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Yves Klein's FC1, described as one of the most important Post War European works of art. (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $36,482,500.

THE most important work by Yves Klein ever offered at auction, his Fire-Color Painting FC 1, comes up for sale in New York on May 8. Estimated at $30-40 million Christie’s say it is poised to break the world record for the artist at auction.  Contemporary art specialist Loic Gouzer said:  “Yves Klein’s FC 1 is to Europe what Pollock’s NUMBER ONE is to America. It is the ultimate heroic work fusing all of the elements that Klein learnt to master over his short and intense career. FC1 perfectly embodies Klein’s obsession with the irreconcilable concept of presence and absence, life and death”.

FC 1 depicts two female figures amid the fiery blue, gold and red flame-licked surface. The bodies hover on the borderline of abstraction, between the realms of the material and the immaterial. Two models acted as brushes. Doused with water they pressed themselves to a large sheet of treated cardboard. Klein then directed an intense flame towards the board.  The moisture soaked cardboard resisted. Then the models coated themselves in a subtle pink paint and pressed against the board.  They then applied a thicker coat of his IKB pigment to leave a last impression on the surface while he enhanced their silhouettes spraying pink and blue pigment with an airbrush.  By placing the sensual apparitions of the female body among the flame bursts and smoke shadows, Klein combined life and death in a way that speaks to the fragility of life but also to its permanence. On the one hand, there is a clear sense of the destructive power of the flame. On the other, the presence of the female forms hints at the eternal power of life that transcends all things.

Klein set daily life into the context of the spiritual realm he called the void; a void marked by the primal, eruptive, apocalyptic and eternal forces of life-giving and life-consuming energy. He stated: “The void has always been my main preoccupation, and I firmly believe that fires burn in the heart of the void as in the heart of man.”  He died aged 34 in 1962 shortly after the work was completed.

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $36,482,500.

Francis Bacon: Figure Writing, Reflected in Mirror is estimated at $30-40 million. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR $44,882,500.

A powerful work by Francis Bacon could make up to $40 million at Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale in New York on May 9. Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror represents some of Bacon’s most important themes and was included in the legendary 1977 exhibition at Galerie Claude Bernard in Paris.  The present owners purchased it at that exhibition. It has not been seen in public since.

The writing figure represents both Bacon’s partner George Dyer and the artist himself.  The mirror shows a second figure, rather than a reflection.  The seated man, brought to life with Bacon’s urgent brushwork, is confronted by a sheet of paper. Discarded paper on the ground betrays a creative struggle. Bacon was obsessed with the written word and drew inspiration from classical writers from Aeschylus to T.S. Eliot. This is his only canvas to feature someone writing.

Jeff Koons Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise). (Click on image to enlarge). Image credit Christie’s Images Ltd., 2012. UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £2,617,250

THE ultimate Easter Egg comes up at Christie’s post war and contemporary art evening auction in London on June 27.  Standing at almost two metres tall Jeff Koons’s Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise)  is from his iconic celebration series.  Executed from 1994-2008 this is one of five versions, each uniquely coloured.  The monumental sculpture is made of high-chromium stainless steel with transparent color coating and is estimated at £2,500,000 – 3,500,000.  It is the only one in brilliant blue/turquoise.

The Celebration series became a source of fascination for Koons.  Recording life’s milestones throughout the calendar year, the artist created monumental sculptures such as Baroque Egg with Bow (Blue/Turquoise) and others depicting balloon flowers and diamond rings to almost mouth-watering perfection. With its shimmering, mirrored surface the work recalls a monumental Easter egg as if rendered out of solid chocolate, belonging to some giant confectionary stand. It is this playful, childhood quality combined with the symbolically charged image of the egg: giver of new life and sign of the Christian resurrection, that makes this heroic sculpture so captivating.  And there are no calories!

UPDATE: IT SOLD FOR £2,617,250

Highlights from a unique archive collection of over 175 paintings and drawings by the celebrated 20th century Irish artist Sean O’Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) will go on exhibition at the Ava Gallery, Clandeboye, Co. Down from April 4-20.  The collection will be auctioned at Adams in Dublin on May 2.  Assembled over 50 years it has never been seen in public before. Most of the work came from the family of the artist, other pieces were acquired privately and at auction.  Values range from 200 to 10,000. There are lithographs, etchings, drawings, oils and watercolours of landscapes, interiors, still lives and portraits.  Sitters include Peig Sayers, Douglas Hyde, Myles na Gopaleen, Peadar O’Donnell, the artist Maurice MacGonigal and sculptor Paul Landowski who created the ‘Christ the Redeemer’ statue in Rio de Janeiro.

Sean O’Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) St. Audeon’s Under Snow (5,000-6,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 6,700.

Sean O'Sullivan RHA (1906-1964) Paul Landowski’s Studio, Paris (6,000-10,000). (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD.