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Andy Warhol.

Art by Andy Warhol, much of it never before seen in public, is be offered by Christie’s in a series of phased sales over coming years.   The Andy Warhol Foundation for Visual Art has engaged Christie’s for sales of future work from its collection.  The Foundation, which has made nearly $250 million in grants to museums and non profit arts organizations worldwide since 1987, wants to expand its long term support of visual arts.  Christie’s will use multiple platforms, including single artist live auctions, private sales and continuing on-line auctions.  Meantime the Foundation plans to make additional gifts of significant works to museums.

Around 350 paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, and printed graphic material by Andy Warhol will be offered at three  single-artist live auctions on November 12, 2012. Online auctions will begin in February 2013 with private sales on an ongoing basis. Christie’s will launch a special promotional website in October. It will offer a central resource for sale-related information throughout the years of the partnership.

The Warhol estate, run by the Foundation, holds an inventory of around 350 paintings and 1,000 prints, plus drawings and photographs.

Raffaello Sanzio, called Raphael
Auxiliary cartoon for the Head of a Young Apostle  UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £29.7 MILLION

ONE of the greatest drawings by Raphael remaining in private hands is to be sold at Sotheby’s in London in December. Raphael’s Head of an Apostle c1519-20 is one of three Renaissance masterworks from the Devonshire Collection at Chatsworth to feature at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master Paintings and Drawings in London on December 5.

The drawing is a study for one of the key figures in The Transfiguration which hangs in the Vatican Museum in Rome. When Raphael died, his body was laid out in state in his studio, with the Transfiguration hanging at his head. Only two other Raphael drawings of this calibre have appeared at auction in the last 50 years – each of which set an all-time record for an Old Master Drawing when they were sold. This one is estimated at £10-15 million.

The manuscripts to be sold were made for two of the greatest libraries of the 15th century and are flawlessly preserved, with dazzling royal and ducal provenances. The first, the Mystere de la Vengeance (estimated at £4-6 million) was acquired by the 6th Duke of Devonshire at the celebrated Roxburghe sale of 1812, when it sold for £493.10s. – then the highest price ever paid for any illuminated manuscript. The second illuminated manuscript, estimated at £3-5 million, is an account of the fictional and swashbuckling Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East and was once among the most treasured works in the library of great Renaissance patron of the arts François I, king of France, 1515-47.

The Duke of Devonshire said the sale will benefit the long term future of Chatsworth and its collections.  (Click on any image to enlarge).

The Emperor Galba Enthroned
from the Mystere de la Vengeance
French Flanders (Hesdin), 1465 UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

The author’s discovery of the tomb of Sir Gillion and his two wives
from the Deeds of Sir Gillion de Trazegnies in the Middle East
Antwerp, 1464  UPDATE: THIS MADE £3.8 MILLION.

ANDY WARHOL – The Scream (After Munch), 1984 screenprint (£200,000 – 300,000). Click on image to enlarge. UPDATE: THIS MADE £211,250

WARHOL meets Munch at Sotheby’s sale of Old Master, Modern and Contemporary prints in London on September 19.  The auction will feature three exceptional prints by Andy Warhol which appropriate motifs from some of Munch’s most iconic works.

The Scream (After Munch), Eva Mudocci (After Munch), and Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm (After Munch) are a rare and enterprising offering from Warhol.  The three prints come to auction with a combined estimate of £500,000-700,000.  They are from a European private collection.

A woodcut by Edvard Munch which depicts The Girls on the Bridge, one of the artist’s most celebrated and popular compositions, is included.  Printed in 1918 it is estimated at £180,000 – 200,000.

Nearly 200 lots which showcase 500 years of print making will feature in the sale.

EDVARD MUNCH – The Girls on the Bridge. Woodcut, 1918 (£180,000 – 200,000). Click on image to enlarge.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £205,250

ANDY WARHOL – Madonna and Self-Portrait with Skeleton’s Arm (After Munch). 1984 screenprint (£200,000 – 300,000). Click on image to enlarge.  UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

ANDY WARHOL – Eva Mudocci (After Munch). 1984 screenprint (£100,000 – 150,000). Click on image to enlarge.  UPDATE: THIS MADE £121,250

WASSILY KANDINSKY (1866-1944) – Studie für improvisation 8. UPDATE: IT MADE $23,042,500

A major work from abstract art pioneer Wassily Kandinsky comes under the hammer at Christie’s in New York in November.  The auction house will offer Kandinsky’s “Study for improvisation 8” at its evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on November 7.  The work is a fully realized study for the last of eight paintings created in 1909 which the Russian artist called “Improvisations”.  The series is widely recognised for its significance to the advancement of abstract art.

Estimated at $20-30 million the mystical scene of a conquering hero wielding a golden sword has the potential to set a new record price for any work by the artist at auction.  The current record of $20.9 million was set in 1990.

Studie für improvisation 8 is offered from the collection of the Volkart Foundation, a charitable trust founded by Volkart Brothers, a prominent Swiss commodities trading firm established in 1851.  Since 1960, the painting has been on loan from the Foundation to the Kunstmuseum Winterthur in Switzerland.  Over the years, it has been featured in major museum shows organized by the Tate Modern, Kunstmuseum Basel, the Fondation Beyeler and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, among others.