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
Ireland by William Crozier (1930-2011) is from Morgan O’Driscoll’s Irish and International art evening auction online on Tuesday, October 27. A Dublin viewing planned for this weekend had to be postponed due to the latest Covid-19 government restrictions but the sale will go ahead. This small work is signed and titled verso and is estimated at 1,500-2,500. There are 176 lots in the sale, which is headed by Andy Warhol’s portraits of Mohammed Ali. UPDATE: THE CROZIER SOLD FOR 3,200 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.
Fresh from the success of an online art auction on September 14 at which works by Donald Teskey and Markey Robinson each made 15,000 at hammer Morgan O’Driscoll will hold an online sale of affordable Irish art on September 21. The catalogue for the sale lists 420 lots. There is work on offer by Arthur Maderson, Liam Treacy, Evie Hone, Mark O’Neill, Maurice Wilks, Arthur Armstrong, Desmond Carrick and many more well known artists.
Markey Robinson – North African Village sold for 15,000.
The catalogue for Morgan O’Driscoll’s online auction of Irish art, which runs until September 14, lists 248 lots. There is a wide selection of art by well known and much loved artists available. Among them is Coastline by Donald Teskey.
Donald Teskey – Coastline (8,000-12,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 15,000 AT HAMMER
Going Quietly to Post by Peter Curling is among the lots at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of affordable Irish art which runs to the evening of July 27. Based in Cashel, Co. Tipperary the artist is widely appreciated for his hunting and horse racing paintings. The 1973 watercolour and pen drawing is estimated at 1,000-1,500. The catalogue for the sale is online and it features work by Arthur Maderson, Jack B. Yeats, Cecil Maguire, Tony O’Malley, Barbara Warren, Graham Knuttel, Markey Robinson, Majella O’Neill Collins and many other artists.
Peter Curling – Going Quietly to post. UPDATE: THIS MADE 1,900 AT HAMMER
The Garden of Orpheus, Summer (1985) by Tony O’Malley is among the highlights at Morgan O’Driscoll’s current sale of Irish and International Art. The online auction runs to the evening of July 20 between 6.30 p.m. and 10 p.m. The catalogue is online.
TONY O’MALLEY (1913-2003) The Garden of Orpheus (Summer) (1985) (30,000-40,000). UPDATE: THIS MADE 60,000 AT HAMMER
A crayon on pencil drawing by Louis le Brocquy entitled Children Playing, Parish (1948) is among the lots at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online sale of Irish and International art on July 20. It is estimated at 3,000-5,000. The catalogue is online and lists 273 lots on offer.
LOUIS LE BROCQUY (1916-2012) Children Playing, Paris (1948). UPDATE: THIS MADE 3,200 AT HAMMER
THIS 1916 view of Roundstone, Connemara by Jack Butler Yeats made a hammer price of 70,000 at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online Irish art sale on June 8. Westport Famine Ship by John Behan made 27,000, Evening, a Chinese ink of paper drawing by Yeats made 24,000, Lisa by Daniel O’Neill made 19,000, The Evening Tide by Patrick Hennessy sold for 18,000, Tom Cromie by Colin Davidson made 12,500, a charcoal drawing of landscape with clouds by Paul Henry made 10,000, Girls Playing in the Woods by George Russell made 9,500, Dusk by Arthur Maderson made 8,500 and Rugby by Pauline Bewick made 8,000.
