antiquesandartireland.com

The Scream being sold at Sotheby’s for $119.9 million this year.

AVID readers of this website  – and it is good to know that there are many – will know that Paul Cezanne’s painting The Card Players (1892-1892) is the most expensive painting ever sold.  It is believed to have been bought for $250 million from Greek shipping magnate George Embiricos by the Qatari Royal family.  (See post on antiquesandartireland.com for February 4, 2012).

The top ten list of the most expensive paintings sold has seen several changes over the past couple of years.  On the current updated list The Card Players is followed by:  2 – Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer I (1907) by Gustav Klimt ($152.6 million); 3 – No. 5, 1948 by Jackson Pollock ($140 million); 4 – Woman III (1953) by Willem de Kooning (|$137.5 million);  5 – The Scream (1895) by Edvard Munch ($119.9 million):  6 – Nude, Green Leaves and Bust (1932) by Pablo Picasso ($106.5 million);   7 – Garcon a la pipe (1905) by Pablo Picasso  ($104.2 million):  8 – Orange, Red, Yellow (1961) by Mark Rothko ($86.9 million); 9 – Portrait of Dr. Gachet (1890) by Vincent van Gogh ($82.5 million); 10 – Bal du moulin de la Galette (1876) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir ($78.1 million).

Flanders Fields VIII by Maurice Desmond. (Click on image to enlarge).

THE art of Maurice Desmond is entirely his own.  There are ways in which this influential Cork based artist is an outsider.  Nonetheless his work has had an inspirational impact on many younger artists and his following, though relatively small in market terms, is both discriminating and loyal. After you come to know the work insofar as it will ever allow the viewer to know it the art of Maurice Desmond is as recognisable as it is independent. Emerging at its own unhurried pace it offers layer after layer of contrast and conundrum.  The viewer can get lost in introspective images which point towards unknowing, unknown and uncharted territories.

Flanders Fields, his first show since 2005, is inspired by the sites of some of the bloodiest battles of the Great War.  Maurice Desmond has visited these sites over a number of years, at the same time as immersing himself in the poetry of Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas and Siefried Sassoon.  The resulting images are on show, at the Vangard Gallery  in Macroom, Co. Cork, from July 28 to September 8.

Erskine Nicol’s iconic “A shebeen at Donnybrook” (1851). (Click on image to enlarge).

THE life of Irish people as depicted in art over the past 200 years is the focus of the summer loan exhibiton at the Ava Gallery, Clandeboye Estate, Co. Down.  ‘Ireland: Her People and Landscape’ presented by Adams at Clandeboye comprises over 50 important paintings, drawings and sculpture from the 19th and 20th centuries.  Drawn from private collections across Ireland it is a non commercial event, with works on loan rather than for sale.  There is iconic work by artists including Richard Thomas Moynan, Sir John Lavery, Walter Osborne, James Humbert Craig, Erskine Nicol, Charles Lamb, Sean O’Sullivan, Lilian Davidson, Sean Keating and many others.

David Britton, Director, Adam’s and The Ava Gallery said: “The landscape of Ireland has been a continual draw for artists regardless of their approach to painting, and this exhibition tells a unique story of Ireland’s social history through it. From laborers toiling the land or loading boats with turf, in the west of Ireland to bustling country fairs, families going to mass, a day at the races, or children’s playtime activities, the collection of works tracks time and marks the gradual modernization of Ireland both socially and artistically”.  The show runs until September 7.

The Jockey, Gerard Dillon. (Click to enlarge).

Richard Thomas Moynan, The Travelling Show. (Click to enlarge).

Charles Lamb, Connemara Harvesters. (Click to enlarge).