antiquesandartireland.com

THERE will be an Irish art auction with more than 170 lots at the Pillo Hotel in Galway on May 22 at 6.30 p.m.  Dolan’s art auction house is moving from Woodquay, Galway in June. Meantime the entire sale is on view at their premises on Woodquay until 6 p.m. on Tuesday, May 22.  Here is a selection from the auction (click on any image to enlarge it):

UNTITLED by John Kingerlee (400-500). UPDATE: THIS MADE 450

Val Byrne, No Parking on the Long Walk (500-700). UPDATE: THIS MADE 750

Ivan Sutton, Galway Hooker Regatta, Roundstone Pier (1,800-2,400). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD AND IS UNDER NEGOTIATION AT 1,600.

Tom Greaney, Connemara Coast (850-950).Untitled by John Kingerlee (400-500). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,050.

Henry Morgan, Kilkee on a wet day (300-400). UPDATE: THIS MADE 350.

Evie Hone 1894 - 1955, Study for stained glass, gouache. (1,200-1,600). UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,000.

An art for alzheimers auction of 76 works generously donated by long established Cork artist Charlo Quain takes place at Triskel Christchurch on May 17.  The work will be sold without reserve and proceeds will go to the art programme at the home.

The auctioneer for the evening is Morgan O’Driscoll and all lots can be viewed on-line at  www.morganodriscoll.com or at www.stlukeshome.ie  Here is a small selection:

Charlo Quain (20th/21st Century) 'Summer Road, Ardmore'. (250-350). UPDATE: THIS MADE 240.

Charlo Quain (20th/21st Century) 'Open Mountain II'. (250-350). UPDATE: THIS MADE 100

Charlo Quain (20th/21st Century) 'Happy Red Balancing Bird'. (300-400). UPDATE: THIS MADE 220

Charlo Quain (20th/21st Century) 'Across the Estuary'. (400-600). UPDATE: THIS MADE 550

NATURE MORTE BY RODERIC O'CONOR (1860 - 1940) estimated at £50,000-80,000 did not sell.

The top lot overall at Sotheby’s sale of British and Irish art in London on May 10 was Sir William Orpen’s portrait of Rosie, Fourth Marchioness of Headfort.  Exhibited at the Royal Academy in London in 1915 it sold for £577,250. Irish art accounted for five of the top ten lots in the sale, but less than half the 56 Irish artworks in the auction found buyers.  An oil on canvas by Roderic O’Conor, L’Approache de Lezaven, Pont-Aven made £151,250 over a top estimate of £100,000.  It was bought by the UK trade.  Private UK buyers accounted for the other three Irish paintings in the top ten.  All were by Paul Henry. A Connaught Fishing Village sold for £145,250, Among the Twelve Pins, Connemara and The Edge of the Lake both sold for £115,250.

Two very different works on offer by the late Louis le Brocquy –  Travelling People from his celebrated Tinkers series and Masked Head from his head series  – failed to find buyers.  Two landscapes by James Arthur O’Connor (1792-1841) A View of Fin Lough and Delphi Lodge and A Mountain Road in Mayo sold for £36,050 and £22,500.  Sir John Lavery’s Kenmare River, Evening made £42,050. Among the unsolds were works by Orpen, Yeats, Henry, O’Conor, William Crozier, F.E. McWilliam, Patrick Scott, Dan O’Neill and Colin Middleton.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for May 4, April 12 and January 16, 2012.

Francis Bacon's Figure Writing, Reflected in a mirror painted in 1976. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: SOLD FOR $44,882,500

Roy Lichtenstein, Sleeping Girl dating from 1964. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: SOLD FOR $44,882,500

Masterpieces by Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein headed Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale in New York last night.  Bacon’s Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror and Lichtenstein’s Sleeping Girl from 1976 and 1964 respectively sold for $44,882,500 each.  It was a new world record for Lichtenstein. A further highlight was Double Elvis [Ferus Type] by Andy Warhol which sold for $37,042,500.

There was a record for Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei when one ton of his porcelain seeds sold for $782,500.

The auction saw a number of strong prices for the American master Cy Twombly who died last year. Untitled (New York City) from 1966 made $17,442,500, a new record for the artist at auction. Lichtenstein’s Sailboats III made $11,842,500, Ring, a striking 1981 self-portrait by Jean-Michel Basquiat made $7,642,500 and Arshile Gorky’s Khorkom sold for $2,770,500.

The auction total was $266,591,000, within the $216/304 million pre-sale estimate.  Altogether 81 per cent of the lots on offer were sold.  With five bidders in pursuit of the Bacon and six chasing Lichtenstein Sotheby’s reported a “remarkable” depth of bidding between $30-40 million.  Worldwide Head of Contemporary Art Tobias Meyer said:  “The top end of the market performed beautifully this evening due to a global demand for masterpieces that is almost unparalleled”.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for April 5, March 16 and February 27, 2012.

Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for $86,882,500.

A 1961 Rothko sold for nearly $87 million as contemporary art smashed records at Christie’s in New York last night. The auction, brimful of fresh to the market work by the most sought after artists, brought in $388.488 million over a high estimate of $329 million. Contemporary art reasserted its global position as the most popular selling category attracting the wealthiest collectors.

Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold for a stunning $86,882,500, beating the previous record set by the artist at Sotheby’s in 2007 by more than $15 million. It was the highest price ever for a contemporary artwork, beating the $86.3 million set by Francis Bacon at Sotheby’s in 2008. There were records too for artists like Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, Alexander Calder, Gerhard Richter and Yves Klein.

Yves Klein’s FC-1 sold for $36,482,500, Pollock’s “Number 28, 1951” made $23,042,500, Barnett Newman’s “Onement V” made $22,482,500, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (798-3) made $21,810,500 and Alexander Calder’s stabile “Lily of Force” from 1945 made $18,562,500.  In all 14 new world auction records were set, nine works sold above $10 million and 41 works made over $1 million.

The Rothko was one of 13 stellar works from the Pincus Collection.  With a combined total of $174,944,500 this now ranks as the most expensive collection of Post-War and Contemporary art ever offered at auction.  David and Geraldine Pincus, prominent Philadelphia collectors and philanthropists, assembled it over a lifetime.

For an explanation of how Yves Klein created FC 1 without brushes and without ever directly touching the surface of the work see the video post on antiquesandartireland.com for May 1 and the post for April 5, 2012.

Indoors, Outdoors by Louis le Brocquy at James Adam. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.

A 1951 masterpiece by Louis le Brocquy  “Indoors, Outdoors” is a feature lot at the James Adam sale of Irish art in Dublin on May 30. It is the most important work by le Brocquy to come to market since “Sick Tinker Child”, sold at Adams in 2006 for 820,000.

“Indoors, Outdoors” was the inspiration for  “A Family”, the monumental work in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland (see post on antiquesandartireland.com for April 25). The two paintings formed part of a critically acclaimed exhibition by le Brocquy at Gimpel Fils in London in 1951.  They were hung together again at the Venice Biennale in 1956.

By the time of Le Brocquy’s 1966 retrospective in the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin the picture belonged to Hollywood actress Dana Wynter who maintained a home in Wicklow.  She later sold it before the current owner bought it at an auction in Adam’s in June 1989 where it fetched the then world record price for his work, IR£60,000 (€76,200).  The estimate for the work now is 500,000. It is among over 60 paintings from the James Adam auction on show at the Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, Co. Down from May 9 to May 18.