Andy Warhol, American (1928-1987) – Crosses (Twelve) (1981-82).
The profound impact of his Byzantine catholic upbringing on one of the most celebrated artists of the 20th century is explored in Andy Warhol: Revelation at the Brooklyn Museum in New York until June 19. Catholicism is not the first thing that springs to mind when considering Andy Warhol but it greatly influenced his art and appeared frequently in his artworks.
From iconic portraits of celebrities to appropriated Renaissance masterpieces Warhol played with styles and symbolism from Catholic art history, reframing them within the context of Pop art. He retained some catholic rituals throughout his life while unapologetically living as a gay man. The show examines themes like life and death, Renaissance imagery, immigrant traditions and depictions of Christ. There are major paintings from his iconic Last Supper series (1986), a photo with Pope John Paul II and an unfinished film of the setting sun commissioned by the de Menil family and funded by the Roman Catholic Church.
THE 20th Century evening sale and the sale of the Cox Collection achieved a total of $751.9 million at Christie’s in New York last night. The Cox Collection made $332,031,500and was 100% sold, selling 160% against low estimate and 91% lots sold above high estimate. The 20th Century Evening Sale totaled $419,866,500, selling 92% by lot 96% by value, 113% sold against low estimate.
The Cox Collection was highlighted by three works by Vincent van Gogh. The sale was headlined by van Gogh’s 1889 masterpiece Cabanes de bois parmi les oliviers, which, after a five-minute battle between eleven bidders, sold for $71,350,000—the fourth highest price for the artist at auction—to a client in the room. The 1890 van Gogh oil painting Jeune homme au bleuet sold for $46,732,500 after nine and a half minutes of fierce and competitive bidding against a low estimate of $5,000,000. Van Gogh’s watercolor Meules de blé sold for $35,855,000 to a buyer in the room, setting a new record for a work on paper. Another exceptional price was achieved by Paul Cézanne’s L’Estaque aux toits rouges, which sold for $55,310,000 against a low estimate of $35,000,000. The Cox Collection sawglobal participation of bidders coming from 27 countries, with 52% sold by lot to the Americas, 35% to Europe and 13% to Asia.
Pablo Picasso – Mousquetaire à la Pipe sold for $34,710,000
The top lot at the 20th Century sale was Andy Warhol’s 1982 portrait of fellow artist Jean–MichelBasquiat from the collection of Peter Brant, which achieved $40,091,500. Notable results came from artworks spanning a multitude of genres, including Cy Twombly’s 1961 painting Untitled, which realised $32,000,000 and two Picasso paintings including Mousquetaire à la Pipe, which sold for $34,710,000—the highest price achieved for a work within Picasso’s Musketeer series—and 1955 portrait Femme accroupie en costume turc (Jacqueline) from the Stella Collection, which sold for $25,550,000.
The running total for Christie’s November marquee week of sales in New York stands at $971,176,750.
Andy Warhol (1928-1987) – Jean-Michel Basquiat.UPDATE: THIS MADE $40,091,500.
Andy Warhol’s seminal portrait of Jean-Michel Basquiat will be a leading highlight at Christie’s 20th Century evening sale in New York in November. It comes to market with an estimate in excess of $20 million. Warhol elevates the young Basquiat to his pantheon of cultural icons which includes Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. The work celebrates the remarkable friendship between the two artists. Thought to be the only example in private hands, this rare and deeply personal work dates from 1982. Warhol’s depiction of Basquiat stands as the only known portrait executed in oxidation form, and one of its sister paintings is housed in the permanent collection of the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh. This example has been in the collection of Peter Brant for nearly two decades, and has been widely exhibited, most recently at the Whitney Museum’s 2018-2019 Warhol Retrospective, Andy Warhol:From A to B and Back Again.
Andy Warhol’s Trucks Series (1985) will be offered at Christie’s Prints & Multiples online sale which runs from September 16-28. In June 1986 the German Federal Road Haulage Association (BDF) hosted the 20th World Congress of the International Road Transport Union (IRU) in Frankfurt am Main. It was for this occasion that the BDF commissioned Andy Warhol to produce a set of screenprints depicting a cargo truck. The series is being offered from the archive of the Association.
German art dealer Hermann Wünsche – one of the first gallerists to bring Andy Warhol’s work to Germany – was co-publisher. In 1976 he had arranged for Warhol to make a portrait of Willy Brandt, Germany’s first Social-Democratic Chancellor after the war, and went on to commission portraits of other prominent Germans, such as the president of the Cancer Society, Mildred Scheel (1980), and the goalkeeper of the National football team, Toni Schumacher (1983). Trucks Series is estimated at £50,000-70,000.
An exhibition of 20 works by Andy Warhol and Keith Haring will run at Gormleys in Dublin from May 22 to June 13. Key works include Warhol’s monochrome Mickey Mouse (FS II.265) from his 1981 Myths portfolio and his 1987 Moonwalk, which depicts Neil Armstrong’s photograph of Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin Jr walking on the moon in 1969. The show will include Haring’s Medusa Head, one of the largest works he ever completed, measuring a huge 250 cm x 140 cm. and a series of his most iconic and sought after Pop Shop works
“Warhol and Haring had a unique friendship, with Warhol acting as a mentor to Haring,” said James Gormley. “This is a rare opportunity to see both artists work showcased together, and we have never had a substantial Haring exhibition in Ireland before.”
The most significant collection to come to auction for years comes up at various sales at Sotheby’s in New York next May. At the heart of Anne Marion’s collection are masterworks by three of the greatest American artists of the post-War period: Andy Warhol’s iconic Elvis 2 Times, Richard Diebenkorn’s sublime Ocean Park No. 40; and Clyfford Still’s staggering PH-125 (1948-No. 1). All three works are estimated to achieve in excess of $20 million.
Legendary Texan rancher and businesswoman Anne Marion (1938-2020) was celebrated for her generous support of cultural institutions, critical contributions to education and healthcare, and her passion for the life and traditions of the American Southwest where her family had been rooted for generations. The treasures of her own private collection have remained – until now – largely unknown. It is estimated in the region of $150 million.
The great-granddaughter of Captain Samuel Burk Burnett (1849-1922) she was heiress to the historic, world-renowned Four Sixes Ranch in King County, Texas. Samuel took the unusual step of willing the bulk of his estate to his 22-year-old granddaughter, ‘Big Anne’, to be held in trust for her unborn child (the future ‘Little Anne’ Marion), thereby launching the tradition of female leadership of one of Texas’ greatest family businesses. Following her mother’s death in 1980, ‘Little Anne’ took over management of the business and ran it for the next forty years. She was a trusted board director and benefactor of the Kimbell Art Museum for four decades, and a trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Hugh Hildesley, who joined Sotheby’s in 1961 and played an integral role in the company’s formative years in the US, was a longstanding colleague of Sotheby’s eminent chairman and auctioneer John L. Marion, Anne’s husband for the last 32 years of her life. He remembers: He remembers: “The sheer scope of Anne’s astounding achievements will prove influential and transformative for generations to come: from her role as President of the Burnett Foundation to founding the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum; donor of the Marion Emergency Care Center in Fort Worth, to tireless Trustee of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. Anne knew quality when she saw it”.
Andy Warhol’s portraits of Mohammed Ali made €210,000 at hammer at Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International art sale last night. With bidders from Ireland, the US, the UK and mainland Europe the online auction grossed €2 million. The Ali portrait went to an Irish collector. Among the other hammer prices were Dan O’Neill’s Summer (€125,000); Bridget Riley R2114 (€100,000); Sean Scully, 9.2.89 (€85,000); Jack Butler Yeats, A Hooker and a Nobbie (€70,000): Banksy, Morons (Sepia) (€68,000); Dan O’Neill, Girl with Flower (€60,000); Basil Blackshaw, Grey Mare (€36,000); Louis le Brocquy, Orange (€29,000); Andy Warhol, The Nun from Ingrid Bergman (€28,000) and Harry Kernoff, The Twelve Pins, Renvyle, Connemara (€25,000).
DANIEL O’NEILL (1920-1974). Summer sold for 125,000 at hammer
The Irish and International art online auction by Morgan O’Driscoll on October 27 has aroused significant interest at home and abroad. The international selection, headed by Warhol’s portraits of Mohammed Ali, is strong and includes work by Banksy, Bridget Riley, Howard Hodgkin, Ai Weiwei, Damien Hirst, Sol Lewitt and others. With 176 lots in total there is a good representation of leading Irish artists including Sean Scully, Louis le Brocquy, Jack Butler Yeats, William Crozier, John Butler Yeats, Sir William Orpen, Mainie Jellett, Kenneth Webb, Barry Castle, Tony O’Malley, Patrick Graham, Pauline Bewick and many more. There is sculpture by John Behan, Sandra Bell, Orla de Bri, F.E. McWilliam and others.
BANKSY (20TH/21ST CENTURY) BRITISH – Morons (Sepia), 2007 (20,000-30,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 68,000 AT HAMMER
Global icon Mohammed Ali was ahead of the curve and larger than life. He looms large in Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International online art auction which runs until October 27. A portfolio of four screenprints of Ali by Andy Warhol is, at €200,000-€300,000, the most expensively estimated lot in the sale.Long before Black Lives Matter, when Mississippi was burning, Ali embarked on a search for a more just society. His questioning, talented and interesting character made him a fascinating study for a portrait. Warhol conveys a strong sense of his persona using face, arms and clenched fists. Ali was 37 at the time, an icon of the game. One of the portraits shows him looking down, as if in humility.In a note to the catalogue Peter Murray, the former Crawford Gallery curator, recounts how in 1977 Warhol was commissioned by Richard Weisman to paint silkscreen portraits of ten famous athletes. The resulting prints, titled Athletes, are among the artist’s best-known works. Warhol took polaroid photographs of the boxer in fighting poses and at rest. The resulting images transferred to canvas using acrylic and silkscreen ink transformed into art that was instantly popular amongst art collectors and the public. The paintings were produced in a limited edition of eight, while the subsequent print edition, of which this is one, was limited to one hundred and fifty. It is just one of a number of treasures, Irish and international, in an auction of 179 lots. Harry Kernoff’s treatment of a landscape in Connemara (€20,000-€30,000) could not be more different than the paintings of Paul Henry. Banksy’s Morons (Sepia) from 2007 is a send up of the art auction business estimated at €20,000-€30,000. Sean Scully’s 9.2.89 has an estimate of €80,000-€120,000 and Hughie O’Donoghue’s Red Earth VI (1995) (€30,000-€50,000) is positively scorching. An original gouache by Bridget Riley is estimated at €100,000-€150,000 while a 2019 papercut portfolio by Ai Weiwei has an estimate of €14,000-€18,000. This is a serious sale, which will be of huge interest to collectors in Ireland and abroad. Through viewings in London and New York in pre-pandemic times Morgan O’Driscoll has built up a following for his major sales that has a long international reach. In the process he has given Irish art and artists a welcome shot in the arm.
ANDY WARHOL – MOHAMMED ALI. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 210,000 AT HAMMER.
Cow (FS II.12A) by Andy Warhol, one of around 100 signed copies of a 1979 screenprint, features at Gormleys online auction in Belfast on July 21. The estimate is €9,000-€13,000. There are works by leading Irish artists like James Humbert Craig, Charles McAuley, Markey Robinson, and Neil Shawcross. The Loop, Cushendun, a stunning lakeside scene by Craig, is estimated at €3,200-€4,200.
Andy Warhol, Cow (FS II.12A), signed screenprint on wallpaper. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR 14,000
