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Posts Tagged ‘sotheby’s’

GREAT RESULTS FROM SOTHEBY’S, OUTLOOK GOOD

Tuesday, March 1st, 2011

Sotheby’s delivered net income of $161.0 million in 2010, which apart from peak of the boom 2007 is the best yearly result ever. “It is a remarkable accomplishment,” said Bill Ruprecht, President and Chief Executive Officer. “The recovery of the global art market which was aided in part by the increased buying activity of clients from new markets certainly contributed to these results, as did the difficult decisions we had to make beginning in the autumn of 2008 – the headcount reduction, tightening of our cost structure and steadfast focus on auction commission margins – which have paid off considerably.

The positive moment is continuing into 2011. “Overall, aggregate auction sales through the first two months of 2011 solidly improved from the first two months of 2010. We hope that 2011 will be another strong year for Sotheby’s and for the art market,” Bill Ruprecht said.

Tags: art market, results, sotheby's
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MASTERPIECE OF VENETIAN ART TO BE SOLD BY SOTHEBY’S

Saturday, February 26th, 2011

A masterpiece by Guardi at Sotheby's. (click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT MADE A RECORD £26,697,250.

A masterpiece of Venetian art is to be sold at Sotheby’s in London on July 6. Francesco Guardi’s Venice, Looking North, from the Fondamenta del Carbon is estimated to make in the region of £20 million.

Monumental in scale (it measures 45¼ by 78½ inches) it is one of four works Guardi painted of this size. All were executed at around the same time in the late 1760’s. They are generally considered to be his greatest work, the fullest expression of his mature style.

One of the four was destroyed by fire in the mid-20th century. The last in the group was sold by Sotheby’s in 1989 for almost £10 million – then the second highest price ever achieved at auction for an Old Master painting and still the record for the artist.

Throughout its existence, the painting has almost always hung in private. With the exception of a short period recently, when it was on loan to the Iveagh Bequest at Kenwood House in London, its last public showing was in the great 1955 exhibition at the Royal Academy, European Masters from the 18th century.

UPDATE: IT MADE A RECORD £26,697,250.

Tags: Guardi, sotheby's, Venice
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STELLAR LINE UP AT SOTHEBY’S IRISH SALE

Monday, February 21st, 2011

Beckett by le Brocquy at Sotheby's. (Click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: It made £75,650

THERE is a stellar line up at Sotheby’s Irish Sale in London on March 29. It features rare works never seen on the market before by artists like Sir John Lavery, Roderic O’Conor and Mary Swanzy. There are 13 works by Louis le Brocquy and the sale includes Basil Blackshaw, John Shinnors, William Scott, Colin Middleton and Sean Scully.

John Lavery’s portrait of Lady Gwendoline Churchill, A Lady in Brown, is at auction for the first time. It is believed the painting was probably executed in the summer of 1915. O’Conor’s Landscape, Cassis, has re-surfaced from a private American collection and features one of the smaller peaks of the limestone cliffs of Le Cap Canail.

Sunlit Landscape by Mary Swanzy is a dazzling modernist piece. It is part of a series of lyrical Provencal cubist landscapes produced following a stay at Grasse in the South of France in the winter of 1926-1927 and is estimated at £60,000-80,000.

Daniel O’Neill is represented in the sale with one of the most expressive and affecting works by the artist to ever appear at auction. On Reading Dear Theo is a portrait of Vincent van

Gogh. The composition and treatment clearly reference van Gogh’s landscapes. It is estimated at £30,000-50,000. Headlining the le Brocquy works is an image of Samuel Beckett (Opus 473), an

oil on canvas estimated at £60,000-80,000.

There is a group of four still lives by William Scott and the art auction offers a strong selection of contemporary works.

See posts on antiquesandartireland.com for February 16 and February 2.

Tags: Irish art, sotheby's
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FEBRUARY SALES AT CHRISTIE’S AND SOTHEBY’S AMOUNT TO £423.6 MILLION

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

THE recovery in art market prices continued over the London selling season in February. According to our calculations Sotheby’s and Christie’s sold £423.6 million worth of Impressionist, Modern, Contemporary, Post-War and Surreal art over the past fortnight.

Aided by an incredible private owner sale entitled Looking Closely, with 60 works by some of the greatest of all modern and contemporary masters, Sotheby’s led with a sales total of £242,109,075. This is the second highest total for any sales season ever held at Sotheby’s in London. Their sales featured property from 39 countries and attracted buyers from 47 countries spanning 5 continents. The total at Christie’s series of sales amounted to £181.5 million.

These results support a growing view that the international recovery in art market prices can be sustained.

Tags: art, Christie's, London, sotheby's
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SEAN SCULLY AT SOTHEBY’S CONTEMPORARY SALES

Friday, February 18th, 2011

Enter Yellow is the title of this 1999 work by Sean Scully (click on image to enlarge)

Small Grey Wall by Scullly dates from 2002. (click on image to enlarge)

Enter Yellow by the Irish artist Sean Scully made a hammer price of £409,250 at Sotheby’s Contemporary art evening auction in London on February 15. It had been estimated at £300,000-500,000.

The following day Scully, who draws inspiration from the low stone walls of the west of Ireland, had another work at Sotheby’s day sale. His work entitled Small Grey Wall, signed and dated 2002, made a hammer price with buyer’s premium of £289,250. It had been estimated at £200,000-300,000.

Tags: Contemporary art, Sean Scully, sotheby's
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CONTRASTING LANDSCAPES AT SOTHEBY’S IRISH SALE

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

Paul Henry's Achill Village at Sotheby's Irish sale on March 29. (click on image to enlarge) UPDATE: IT MADE £58,850

Roderic O'Conor, Landscape at Cassis at Sotheby's Irish sale on March 29. (click on image to enlarge) UPDATE; IT MADE £337,250

Roderic O’Conor and Paul Henry sought inspiration from landscapes in different though beautiful locations.

O’Conor favoured in France while Henry is most noted for his art in the west of Ireland.

Each one features at Sotheby’s annual Irish sale in London on March 29. Roderic O’Conor’s Landscape, Cassis is estimated at £120,000-180,000 (€140,000-210,000) while Paul Henry’s Achill Village is estimated at £30,000-50,000 (€36,300-60,500)

Tags: Henry, Irish art, O'Conor, sotheby's
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Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds Make Four Times Estimate

Tuesday, February 15th, 2011

Gerhard Richters Abstraktes Bild, the top lot at Sotheby's Contemporary sale in London. (click on image to enlarge)

The first of Ai Weiwei’s Sunflower Seeds (Kui Hua Zi) ever to appear at auction made £349,250 (£3.50 per seed) at Sotheby’s auction of contemporary art. The 100 kilograms of the porcelain seeds made more than four times the pre-sale estimate of £80,000-120,000 in London. Four bidders both in the saleroom and on the telephones battled to acquire 100,000 of the artist’s seeds. The seeds in this work of art are not from Tate Modern’s 11th Unilever Turbine Hall commission.

Sunflower Seeds draws together many of the themes and formal concerns of Weiwei’s work to date. Sotheby’s described it as a sculptural piece which is at once singular and complex in form and meaning. This one was executed in 2010 and is from an edition of ten unique variants.

This evening’s Contemporary Art evening sale realised £44,359,900. When results from last weeks ‘Looking Closely’ sale are added it brings the total for Sotheby’s Contemporary Art auction series so far this season to £88,022,550. This is the second-highest total for a February Contemporary Art sales series in London, and the highest total since July 2008.

The top lot was as Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild of 1990, which sold for £7,209,250.

(see antiquesandartireland.com post for February 10)

UPDATE: The contemporary art day auction brought in a total of £13,930,200 at Sotheby’s on February 16. The result brings the overall total for contemporary art at Sotheby’s this season to £101,952,750. This is well above pre-sale expectations of £56-78million.

Tags: Ai Weiwei, Contemporary art, Richter, sotheby's, Sunflower Seeds
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RECORD FOR ANY SURREALIST WORK AT AUCTION

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

Dali's Portrait de Paul Eluard (click on image to enlarge)

Portrait de Paul Eluard – a masterpiece by Salvador Dali – soared above its pre-sale estimate of £3.5-5 million to sell to an anonymous bidder on the phone for £13,481,250/$21,688,635 at Sotheby’s in London on February 10.

This is a record for any Surrealist work of art at auction. This price triples the record established for the artist at Christie’s on the previous evening in London. It also stands a new record price for any Surrealist work of art sold at auction.

The single owner sale of Modern and Contemporary Art, Looking Closely: A Private Collection brought a well above estimate total of £93.5 million. This outstanding result of £93,520,600 / $150,455,941 / €110,307,368 was achieved against an estimate of £39,298,000-54,987,000.

The top lot of the night was Francis Bacon’s triptych Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud.

The sale, which was 100% sold, set records for Dali, Julio González, Jean Fautrier and Wols. Wols’s Sans Titre (1946-1947) is one of only 40 works to have been created by an artist who became a leading figure in art in Post-War Europe. It went for £2,617,250, 17 times its pre-sale high estimate.

See antiquesandartireland.com posts for February 5 and February 10.

Tags: Dali, sotheby's, Surrealist art
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STRONG BIDDING ACROSS ALL RANGES AT SOTHEBYS

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Sotheby’s day sale of Impressionist and Modern art on February 9 brought in £21,463,975 against a pre-sale estimate of £16,934,000 – 23,608,000. The top was La Mandoline Noire, 1926, a late work by Juan Gris. It made £926,050. Altogether 212 out of 266 lots sold, with strong bidding in all price ranges. Over 500 people registered to bid from as far afield as Africa, US, Asia, Russia, Australia, North and South America and Europe. The total for Impressionist and Modern art at Sotheby’s over the last two days is £90,298,370.

Tags: art, sotheby's
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PICASSO MAKES £25 MILLION AT SOTHEBY’S

Wednesday, February 9th, 2011

Picasso's La Lecture (click on image to enlarge)

Picasso’s La Lecture sold for £25,241,250, more than double the low estimate, at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern art sale. There was a heated six minute long bidding contest between seven bidders on the phone and in the saleroom. The 1932 painting of Marie-Thérèse Walter was bought over the phone by an anonymous buyer.

The sale brought in £68,834,400, well within the pre-sale estimate of £55,630,000-79,250,000. There were 42 lots on offer and 32 sold, mostly at prices at or above their estimate. Fifteen works made over one million pounds and the average lot value was £2.15 million.

Among the works that failed to sell was Alberto Giacometti’s bronze portrait of his younger brother from 1957. Grand buste de Diego avec bras was estimated at £3.5 to £5 million. Dealers reckoned it failed to sell because of its pale colour.

Tags: Picasso, sotheby's
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