From Sean Scully and John Behan to Pauline Bewick and Mainie Jellett the selection available at Morgan O’Driscoll’s online Irish art auction which runs to March 8 is comprehensive. Untitled 1996, a unique watercolour, No. 47 from a series of 50, by Sean Scully is estimated at 6,000-9,000. Abstract Composition in gouache by Mainie Jellett is estimated at 4,000-6,000. There is interest in Cat in Winter in the Glass House by Pauline Bewick (5,000-7,000) and John Behan’s Famine Tree (10,000-15,000) and many of the other works. The catalogue is online.
Untitled (1996) by Sean Scully. UPDATE: THIS MADE 17,000 AT HAMMER
TOP lots at de Veres sale of outstanding Irish Art and Sculpture online in Dublin this evening included the following hammer prices: The Street Performer by Jack B. Yeats (184,000); Achill Cottage, Lough Corrib by Pau Henry (116,000); Life Study by Louis le Brocquy (114,000); Head of Francis Bacon by le Brocquy (90,000) and Peonies and Iris in a vase and a bowl of fruit by Roderic O’Conor (78,000). The most expensively estimated lot in the auction, Double Window by Sean Scully (600,000-900,000) failed to sell.
The auction totalled 1.25 million and 85% of lots were sold.
Paul Henry RHA, 1877-1958 ACHILL COTTAGE, LOUGH CORRIB
A 1998 work by Sean Scully with a top estimate of €900,000 leads de Veres online sale of outstanding Irish Art and Sculpture in Dublin on July 23. An oil on linen, Double Window is signed and dated and measures 54″ x 48 1/8″. In a catalogue note Dr. Frances Ruane comments: “Although his work is geometric and totally abstract, his starting point comes from what he’s looking at or what he’s feeling rather than in solving academic visual problems. In the process of painting he does construct abstract dialogues that are purely visual, but this isn’t the driving force behind the work. Although the colour is bold, ‘Double Window’ shows how, with Scully, it is carefully nuanced, with underpainting coming through the top layer of paint. This is a particularly theatrical composition, a visual story of opposing forces, the artist struggling to make the double insets live with that powerful background, and to have them live with each other. Scully’s success is that while the struggle is evident, he manages to make it work.”
Sean Scully RA, b.1945 DOUBLE WINDOW (1998) (€600,000 – €900,000). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
While in some ways the June sales at Sotheby’s in New York mark the return to business as usual they have been completely re–imagined. Significant offerings of high value material will be brought to the market in flagship live sales conducted remotely by Oliver Barker in London. The New York Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary evening sales will be live-streamed to the world. Bidders will be able to take part either via the phones or online in the usual way. This truly global experience will usher in a new era of marquee auctions that marry the best of the established live auction format with the latest technology, and the modifications for safety that current circumstances require.
IF by Sean Scully at the Contemporary Art evening auctions ($700,000-900,000). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $1,280,000
Contemporary Irish artists Conor Harrington and Sean Scully feature at Bonhams sales. A large oil painting by Conor Harrington (Irish, born 1980) ‘L’Amour et La Violence’ executed in 2013, and a Sean Scully (Irish, born 1945) watercolour and graphite on paper, ‘Mirror’ from 2008 are on offer in Post War and Contemporary Art private treaty sales. This service provides clients with a bespoke approach to buying and selling, outside of the auction calendar. Interested parties are advised to contact the auctioneers directly for prices.
The Contemporary Art day sale at Sotheby’s in London on February 12 will feature two works by Sean Scully, Pink Three (£200,000-300,000) and 8.20.89 (£50,000-70,000). UPDATE: PINK THREE WAS UNSOLD, 8.20.89 MADE £62,500.
A Sean Scully work from a private collection in Paris comes up at Sotheby’s Art Contemporain day sale on December 5. The pastel on paper 5.27.91 is estimated at 150,000-200,000 euro. It was previously at the Mayor Rowan Gallery in New York.
Landline Fire, a 2014 oil on aluminium by Sean Scully, comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art evening sale in Hong Kong on October 6 with an estimate of 7-9 million HKD (around 800,000-1 million euro). Exhibiting radiant swathes of rich amber and ocher against deep sage-green this is an exceptional example of the artist’s ongoing investigation of striped forms. The work hails from the artist’s Landline series which was exhibited to great acclaim alongside the 56th Venice Biennale. Inspired by the intense beauty of sun-drenched Venice, Italy, the Landline works marked a transition from his earlier hard-edged forms to his current more gestural and expressive style.
A 1985 oil on canvas by Sean Scully comes up at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art day auction in New York on May 17. Linosa is estimated at $300,000-400,000. It was exhibited at the Princeton show A Decade of Visual Arts at Princeton Art Faculty 1975-1985.
An etching by Sean Scully and two works on paper by Tony O’Malley will feature at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale in London on March 20. Sotto Voce by Scully, an etching and aquatint in colours, is estimated at £1,000-2,000. O’Malley’s Three birds from a window and another work entitled Winter Forms are each estimated at £1,000-1,500. Both are charcoal, pastel and oil on paper.
