled that Edvard Munch’s ‘Young Woman on the Beach’ will be included in a major exhibition of the artist’s printed oeuvre, opening at the Kunsthaus Zurich in October this year. Furthermore, the sale saw strong demand throughout with many private collectors from around the world competing fiercely for works by Matisse, Miró, Chagall, Picasso and Morandi, amongst others.  Prints by the Masters of Pop, Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, continued to perform well.”

Today’s sale realized £5,631,700.

A total of 146 lots of Irish art will come under the hammer at Dolan’s sale in Limerick on March 24.  The venue for the auction is Castletroy Park Hotel.  The catalogue is on-line. Here is a small selection (you can click on any image to enlarge it):

Alan Kenny – Emerging Flowers (600-800).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 500

Olive Bödeker – Receding Tide (380-480).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 450

Kenneth Webb RWA FRSA RUA – Autumn Fields (2,200-2,800).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,850

Paul Christopher Flynn – White Bowl – (500-600).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 600

Douglas Hutton – The Horse Fair Dealing (450-650).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 420

Val Byrne – The Puck Goat – watercolour (250-350).  UPDATE: THIS MADE 320

Derek Gardner (1914-2007) Thurot’s Last Flight

THE fascinating tale of a French pirate with Irish connections feted in England is recalled at Bonhams marine sale on April 24. Shortly after laying siege to Carrickfergus Francois Thurot was defeated by British Forces at the Mull of Galloway in 1760.  A painting by Derek Gardner depicting the battle is estimated at £20,000-30,000.  It shows the moment when Thurot’s ship, the Maréchal de Belle-Isle, was taken by Captain John Elliot’s H.M.S Æolus.  The battle ended four years of havoc wreaked by Thurot on the British Navy. Earlier that month Thurot and 600 men attacked Carrickfergus in Co. Antrim. After months at sea, the French fleet was depleted and was reported to be surviving on raw potatoes.  The Duke of Bedford, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, got word that Thurot was in Carrickfergus and hastily assembled the fleet which led to the final battle. Of the prisoners taken on Thurots ships 220 were brought to Carlisle, 500 to Carrickfergus, 90 to Cobh and 84 to Dublin.  The captured prizes were brought by Elliot to Kinsale.  Modern sources tend to agree that Thurot was the son of a postmaster at Nuirs-St-Georges, though there is a claim that one of his grandfathers was an O’Farrell from Ireland who had served in the Irish Brigade of the French Army.  Thurot was a popular figure and his death resulted in an outpouring of grief in Galloway, Dumfries and along the Irish coast. Ballads, biographies, paintings and engravings were produced commemorating his life, and he became a martyred ‘folk hero’.  Thurot’s defeat was a pivotal moment during the Seven Years’ War  and contributed to Britain’s ultimate defeat of the French army. It is seen as vital in securing the supremacy of British forces and resulted in the capture of key regions in North America including Canada and the eastern section of French Louisiana.

Estella Solomons, HRHA (1882-1968) Going to Mass is at the next James Adam sale in Dublin.

THE gulf between a Vatican conclave and the catholic faith of the Irish peasant is evident in this genre scene by the Irish artist Estella Solomons. Going to Mass is an oil on canvas which depicts a simple scene commonplace throughout Ireland in bygone days.  There is no grandeur or pomp about this simple act of faith practiced daily and weekly.

Instead it captures both the sense of hurry to be on time and the arrangements made for the smooth working of domestic life in the cottage while the massgoers are absent. The work, exhibited at the Crawford Gallery Solomons exhibition in 1986, comes up at the James Adam sale of Irish art in Dublin on March 26. The estimate is 3,000-5,000.

More than 200 affordable lots of Irish art feature in Morgan O’Driscoll’s Off the Wall on-line art auction.  The sale is now live on www.morganodriscoll.com  It runs until March 25.  Here is a small selection (you can click on any image to enlarge it).

Thomas Ryan PPRHA (b.1929)) – ‘Lady in Red in Cactus House’. (1,200-1,800). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

Frank Egginton RCA (1908-1990) – ‘Sunshine and Shadow, Co. Donegal’ (600-800). UPDATE: THIS MADE 600

Mark O’Neill (b.1963) – ‘Windowsill Whites’. (800-1,100). UPDATE: THS MADE 950

THE portrait of Seamus Heaney at Bonhams. (Click on image to enlarge).

A 1987 portrait of Seamus Heaney – Ireland’s Nobel Literature Prize laureate – is to be sold at Bonham’s in London on April 10.  It was painted by Peter Edwards, the artist who painted the Heaney portrait at the National Portrait Gallery in London.  It will be sold with an original drawing in pencil made at the poet’s Dublin home in 1987 when the portrait was painted. The estimate is £6,000-8,000.

The portrait is one of several items related to Seamus Heaney in the sale including a number of photographs – including an image by John Minihan taken for the poet’s 70^th birthday in 2009 (£400-600)  – and very early handwritten drafts of his poem, ‘Song’, from the collection, ‘Field Work.

UPDATE:  The portrait sold for £7,500. The autograph drafts of Song from ‘Field Work’ sold for £4,375 and a signed typescript with autograph revisions, insertions and doodles of his ‘Villanelle for an anniversary’ sold for £2,750.

El Greco, Saint Dominic in Prayer at Sotheby’s London Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale, on July 3 (£3-5 million). (Click on image to enlarge).

Works by Monet, El Greco and Tiepolo are included in the collection of the late philanthropist Dr. Gustav Rau to be sold by Sotheby’s this year. The collection, valued at more than £16 million, will be offered at a range of auctions starting with the Impressionist and Modern sales in London next June. Money raised goes to UNICEF Germany to fund long-term assistance programs for children, and especially to further assist the Ciriri hospital in eastern Congo. Highlights include Claude Monet’s oil on canvas Le Pont de Bois (£4-6 million); El Greco’s Saint Dominic in Prayer (£3-5 million) and Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo’s Jacopo Porto Appointed Governor of Vicenza (£3-5 million).
Dr. Philipp Duke of Württemberg, chairman Sotheby’s Europe and md of the company in Germany said: “Dr. Rau collected with a rare energy and wisdom. An austere man who wasted no money on himself, he was nonetheless always ready to pursue the greatest works of art, across all schools and genres, to create one of the 20th Century’s most comprehensive and exciting collections”.
Gustav Rau (1922-2002), scion of a wealthy German industrialist family followed his father into the automotive business. At the age of 40 he trained as a doctor to work in the developing world. Following his father’s death he sold the family company and began to use the proceeds to help diminish poverty in the Third World. He moved to the Congo where he lived for two decades, building a hospital at Ciriri and serving as a doctor for the surrounding community. Over a period of 40 years he also indulged his passion for the arts. Self-taught, but with an instinctive eye, his collection encompassed superb works from the early Quattrocento all the way through to the Modern era. On his death, Dr. Rau bequeathed his outstanding collection to UNICEF Germany.