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A CORK REGENCY TRIPLE PANEL OVER MANTLE MIRROR. UPDATE: THIS MADE 220 AT HAMMER
Garden furniture, art, silver, antique furniture and collectibles will feature in an online sale by Hegarty’s in Bandon on August 14. A Regency triple over mantle mirror with an R & W Clarke of Cork label is estimated at €300-€600 and there is an estimate of €900-€1,200 for an oil by John Morris entitled Brittas Bay. The auction gets underway at 5 pm.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Jane Avril au Divan Japonais, 1892. Grease pencil and graphite on cardboard. © Christie’s Images Ltd 2024
No one captured the excitement and innovation of the Paris of the Belle Epoque quite like the great chronicler of Montmartre nightlife Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. A key work by the artist – Jane Avril au Divan Japonais – will highlight the culmination of a series of auctions to coincide with Art Basel, Paris at Christie’s on October 18. The Avant Garde including Thinking Italian sale will include a preparatory study for the most famous and best selling lithograph in the world featuring the cancan dancer Jane Avril commissioned by Edouard Fournier for his cabaret of the same name. In the same private collection for 90 years and not seen in public since the artist’s retrospective in 1931 it is estimated at €2.5 million – €3.5 million.
Even as the global focus that has been on Paris in latter weeks is likely to shift elsewhere after the Olympics draw to a close the art world focus on the French capital is pretty permanent.
Another highlight of Christie’s sale is a rediscovery of a Surrealist work by Francis Picabia, a perfect example of his transparency series entitled Myrte (€1 million – €1.5 million). The innovative series is famous for the theatrical superimposition of images which Picabia had already experimented with in his films. Picabia seeks to stimulate the imagination with a surreal interweaving of images inspired by a real life revelation in a cafe in Marseilles and Myrte immerses the viewer into a sensual, hallucinatory dream.
Francis Picabia – Myrte c1928 Pencil, oil, and gouache on panel © Christie’s Images Ltd 2024
Disappointed Love by the Irish artist Francis Danby (1793-1861) in the collection of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum forms a backdrop to a new exhibition on Taylor Swift at the museum until September 8. The Taylor Swift songbook trail celebrates the creativity of costumes, lyrics and videos with 13 stops across four floors of the museum. At stop eight is a cream Zimmerman dress from Swift’s personal archive worn in the video for Willow from the Evermore album with Danby’s subject and painting offering a perfect backdrop. Curator Kate Bailey considers Danby’s painting to be entirely in tune with Taylor Swift’s vibe. The idea of a Swift themed display occurred to her in April shortly after the beginning of the Eras tour. It has been the fastest moving project Bailey has ever worked on. But beware. There are more than seven miles of corridors in this fabulous museum. You have been warned.
An etching by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) – Landscape with Cottages and a Hay Barn (1641) – has been acquired by the National Gallery of Ireland and is the first work on paper by Rembrandt to enter the national collection. The gallery is celebrating its 170th anniversary by announcing recent acquisitions, free tours and releasing free tickets to ‘Women Impressionists’ for Culture Night 2024. Hughie O’Donoghue’s monumental Original Sins (2022), commissioned under the Decade of Centenaries Programme, has been acquired as a heritage gift under Section 1003. A vibrant oil on canvas by Dairine Vanston, On Huband Bridge, Dublin (1974), records a Dublin landmark just a few minutes’ walk from Vanston’s home and studio on Mount Street Crescent, but suggests more tropical climes.
A new strategic plan for 2024-2028 includes a range of priorities which will build on the Gallery’s existing work and help it evolve to best serve its collections and audiences, in the future. Four new priorities have been identified: Developing and caring for our living collections for public benefit; a National Gallery for all; excellence in Corporate Services and Strategic Partnerships to grow national and international partnerships and income streams across the public and private sectors.
Hughie O’Donoghue (b1953) – Original Sins series in the Shaw Room of the National Gallery. Photo courtesy National Gallery of Ireland.
AN ARTS AND CRAFTS OAK DRESSER. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
The timeless aesthetic and commitment of the Arts and Crafts movement is evident in this oak dresser which comes up as lot 277 at the James Adam At Home sale in Dublin on August 28 with an estimate of 1,000-1,500. This is a timed online sale with 401 lots and it will be on view at St. Stephen’s Green from Saturday, August 24. There is art, silver, collectibles, antique furniture, Oriental rugs, porcelain and even a collection of Scottish Freemasons regalia belonging to life member William Kirkhope. The catalogue is online.
ALICIA BOYLE (Irish 1908 – 1997) ‘A Boat (ashore) in a West of Ireland landscape’. UPDATE: THIS MADE 150 AT HAMMER
This 1950 mixed media work by Alicia Boyle is lot 56 at the modern and contemporary art online auction at O’Reilly’s of Francis St., Dublin which runs from August 7-14. The estimate is 150-250. Boyle’s work is in numerous collections including Northampton Museum and Art Gallery, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Crawford Gallery, Ulster Museum, Nottingham Castle Museum, National Gallery of Ireland and the National Self Portrait Collection. The catalogue for the sale is online.
Performance for the Oceans (2024) is the result of a collaboration between the Serbian conceptual and performance artist Marina Abramovic and Blue Marine, a charity dedicated to protecting the ocean and tackling overfishing. The work, filmed on Fire Island in New York, depicts Abramovic giving her unconditional love and energy to our oceans, stressing the urgent need for their preservation.
The charity has partnered with Christie’s on Blue: Art for the Ocean. More than 20 world leading artists are donating works to be auctioned within Christie’s 20th/21st Century Marquee Week sales next October to coincide with Frieze Art Fair in London to benefit Blue Marine’s projects around the world. Blue Marine’s mission is to combat overfishing, in order to help life in the ocean perform its vital function of stabilising the Earth’s climate. Among other artists involved are Yoshitomo Nara, Edmund de Waal, Lydia Blakeley, and Jonas Burgert.
IVAN SUTTON (B.1944) – FASTNET ROCK LIGHTHOUSE. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,000 AT HAMMER
This oil on canvas board of Fastnet Rock Lighthouse off the coast of Cork is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall art auction, which ends this evening. Estimated at 1,500-2,000 it is a popular lot and has already achieved 25 bids. The sale offers a wide variety of art and artists and includes works by Annemarie Bourke, Mike Fitzharris, William Conor, James Humbert Craig, Paula Rego, Tony O’Malley, Blaithin O Ciobhain, Norah McGuinness, Cecil King, Evie Hone and many others. The catalogue is online.
Francis Bacon, Human Presence at the National Portrait Gallery in London from October 10 will be the first exhibition in nearly 20 years to focus on the artist’s portraits. Through five key phases, – Portraits Emerge, Beyond Appearance, Painting from the Masters, Self-Portraits and Friends and Lovers – the show will chart the evolution of Bacon’s practice and explore how he embraced and challenged traditional definitions of potraiture. With more than 50 rarely seen works from private collections around the world it explores an engagement with portraiture from the 1940’s with a focus on self portraits and images of key sitters including lovers and friends. These will be displayed alongside rarely seen photographs and portraits of Bacon from the gallery’s collection by leading 20th century photographers like Cecil Beaton, Arnold Newman and Bill Brandt. The first major exhibition of portraits by Bacon at the National Portrait Gallery runs until January 19, 2025.
An exhibition of new sculpture by Tony Cragg runs at Thaddeus Ropac in Paris Marais from September 7 to October 10. Cragg’s abstract sculptures manifest entirely unprecedented forms that nevertheless spark a sense of recognition as they gesture to the world around us. Focusing on his most recent bodies of work, this exhibition offers a view into the breadth of Tony Cragg’s latest formal developments, which are defined by the British artist’s continual investigation into the possibilities of a wide range of materials and his exploration of both the natural and the man-made worlds.
