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Art by Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol is included among eleven works from the Cy Twombly Foundation to be sold at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art sales in New York on November 12-13. Acquired by Twombly in the 1960s the works are all by artists represented by the legendary Leo Castelli Gallery.  The sale represents two generations of artists who became established in the 1960’s.  Highlighting the group are three drawings by Roy Lichtenstein – all quintessentially Pop – using imagery of everyday objects and advertising from the 1960s. They are Hot Dog, 1964, the bold 10?, 1961 – 1962, and Like New, 1962. Also included is Andy Warhol’s Little Electric Chair, 1964, a painting that Twombly traded directly with the artist. There are two early works by Bruce Nauman, including one of only three Light Trap photographs, William T. Wiley or Ray Johnson Trap, 1967 and the sly and conceptual resin sculpture, Device to Hold a Box at a Slight Angle, 1966. Both were included in artist’s first debut solo exhibition in New York at Leo Castelli Gallery, curated by David Whitney.

Laura Paulson, Chairman and International Director for Post-War and Contemporary Art, declared: “This extraordinary group of works by Lichtenstein, Nauman, Warhol and Oldenburg represents one of the most creative and rich periods in Post-War American art which emerged in the 1960’s.” 

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
Hot Dog ($1.5-2 million). Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014.

ANDY WARHOL (1928-1987)
Brillo Soap Pads Box ($300,000-400,000). Courtesy, Christie;s Images Ltd., 2014

ROY LICHTENSTEIN (1923-1997)
10 ¢ ($800,000-1.2 million) Courtesy Christie’s Images Ltd., 2014

Bust of Homer by Francis Harwood.  UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £242,500

A previously unrecorded marble bust of Homer discovered in Ireland will be offered at Sotheby’s in London on December 3 with an estimate of £70,000-100.000.  It is by Francis Harwood, one of the most celebrated British sculptors of the 18th century. Dated 1757 the sculpture is unrecorded and the earliest known Harwood depiction of the ancient Greek poet.  It has been in a private collection in Ireland since the 1950’s.

There are only two other extant versions of Harwood’s Homer. One dated 1764 is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  The other, dated 1760 is at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire.  Francis Harwood (1726/7-1783) was mostly active in Florence where he was highly favoured by British visitors on the Grand Tour.  Harwood forged a successful career in Italy, where he remained for 30 years. The young Antonio Canova visited his studio in October 1779 and made a detailed note in his diary about what he saw there.

The Bust of Homer was housed in Dublin and then in Co. Louth. It was purchased by Canon Joseph Furlong, known as Kilcullen’s only flying priest, from Powerscourt.  Fr. Furlong came to Kilcullen in 1952 as parish priest and regularly took the skies in his monoplane. He died in 1971 and the sculptor passed by descent to the present owner. Sotheby’s European sculpture and works of art specialist Christopher Mason will provide free appraisals in Dublin and countrywide by appointment on September 23-24 and November 11-12.

THERE was a world record for a sale of Oceanic Art at Sotheby’s in Paris this week. The auction of the collection of 49 works from Canadian Murray Frum achieved 7.53 million. There were world records for an Uli memorial figure from New Ireland and a Maori statue from New Zealand.  They sold for 1.6 million and 1.4 million respectively. Three works made over one million and 14 sold for over 100,000 in a auction that ws 100 per cent sold.

The ancestral carving of a powerful clan leader from New Ireland includes a rare secondary character and once belonged to the Swiss surrealist painter and sculptor Serge Brignoni. The head of a staff god from Raratonga in the Cook Islands made 1.2 million.

Ancestor figure, uli
Northern New Ireland
SOLD: 1,609,500€

Figure Pou whakairo
Maori, New Zealand SOLD: 1,441,500€

Georgia O’Keeffe – Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 : UPDATE: IT MADE $44.4 MILLION.

One of the most iconic works by Georgia O’Keeffe ever to appear at auction will come up at Sotheby’s sale of American Art in New York on November 20. Jimson Weed/White Flower No. I is estimated to make $10-15 million.  It  is one of the most well-known examples of O’Keeffe’s celebrated flower paintings, which stand among the most recognizable images in both art history and popular culture. The painting is one of three works by the American artist that are on offer from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which are being sold to benefit its Acquisitions Fund. Also on offer from the Museum’s collection is On the Old Santa Fe Road ($2-3 million) and Untitled (Skunk Cabbage) ($500,ooo-750,000).

Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 was owned originally by the artist’s sister Anita O’Keeffe Young, whose estate was sold at Sotheby’s in December 1987. It was subsequently included in two private collections before being donated to the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum by The Burnett Foundation in 1996. The work hung in the White House for 6 years at the request of First Lady Laura Bush, and has been featured in nearly every major retrospective on the artist, including those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art.

UPDATE: IT MADE $44.4 MILLION, A NEW WORLD AUCTION RECORD FOR ANY FEMALE ARTIST.