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THERE are two very different works by the late Louis le Brocquy  (see post for April 25) at Sotheby’s British and Irish art sale in London on May 10.  Travelling People is an oil on board which dates from 1945. It is part of the artist’s celebrated Tinkers series.  Equally celebrated is his series of heads, in which he explored the archaeology of the spirit.  Masked Head dates from 1973.  Each work aroused considerable interest when highlights from the Irish section of the sale were toured in Dublin and Belfast in latter weeks. (See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for April 12 and January 16, 2012).

LOUIS LE BROCQUY, H.R.H.A. (1916-2012) TRAVELLING PEOPLE from 1945 (£60,000-80,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

LOUIS LE BROCQUY, H.R.H.A. (1916-2012), Masked Head (£30,000-50,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

The Scream (click on image to enlarge).

Edvard Munch’s The Scream made a new world art auction record of $119,922,500 at Sotheby’s in New York last night.  A group of at least eight bidders jumped into the competition, but it was a prolonged battle between two highly-determined phone bidders that carried the final selling price to its historic level, after more than 12 minutes.  The iconic masterpiece is one of four versions of the work, the only one left in private hands.

Even though 15 of the 76 works on offer were unsold, the  sale total of $330,568,550 million marked Sotheby’s highest ever total for a sale of Impressionist and Modern Art.  The Scream smashed the previous auction record of $106.5 million for Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust, sold in 2010 by Christie’s in New York.  Only two other works besides Picasso’s Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust have sold for more than $100 million at auction. Those are Picasso’s Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice) for $104.1 million in 2004 and Alberto Giacometti’s Walking Man I for $104.3 million in 2010.

Tobias Meyer, Sotheby’s Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art, selling The Scream. (Click on image to enlarge).

The top ten in the sale last night were: 1 – The Scream;  2 – Pablo Picasso, Femme assise dan un fauteuil $29,202,500:  3 – Salvador Dalí, Printemps nécrophilique, $16,322,500; 4 – Joan Miró, Tête humaine, $14,866,500; 5 – Constantin Brancusi, Prométhée, $12,682,500; 6 – Chaim Soutine, Le chasseur de Chez Maxim’s, $9,378,500: 7 – Paul Gauguin, Cabane sous les arbres, $8,482,500; 8 – Max Ernst, Leonora in the Morning Light, $7,922,500; 9 – Pablo Picasso, Tête de femme (Portrait de Françoise), $6,914,500; 10 – Tamara de Lempicka Nu adossé I, $5,458,500.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 21 and April 27 2012 and the post for February 4, 2012 on Cezanne’s Card Players.

Henri Matisse’s Les Pivoines made $19,122,500. (Click on image to enlarge).

A Fauve Still Life by Henri Matisse and a re-discovered Cezanne study for The Card Players were the top lots at Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale in New York on May 1.  The carefully edited sale brought in $117,086,000.  There were 31 works on offer, two sold for over $15 million, seven for over $5 million and 21 for over $1 million. The auction was 90 per cent  sold by lot and 96 per cent sold by value.

Picasso’s Le Repos (Marie-Thérèse Walter) made $9,882,500. (Click on image to enlarge).

Cézanne’s Joueur de cartes (Card Player), a rare watercolor study that had been assumed lost by art historians until it re-emerged from a private collection in Texas earlier this year sold for $19,122,500. Henri Matisse’s Les Pivoines soared above its pre-sale estimate of $8-12 million to match the price of the Cézanne study.  It went to a bidder on the phone. Painted in 1907 in Collioure, the painting is emblematic of the canvases Matisse and his protégé André Derain first began producing in 1905 as a bold exploration of form and color. Le Repos (Marie-Thérèse Walter), Picasso’s lovingly painted portrait of the young blonde muse who inspired his great 1932 series of masterpiece works, far exceeded its estimate of $5-7 million to realize $9,882,500.  Reclining figure from 1956 by Henry Moore realized $5,010,500 and Edgar Degas’s Grande arabesque, deuxième temps, a bronze of the artist’s signature dancer, exceeded its estimate of $500,000-700,000 to realize $1,022,500.

Marc Porter, Chairman, Christie’s Americas, commented: “This was a carefully edited sale that brought together collecting options at the highest level of market while hitting the market “sweet spot” of mid-priced works by blue-chip artists like Picasso, Matisse, Monet, and Moore. As a result, we saw our strongest sell-through percentages for this category in New York since 2006, which is a testament to the market-savvy of our Impressionist and Modern Art team. We are particularly pleased with the results achieved for Cézanne’s study for “Card Players” and for our cover lot, Matisse’s “Les Pivoines (The Peonies)”, which proved to be the perfect ode to spring in New York.”

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 27, 2012)

The sales continue at Sotheby’s later today (at 7 p.m. in New York) where the main focus of attention is Edvard Munch’s  “The Scream.”  It is reckoned that this art auction fortnight in New York could bring in as much as $1.5 billion.

To highlight the groundbreaking nature of Yves Klein’s monumental FC 1(Fire Color 1) Christie’s commissioned award-winning filmmaker Laurent Chanez to make a three- minute video celebrating the creation of the masterpiece. Chanez has taken historic footage of Klein creating the work in 1962, using pigment-covered nude models and a hose of blazing fire as his “brushes”, and interspersed it with his own elemental imagery and composer Christian Zanesi’s abstract soundtrack  to draw viewers into Klein’s unforgettably dramatic process of realizing this singular painting.

The most important work by Yves Klein ever offered at auction FC 1 comes up for sale in New York on May 8. It is estimated at $30-40 million. Christie’s say it is poised to break the world record for the artist. UPDATE:  IT SOLD FOR WORLD RECORD PRICE OF $36,482,500, far exceeding the previous auction record of $23.5 million.

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for April 5, 2012).

Edvard Munch, The Scream (1895). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR A WORLD RECORD ART AUCTION PRICE OF $119,922,500.

IF public interest is anything to go by The Scream by Edvard Munch is about to generate headlines.  It is the most expensively estimated lot in the May art auctions which get underway in New York next week. When Sotheby’s displayed the work in London earlier this month thousands of people queued in the street to see it.  It was a reaction never before witnessed.  There was very tight security (two other versions of the painting have been stolen from Norwegian museums).  The ony one of four versions still in private hands is estimated at $80 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale on May 2.

At Christie’s Yves Klein’s “FC 1” is estimated at $30-40 million, which would be a record for the artist.  Other upcoming highlights include Double Elvis by Andy Warhol at Sotheby’s, Card Players, a Cezanne watercolour at Christie’s,  Figure Writing reflected in a Mirror by Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s,  Orange, Red and Yellow by Mark Rothko and No. 28 1951 by Jackson Pollock at Christie’s.   Altogether there are 15 works valued at over $10 million at Christie’s and 11 at Sotheby’s.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 21, March 16, March 27 and April 5, 2012.

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky’s View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus sold for £3,233,250. (Click on image to enlarge).

There was a record for Russian artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817-1900) at Sotheby’s in London today. His 1856 View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus sold for £3,233,250 to an anonymous buyer on the telephone.  There was spirited bidding from at least five bidders in the saleroom and on the telephone. The Russian masterpiece had been estimated at £1.2 – 1.8 million. Aivazovsky first visited Constantinople in 1845 as part of his duties as official painter to the Russian Admiralty. Completed in 1856, View of Constantinople and the Bosphorus celebrates the beauty and dynamism of a busy port, with the Nusretiye Mosque – an important landmark for navigation of the Bosphorus – to the right of the painting.

It was the top lot in the Orientalist sale of 33 lots of painting, drawing and sculpture depicting Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. The sale brought in  £5,586,000.