Sir William Orpen R.A., R.H.A. – The Yacht Race (Sighting the Boat). UPDATE: THIS WAS UNSOLD
The Yacht Race (Sighting the Boat) by Sir William Orpen comes up at Sotheby’s Modern British Art sale in London on June 28. Orpen’s summer ritual from 1909 onwards had been to rent Arthur Bellingham’s house known as ‘The Cliffs’ overlooking the majestic sweep of Dublin Bay for the month of August. There he would be joined by his wife, Grace, and his daughters, Mary and Kit, along with other members of his family. Since the Howth holiday followed his summer term residency at the Metropolitan School of Art, Dublin friends and students sometimes joined the party. These convivial gatherings became subjects for drawings and paintings for, as his brother Richard recalled, while these ‘long, lovely, never-to-be-forgotten summer days’ were carefree. The pencil and watercolour on paper is estimated at £90,000-£130,000. A Shining Place – a Venetian painting by William John Leech – comes up at the same sale with an estimate of £50,000-£70,000.
Lady with a fan by Gustav Klimt at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £85.3 MILLION TO BECOME THE MOST VALUABLE PAINTING EVER SOLD IN EUROPE.
A late painting by Klimt set to become the most valuable artwork ever sold in Europe, wonderful antique furniture, portraits and exceptional collectibles will make rich pickings for the rich and plenty of eye candy for the rest of us in London in the coming weeks. This is the time of year when the art world descends on the British capital for a variety of major sales, fairs and significant one off events like the re-opening after five years of the world renowned National Portrait Gallery. Despite some indications that the global art market might be in slightly hesitant mode right now the London summer season of 2023 is unlikely to disappoint. Lady with a Fan by Klimt at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening sale on June 27 has an estimate of around €80 million. The last portrait he painted was still on an easel in the studio at the time of his untimely death in the flu pandemic of 1918. Featuring an unnamed woman it is described by Sotheby’s as an ever deeper, ever more joyful immersion in pattern, colour and form, filled with the creative exuberance. The auction will offer a strong grouping of portraits with work by artists like Alberto Giacomett and Edvard Munch.
These c1765 carved mirrors in the Chippendale style are being shown by Ronald Phillips at the Treasure House Fair
In celebration of the re-opening of London’s National Portrait Gallery last Thursday the dynamism of portraiture across the centuries, redefined by each generation, will again be highlighted at Christie’s sale on June 28. One of the more contemporary offerings here is Diplomacy I by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. Part of the Tate Retrospective which closed last February it depicts a group of suited delegates recalling Marion Kaplan’s photographs of African heads of state at a summit in Uganda in 1967. The artist has created bold new characters for black representation in art. In this imagined portrait Yiadom-Boakye has inserted a single woman, clad in pink. The sale offers portraits by Frank Auerbach, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Edgar Degas, Lucian Freud and Howard Hodgkin.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Diplomacy I (2009) at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE £1,371,000
The Treasure House Fair, in full swing until next Monday at the Royal Hospital in Chelsea, was generated by leading UK dealers after the cancellation of Masterpiece, which cited a lack of overseas exhibitor interest. Treasure House has attracted dealers from France, Switzerland and the US like Geoffrey Diner and Michele Beiny. There is fine antique furniture from leading UK dealers like Ronald Phillips at this curated global event with distinguished names across a wide range of disciplines.Meantime the city is gearing up for London Art Week which runs from June 30 to July 7 with 53 specialists and expert dealers with museum quality examples of decorative arts, paintings, sculpture and works on paper from antiquity to contemporary. Various galleries will show work by Irish artists like Sir John Lavery, Gerald Leslie Brockhurst (who lived here for a time) Augustus John and Gwen John as well showcasing artists from Giambologna to Renoir, Picasso and Dora Maar. The Fine Arts Society will exhibit an enamel by Phoebe Anna Traquair, the Irish born artist who achieved international recognition for her role in the Arts and Crafts Movement in Scotland. She produced large scale murals, embroidery, enamel jewellery and book illuminations. On show in London is The Life of the Virgin (1906), three plaques in enamel with foil on copper.
The Life of the Virgin (1906) by Dublin born Phoebe Anna Traquair is on display at the Fine Arts Society in London.
Lucian Freud – Night Interior, 1968-70. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £9,586,700
Lucian Freud’s portrait of Penelope Cuthbertson leads the evening sale of Modern and Contemporary art at Sotheby’s in London on June 27. Night Interior is estimated at £8-12 million. The auction offers four pieces by three visionaries of British Art: Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach and Frank Dobson from a distinguished private collection. All four were created within just a few miles of one another in London. Freud’s meditative portrait will be offered alongside two remarkable paintings from Frank Auerbach’s most revered series’: Mornington Crescent and a portrait of his most famed sitter Juliet Yardley Mills, J.Y.M. Seated II. There is as well a rare to market white marble sculpture of a female form by Frank Dobson. Only ten carvings by the artist have appeared at auction in the last thirty years.
Charles II Irish silver porringer, Samuel Marsden, Dublin, 1680. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £4,445
This very rare Irish silver porringer by Samuel Marsden comes up as lot 77 at Sotheby’s sale of furniture, silver, clocks and ceramics which runs online until tomorrow (May 23) afternoon. Only one other example of Marsden’s work is known: a 1679 communion cup and paten at St. Michan’s church in Dublin. He was a warden of the Goldsmiths’ Company of Dublin from 1677-1680 and master in 1681. The estimate for the piece is £4,000-£6,000.
Among other lots of Irish interest are a set of four Irish George III silver meat dishes with Sheffield plate covers with the arms of Moore, Earls of Drogheda for Charles Moore (29 June 1730 – 22 December 1822), 6th Earl of Drogheda, who in July 1791 was created Marquess of Drogheda. The estimate here is £12,000-£18,000. There is a silver salver by Joseph Johns of Limerick and a soup ladle by George Moore of Limerick, Irish silver goblets, coasters, basting spoons and sauce boats. UPDATE: The Earl of Drogheda silver sold for £13,970
Haze Days by Yoshitomo Nara at Sotheby’s. THIS WAS UNSOLD
The explosion of creativity in the art world in the first two decades of the 20th century has not been matched in the 21st. and it is interesting to speculate about why. A century ago the world was newly enriched by Post-Impressionism, Cubism, Abstraction, Suprematism and the rest. In the global village of today, development of the shock of the new in art does not seem to have occurred at the hectic pace of technology and other groundbreaking disciplines. Are artists stupefied by the pace of change in the world all around them? In a world where wonder is taken for granted is visual surprise and delight degraded?
Geniuses like David Hockney have demonstrated the infinite possibilities of digital art but it is not as yet a significant art market sector. It looks as if NFT’s have gone the way of cryptocurrency for now. The most innovative market focus is on overlooked women artists, non western art, ethnic, tribal and minority groups but art needs innovation, not political correctness. The impressive selection of Impressionist, Modern, Post-Modern and Contemporary art will come under the hammer at the big New York spring sales in May are mostly of the 20th century. Highly significant art from major collections like Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, legendary Condé Nast co owner S.I. Newhouse and Warner Bros. Records executive Mo Ostin, among whose signings were The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Prince, Joni Mitchell, R.E.M. and Madonna, will boost these sales.
L’Empire des Lumieres by Rene Magritte from the Mo Ostin collection at Sotheby’s. UPDATE: THIS MADE$42,273,000
All the big names, from Picasso, Matisse and Magritte to Georgia O’Keeffe, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama and Jean Michel Basquiat are here along with less well known but seriously doing well relative newcomers like Wayne Thiebaud and Yoshitomo Nara. But the art of today, which both auction houses have been busily promoting, is represented by just 51 lots, 27 at the 21st Century evening sale at Christie’s on May 15 and 24 at the Now evening sale at Sotheby’s on May 18.
Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $4,890,000
The Christie’s auction will be headed up by a Basquiat (born in 1960, died in 1986). There is a pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama (born in 1929), a box of ten photographs by Diane Arbus (1923-1971), a take on a Velazquez painting by Jeff Koons (born 1955), Prophet by El Anatsui (born 1944) and Untitled (We will no longer be your favourite disappearing act) by Barbara Kruger (born 1945). Art in this sale by Cecily Brown, Rashid Johnson, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and other younger artists like Vojtek Kovarik and Louis Fratino (both born in 1993) will definitely reward serious study but seems rooted in the 20th century. A powerful 1998 work by Yoshito Nara titled Haze Days will highlight the Now auction at Sotheby’s. This monumental rendering of a bandaged child – furious, foreboding and wonderfully appealing – embodies the contradictions of our culture and ourselves. The eyes have it and it is no surprise that these angst laden paintings sell for many millions of dollars. There is arresting art by Simone Leigh, Jonas Wood, Matthew Wong, Julien Nguyen, Mark Grotjahn, Kerry James Marshall, Mark Bradford, Rudolf Stingel and other names that might not yet be so well known. With this sale Sotheby’s has set out to offer heightened visibility and a relevant art historical context for a new generation of younger artists but it is the artists themselves who need to forge new paths.
Burning gas station by Ed Ruscha at Christie’s. UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $22,260,000
Stage Costumes, handwritten lyrics, fine and decorative arts, Japanese art, precious objects and a trove of Freddy Mercury’s personal belongings will be sold by Sotheby’s this summer. While Mercury captivated audiences across the globe, it was at his beloved home – Garden Lodge in Kensington, West London – where he fashioned his own private world, assembling a collection that reflected and fired his expansive imagination.
For some 30 years, Garden Lodge has remained almost entirely as Mercury left it, complete with the many works of art that spoke to him so deeply: from Victorian paintings and striking works on paper by the greatest artists of the 20th century, to the finest examples of the glass maker’s art (a medium he loved beyond measure) and other beautiful objects; and from the exceptional fabrics and fine works he would seek out on trips to Japan, to the smaller, more personal items that were such an important part of his daily life. All complemented by defining objects from his more public life: a number of never-before-seen drafts of the immortal song lyrics, along with some of the riotous costumes that were the hallmark of Mercury’s signature style.
Freddy Mercury’s Martin D35 acoustic guitar
This summer, the contents of Garden Lodge, all lovingly cherished and cared for over the last three decades, will be revealed to the public for the first time in a dedicated month-long exhibition at Sotheby’s in London, which will see every inch of the company’s 16,000 square foot gallery space dedicated to celebrating Mercury’s rich and multi-faceted life and passions, culminating in six dedicated sales in September, each one devoted to a different aspect of his life, both public and private.
Pablo Picasso, Jaqueline au Chapeau Noir (1962
Mary Austin, one of Mercury’s closest and most trusted friends, has treasured and cared for his home and everything in it for the last thirty years.
The month-long exhibition at Sotheby’s this summer will see all 1,500 or so items from Garden Lodge displayed in a sequence of specially designed immersive galleries, each one devoted to a different aspect of Mercury’s rich and varied life. The exhibition will open on August 4, and close on what would have been his 77th birthday, September 5. Prior to the exhibition highlights from will tour to New York, London, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong in June.
The six dedicated auctions which follow will kick off with a live evening sale on September 6 with a cross-section of the most significant items.
Paul Gauguin: Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline (1885). UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR $10,444,700
Four works from the collection of Ambroise Vollard, one of the most important art dealers in Paris during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, will come up at Sotheby’s Modern evening auction in New York in May. The group is highlighted by a major still life by Paul Gauguin, one of the most significant by the artist to appear at auction, which hung on the walls of the Musée d’Orsay in Paris for almost 40 years since its founding in 1986. Following years of legal proceedings, during which the heirs of Ambroise Vollard were represented by lawyers including François Honnorat, a French court recently ruled that ownership of the works would be returned to Vollard’s descendants. The collection includes works by Renoir and Cezanne.
Frederick Edward McWilliam, R.A. – Mother and Daughter. UPDATE: THIS MADE £40,640
Mother and Daughter by F. E. McWilliam comes up as lot 49 at Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale online until March 14. The bronze is 45 and a quarter inches tall and 22 inches wide. Conceived in 1957 it is number 2 from an edition of 3. The estimate is £30,000-£50,000.
Sean Scully’s Wall of Light, Red sold for £1,137,000 at Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary evening auction in London on March 1. The monumental work from his most celebrated and instantly recognised Wall of Light series was made in 1998 and is among the largest and earliest works in the series. The oil on linen is on two joined canvases. The inspiration came from a visit to Mexico in the early 1980’s where he was fascinated by the stones of ancient walls on the Yucatan peninsula. When animated by light they seemed to reflect the passage of time.
“I can’t exactly explain it, but seeing the Mexican ruins, the stacking of the stones, and the way light hit those facades, had something to do with it, maybe everything to do with it” the artist is quoted as saying in an exhibition catalogue at the Metropolitian Museum, New York in 2005.
There was a new auction record for Kandinsky at Sotheby’s in London last night when Murnau mit Kirche II sold for £37.2 million. The painting was created in 1910 as Kandinsky began to shift from the figurative towards abstraction, forging a new experimental path in his already distinguished career. It had been recently returned to the heirs of original owners, Siegbert and Johanna Margarete Stern, who were seasoned collectors and respected members of the Berlin cultural circle in the 1930s, counting Franz Kafka and Albert Einstein as peers. The outbreak of war and Nazi occupation meant they were parted from many of their beloved paintings when in exile from Germany.
Another restituted work, Munch’s Dance on the Beach £16.9 million. Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes made £24 million and Ib Reading by Lucian Freud made £17 million. Picasso’s Fillette au Bateau (Maya) sold for £18 million.
Earlier the Now auction was led by Cecily Brown’s The Nymphs have Departed, which made £3.4 million. Sweet Spot by Florna Yukhnovich made £939,800, double its estimate. The London evening sales reached a combined total of £172.6 million.
