Paul Signac – Calanque des Canoubiers (Pointe de Bamer), Saint-Tropez sold for £8,015,000
Paul Signac’s Calanque des Canoubiers (Pointe de Bamer), Saint-Tropez realised the top price of £8,015,000 at Christie’s 20th/21st century London evening sale on June 28. The sale totalled £63.8 million. Global interest in Jean Michel Basquiat continued when his iconic tribute to the legacy of Picasso Untitled (Pablo Picasso) was sold for £6,462,500 to a client in the room. Collectors from around the world gathered in London for a sale where 61 lots sold in two hours. There was spirited bidding for new contemporary names and female artists.
Diane Dal-Pra’s surrealist portrait, It Belongs to You, sold to an online bidder for £113,400 against an estimate of £30,000-50,000, achieving a new world auction record for the artist. Sahara Longe’s Self-Portrait sold for £113,400, marking the artist’s evening sale debut (estimate: £40,000-60,000). Caroline Walker’s Recreation Pavilion sold for £441,000 (estimate: £150,000-250,000). Louis Fratino’s Listening to a conchwas the first work by the artist to be included in a Christie’s London evening sale, made £201,600. Victor Man’s Weltinnenraum (World Within) saw 25 bidders competing against one another before it sold for £1,734,000, a world auction record for the artist.
Lady with a fan by Gustav Klimt at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £85.3 MILLION TO BECOME THE MOST VALUABLE PAINTING EVER SOLD IN EUROPE.
A late painting by Klimt set to become the most valuable artwork ever sold in Europe, wonderful antique furniture, portraits and exceptional collectibles will make rich pickings for the rich and plenty of eye candy for the rest of us in London in the coming weeks. This is the time of year when the art world descends on the British capital for a variety of major sales, fairs and significant one off events like the re-opening after five years of the world renowned National Portrait Gallery. Despite some indications that the global art market might be in slightly hesitant mode right now the London summer season of 2023 is unlikely to disappoint. Lady with a Fan by Klimt at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening sale on June 27 has an estimate of around €80 million. The last portrait he painted was still on an easel in the studio at the time of his untimely death in the flu pandemic of 1918. Featuring an unnamed woman it is described by Sotheby’s as an ever deeper, ever more joyful immersion in pattern, colour and form, filled with the creative exuberance. The auction will offer a strong grouping of portraits with work by artists like Alberto Giacomett and Edvard Munch.
These c1765 carved mirrors in the Chippendale style are being shown by Ronald Phillips at the Treasure House Fair
In celebration of the re-opening of London’s National Portrait Gallery last Thursday the dynamism of portraiture across the centuries, redefined by each generation, will again be highlighted at Christie’s sale on June 28. One of the more contemporary offerings here is Diplomacy I by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Part of the Tate Retrospective which closed last February it depicts a group of suited delegates recalling Marion Kaplan’s photographs of African heads of state at a summit in Uganda in 1967. The artist has created bold new characters for black representation in art. In this imagined portrait Yiadom-Boakye has inserted a single woman, clad in pink. The sale offers portraits by Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Edgar Degas, Lucian Freud and Howard Hodgkin.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Diplomacy I (2009) at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE £1,371,000
The Treasure House Fair, in full swing until next Monday at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, was generated by leading UK dealers after the cancellation of Masterpiece, which cited a lack of overseas exhibitor interest. Treasure House has attracted dealers from France, Switzerland and the US like Geoffrey Diner and Michele Beiny. There is fine antique furniture from leading UK dealers like Ronald Phillips at this curated global event with distinguished names across a wide range of disciplines.Meantime the city is gearing up for London Art Week which runs from June 30 to July 7 with 53 specialists and expert dealers with museum quality examples of decorative arts, paintings, sculpture and works on paper from antiquity to contemporary. Various galleries will show work by Irish artists like Sir John Lavery, Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (who lived here for a time) Augustus John and Gwen John as well showcasing artists from Giambologna to Renoir, Picasso and Dora Maar. The Fine Arts Society will exhibit an enamel by Phoebe Anna Traquair, the Irish born artist who achieved international recognition for her role in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland. She produced large scale murals, embroidery, enamel jewellery and book illuminations. On show in London is The Life of the Virgin (1906), three plaques in enamel with foil on copper.
The Life of the Virgin (1906) by Dublin born Phoebe Anna Traquair is on display at the Fine Arts Society in London.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, R.A. (1775-1851) – Sunrise over the Sea, perhaps at Margate courtesy CHRISTIE’S IMAGES LTD. 2023. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £1,032,200.
Capturing the enigmatic fleeting beauty of changing sunlight celebrated across cultures and across time, Sunrise over the Sea, perhaps at Margateby J M W Turner is a highlight at Christie’s Old Master and British Drawings and Watercolours sale on July 4 during Classic Week in London. Harriet Drummond, International Head of British Drawings and Watercolours, commented: “This remarkably well-preserved and ravishingly beautiful drawing is an exceptional example of the boldly expressive watercolours Turner made in his final years. Previously dated to the later 1820s, it is has now been associated by Ian Warrell for the first time with sheets of one of the ‘roll’ sketchbooks that were broken up and dispersed after Turner’s death. Turner deployed these light-weight books on many of his later travels in the early 1840s, notably in Germany, Venice and the celebrated final tours of Switzerland. In this instance, the dismantled book can be placed in the sequence of sketchbooks used during the summer of 1845 overlapping in its focus on cloudy skies over the sea with the contents of the ‘Channel’ sketchbook at the Yale Center for British Art, and several of those in the Turner Bequest at Tate Britain.”
The watercolour is estimated at £600,000-800,000.
Turner has posthumously often been celebrated for his depictions of sunset light, but in recent years many of the works John Ruskin and others had identified as that time of day have been retitled as sunrises. Turner confessed to a young admirer at the time: ‘when you are all fast asleep, I am watching effects of sunrise far more beautiful [than the sunsets people associated with him]; and then, you see, the light does not fail, and you can paint them’ (M. Lloyd, ‘A Memoir of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.’, (1880), Turner Studies, summer 1984, vol. 4, no. 1, p. 22). It was this kind of dedicated approach to the observation of changing light that anticipates Claude Monet’s method of painting successive canvases, working on each within a limited time frame during the course of a day; both Turner and Monet were especially drawn to the special character of dawn and twilight.
Records were broken for women artists and for artists of colour, continuing a trend of the past several seasons at Christie’s sale of the Gerald Fineberg Collection in New York last night. The evening achieved $153,053,300, bringing the total for the Spring Marquee Week to $878,066,496, with a final sale remaining. Christopher Wool’s Untitled made $10,070,000 and was the top lot of the evening. There were notable results for Gerhard Richter’s Badende which made $9,610,000; Pablo Picasso’s Buste d’homme lauré which mde $8,460,000 and a Joan Mitchell abstraction Untitled which made $6,584,000.
Jean-Michel Basquiat – El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) made $67,110,000
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) was the top lot at Christie’s 21st Century evening sale in New York last night. It made $67,110,000 in an auction of 26 lots which brought in $98,802,500, selling 96% by lot and 123% hammer against low estimate. More than one third of lots set artist records; five were set for female artists – Robin F. Williams, Simone Leigh, Danielle McKinney, Rebecca Ackroyd, and Diane Arbus – as well as records for Vojt?ch Kova?ík, El Anatsui, Peter Saul, and William Eggleston (for a single work).
Combined with the successful sale of the S.I. Newhouse Collection and the 20th Century Evening Sale on May 11 and the series of Day Sales May 12 – 13, this auction brought Christie’s running total for its 20th and 21st Century Spring Marquee Week auctions to $725,013,196.
Masterpieces from the S.I. Newhouse collection and the 20th century evening sale brought in $506,571,600 at Christie’s in New York last night. The evening began with 16 works from the collection of S.I. Newhouse, which achieved a total of $177,792,000, selling 100% by lot, and 105.6% by low estimate. With this sale, the Collection of S.I. Newhouse is now established as the sixth highest collection total of all time, combined with a total of $237,975,000 made during sales in 2018 and 2019. Highlights included Francis Bacon’s 1969 Self-Portrait, which made $34,622,500, and Willem de Kooning’s Orestes, which brought $30,885,000.
The 20th Century Evening Sale offered works from a strong group of estates and private collections. The top lot was Henri Rousseau’s, Les Flamants, which made $43,535,000. Les Flamants – a rare example with impeccable provenance – soared past the artists’ previous record of $4,400,000 set in 1993, bringing $43,535,000. Other highlights included, Pablo Picasso’s Nature morte à la fenêtre, which sold for $41,810,000; Ed Ruscha’s Burning Gas Station, which made $22,260,000; Georgia O’Keeffe’s Black Iris VI, which sold for $21,110,000, and David Hockney’s The Gate, which realised $19,385,000.
This large scale 1932 portrait of Marie-Therese Walter will highlight Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York on May 11. Nature morte a la fenetre was painted during a pivotal year for Picasso, who reached an extraordinary peak of creativity in 1932. Marie-Therese came to dominate every aspect of his output in the early 1930’s. This is one of the first works of an exceptional series devoted to her. One of them, Femme assise pres d’une fenetre (Marie-Therese), sold for $103 million in 2021. The painting here was shown at the Picasso retrospective in Paris in the summer of 1932 after which it was exhibited at his inaugural museum show in Zurich. It remained in his personal collection for the rest of his life, hidden from public view until the 1980’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $41,810,000
Haze Days by Yoshitomo Nara at Sotheby’s. THIS WAS UNSOLD
The explosion of creativity in the art world in the first two decades of the 20th century has not been matched in the 21st. and it is interesting to speculate about why. A century ago the world was newly enriched by Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction, Suprematism and the rest. In the global village of today, development of the shock of the new in art does not seem to have occurred at the hectic pace of technology and other groundbreaking disciplines. Are artists stupefied by the pace of change in the world all around them? In a world where wonder is taken for granted is visual surprise and delight degraded?
Geniuses like David Hockney have demonstrated the infinite possibilities of digital art but it is not as yet a significant art market sector. It looks as if NFT’s have gone the way of cryptocurrency for now. The most innovative market focus is on overlooked women artists, non western art, ethnic, tribal and minority groups but art needs innovation, not political correctness. The impressive selection of Impressionist, Modern, Post-Modern and Contemporary art will come under the hammer at the big New York spring sales in May are mostly of the 20th century. Highly significant art from major collections like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, legendary Condé Nast co owner S.I. Newhouse and Warner Bros. Records executive Mo Ostin, among whose signings were The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Joni Mitchell, R.E.M. and Madonna, will boost these sales.
L’Empire des Lumieres by Rene Magritte from the Mo Ostin collection at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE$42,273,000
All the big names, from Picasso, Matisse and Magritte to Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama and Jean Michel Basquiat are here along with less well known but seriously doing well relative newcomers like Wayne Thiebaud and Yoshitomo Nara. But the art of today, which both auction houses have been busily promoting, is represented by just 51 lots, 27 at the 21st Century evening sale at Christie’s on May 15 and 24 at the Now evening sale at Sotheby’s on May 18.
Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $4,890,000
The Christie’s auction will be headed up by a Basquiat (born in 1960, died in 1986). There is a pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama (born in 1929), a box of ten photographs by Diane Arbus (1923-1971), a take on a Velazquez painting by Jeff Koons (born 1955), Prophet by El Anatsui (born 1944) and Untitled (We will no longer be your favourite disappearing act) by Barbara Kruger (born 1945). Art in this sale by Cecily Brown, Rashid Johnson, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and other younger artists like Vojtek Kovarik and Louis Fratino (both born in 1993) will definitely reward serious study but seems rooted in the 20th century. A powerful 1998 work by Yoshito Nara titled Haze Days will highlight the Now auction at Sotheby’s. This monumental rendering of a bandaged child – furious, foreboding and wonderfully appealing – embodies the contradictions of our culture and ourselves. The eyes have it and it is no surprise that these angst laden paintings sell for many millions of dollars. There is arresting art by Simone Leigh, Jonas Wood, Matthew Wong, Julien Nguyen, Mark Grotjahn, Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Rudolf Stingel and other names that might not yet be so well known. With this sale Sotheby’s has set out to offer heightened visibility and a relevant art historical context for a new generation of younger artists but it is the artists themselves who need to forge new paths.
Burning gas station by Ed Ruscha at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $22,260,000
HENRI ‘LE DOUANIER’ ROUSSEAU (1844-1910) – Les Flamants. UPDATE: THIS MADE $43,535,000
Les Flamants by Henri Rousseau is poised to make a new auction record for the artist when it comes up at Christie’s 20th century evening sale in New York on May 15. Estimated at $20,000,000–30,000,000. – far exceeding the current record of $4.4 million set three decades ago at Christie’s in London – Les Flamants is from the estate of Payne Whitney Middleton. It has been in the family since 1949.
Max Carter, Christie’s Vice Chairman, 20th and 21st Century Art, said: “A legend among the Parisian avant-garde, Henri Rousseau is perhaps the rarest major artist of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Of the fewer than 240 attributed oils in the definitive catalogues by Dora Vallier and Henry Certigny, the number of privately owned paintings with provenance traced to Rousseau can be counted on two hands. Among them there is only one monumental jungle vision, Les Flamants, which hung for many years in Joan Whitney Payson’s living room opposite Van Gogh’s Irises. In 1954, five years after the family acquired Les Flamants, Rousseau’s The Dream reportedly became the most expensive acquisition in MoMA’s history. At the time, one of Rousseau’s masterpieces appearing on the market was an event. Today it is once-in-a-lifetime.”
HENRI MATISSE (1869-1954) – Jazz, Tériade, Paris, 1947 the complete set of twenty pochoirs in colors, 1947 $400,000-600,00
A single owner collection with over four hundred lots of Twentieth Century editions is to be sold by Christie’s across a series of live and online sales in April. The sales on April 18-19 are anchored by an unprecedented selection of complete portfolios, including an exceptionally rare example of Barnett Newman’s Cantos ($2,000,000-3,000,000), David Hockney’s A Rake’s Progress ($250,000-3,50,000), and Andy Warhol’s Flowers ($2,000,000-3,000,000),. Modern highlights from the collection include Henri Matisse’s Jazz ($400,000-600,000), El Lissitzky’s Victory Over the Sun ($200,000 – 300,000) and a rich selection of prints by László Moholy-Nagy.
Other artists featured in depth include Donald Judd, Jasper Johns, Josef Albers, Blinky Palermo, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinksy among many others. Assembled over decades many of these works are coming to market for the first time in several years. The collection of one of the most important selections of Prints and Multiples to ever be auctioned is billed by Christie’s as The Sale of the Century: An Important Corporate Collection of Prints and Multiples. The collection is expected to achieve more than $10,000,000.
