Tamara de Lempicka, Alberto Giacometti, Rene Magritte and Salvador Dali are among the big names due to come under the hammer at Christies in London on February 5. The Impressionist and Modern evening auction will be followed by The Art of the Surreal, together launching 20th century at Christie’s. de Lempicka’s Portrait de Marjorie Ferry from 1932 and Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui march from 1948, each estimated at £8-12 million, will highlight the first of the sales. There is a similar estimate on Magritte’s A la rencontre du plaisir from 1962. It is one of seven works by the artist in the auction.
Alberto Giacometti (1901-1966) Trois hommes qui marchent (Grand plateau) . UPDATE: THIS MADE £11.2 MILLION
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Akt vor dem Spiegel (Nude at the Mirror) comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art evening sale in London on February 4 with an estimate of £3-5 million. This is a powerful example of Kirchner’s painting from the time he lived in Berlin, where he moved from Dresden in 1911 together with other Die Brücke members including Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, setting up a studio in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. With its bold colouration and avant-garde approach to a traditional subject-matter, the work embodies the values proclaimed in Die Brücke programme, penned by Kirchner in 1906: ‘With faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators we call together all youth. […] As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces”.
In a bid to make collecting contemporary art easier on all pockets Christie’s in New York has launched its most accessible sale yet. Christie’s 100 is an online-only sale of nearly 100 lots, many with starting bids of $100. Assembled by the New York Post-War and Contemporary Art department it includes works by both emerging and established artists. Collectible works by Yayoi Kusama, KAWS and Robert Indiana are offered alongside photographs by Ryan McGinley and Vera Lutter and works on paper by Yves Tinguely, Barnaby Furnas and Richard Pettibone. Bidding is from January 28 – February 5.
LEFT: Leo Gabin, Mother’s Day Rumble, 2013 ($4,000 – 6,000 RIGHT: Ryan McGinley, Untitled (Morrissey 15) 2006 ($2,000-3,000
BREEZE by Roderic O’Conor will come up at Sotheby’s sale of 19th century European art in New York on January 31. The 1898 seascape is from the collection of J.E. Safra. It is estimated at $70,000-100,000.
RODERIC O’CONOR – BREEZE . UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
Andy Warhol’s ‘Athletes’, ten multicoloured portraits of athletes, is highlighted by Muhammad Ali (1977) come up at Christie’s Post War and Contemporary art evening auction in London on February 12. From the collection of Richard L. Weisman Ali is estimated at £3-5 million. The seminal series is presented alongside Flowers (1964) (£1-1.5 million) which is offered as part of ‘Art for Future: Selected Works from the UniCredit Group’. The sale will include Warhol’s Knives (1982) and Brillo Soap Pads Box (1964) originally held in the collection of Leo Castelli.
The Post War and Contemporary art day auction takes place on February 13 and and online only sale will open for bidding from February 7-18.
Andy Warhol, Muhammad Ali, 1977 . UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £4.9 MILLION
The latest ‘Off the Wall’ affordable Irish art auction by Morgan O’Driscoll runs until the evening of January 27. There are 439 lots on offer with work by a variety of artists including Julian Opie, Norman McCaig, Estella Solomons, Colin Middleton, Graham Knuttel, John Morris, Henry McGrane and many more. The catalogue is online.
Julian Opie(b.1958) Imagine You Can Order These Green (1999) lithograph – published by the artist in 1999 . UPDATE: THIS MADE 500 AT HAMMER
A total of 21 Claddagh rings from the collection of the Hon Garech Browne, founder of Claddagh Records, sold for a total of £75,759 at Sotheby’s Royal and Noble sale in London today. They made various prices from £625 to £9,375 for a c1700 ring made by Thomas Meade of Kinsale or Galway. Most went over estimate and one lot, a c1820 ring estimated at £2,500-3,500 remained unsold. The top lot of the sale was an Anglo Indian ivory inlaid writing table, Vizagapatam, which made 471,000 over a top estimate of £180,000. A c1815 Irish Regency seven pedestal dining table once at Carton House with an estimate of £80,000-120,000 failed to sell. A set of eight Irish George III hall chairs from Killadoon House in Co. Kildare sold for £47,500 over a top estimate of £25,000. A caricature from Killadoon after Sir Joshua Reynolds depicting Thomas Brudenell Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury, the Hon. John Ward, Joseph Leeson, later 2nd Earl of Milltown and Joseph Henry of Straffan made £87,500 over a top estimate of £6,000.
(See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for January 12, 2020, December 31, 2019 and December 20, 2019)
This caricature from Killadoon House after Sir Joshue Reynolds shows Thomas Brudenell Bruce, 1st Earl of Ailesbury, the Hon John Ward, Joseph Leeson, later 2nd Earl of Milltown and Joseph Henry of Straffan.
Cecil Maguire’s Fair Day, Clifden made a hammer price of 9,500 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish art tonight. It was one of a number of encouraging results in O’Driscoll’s first online sale of 2020. Glenveagh Hills, Donegal by James Humbert Craig, Picnic by a River by Frank McKelvey and Farm Gate, Wicklow by Peter Collis each made hammer prices of 4,200; Fishing Village, Connemara by Maurice Wilks made 3,600, Venice by Arthur Maderson made 3,400 and Lake Scene, Evening by Percy French made 2,700. There will be an online sale of affordable Irish art by Morgan O’Driscoll on January 27.
A copy of William Shakespeare’s First Folio will come up as part of the Exceptional Sale during Classic Week at Christie’s New York next April 24. The First Folio, bringing together for the first time the collected plays of Shakespeare, ranks as the greatest work of the English language and, indeed, of world literature. Already celebrated on its first publication, it has remained a highly sought-after masterpiece over four centuries. Only six complete copies are known in private hands.
It was published in 1623 by Shakespeare’s friends and fellow actors, John Heminge and Henry Condell, who collaborated after the writer’s death to compile this authoritative edition of his work. The First Folio contains thirty-six of Shakespeare’s plays, including eighteen that may have otherwise been lost forever — among the rescued works are Macbeth, The Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, and Julius Caesar. This is the first time in nearly 20 years that a complete copy of the First Folio has come to auction. It is being sold on behalf of Mills College in Oakland, California and is estimated at $4-6 million.
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies.Published According to the True Originall Copies. London: Printed by Isaac Jaggard and Ed. Blount, 1623 UPDATE: IT MADE $9,978,000 and established a new world auction record for any work of literature at Christie’s on October 14.
It is, according to the auctioneers Christie’s, in paintings like The Sky Lovers that we see the roots of Yeats’ most emotional and highly evocative works. The 1947 work provides a striking example of his late painting style. Early in 1947 Yeats lost Cottie, his wife of 53 years, and when he returned to his easel it was with a new found emotional intensity. In this work two figures are depicted looking to the sky as one raises his hands imploringly to the heavens. Through light and vigorous brushstrokes the artist brings energy to the work, a sense of desolation and a yearning for something lost. The Sky Lovers comes up at the Modern British Art evening sale at Christie’s in London on January 21 with an estimate of £200,000-300,000.
Jack Butler Yeats, R.H.A. (1871-1957) The Sky Lovers . UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £225,000
