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  • Posts Tagged ‘francis bacon’

    1969 SELF-PORTRAIT BY BACON AT CHRISTIE’S IN MAY

    Wednesday, February 22nd, 2023
    Francis Bacon – Self-Portrait (1969). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $34,622,500

    Francis Bacon’s landmark Self-Portrait from 1969 is among 16 exceptional modern and post war paintings from the collection of S.I. Newhouse to be sold at Christie’s in New York next May. There are masterworks by artists including Picasso, de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Brice Marden and Lee Bontecou. The Bacon portrait is estimated at in excess of $20 million and the entire collection at more than $144 million.

    Alex Rotter, Christie’s Chairman, 20th and 21st Century Art, remarked: “S.I. Newhouse’s brilliance was undeniable and his art collecting held a rare quality of excellence. As a collector, he bought and sold with the deepest levels of consideration and intention—which over decades, led to the evolution of a singular collection. Last November, we saw with the Collection of Paul. G. Allen that the market for true masterpieces is as strong as ever. Building on this momentum, we could not be prouder to present this selection of masterpieces from the S.I. Newhouse Collection this May.”

    S.I. Newhouse (1927-2017) ranks among the most revered connoisseur art collectors in modern history. He is credited with redefining the contemporary art market in the 1980s, with his acquisition of Jasper Johns’s False Start; in the 1990s, with his acquisition of Andy Warhol’s Orange Marilyn; and in the 2010s, with the 2019 sale of Jeff Koons’ 1986 sculpture Rabbit at Christie’s New York for $91,075,000, establishing the record price for work by any living artist. As the co-owner of a media empire that included Condé Nast, publisher of leading publications such as The New YorkerVogueVanity Fair, and Architectural Digest, as well as newspapers across America, Mr. Newhouse was a visionary cultural figure whose enduring impact continues to inform and inspire generations worldwide.

    HIGHEST GROSSING FRIEZE WEEK SALE AT SOTHEBY’S SINCE 2015

    Saturday, October 15th, 2022
    Francis Bacon – Three Studies for Portrait of Henrietta Moraes sold for £24,300,000

    Three Studies for a Portrait of Henrietta Moraes sold for £24,300,000 in London last night. The Now and Contemporary auctions achieved a total of £96.1 million in the highest grossing Frieze Week evening sale at Sotheby’s since 2015. Gerhard Richter’s 192 Farben (192 Colours) sold for £18,287,800. There was a new record for Frank Auerbach whose Head of J.Y.M. made £5,648,800 and new records were set for Caroline Walker, Julien Nguyen and Kiki Kogelnik. Nobody Put Baby in the Corner by Flora Yukhnovich made £1,608,000,  Cecily Brown’s Beautiful Not Realistic made £1.8 million over a high estimate of £800,000 and Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Nets (QOTP:) made £3.4 million.

    INSIDE THE WORLD OF FRANCIS BACON AT SOTHEBY’S

    Tuesday, October 11th, 2022
    FRANCIS BACON’S PALETTE

    Inside the World of Francis Bacon: Works from the Collection of Majid Boustany at Sotheby’s in Paris on October 24 is a capsule collection which will include twenty works spanning over fifty years. There is art by Bacon, historic objects of ephemera, works by Bacon’s acquaintances such as Graham Sutherland, Louis Le Brocquy and Roy de Maistre, as well as portraits of the artist by photographers such as Cecil Beaton, Don McCullin and Peter Beard.

    The most expensively estimated lot, at €3.5 million – €5 million, is Figure Crouching from 1949 which has never been on the market before. There is an image of Francis Bacon by Louis le Brocquy which is estimated at €12,000-€18,000. Bacon’s palette is estimated at €20,000-€30,000.

    Francis Bacon – ‘Figure Crouching’

    BACON PORTRAIT OF FREUD AT SOTHEBY’S

    Friday, June 17th, 2022
    Francis Bacon – Study for Portrait of Lucian Freud, 1964 (Estimate in excess of £35 million) Courtesy Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £43,336,000

    Francis Bacon’s magnetic portrait of Lucian Freud will highlight British Art: The Jubilee Auction at Sotheby’s in London on June 29. Paintined in 1964 the full-length portrait illuminates the powerful dialogue of friendship and epochal rivalry which would engulf two titans of art history and spur them to create some of their greatest works. The pair had first met 20 years earlier and would go on to share an intense friendship for over 40 years until jealousy and petty rows would ultimately splinter relations forever in the mid-1980’s.

    Though their visual styles differed considerably, both artists were deeply committed to the human figure, painting each other on numerous occasions over the years. Indeed, for Bacon, Freud would become a recurrent – and one of the most significant – subjects of his work in the 1960’s. Bacon believed that: “the living quality is what you have to get. In painting a portrait, the problem is to find a technique by which you can give over all the pulsations of a person…The sitter is someone of flesh and blood and what has to be caught is their emanation.”

    The black and white photographs taken by their mutual friend John Deakin would become Bacon’s primary source material as he painted Freud obsessively. Of great personal significance, Bacon would keep these photographs with him for the rest of his life, and they were rediscovered torn, crumpled and splattered with paint in his studio following his death.

    BIG GAME ART HUNTERS STILL OUT IN FORCE

    Saturday, May 14th, 2022
    Paul Cezanne – Clairiere (The Glade) at Sotheby’s in New York next Tuesday. UPDATE: THIS MADE $41,688,500

    THE big game hunters of the global art world are out in force right now.  There are rich pickings for the super rich in a stellar round of May sales in New York sales showcasing major artistic movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. At Christie’s last Monday evening Andy Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn from the collection of Thomas and Doris Ammann of Zurich sold for a record $195 million (€184,421,250). The 40 square inch canvas became the most expensive 20th century artwork ever sold. In 1964 Warhol developed a time intensive new process and used it to create a limited number of portraits – including Shot Sage Blue Marilyn – before abandoning the technique.  The painting has been exhibited at galleries including the Guggenheim, New York, the Pompidou in Paris and Tate Modern in London. The 36 works from this collection realised $317.8 million (€300,610,198),  All proceeds will directly benefit the Ammann Foundation’s global efforts to create healthcare and education programmes for children.

    With everyone from Monet and Degas to Balthus and Wayne Thibaud Christie’s delivered in style this week. At this stage the running total for their Marquee Week spring sales is $1.36 billion. The Post War and Contemporary art day sale yesterday achieved $97 million.

    Next it is the turn of Sotheby’s.  Their six sales with 800 lots carry a combined estimate of over $1 billion (€950,800,000) on a level with their record setting season last November.  Then the Macklowe Collection of 35 artworks made $676 million (€642.9 million) after real estate mogul Harry Macklowe and his wife Linda were ordered by a judge to sell their collection and split the proceeds during their 2018 divorce trial. Another 30 works from their collection come up next Monday evening with artists like Mark Rothko, Cy Twombly, Sigmar Polke, Donald Judd, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Anselm Kiefer, Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti and Andy Warhol.

    The Modern evening auction on Tuesday is the most expensively estimated in the category at Sotheby’s for 15 years.   It will feature one of Monet’s finest Venetian works, a 1932 portrait of Marie Therese Walter by Picasso and The Glade by Paul Cezanne.  These three works alone are expected to bring in around $150 million (€142.6 million).

    On Thursday the Now evening auction and the Contemporary evening auction will bring this months series of marquee evening auctions to a close.  The Now sale will open the evening with ten consecutive works by women artists including Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Christina Quarles, Jennifer Packer and Tracey Emin.
    Highlights of the Contemporary evening auction are Study for Red Pope 1962, 2nd version 1971 by Francis Bacon, Cy Twombly’s large scale Untitled from 1969, a silkscreen of Elvis by Andy Warhol and Cold Beer Beautiful Girls, a quintessential text painting by Ed Ruscha.  Who could ask for anything more?

    Francis Bacon Study of Red Pope 1962, 2nd version, 1971 at Sotheby’s, New York next Thursday evening. UPDATE: THIS MADE $46,284,500.

    BACON’S MEDITATION ON THE PASSAGE OF TIME AT CHRISTIE’S

    Thursday, February 10th, 2022
    Francis Bacon – Triptych 1986-7. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £38,459,206,

    ONE of Francis Bacon’s last great paintings, Triptych 1986-7, will come to auction for the first time at Christie’s 20th/21st Century on March 1. The London evening sale is a key auction within the 20/21 Shanghai to London series. This triptych, an extraordinary meditation on the passage of time and the solitude of the human condition, is estimated at £35-50 million. The suited figure in the left-hand panel is based on a press clipping of the US President Woodrow Wilson, stepping forward as he was leaving the Treaty of Versailles negotiations in 1919; the right-hand panel was inspired by a photograph of Leon Trotsky’s study taken after his assassination in 1940. In the centre sits a figure resembling Bacon’s then-partner John Edwards, his pose reminiscent of the artist’s beloved George Dyer in the haunting eulogy Triptych August 1972 (Tate, London). Widely exhibited throughout its lifetime, Triptych 1986-7 was most recently seen in the Centre Georges Pompidou’s acclaimed exhibition ‘Bacon en Toutes Lettres’(2019-20).

    The year after its creation, Triptych 1986-7 was one of 22 paintings shown at the Central House of Artists’ Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow: the first exhibition by a well-known artist from the West to take place in Soviet Russia. Many viewers did not recognise the Trotsky photograph as a source, but to those who did, the painting’s presence heralded a sea-change in the country’s political attitudes towards art: the Iron Curtain, notably, would fall the next year. It is one of a rare number of large-scale triptychs by Bacon to remain in private hands. Between 1962 and 1991, the artist produced just 28 such works measuring 78 by 58 inches, nearly half of which reside in museums worldwide. 

    IRISH AND INTERNATIONAL ART AT WHYTE’S

    Saturday, October 10th, 2020

    Given that 2020 vision turned out foggy it is good to see postponed Irish art going ahead.  At the eleventh hour Whyte’s had to reschedule their sale of Irish and International Art scheduled for September 28.  It is due to take place at Freemason’s Hall, Molesworth St. on October 19.  The highlight  is A Sunny Day, Connemara by Paul Henry (€150,000-€200,000).and there is work by artists like Roderic O’Conor, William Orpen, William Leech, Mary Swanzy, Mainie Jellett, Norah McGuinness, Maurice MacGonigal, Harry Kernoff, Francis Bacon, Colin Middleton, Gerard Dillon, Dan O’Neill, Louis le Brocquy, Tony O’Malley, Camille Souter, Donald Teskey and many others.  The sale is on view at Whyte’s from October 12 and both the catalogue and the auction are online.

    Coastal Report. by Donald Teskey. UPDATE: THIS MADE 23,000 AT HAMMER

    WHYTE’S GOES VIRTUAL FOR IRISH AND INTERNATIONAL SALE

    Wednesday, October 7th, 2020

    The re-scheduled Irish and International Art auction at Whyte’s on October 19 will be a virtual sale. It will be conducted by an auctioneer in the auction room with absentee, telephone and online bids and no public attendance. Under Level 3 restrictions to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus no indoor public events can take place in Ireland. This includes public auctions. The sale will be broadcast at bid.whytes.ie and invaluable.com. Viewing at Whyte’s on Molesworth Street, Dublin will be by appointment from October 12-19. Among the lots on offer is Triptych by Francis Bacon, a lithograph numbered 98 from an edition of 180 with an estimate of 15,000-20,000.

    FRANCIS BACON (1909-1992) – TRIPTYCH, 1983-84 UPDATE: THIS MADE 44,000 AT HAMMER

    BACON TRIPTYCH SELLS FOR $84.6 MILLION AT LIVE STREAMED EVENT

    Tuesday, June 30th, 2020

    Francis Bacon’s Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus sold for $84.6 million at Sotheby’s live streamed global sale overnight. There was a ten minute bidding battle between an online bidder in Asia and a client bidding by phone with Gregoire Billault of Sotheby’s in New York. It went to the phone bidder for a price surpassing the $80 million high estimate.

    The sale, which totalled $363.2 million, was conducted remotely by auctioneer Oliver Barker in London taking bids from phone banks in New York, Hong Kong and London and online bidders.

    There were auction records for Mario Carreño, Vija Celmins, Leonor Fini, Helen Frankenthaler, Wifredo Lam, Alice Rahon, Remedios Varo, Matthew Wong and Jean-Michel Basquiat for a work on paper. The auctions offered a strong selection of works by women artists, with all 25 works offered by 16 artists selling for a total of $86.1 million, and setting five new world auction records.

    BACON TRIPTYCH SOLD FOR $84.6 million

    LARGE FORMAT BACON TO HIGHLIGHT NEW YORK SALE

    Friday, March 6th, 2020
    Francis Bacon – Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus

    Francis Bacon’s large-format Triptych Inspired by the Oresteia of Aeschylus will highlight the Contemporary Art evening auction at Sotheby’s in New York on May 13. It will be offered with an estimate in excess of $60 million.

    Inspired by Aeschylus’s trilogy of Greek tragedies dating to the 5th century B.C. this dates to 1981. The artist revisits the same classical text that inspired Three Studies for Figures at the Base of the Crucifixion at the Tate Collection, London. It is one of the 28 large-format triptychs Bacon created between 1962 and 1991 and reveals in a single work the entire range of an iconography developed over three decades of painting. Sotheby’s describe it as one of his most ambitious, enigmatic, and important works.

    Acquired in 1984 by the Norwegian Collector Hans Rasmus Astrup the triptych has been in the care of Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo since 1993. Hans Rasmus Astrup explained that the museum; “is meant to be a lasting resource for the public, as it builds on the existing collection and grows beyond it. With this single sale we can ensure that the museum and collection are here in perpetuity.”

    Bacon’s theme of divine punishment is found in Aeschylus’ most famous trilogy, The Oresteia, in which Clytemnestra murders her husband Agamemnon in revenge for the sacrifice of their daughter, Iphigenia. When the son Orestes finds out, he kills his mother to avenge his father’s death, provoking the avenging Furies, also called the Eumenides, who determine to drive Orestes insane as punishment.