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Tamara de Lempicka Nu adossé I ($3/5 million). Click on image to enlarge. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $5,458,500

Every collector’s dream of owning an undiscovered masterpiece came true for one West Coast art lover. Knowing nothing of the artist but appreciating the quality of the work a US collector bought a painting and kept it at home for a decade. It was in fact a lost work by Tamara de Lempicka, described in the catalogue raisonné of the artist, published in 1999, as location unknown.  The Modern masterpiece Nu adossé I will be offered by Sotheby’s on May 2 in New York and is estimated at $3-5 million.

The work, a classic example of the artist’s aesthetic, was included in her groundbreaking solo exhibition at Milan’s Bottegia di Poesia gallery in 1925, the year it was painted. It was known only from a photograph of that show. Afterwards it effectively disappeared. Sotheby’s was contacted by the owner late last year. He described finding the work many years before and, while not realizing its importance at the time, he had appreciated its aesthetic appeal. A decade later the owner learned that he possibly owned an original Lempicka. An art consultant advised him to contact Sotheby’s. Following first-hand inspection and subsequent research, the work was confirmed to be the lost Lempicka.

Tamara de Lempicka was a pioneering artist who occupied an important position in ‘Roaring Twenties’ Paris. Her aesthetic embodied the spirit of the Art Deco era and its sense of style and modernity. Nu adossé I is coming to market at a time of unprecedented interest in the artist. Over the course of the past year, several new benchmarks have been set for Lempicka’s work at Sotheby’s – in June 2011, a new auction record was set for the artist when her La dormeuse sold for $6.6 million. Five months later, that record was broken again at Sotheby’s when Le rêve achieved $8.5 million.

UPDATE: IT MADE $5,458,500

(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 21 and April 5 2012)

Yves Klein's FC1, described as one of the most important Post War European works of art. (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $36,482,500.

THE most important work by Yves Klein ever offered at auction, his Fire-Color Painting FC 1, comes up for sale in New York on May 8. Estimated at $30-40 million Christie’s say it is poised to break the world record for the artist at auction.  Contemporary art specialist Loic Gouzer said:  “Yves Klein’s FC 1 is to Europe what Pollock’s NUMBER ONE is to America. It is the ultimate heroic work fusing all of the elements that Klein learnt to master over his short and intense career. FC1 perfectly embodies Klein’s obsession with the irreconcilable concept of presence and absence, life and death”.

FC 1 depicts two female figures amid the fiery blue, gold and red flame-licked surface. The bodies hover on the borderline of abstraction, between the realms of the material and the immaterial. Two models acted as brushes. Doused with water they pressed themselves to a large sheet of treated cardboard. Klein then directed an intense flame towards the board.  The moisture soaked cardboard resisted. Then the models coated themselves in a subtle pink paint and pressed against the board.  They then applied a thicker coat of his IKB pigment to leave a last impression on the surface while he enhanced their silhouettes spraying pink and blue pigment with an airbrush.  By placing the sensual apparitions of the female body among the flame bursts and smoke shadows, Klein combined life and death in a way that speaks to the fragility of life but also to its permanence. On the one hand, there is a clear sense of the destructive power of the flame. On the other, the presence of the female forms hints at the eternal power of life that transcends all things.

Klein set daily life into the context of the spiritual realm he called the void; a void marked by the primal, eruptive, apocalyptic and eternal forces of life-giving and life-consuming energy. He stated: “The void has always been my main preoccupation, and I firmly believe that fires burn in the heart of the void as in the heart of man.”  He died aged 34 in 1962 shortly after the work was completed.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $36,482,500.

Francis Bacon: Figure Writing, Reflected in Mirror is estimated at $30-40 million. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $44,882,500.

A powerful work by Francis Bacon could make up to $40 million at Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale in New York on May 9. Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror represents some of Bacon’s most important themes and was included in the legendary 1977 exhibition at Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris.  The present owners purchased it at that exhibition. It has not been seen in public since.

The writing figure represents both Bacon’s partner George Dyer and the artist himself.  The mirror shows a second figure, rather than a reflection.  The seated man, brought to life with Bacon’s urgent brushwork, is confronted by a sheet of paper. Discarded paper on the ground betrays a creative struggle. Bacon was obsessed with the written word and drew inspiration from classical writers from Aeschylus to T.S. Eliot. This is his only canvas to feature someone writing.

Jeff Koons Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise). (Click on image to enlarge). Image credit Christie’s Images Ltd., 2012. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £2,617,250

THE ultimate Easter Egg comes up at Christie’s post war and contemporary art evening auction in London on June 27.  Standing at almost two metres tall Jeff Koons’s Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise)  is from his iconic celebration series.  Executed from 1994-2008 this is one of five versions, each uniquely coloured.  The monumental sculpture is made of high-chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and is estimated at £2,500,000 – 3,500,000.  It is the only one in brilliant blue/turquoise.

The Celebration series became a source of fascination for Koons.  Recording life’s milestones throughout the calendar year, the artist created monumental sculptures such as Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise) and others depicting balloon flowers and diamond rings to almost mouth-watering perfection. With its shimmering, mirrored surface the work recalls a monumental Easter egg as if rendered out of solid chocolate, belonging to some giant confectionary stand. It is this playful, childhood quality combined with the symbolically charged image of the egg: giver of new life and sign of the Christian resurrection, that makes this heroic sculpture so captivating.  And there are no calories!

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £2,617,250

Highlights from a unique archive collection of over 175 paintings and drawings by the celebrated 20th century Irish artist Sean O’Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) will go on exhibition at the Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, Co. Down from April 4-20.  The collection will be auctioned at Adams in Dublin on May 2.  Assembled over 50 years it has never been seen in public before. Most of the work came from the family of the artist, other pieces were acquired privately and at auction.  Values range from 200 to 10,000. There are lithographs, etchings, drawings, oils and watercolours of landscapes, interiors, still lives and portraits.  Sitters include Peig Sayers, Douglas Hyde, Myles na Gopaleen, Peadar O’Donnell, the artist Maurice MacGonigal and sculptor Paul Landowski who created the ‘Christ the Redeemer’ statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Sean O’Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) St. Audeon’s Under Snow (5,000-6,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 6,700.

Sean O'Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) Paul Landowski’s Studio, Paris (6,000-10,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

The Novelist by Jack b. Yeats sold for 95,000. (Click on image to enlarge).

The Novelist by Jack B. Yeats sold for 95,000 after the James Adam Irish art sale in Dublin on March 28.  The 1944 painting, which had been estimated at 100,000-150, attracted keen interest but was bid to a figure short of the reserve. It was sold the following day.  This brought the total for the auction of over 200 lots to just under 500,000.

Memory of Clifden by George Campbell sold for 20,000.

More than 70 per cent of the lots on offer were sold. The Novelist was in a number of international exhibitions including the Yeats centenary exhibition of 1971 organised by the National Gallery of Ireland shown in Dublin, Belfast and New York.

(See post on antiquesandartireland.com for March 21, 2012).

William John Leech (Irish, 1881-1968) Sutton Sands. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE £8,750 INCLUDING PREMIUM.

Paul Henry R.H.A. (Irish, 1876-1958) A view of Croagh Patrick from Achill Island. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE £25,000 INCLUDING PREMIUM.

A view of Croagh Patrick from Achill Island by Paul Henry is one of the Irish highlights at Bonhams 20th Century British and Irish Art in London on May 30.  Croagh Patrick in Co. Mayo is a renowned site of pilgrimage in honour of St. Patrick.  Here the saint reputedly fasted for forty days before using the Black Bell to combat the birds and demons that challenged him, and in doing so banished all the snakes from Ireland.  It is estimated at £10,000-15,000.

The sale includes two works by Gerard Dillon, Little Boy Playing at God (painted in 1945-6 and estimated to sell for £30,000-50,000) and The Moon Over the Bog (painted in 1954 and estimated to sell for £50,000-70,000).  Other works in the sale include Fish by William Scott, initially sold to benefit the Royal Academy of Arts Trust, and estimated to sell for £60,000-80,000, Sir Gerald Festus Kelly’s Portrait of Jane with a white shawl XXVII, depicting the artist’s wife Lilian Ryan (£7,000-10,000), and Sutton Sands, a view of Sutton Beach at the northern edge of Dublin Bay painted by William John Leech in 1909 (estimated to sell for £7,000-10,000).

William Scott R.A. (British, 1913-1989) Fish (1982). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS MADE £61,250.