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This watercolour by Martin Gale comes up at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current off the wall online art auction which runs until January 29. The auction of affordable art features work by a wide variety of practitioners including Peter Collis, Oisin Kelly, Elizabeth Magill, Markey Robinson, Alan Kenny, Thomas Rose Miles, Felim Egan, Cecil King, William Crozier, Peter Collis, Pauline Bewick and many more. The catalogue is online.
David Hockney’s California (1965) will be a highlight of Christie’s 20th / 21st Century evening sale in London on March 7. One of his first pool paintings and the first to include figures it has been Held in the same European private collection since 1968. It stands amonghis first great swimming pool paintings and has been unseen in public for more than 40 years. Christie’s estimate it in the region of £16 million.
California is the largest and finest in the extraordinary group of early pool paintings created in London after Hockney’s first visit to Los Angeles in 1964. The art historians Paul Melia and Ulrich Luckhardt have noted that ‘Hockney considers it to be one of his most important pool paintings’. The paintings that followed have come to be synonymous with his oeuvre, combining dazzling technical virtuosity with strains of fantasy, desire and longing.
Hockney incorporated a swimming pool in the 1964 painting California Art Collector but it was not until he returned to London for Christmas that year that he made his first full pool painting: a figureless composition entitled Picture of a Hollywood Swimming Pool (1964). California followed shortly afterwards, along with the closely related painting Two Boys in a Pool, Hollywood (1965). California anticipates many of the achievements that followed in Hockney’s subsequent masterpieces. Its kaleidoscopic depiction of moving water lays the foundations for the techniques explored in A Bigger Splash (1967, Tate, London) and Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) (1972). Its naked figures foreshadow the sensuous male nudes of Sunbather (1966, Museum Ludwig, Cologne) and Peter Getting Out of Nick’s Pool (1966, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). So essential did Hockney consider the painting to his oeuvre that, when unable to include it in his 1988 retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, he made his own copy, now held in the museum’s permanent collection.
With a major exhibition of Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer opening on February 24 the National Gallery of Ireland announced today that it welcomed over one million visitors in 2023. This is the highest attendance number since 2017. Major exhibitions including Lavinia Fontana: Trailblazer, Rule Breaker as well as It Took a Century: Women Artists and the RHA and Lavery. On Location helped visitor attendance at the Gallery increase by 29% compared to 2022. Vistiors found new acquisitions including La Vie des Champs (1876-77) by Paul Cézanne; Vase of Flowers with an Ear of Corn (1742) by Rachel Ruysch; Duft (1937) by Hannah Höch; and A Garden in France (1898) by Sir John Lavery. Exhibitions and displays included: Turner: The Henry Vaughan Bequest; James Coleman: Still Life (2013 – 2016); St Dymphna. The Tragedy of an Irish Princess; Pastel Revealed; Shelter; Zurich Portrait Prize & Zurich Young Portrait Prize; and Sarah Purser: Private Worlds.
Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer will run from February 24 to May 26 and will feature works by Dutch and Flemish artists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who were exponents of the tronie – an intriguing painting of a head. Paintings include Study of an Old Woman by Rubens, The Laughing Man, 1629-1630, by Rembrandt and The Man with the Golden Helmet, c. 1650 from the circle of Rembrandt. Vermeer’s most exquisitely detailed tronie, Girl with the Red Hat, c.1665-1667, is an exhibition highlight.
This early 20th century Donegal carpet in exceptional condition comes up at Sotheby’s in New York on January 30 with an estimate of $5,000-$7,000. The previous owner inherited it from his father, an antique restorer, who some 40-odd years ago was commissioned to work on some damaged library panelling for a client. In the course of the restoration he discovered a sealed room in which the carpet had been stored, probably for at least 50 years, which explains its exceptional condition with an extraordinary full pile. It comes up during Old Masters Week aslot 127 in a sale titled The Pleasure of Objects: The Ian and Carolina Irving Collection.
This Irish 18th century Cork silver sugar bowl comes up as lot 5 at Hegarty’s timed and live auction on January 24. It is engraved with initials to one side and a family crest to the other and estimated at 800-900. The auction includes French furniture, silver, art and collectibles and the catalogue is online.
The Winter 2024 Decorative Fair opens today at Battersea Park in London and runs until January 28. Since 1985 the design trade has flocked to The Decorative Fairs, which run three times a year, to source the finest choice of unusual and practical English and European antiques, super-stylish 20th century pieces, garden antiques, and a multitude of truly distinctive decorative items that are the making of unique and individual interiors and exteriors. Top trends currently include antique blue and white china and delftware, old-fashioned hall chairs, statement lights, traditional mahogany side tables, art nouveau glass, classical garden statuary, farmhouse refectory tables, modernist studio ceramics, dressers and small decorative mirrors. Landscape pictures and portraits are also making a comeback.
The National Antiques Fair at Limerick Racecourse next weekend is not set up as some sort of antidote to the Eurovision Song Contest – Ireland’s entry is due to be chosen on the Late Late next Friday evening – but it most definitely promises all kinds of everything. The way we lived, the music we listened to, the way we wore, the way we dined, and all sorts of half forgotten objects that used to accompany our everyday lives will be displayed here in abundance.
The younger moneyed crowd, keen to add to their collections of art or carats, will have their eye on expensive artworks by luminaries like Mary Swanzy or Kenneth Webb or set out to browse among the jewellery dealers, oldies like me will see things to bring us back…. Back to a time when the word brunch was unknown and when it was not unusual to get breakfast underway with half a grapefruit in a glass bowl along with a shaped spoon and a serrated silver knife designed to segment it, adorned perhaps with half a red cherry. If you feel a pang of nostalgia for those days then dealer Edwin Mercer has just the thing. He will bring a boxed grapefruit set, dated to 1927, with cut crystal dishes, two Sheffield silver spoons and serrated knife in a box set retailed by D. Stewart, Jewllery, Stirling.
A limited edition photo of Paul, Ringo and John by model and photographer Pattie Boyd, married sequentially both to George Harrison and Eric Clapton, will be of interest to Beatles fans. Art by Mary Swanzy does not turn up at fairs every day but dealer Conal Meyler from Inch will bring an unframed oil on paper. He deals mostly in 17th and 18th century Chinese porcelain and effects and is a relative newcomer to the fairs. A large fair like this one is dynamic and in an era when so many antique shops have vanished a number of new dealers are emerging. There will be more than 80 shops, dealers and galleries present and nine of them are making a first appearance.Fair organiser Robin O’Donnell of Hibernian Antique Fairs will bring a late 18th century Irish coromandel wood campaign chest. He describes it as the best example of a military campaign chest that he has come across in 40 years in the antiques business. It is complete with carrying handles and a fully fitted bureau.With dealers from all over the country this two day fair will run from 11 am to 6 pm on January 27 and 28. If the idea of a stroll into Aladdin’s Cave floats your boat then this promises to be a not to be missed show.
This early 20th century diamond double clip brooch comes up as lot 404 at O’Reilly’s auction of jewellery, silver and antiques at Francis St. in Dublin on January 24. There are 517 lots in total. The brooch illustrated here is set throughout with old cut diamonds mounted in white gold and is estimated at 7,700-8,000. The catalogue for the sale is online.
This Tiffany peony lamp is being shown by Macklowe Gallery, New York at the premier art, antiques and design fair in the United States, the New York Winter Show. Now in full swing there is a total of 70 internationally known dealers taking part. Museum quality works from antiquity to the present day are on display. This year the show is celebrating its 70th anniversary. It runs until January 28.
Where does Elton’s future lie? Let’s not go there. Suffice to say it is beyond Peachtree Road. The rock star is saying goodbye to his Atlanta condo at Park Place on Peachtree – acquired in 1992 – and Christie’s New York will sell the contents in a series of eight live and online sales beginning on February 21.He began collecting photographs in the 1990’s and there is work by pioneers like Andy Warhol, Helmut Newton, Robert Mapplethorpe, Peter Beard, Herb Ritts, Richard Avedon and more.Damien Hirst’s Your Song, signed and inscribed to Elton and David is estimated at $350,000-$450,000 (€319,850-€411,230) and a portrait of Elton John by Julian Schnabel is estimated at $200,000-$300,000 (€182,770-€274,150). There is fashion from his stage wardrobes including an ivory and gold piece designed by Annie Reavey c1971 and vintage Gianni Versace shirts and upholstery. The sale will offer tableware, decor, a grand piano, art glass, antiques and artefacts from his global travels. Live day sales will continue on February 22 and 23 and online sales open for bidding on February 9 and run to February 27 and 28.
