This is Raquel Welch’s beaded and rhinestone gown designed by Bob Mackie and worn to a 1979 photoshoot. It comes up at Julien’s online sale in Hollywood on April 12 with an estimate of $2,000-$3,000 as part of a sale titled Bombshell: The Raquel Welch Collection. One of Hollywood’s most famous sex symbols Welch, who died in 2023, became a pioneer of the strong female lead character from her roles in Fantastic Voyage, Hannie Caulder, Myra Breckinridge and The Three Musketeers for which she won a Golden Globe award. There are annotated film scripts, memorabilia like her Screen Actors Guild card, costumes and pieces from her home. Among 500 lots are the earrings worn when she played herself in Season 8, episode 22 of Seinfeld and the iconic fur bikini from One Million Years B.C. which became one of the biggest pin up posters of all time. UPDATE: THIS DRESS SOLD FOR $6,500
Primrose Hill by Frank Auerbach UPDATE: THIS MADE 21,000 AT HAMMER
With signed Andy Warhol and Joan Miro screenprints, contrasting approaches to landscape in views of Primrose Hill by Frank Auerbach and Union Hall by Donald Teskey, an oil on canvas by Conor Harrington, still lifes, interiors and a bravura portrait by Genieve Figgis the April 9 Irish and International sale by Morgan O’Driscoll is characterised by great variety.
The first two artworks of the 164 lots on offer, a pen drawing by Jack B Yeats redolent of an Ireland long vanished and a fairly abstract lithograph entitled Coloured Wall by Sean Scully, illustrate this diversity very well. The most expensively estimated lot is Villas near the Sea, Cassis (1913) by Roderic O’Conor (€70,000-€100,000). At the other end of the cost scale is a 1980 photograph of Samuel Beckett by John Minihan (€300-€500) and an oil on board of The Rosses, Co. Donegal by Estella Solomons (€500-€750).
Artists are often fascinated by the unformed drawings of the very young. At first glance Primrose Hill by Frank Auerbach – a series of crayon squiggles on a page – looks like something your average two or three year old might have produced. The clue is in the title. Look more closely and an image of Hampstead Heath on a summer day emerges, complete with winding path, trees, blue sky and approaching dark clouds. The colour range is precise. In his catalogue entry Peter Murray notes: “Much of the drawing’s zest and energy is created by this understanding of colour theory translated into action that underpins the seemingly random and chaotic marks and results in an impressive work of art created from the simplest materials”. Auerbach’s Primrose Hill (€15,000-€25,000) is indeed fascinating and no, you could not do it yourself.
Union Hall, West Cork by Donald Teskey. UPDATE: THIS MADE 29,000 AT HAMMER
Union Hall by Donald Teskey presents a beguiling picture of the charming west Cork fishing village and is estimated at €20,000-€30,000.
The catalogue cover lot is a screenprint by Andy Warhol titled Ladies and Gentlemen II.135 (1975). The estimate is €7,000-€9,000. A William Scott screenprint, Still Life with Frying Pan and Eggs, is estimated at €5,000-€7,000 and there are etchings and prints by Georges Braque, Damien Hirst, Mr. Brainwash and Joan Miro whose La Megere et La Lune (1973) was published by Maeght Paris and numbered 36 from an edition of 50. A pencil drawing of Dock St., Belfast by L.S. Lowry dates to 1964 and is estimated at €15,000-€20,000.
Master of Money and Mirrors by Conor Harrington. UPDATE: THIS MADE 40,000 AT HAMMER
Master of Money and Mirrors is an oil on canvas by the Cork artist Conor Harrington whose street art propelled him to fame. He is now represented in a growing number of collections and this piece is estimated at €40,000-€60,000. Portrait of a Lady by Dublin born Genieve Figgis, whose use of Twitter propelled her to the international stage, is estimated at €30,000-€50,000.
A portrait of a lady in a white dress by Cork born Adam Buck (1759-1833) is estimated at €2,000-€3,000 and a unique 3D wood relief by Maser has an estimate of €4,000-€6,000. There is sculpture by, among others, John Behan, Rowan Gillespie, Helen Walsh, Patrick O’Reilly, Siobhan Bulfin and Mark Rode.
Viewing takes place in Skibbereen on today, tomorrow and Monday and in Dublin at the RDS from April 5 to April 8. The auction will begin to close at 6.30 pm on April 9.
No to War by Patrick O’Reilly. UPDATE: THIS MADE 2,400 AT HAMMER
A World War I British Army recruitment poster featuring Inchigeelagh born Victoria Cross recipient Michael O’Leary comes up as lot 18 at O’Donovan’s online auction in Newcastlewest on April 3. He was awarded Britain’s most prestigious award for gallantry for single handedly charging and destroying two German barricades defended by machine gun positions at Cuinchy in France in 1915.
Subsequently feted in London and Macroom he was jeered by Ulster Volunteers during a recruitment drive in Ballaghaderreen in the autumn of 1915. This caused such a scandal that it was raised in the Houses of Parliament. O’Leary, who died in London in 1961, served in France in the same regiment as British actor Stanley Holloway and the two, both born in 1890, remained lifelong friends. Holloway often stayed at The May Fair Hotel where O’Leary was concierge. The recruitment poster is estimated at €150-€250. The contents of two pubs in Cork and Limerick will be offered by O’Donovan’s. The auction offers collectibles and many items of interest including a Michael Collins portrait poster, a Dan Breen wanted poster, an Allman’s Irish Whisky mirror, advertising signs and road signs of various sorts.
Untitled 1984 by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat – the most significant collaboration painting at auction in a decade – will highlight Sotheby’s marquee contemporary art auction in New York in May. This large -scale example of a creative experiment that fused their distinctive visual languages and styles – Warhol’s signature use of screenprinting and mechanically produced imagery, such as corporate logos, coupled with Basquiat’s expressionistic, figurative scrawls in paintstick – to create one of the most singular bodies of work in 20th century art during their famed period of collaboration from 1983 – 1985. In the four decades since their creation, the Warhol-Basquiat collaboration paintings have only added to the mystique and legend of their creators, and stand out as daring testaments to their artistic partnership and friendship.
Coming to auction for the first time in nearly 15 years with an estimate in the region of $18 million, Untitled’s sale is set to mark a new benchmark price for the series.
EVIE HONE (1894-1955) – SKETCH FOR THE PENAL DAYS (c1936-37). UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,000 AT HAMMER
Evie Hone’s design for a small stained glass window made in the 1930’s for An Túr Gloine (The Tower of Glass) comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current Irish and International Art online auction which runs until April 9. The gouache on paper is based on her studies of medieval stone carvings in Ireland. The lunette, which featured at Hone’s retrospective in Dublin in 1958, is now housed the Chapel of Rest at Tallaght University Hospital. The estimate on the sketch is 3,000-5,000.
The sale is on view in Skibbereen on March 29. 30, 31 and on April 1 and at the RDS in Dublin from April 5-8. The catalogue is online.
The first exhibition dedicated to the pioneering stained glass studio An Túr Gloine (The Tower of Glass), founded in 1903 by Sarah Purser is now open at The National Gallery and continues until January 12, 2025. Featured artists include Wilhelmina Geddes, Michael Healy, Catherine O’Brien, Alfred E. Child, Hubert McGoldrick, Ethel Rhind and Evie Hone.
A Rare Mughal Silk Rug, The Deccan, South India, Early 18th century of ‘Flower in Lattice’ design, (Estimate £120,000-160,000 | US$160,000-200,000
This rare Mughal silk rug is among the highlights at Christie’s bi annual Spring sale of Art of the Islamic and Indian Worlds including rugs and carpets in London on April 25. It was formerly in the collection of Senator William A. Clark in 1910, who gifted it to the Corcoran Museum of Art, Washington. Works include paintings, ceramics, metal work, works on paper, arms, textiles and rugs and carpets from across the Islamic world, spanning the Silk Route linking China to the West dating from the 10th to the 20th centuries. There are over 100 rare and collectible rugs and carpets in the sale. Another highlight is a rare and complete illustrated manuscript copy of the Khamsa of Nizami (d.1209) together with the Khamsa of Amir Khusraw Dihlavi (d.1325). This splendid manuscript copy of the two Khamsas is an outstanding example of Safavid manuscript production in the first half of the 17th century.
A rare and complete illustrated manuscript copy of the Khamsa of Nizami (d.1209) together with the Khamsa of Amir Khusraw Dihlavi (d.1325) (Estimate £500,000-700,000 / US$640,000-890,000).
Francis Bacon’s haunting Portrait of George Dyer Crouching comes up at Sotheby’s contemporary art evening auction in New York in May. It is the first in a series of ten monumental portraits of Dyer created between 1966 and 1968 and it has never been on the auction market before. Dyer is portrayed shirtless, crouched over his discarded shirt like a predator over his prey, his head depicted in triplicate as it turns towards the viewer, combining Dyer’s face with Bacon’s, nodding to their indivisibility. This image of the entwined head is among the best examples within Bacon’s oeuvre – a significant motif that would persist throughout his work. The revolutionary impact that Dyer and Bacon had on each other’s lives can be felt palpably here, as the first painting in a series that would, over years, chronicle the seduction and sadness, frustration and fulfillment, tension and collapse that underlined one of the most tempestuous relationships in art history.
It was acquired from The Marlborough Gallery in 1970 and has not been on the market since. It is the first full-scale portrait of Dyer at auction since another from this same cycle, George Dyer Talking, sold in 2014 for $70 million – establishing the record for any single-panel portrait by Bacon. The centerpiece of Francis Bacon: Man and Beast held at the Royal Academy of Arts, London in 2022 Portrait of George Dyer Crouching is estimated at between $30 million and $50 million.
A VAN CLEEF & ARPELS CHRYSOPRASE AND DIAMOND BROOCH. UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
This Van Cleef & Arpels chrysoprase and diamond brooch modelled as a four leafed clover comes up as lot 296 at O’Reilly’s auction of fine jewellery, silverware and antiques in Dublin on March 27. Signed and numbered and in 18 carat gold it is estimated at €12,000-€14,000. Chrysoprase is a gemstone variety of chalcedony. The catalogue for the sale is online.
K. Knitting by Colin Middleton at James Adam. UPDATE: THIS MADE 21,000 AT HAMMER
This one or that one? With sales of Irish art at de Veres on Tuesday on March 26, James Adam on the following evening and a Spring online art sale running at Whyte’s until March 25 the key decision facing many collectors of Irish art in the coming week is what to choose.
If like so many collectors you love John Behan’s Famine Ships and have not yet got around to acquiring one there will be an opportunity to do so at de Veres. Lot 21, a signed and dated bronze Famine Ship from 2021, is estimated at €8,000-€12,000. The most expensively estimated lot is Sean Keating’s Eliza Doolittle in Dublin (€50,000-€70,000). Art by Keating, Colin Middleton, Patrick Collins, John Behan, John B Vallely, Felim Egan and George Russell head up the catalogue at de Veres.
Famine Ship (2021) by John Behan at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 9,000 AT HAMMER
The sale is characterised by a variety that encompasses fairly abstract works like Menhirs on the Plain by Patrick Collins (€10,000-€15,000) and Pool by Felim Egan (€7,000-€10,000) to landscapes like Resting in the Wood by George Russell (€7,000-€10,000) and a Wind Blown Tree in Killary by Letitia Marion Hamilton (€4,000-€6,000). There is a collection of works on paper by Mainie Jellett and art by Tim Goulding, Peter Curling, Tony O’Malley, Sean McSweeney, Barrie Cooke, Desmond Carrick, Roy Lyndsey, Arthur Maderson and many others with estimates from as little as €100.
Painting and sculpture by many of Ireland’s best loved artists from the 19th century to the present day will feature at Wednesday evening’s sale of Important Irish Art at James Adam. The most expensively estimated lots are The Bog (1911) by Paul Henry (€60,000-€80,000), Spring Morning (1957) by Patrick Collins (€30,000-€50,000) from the collection of Sir Basil Goulding and K. Knitting by Colin Middleton from the early 1960’s (€15,000-€20,000). This modernist work in Cubist style depicts the artist’s wife Kathleen in an intimate domestic scene.
Aubusson Tapestry entitled Woman and Two Bantam Cocks by Pauline Bewick and Regine Bartsch at James Adam. UPDATE: THIS MADE 6,000 AT HAMMER
There are estimates of from €10,000-€15,000 on Lot and his Daughters by Dan O’Neill, Being by Louis le Brocquy, Solitude, Lough Neagh by Dan O’Neill and Rebuilding of Monte Cassino by Patrick Hennessy which featured on these pages last Saturday. This work was exhibited at the Irish Museum of Modern Art in 2016 and is one of a number in the sale by Patrick Hennessy and Harry Robertson Craig from the collection of Dublin couple George and Pamela Fegan, friends of both artists.
There is a selection of work by women artists like sisters Eva and Letitia Hamilton, Grace Henry, Evie Hone and Pauline Bewick. Bewick is not widely known for her tapestries and the sale offers a collaboration with Kerry based artist Regine Bartsch titled Woman and Two Bantam Cocks. Woven by Aubusson master weaver Bernard Battu in 2003 it is based on a tapestry woven by Bartsch for Bewick in the mid 1980’s and is estimated at €1,000-€2,000.
The sale offers 19th century oils by James Arthur O’Connor, John Henry Campbell and Thomas Sautelle Roberts and 20th century sculpture by artists including John Behan, Bob Quinn, Oisin Kelly, Eamon O’Doherty and Patrick O’Reilly.
The Spring art online sale at Whyte’s celebrates a selection of affordable art from Ireland and around the world. There should be Cork interest in two etchings by James Barry (€500-€700), a pencil drawing by Daniel Maclise (€150-€200) and a miniature portrait of a boy by Adam Buck (€400-€600). There are prints and etchings by William Crozier, Elizabeth Frink, Ronnie Wood, Jack B Yeats, Elizabeth Rivers and Bernard Dunston and a wide selection of work by acclaimed Irish artists.
Catering for many tastes and both deep and shallow pockets these sales combine to present a fascinating and complex array of beautiful choices. Now it is over to you…..
Wind Blown Tree, Killary by Letitia Marion Hamilton at de Veres. UPDATE: THIS MADE 12,000 AT HAMMER
A Shining Palace by William Leech (1881-1968) is among the leading lots at Sotheby’s Irish Auction in Paris this year. Sales in 2022 and 2023 drew bidders from the UK, US, Canada, Australia, France, Austria and other European countries. In 2024 Sotheby’s will hold a third instalment of this sale from April 25-May 2 with a number of private tours and artists talks while the sale is on view in Paris. Work by Roderic O’Conor, Louis le Brocquy, Sir John Lavery, Gerard Dillon, FE McWilliam, Melissa O’Donnell, Rowan Gillespie, Orla de Bri, Gareth Reid, who was Sky’s Portrait Artist of the Decade and a group of works by Patrick Scott from the artist’s estate will feature. The auction remains open for consignments until the end of March. Highlights will be on view at Sotheby’s, Molesworth St., Dublin next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (March 26-29). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 50,800
