A walnut and gilt metal chest by Luciano Frigerio. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,800 AT HAMMER
The appetite for design has grown greatly since de Veres first introduced sales of designer furniture and contemporary art in this country. Design classics by Eileen Gray, Mies Van Der Rohe, Arne Jacobsen, Niels Moller and Finn Juhl and contemporary labelled pieces by makers like Ligne Roset, Roche Bobois and Knoll will come under the hammer at de Veres current timed online art and design sale which runs until November 4.
This is the 25th design auction by de Veres, who have seen interest grow and grow. There is statement art by Anne Madden, Mainie Jellett, Manar Al Shouha, Patrick Scott, Donald Teskey and John Shinnors and many other artists whose work sits particulary well with mid 20th century design. The auctioneers say that this is their biggest and best sale to date. It will be on view at the RHA from November 1-4.
A wool rug handwoven to a design by Mainie Jellett by Ceadogan Rugs. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Amedeo Modigliani – Elvire en buste sold for €27 million.
There was a record for a painting by Modigliani sold at auction in France when Elvire en buste sold for €27 million at Sotheby’s in Paris. Spirited competition between seven bidders led to a result that far exceeded the pre-sale high estimate of €7.5 million making it the most valuable work of art ever sold by Sotheby’s Paris. A second work by Modigliani entitled Raymond (thought to be a portrait of the young novelist Raymond Radiguet) made €10.6 million over a top estimate of €7.5 million.
The White Sail, Crosshaven by Annemarie Bourke at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000 AT HAMMER
Big ticket art is a headline grabber even in a year like this when the top end of the market is relatively slim. Sales with estimates of up to €5,000 do not grab the same level of attention and often operate under the radar.
Auctions with art of lower monetary value have become a very important part of the art market in Ireland and right around the world. Interest in art has grown exponentially as more and more people collect and enjoy an enduring fascination with art.
The online ‘Off the Wall’ sale by Morgan O’Driscoll which runs until October 28 follows on from his sale of Irish and international art earlier this week with important lots by Paul Henry, Louis le Brocquy, Sir John Lavery, Andy Warhol and many others. Off the Wall sales of affordable art are a regular part of Skibbereen based Morgan O’Driscoll’s calendar and often feature big names.
Pink Flowers by Jack Donovan at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,500 AT HAMMER
Lower value sales reflect the fact that artists make work all the time. Not everything is major. Highly desirable atchings, drawings, preparatory works, maquettes and small pieces galore are available. Nearly everyone who ends up as a big collector starts as a small collector. A sale with plenty of pickings at prices that won’t break the bank is as good a place as any to start.
Pink Flowers by the late Jack Donovan, former head of the Limerick School of Art, is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s sale on Tuesday with an estimate of just €600-€800. A pastel on board by Victor Richardson of Drake’s Pool near Crosshaven is similarly estimated. An oil on canvas of Crosshaven by Annemarie Bourke is estimated at €1,000-€1,500, Outside the Basilica by Mark O’Neill is estimated at €2,500-€3,500 and The Red Door by John Verling has an estimate of €1,200-€1,800. The catalogue, with several hundred lots, is online.
Meantime over in Lismore a new art auction business is gaining traction. Lot 100 was founded earlier this year by Ken Madden and Beth Ann Smith, creators of the highly successful Lismore Food Company. They have held four art sales to date and the latest auction – with 80 lots of painting, prints, sculpture, vintage posters and photography – is online until November 4.
La Tristesse du Roi, a poster by Henri Matisse, from the online sale by Lot 100. UPDATE; THIS WAS UNSOLD
There is work by Irish abstract expressionist Anne Harkin-Petersen, British pop artist Richard Smith and Italian sculptor Virginio Pessina. Among those featured are William Scott, Damien Hirst, Katherine Boucher Beug, Henri Matisse, Joan Miro, Patrick Scott, Charles Tyrrell and John Behan. The sales offer art for €10,000 and under and most of the work is €1,500 and under.
The aim is to achieve broad art market appeal and already the founders have noticed that people who previously bought art are interested in trading up.
With its distinctive packaging the Lismore Food Company was well known and renowned and this has proved an advantage in setting up the new art auction business countrywide, as is the Dublin collection and drop off point offered by this Co. Waterford enterprise. The catalogue for the sale is online and the auction will be on view at Chapel St., Lismore on October 31 and November 1 and 2 from noon to 4 pm.
Woman with Horse by Virginio Passina at Lot 100. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Louis Le Brocquy (1916-2012) – The Táin – Mare and Foal (1969). UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,700 AT HAMMER
This striking le Brocquy lithograph from 1969, numbered 61 from an edition of 70, is at Morgan O’Driscoll’s off the wall online art auction which runs until October 28. The estimate is €1,500-€2,500. An oil on board by Mark O’Neill – Outside the Basilica – is at €2,500-€3,500, the most expensively estimated lot. The auction offers more than 450 lots of affordable art and the catalogue is online.
On the face of it you might think the invisible people represented in this powerful and unique bronze sculpture by John Behan did not have much to be grateful for. But at least the downtrodden, starving migrants represented in the ragged, torn and limping Bantry Famine Ship arrived in the 19th century and not the 21st in Europe or the United States. If they made it into Ireland or any other country now they might have to run a gauntlet of attack by social media organised anti immigrant thugs with petrol bombs and other handy implements in a world where basic humanity is in dwindling supply. The sculpture made a hammer price of €14,000 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International art sale.
Paul Henry’s Cottages on Achill Sound was the top lot of the sale. It made €120,000 at hammer. Other top hammer prices were achieved by Andy Warhol for screenprints of Ingrid Bergman (€70,000) and Jane Fonda (€28,000) and an oil by Donald Teskey (€32,000).
EARL BISS (NATIVE AMERICAN, 1947-1998) – ‘The Rain is Falling Down and Rainbow Cloud the Day like Diamonds in the Snow, I’ll Miss You’
A 1991 oil on canvas by the native American artist Earl Biss known for his colourful depictions of Plains Indians was the top lot at the mid-century modern sale at James Adam in Dublin. It made a hammer price of €19,000. Grill Sergeants by Graham Knuttel made €14,000 and an untitled lithograph by Miro made €14,000. Two paintings with dance titles by John Boyd, Galliard and Pavane each sold for €11,000 and the top furniture was a Petalas coffee table by Jorge Zalszupin which made €10,000 at hammer. A c1950 rosewood Italian sideboard with marble top made €8,000 at hammer over a top estimate of €3,000.
U2 musician Adam Clayton with guitars from his personal collection. Brian McEvoy/Julien’s Auctions. UPDATE: THE ENTIRE COLLECTION SOLD OUT
Adam Clayton’s personal collection of 18 bass guitars will come under the hammer as part of Julien’s Played Worn & Torn sale in Nashville on November 20 and 21. The live and online sale will be held at the Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum. Meantime a three-week exhibition celebrating the collection of the U2 bassist and this collection opens today at The Museum of Style Icons in Newbridge, Co Kildare. It runs until November 9.
Highlights include his 2014 Sherwood Green Fender Adam Clayton signature Jazz Bass, played during U2’s Innocence + Experience tour in 2015. Notable stops were in Dublin, Belfast, Paris, Glasgow, London, Koln, Antwerp, Barcelona, Berlin, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Turin, NYC, Boston, Toronto, Chicago, Montreal, Denver, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose, and Vancouver (estimate: $40,000-$60,000); his 200 Lakland Joe Osborn J sunburst bass, played during the U2’s Vertigo Tour for their classic hit “One,” notably in Dublin on August 27, 2005 (estimate: $20,000-$40,000); a 2010 Gold Sparkle Fender Adam Clayton Precision Bass deemed a “mistake” by Clayton’s guitar technician due to the Jazz Bass decaled headstock (estimate: $40,000-$60,000); Clayton’s stunning U2 360 Tour 2010 Warwick Gold Reverso electric basses (estimate each: $20,000-$40,000) and Clayton’s prized Fender Jazz Basses ranging from the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Adam Clayton “Achtung Baby” Era Rolex Oyster Perpetual Datejust Wristwatch made $16,000, more than eight times the estimate. A portion of the proceeds will benefit MusiCares
Apples and Pear by Roderic O’Conor (1860-1940) UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £171,450
The gem like Apples and Pear by Roderic O’Conor at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art evening sale in London on October 22 epitomises his use of colour, texture and strong stripes. The painting featured at the O’Conor retrospective at the National Gallery in 2018. It dates to around 1893 and Christie’s say that opportunities to acquire a work so emblematic of its period and of O’Conor’s oeuvre arise infrequently. The estimate is £120,000-£180,000 (€137,900-€206,890).
Flowers by the Window by Norah McGuinness. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,600 AT HAMMER
From Patrick Collins and Donald Teskey to Andy Warhol and John Behan the sale by Morgan O’Driscoll which runs until October 21 is brimful of colourful interest. This Irish and International online art auction kicks off with a Percy French watercolour of a bog landscape with gorse (€1,500-€2,500) and has an estimate range from €500 to €120,000-€160,000 for Cottages on Achill Sound, an oil on canvas by Paul Henry.
There are 1980’s screenprints of Ingrid Bergman and Jane Fonda by Andy Warhol and a study towards an image of Federico Garcia Lorca by Louis le Brocquy among the leading lots. A View of Fez by Sir John Lavery dates to 1919 and is estimated at €70,000-€100,000. The selection of sculpture is headed by John Behan’s Bantry Famine Ship (€15,000-€25,000) and offers work by Jacob Epstein, Ian Pollock, Michael Foley, Rory Breslin and Liam Flynn. The sale, with 155 lots in total, is on view at the RDS in Dublin on today, tomorrow and Monday and the catalogue is online.
Jane Fonda (1982) by Andy Warhol. UPDATE: THIS MADE 28,000 AT HAMMER
Petalas coffee table in jacaranda by Jorge Zalszupin at Adams. UPDATE: THIS MADE 10,000 AT HAMMER
Interiors created by architect designers like William Morris, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Frank Lloyd Wright, Cesar Manrique and Jorge Zalszupin have a seductive appeal that withstands the constant ebb and flow of fashion and is timeless.
Auctions underway in Ireland right now challenge chic antique home designers to build their own timeless lnteriors in genres that range from Mid Century Modern at James Adam to Irish Vernacular by Victor Mee, silver and collectibles at Woodwards and the contents of Cork antique shop Salvagem by Mitchelstown based Ray Alley Auctioneering.
The pickings are rich and mostly affordable, though it must be said that you will not come across objects like Zalszupin’s Petalas coffee table in Jacaranda every day. At €10,000-€15,000 it is among the most expensively estimated lots at Adams in Dublin on October 21. The noted Jewish Polish Brazilian architect designer, who died aged 98 in 2000, founded L’Atelier in Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1959. The iconic Petalas table captures many of his core concerns like minimal ornament, excellence in material, structural innovation and an approach to modernism that is lyrical.
The sale at Adams offers furniture by Eileen Gray, Finn Juhl, Arne Jacobsen, Niels Otto Muller, Arne Vodder, Pierre Jeanneret and Charlotte Perriand, Gerrit Rietveld, le Corbusier, Charles Eames, Monika Graffeo and a range of illustrious designers. There is art by Anselm Kiefer, Alexander Calder, Gerard Byrne, John Boyd, Patrick Graham, Merlin James, Picasso, Georges Rouault, Elizabeth Magill, Liam Belton, Sean Scully and others along with a selection of rugs, lighting and collectible objects.
A silver freedom box at Woodwards sale today. UPDATE: THIS MADE 5,250 AT HAMMER
Irish and English silver, art, militaria and various collectibles will come under the hammer online at Woodwards from 10 am today. The sale is headed by an 1808 silver freedom box by Kean Mahony of Cork with Dublin assay marks (€8,000-€12,000) and a large Birds in Flight bronze by John Behan (€6,000-€10,000). There is Cork and Irish silver including a pair of c1760 salvers by William Reynolds, Cork, a large silver bowl by Padraig O Mathuna with Dublin hallmarks for 1974, a pair of c1780 serving spoons by Maurice Fitzgerald, Limerick and a London silver tea set.
Collectors will find everything from an early 19th century Irish settle bench and a scumbled pine kitchen cupboard to spongeware, a dug out chair, painted pine dressers and hand cut limestone troughs at Victor Mee’s Irish vernacular sale on October 19. These were staples of rural Irish homes made by local people using materials to hand.
A 19th century painted pine dresser from Co. Clare at Victor Mee. UPDATE: THIS MADE 900 AT HAMMER
Irish spongeware pottery made from clay is loved for its colourful decoration and the sale offers a selection of Irish and French pieces. There are floor candle holders and a rare rush light holder from Co. Fermanagh, kitchen tables, chairs, milking stools, a cast iron skillet pot, banks of drawers, wall racks and a 19th century pine washboard in a selection of over 700 lots calculated to stir many old memories of an Ireland that is now vanished.
Antique furniture, rugs, collectibles and lighting from Salvagem, the McCurtain St., Cork antique shop which closed last month, will be auctioned today at the Metropole Hotel in Cork and online by Ray Alley Auctioneering of Mitchelstown. Estimates are very reasonable and the catalogue is online. Salvagem operated since 2020 in an era when many antique shops have been lost. Salvagem owner Michael Wall hopes to continue with an online shop.
A Cork Regency sofa table at the sale of contents from Salvagem antique shop today. UPDATE: THIS MADE 300 AT HAMMER
