UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $2,833,000
Red Canna by Georgia O’Keeffe is among the highlights at Christie’s Modern American Art sale in New York on April 17. Painted in 1919 it is estimated at $1 million – $1.5 million (€910,000-€1.37 million). There is art by Jacob Lawrence, Stuart Davis, Arthur Dove, Henrietta Shore, Helen Torr, Norman Rockwell, Maxfield Parrish and many more on offer.
Roderic O’Connor – Paysage, Pont Aven, 1892. UPDATE: THIS MADE £378,000
Paysage, Pont Aven, an important and vibrant example of Roderic O’Conor’s stripe pictures, comes up at Christie’s Modern British and Irish art evening sale in London on March 19. It was exhibited in Paris at the 1892 Salon des Indépendents demonstrating its avant-garde approach and technique. The stripe pictures are generally accepted as the artist’s most desirable period. The estimate is £200,000-£300,000.
The auction features an interior by Sir John Lavery, The Hall, Argyll House, A summer’s day (1925). Argyll House on the King’s Road was home to Sybil Colefax and her husband Arthur in 1925. Known for her exceptional taste, she founded her business in the 1930’s and in 1938 was joined by John Fowler. Her business became known as Colefax & Fowler. The estimate is £100,000-£150,000.
Sir John Lavery – The Hall, Argyll House – A Summer Day, 1925. UPDATE: THIS MADE £157,500.
Yoshitomo Nara – Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £9,027,500
Van Gogh, Calder, Tamara de Lempica, Leonora Carrington and Francis Bacon are among the wide range of celebrated artists whose work will come under the hammer at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London next week.
At all levels of the market the offerings locally, nationally and internationally are appetising as the art selling season gets seriously underway.
Featured in no less than 17 international exhibitions Francis Bacon’s Portrait of a Man with Glasses III from 1963 is among the highlights at Christie’s 20th/21st evening sale next Wednesday (March 5). It is at auction for the first time.
An arresting portrait of the bacteriologist Dr. Boucard by Tamara de Lempicka is another highlight of an auction with work by Modigliani, Monet, Twombly and Polke and other luminaries.
A small and intricate stabile by Alexander Calder, blending movement, balance and colour, is among the standouts at Sotheby’s contemporary day auction on the same day.
Yoshitomo Nara’s Cosmic Eyes (in the Milky Lake) is a highlight at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening auction next Tuesday. Nara will be the subject of a retrospective at the Hayward Gallery in London from next June.
The evening sale features art by Gerhard Richter, Constantin Brancusi, a pen and ink drawing of a public garden in Arles by Van Gogh, a charcoal on paper portrait by Matisse and art by Lucio Fontana, Picasso, Rodin and Roy Lichtenstein.
Magritte, Leonora Carrington, Paul Delvaux, Max Ernst and Giorgio de Chirico are among the artists in the Art of the Surreal sale at Christie’s on Wednesday evening. Sacrament at Minos by Carrington testifies to her engagement with a myriad of cultures and their ideologies.
PIET MONDRIAN (1872-1944) Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, 21 ¼ x 21 in. (54 x 53.3 cm.) Painted in Paris in 1922. UPDATE: THIS MADE $47.6 million
Art by Mondrian, Magritte, Picasso, Giacometti, Warhol and other luminaries will come under the hammer at Christie’s in New York in May in a single owner evening sale. The Leonard and Louise Riggio collected works will be offered during Spring Marquee Week. The founder of Barnes and Noble died last year and his widow is downsizing from her Manhattan apartment on Park Avenue. With more than 30 works that represent an anthology of changing ideas, the works in the collection range from Surrealist musings to reflections on the influence of Classicism. Collectively, the artworks in the sale are expected to realise in excess of $250 million. The collection will be toured to London, Hong Kong, Paris, Dubai and Los Angeles.
The Mondrian is expected to be the top lot with an estimate that is expected to top the $51 million record for a work by the artist set in 2022. The selection also features two exemplary Surrealist paintings by René Magritte, including the first work from his most highly coveted series, L’empire des lumières, and Les droits de l’hommes completed just a year prior, in January 1948. Further highlights include a 1937 Pablo Picasso portrait of the renowned photographer Lee Miller and three Alberto Giacometti sculptures, including Femme de Venise I, conceived in 1956 and cast in 1958.
Bonnie Brennan, Christie’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “It is an honour to be entrusted with this inimitable collection, a tribute to Leonard and Louise Riggio and their enduring legacy as patrons of the arts and passionate collectors. Each artwork included in this encyclopedic collection is exemplary, demonstrating the Riggios’ deep appreciation for human creativity. Christie’s strives to present exceptional art and objects, and this seminal collection, to be offered to a global audience this spring, will be a highlight of the year.”
René Magritte – L’empire des lumières. UPDATE: THIS MADE $35 million
Egon Schiele – Knabe in Matrosenanzug (Boy in a Sailor Suit) 1914. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,307,000
Egon Schiele’s Boy in a Sailor Suit is among the highlights at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale on March 5. Part of the collection of Fritz Grünbaum the work is being offered following a restitution agreement. The collection was lost when the Nazis annexed Austria in the late 1930s, and Mr. Grünbaum and his wife Lilly were sent to concentration camps where they perished. Grünbaum was a celebrated cabaret performer, writer, actor and outspoken opponent of Nazism, active in Vienna during the early twentieth century. Over the course of his life, he purchased over 80 works by Egon Schiele spanning the full range of Schiele’s creative output. The estimate is £1 million – £1.5 million and proceeds will help the Grünbaum Fischer Foundation support underrepresented performing artists.
For more than a quarter of a century, Christie’s has engaged with the legacy of Nazi-era and World War II art theft and dispossession. Losses during 1933–1945 to Europe’s collections, in particular those of Jewish collectors, through persecution, confiscation, and forced sales continue to resonate strongly in the art world today.
Francis Bacon – Portrait of Man with Glasses III, 1963. UPDATE: THIS MADE £6,635,000
Francis Bacon’s Portrait of Man with Glasses III from 1963 will be a highlight at Christie’s 20th/21st Century evening sale in London on March 5. At auction for the first time it has been exhibited extensively worldwide featuring in 17 major international retrospectives and serving as the cover image for the catalogue of the Francis Bacon/Henry Moore: Flesh and Bone exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford in 2013. Most recently, it was displayed at London’s National Portrait Gallery as part of Francis Bacon: Human Presence, reaffirming its status as a cornerstone of Bacon’s oeuvre.
The painting’s distorted yet captivating features reflect Bacon’s deep exploration of emotion, form, and the human condition: the bared teeth, rendered with thick impasto and delicate colour, embody his ambition to “paint the mouth like Monet painted a sunset”. The estimate is £6 million – £9 million.
Tamara de Lempicka – Portrait du Docteur Boucard UPDATE: THIS MADE £6,635,000
This arresting 1928 Portrait of Dr. Boucard by Tamara de Lempica will be a highlight at Christie’s 20th/21st Century sale in London on March 5. From an important private collection the painting was commissioned from Lempicka by the sitter. Doctor Boucard was a prominent art collector and key patron of the artist. The work has not been seen on the market in the past forty years and is estimated at £5,000,000-8,000,000. An esteemed bacteriologist, Boucard revolutionised pharmaceutical science with the 1907 invention of Lactéol, a probiotic that laid the foundation for modern gut health research which is still in use today. Lempicka portrays Boucard as both an esteemed scientist and a man of distinction. His white trench coat, reminiscent of a laboratory coat, suggests a cinematic transformation. His upturned collar, pearl-accented tie, and sharply defined features convey both intellectual authority and cosmopolitan charm.
The first major U.S. retrospective of her wor at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. was co-curated by Furio Rinaldi and Gioia Mori. It opens at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston on March 9.
Paul Delvaux – La ville endormie (1938)
Three exceptional paintings by renowned Belgian artist Paul Delvaux (1897–1994) as key highlights at Christie’s Art of the Surreal evening sale in London on March 5. They originate from a distinguished private collection and capture pivotal moments in Delvaux’s career, standing as a testament to his enduring legacy within the Surrealist movement. Known for interweaving reality and fantasy, Delvaux’s style encapsulates the aesthetic principles of Surrealism while maintaining his independence from any formal artistic circle. The works are Les belles de nuit (1936) (£500,000 – £1,000,000), La ville endormie (1938) (£1,200,000 – £1,800,000) and Nuit de Noël (1956) (£1,000,000 – £2,000,000). The auction will be part of the 20th/21st Century London Marquee Week.
Sir Max Beerbohm – Portrait of Oscar Wilde. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £22,680
The refined and engaging collection of Barry Humphries (1934-2023) – best known for his characters Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson – comes up at Christie’s in London on February 13. Driven by knowledge, passion and curiosity his collection was built over more than half a century.
Sand Dunes, Ambleteuse by the Australian painter Charles Conder leads an auction of 250 lots with estimates from £200 to £300,000 (€240 to €360,000). The best of fin-de-siecle decadent literature features a collection of Oscar Wilde related material including a presentation copy of The Importance of being Earnest. There is a selection of 19th century European and Symbolist art with work by Khnopff, Delville and von Stuck. These feature along with examples of Impressionism and modern British art, Modern Design and highlights from Dame Edna’s personal collection from costume and glasses to caricatures.
UPDATE: THE COLLECTION MADE £4.6 MILLION WITH BIDDERS FROM 41 COUNTRIES.
Charles Conder – Sand Dunes, Ambleteuse. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £239,400
Jeff Beck’s iconic 1954 Oxblood Gibson Les Paul guitar will lead the auction of his collection at Christie’s in London on January 22. The multi Grammy award winning artist worked with artists like Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, Ronnie Wood, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, David Gilmour, Tina Turner, Mick Jagger, BB King, Nile Rodger, Carlos Santana, Stevie Wonder, Imelda May and Johnny Depp. He was twice inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The auction comprises over 130 guitars, amps and accessories from a career that lasted almost six decades, since joining The Yardbirds in 1965 to his last tour in 2022. The Oxblood is estimated at £350,000-£500,000 (€421,380-€601,970) and estimates are from £100 (€120) up.
UPDATE: THE GUITAR SOLD FOR £1,068,500, double the high estimate and a new world record for a Gibson Les Paul.