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  • Posts Tagged ‘sotheby’s’

    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.

    WARHOL’S BEETHOVEN SCREENPRINTS AT SOTHEBY’S

    Tuesday, March 3rd, 2020

    A rare complete set of Beethoven screenprints by Andy Warhol comes up at Sotheby’s sale of prints and multiples in London on March 19. This year marks the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. Warhol spared no effort in transforming the idealised and iconic portrait of the composer by Karl Stieler, into the rock star persona portrayed within this set of four screenprints. Created shortly before Warhol’s death in 1987 they are estimated at £200,000-300,000.

    LANDSCAPE BY JOHN BUTTS AT SOTHEBY’S

    Saturday, February 29th, 2020

    A Mountainous Wooded Landscape with figures gathering wood by Cork artist John Butts comes up at Sotheby’s sale of 44 Fitzwilliam Square, works from the estate of the late Patrick Kelly in London on March 18. It is estimated at £20,000-30,000. The talented artist, who died aged only 37 in 1764, worked as a teacher in Cork where his pupils included James Barry and Nathanial Grogan. He moved to Dublin around 1757 and worked predominantly as a scene painter. A comparable painting by the artist, Poachers: View in the Dargle, is at Tate Britain.  In a letter written after his death James Barry described him as … “an unfortunate man, who with all his merit never met with any thing but cares and misery, which I may say hunted him into the very grave. His cast of genius was very much that of Claude’s, whom he resembles without any imitation more than anybody that I know of”.  His View of Cork is one of the most popular works in the collection of the Crawford Gallery. 

    JOHN BUTTS – A Mountainous Wooded Landscape with figures gathering wood

    SEAN SCULLY AT SOTHEBY’S CONTEMPORARY SALE

    Tuesday, February 11th, 2020

    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.

    Sean Scully B. 1945 PINK THREE

    BIG CONTEMPORARY ART SALES IN LONDON NEXT WEEK

    Saturday, February 8th, 2020

    Hockney, Klein, Bacon, Warhol  and Basquiat are among the artists whose work will loom large at major contemporary art evening sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s in London next week.At this moment of uncertainty and unease about the future there is no shortage of rich pickings for wealthy and institutional collectors. Sotheby’s has Hockney’s The Splash and one of Yves Klein’s first performance paintings, Christie’s has Andy Warhol’s Athletes.The Splash, featured on these pages two weeks ago, is the standout work at Sotheby’s evening sale of 47 works next Tuesday evening.  Estimated at £20-30 million it is the second in a series of three splash paintings that secured Hockey’s international reputation. Like Hockney’s splash Turning Figure by Francis Bacon, estimated at £6-8 million, contrasts an explosion of movement with a background that is utterly still.There is a similar estimate on Yves Klein’s Untitled Anthropometry, a work created during one of Klein’s first art performances at his Paris studio in 1960.  During the show Klein instructed nude female models coated in his patented blue IKB pigment to press their bodies against large sheets of paper.  Transforming the human figure into a living brush this work is considered rare for its grand scale and the inclusion of two full figures.  There are notable works on offer from artists like Jean Michel Basquiat, Cecily Brown, Damien Hirst, KAWS, Roy Lichtenstein, Kerry James Marshall, Grayson Perry, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley and others.At Christie’s on Wednesday evening a Warhol of Mohammed Ali is estimated at £3-5 million. From the collection of Richard L. Weisman Warhol’s Athletes is comprised of ten multicoloured portraits of stars like Pele, Chris Evert, O.J. Simpson and Jack Nicklaus. Ali dates to 1977.  The series is presented at Christie’s alongside Flowers from 1964 (£1-1.5 million), Warhol’s Knives (£2.5-3.5 million) and Brillo Soap Pads Box (£300,000-500,000).Jean Dubuffet’s Panorama, 1978 (£2-3 million) is an example of his theatres of memory, a reflective series created in the last decade of the artist’s life.  It is one of three works by Dubuffet in the sale. Albert Oehlen’s Mission Rohrfrei (£1.8-2.5 million) from 1996 is among the most abstract and explosive of his Remixes derived from Oehlen’s obsession with an obscure painting by John Grahama largely forgotten figure who played an important role in Surrealist and Abstract Expressionist circles in mid-century America.

    Untitled Anthropometry by Yves Klein at Sotheby’s . UPDATE: THIS MADE £6.1 MILLION
    Panorama by Jean Dubuffet (1901-1985) at Christie’s . UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £2.1 MILLION

    SOTHEBY’S MAKE SALES TOTAL OF £49.9 MILLION

    Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

    The Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist Art sale at Sotheby’s this evening achieved a total of £49.9 million. Camille Pissarro’s Gelee blanche was the top lot of this 33 lot auction. It made £13.29 million over a top estimate of £12 million. This was the second highest auction price for a Pissarro. The painting was one of three works restituted to the heirs of Gaston Levy which together sold for £22.2 million. There were auction records for Jean Metzinger and Pyke Koch. The sale saw strong activity from Asia as well as Europe and the US. Asian collectors bid on one third of lots offered.

    (See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 1, January 29 and January 13, 2020)

    Pyke Koch FLORENTIJNSE TUIN (FLORENTINE GARDEN) sold for £555,000

    MONET WOULD HAVE LOVED IT HERE

    Tuesday, February 4th, 2020

    It is a pity that Claude Monet never came to Ireland. The rapidly changing light would have undoubtedly enthralled him. This depiction of Waterloo Bridge in London, which comes up at the Impressionist and Modern Art day sale at Sotheby’s on February 5, is both specific and otherworldly.

    In words that could be readily used about the Irish climate Monet wrote from London to his wife Alice: “The weather was magnificent but unsettled… I can’t begin to describe a day as wonderful as this. One marvel after another, each lasting less than five minutes, it was enough to drive one mad. No country could be more extraordinary for a painter.” Painted in 1899 the work is estimated at £400,000-600,000.

    Claude Monet – Waterloo Bridge . UPDATE: THIS MADE £819,000

    FIRST MAJOR POST BREXIT ART SALES IN LONDON

    Saturday, February 1st, 2020

    Adding piquancy to the big London February art sales, which get underway next week, is that these are the first post Brexit auctions.  These annual sales usually attract round the globe interest and large numbers of Asian and US buyers. Sothebys kicks off on February 4 with Impressionist and Modern art evening sales to include three works recently restituted to the heirs of Gaston Levy, two from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris headed by a Pointillist masterpiece by Camille Pissarro.  This work depicts a young woman and child building a fire on a cold winter morning. Christie’s will follow on February 5 with an Impressionist and Modern sale and an auction of the Art of the Surreal.

    Gaston Levy was a notable art collector living in Paris in the 1920’s and 1930’s whose holding was dispersed under the Nazi occupation. After the war the works were repatriated to the French state and two of them have recently been restituted by the French Government to Lévy’s heirs from the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. The third of his works, Signac’s Quai de Clichy. Temps gris, found its way into the collection of the dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, whose illicit hoard was discovered by the authorities in the Munich apartment of his son Cornelius in 2012. Through his patronage of the Pointillists, Lévy formed a lifelong friendship with Signac, holidaying with the artist and sponsoring his project to paint 107 ports in France – securing his first pick from every batch of watercolours. Over the arc of his collecting career, Lévy owned forty-four oils by the artist. The auction will offer two paintings from different points in Signac’s oeuvre – transporting the viewer from a brisk morning in a Parisian port to the exotic delights of Istanbul’s waterside.

    Christie’s is highlighted by Tamara de Lempicka’s 1932 Portrait of Marjorie Ferry and Alberto Giacometti’s Trois hommes qui marchent from 1948.  Each one is estimated at £8-12 million. Further highlights include George Grosz’s highly politicised depiction of German at the close of the First World War. Gefahrliche Strasse is being offered 100 years after it was first shown at  Galerie Neue Kunst in Munich. Paintings from this series can be found at Tate Modern in London, MoMA in New York, the Nationalgalerle in Berlin and the Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid.  There are three Picasso Still Lifes and works on paper by Gino Severini, Paul Klee, Egon Schiele and Max Ernst.

    Camille Pissaro’s Gelee Blanche . UPDATE: THIS MADE £13.3 MILLION, THE SECOND HIGHEST PRICE FOR THE ARTIST AT AUCTION.
    George Grosz (1893-1959) Gefahrliche Strasse . UPDATE: THIS MADE £9.7 MILLION

    BERLIN PAINTING BY KIRCHNER AT SOTHEBY’S

    Wednesday, January 29th, 2020

    Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s Akt vor dem Spiegel (Nude at the Mirror) comes up at Sotheby’s Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art evening sale in London on February 4 with an estimate of £3-5 million. This is a powerful example of Kirchner’s painting from the time he lived in Berlin, where he moved from Dresden in 1911 together with other Die Brücke members including Erich Heckel and Max Pechstein, setting up a studio in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. With its bold colouration and avant-garde approach to a traditional subject-matter, the work embodies the values proclaimed in Die Brücke programme, penned by Kirchner in 1906: ‘With faith in progress and in a new generation of creators and spectators we call together all youth. […] As youth, we carry the future and want to create for ourselves freedom of life and of movement against the long established older forces”.

    ERNST LUDWIG KIRCHNER
    AKT VOR DEM SPIEGEL (NUDE AT THE MIRROR) . UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD

    RODERIC O’CONOR AT SOTHEBY’S IN NEW YORK

    Monday, January 27th, 2020

    BREEZE by Roderic O’Conor will come up at Sotheby’s sale of 19th century European art in New York on January 31. The 1898 seascape is from the collection of J.E. Safra. It is estimated at $70,000-100,000.

    RODERIC O’CONOR – BREEZE . UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD