| | Second Highest Price Paid for a Work of Art at Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Sale
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An employee poses for photographs by Francis Bacon's 'Study for a Portrait' at Christie's auction house in London. AP Photo/Akira Suemori.
LONDON.- A painting by Irish-born artist Francis Bacon sold for 18.0 million pounds ($28.7 million) on Tuesday, the second highest price paid for a work of art at a Christie's post-war and contemporary auction in London. "Study for a Portrait," depicting a besuited man seated on a gilded armchair enshrouded in a sea of blue, had been expected to fetch around 11 million pounds, although the sale price includes a buyer's premium which the estimate does not. The most expensive work of art sold at an equivalent sale at Christie's, London, was also by Bacon -- his "Triptych" raised 26.3 million pounds in 2008. Executed in 1953, between Bacon's famous Pope series that year and his Man in Blue paintings of 1954, "Study for a Portrait" has never come to auction before. Rodrigo Moynihan, who lent Bacon a studio, was the first owner. It later belonged to Louis Le Brocquy, the renowned Irish painter, who was the last to keep ... More |
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National Gallery of Art Takes a New Look: Samuel F.B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre"
Samuel F. B. Morse, Gallery of the Louvre, 1831–1833 (detail). Oil on canvas, Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection.
WASHINGTON, DC.- The renowned painting Gallery of the Louvre (1831–1833) by American inventor Samuel F. B. Morse (1791–1872) has been recently conserved and is now on view in a focus exhibition at the National Gallery of Art near the East Garden Court of the West Building. On loan from the Terra Foundation for American Art from June 25, 2011, through July 8, 2012, the painting depicts masterpieces from the Louvre's collection that Morse "reinstalled" in one of that museum's grandest galleries, the Salon Carré. A New Look: Samuel F. B. Morse's "Gallery of the Louvre" was previously on view at Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, from March 1 through June 12, 2011. "The Gallery of the Louvre will not only enable visitors to learn more about the artistic accomplishments of Morse, best known for his inventions, and will further their understanding of his greatest painting and its historical importance," said ... More | | Bonhams to Sell Old Master Painting by Lucas Gassel that Shows Importance of Tennis
Players in 1530 picture have style resembling Bjorn Borg and Ilie Nastase. Photo: Bonhams.
LONDON.- Estimated to sell for £70,000 to £100,000, this oil painting by Lucas Gassel shows the grounds of a Renaissance palace with episodes from the story of David and Bathsheba, an extensive landscape with mountains and a harbour beyond. On a tennis court in the foreground, two players are using what appear to be very modern style tennis strokes. The present work is one of a group of paintings that originated in Flanders in the years between 1530 and 1560, three of which are attributed to Lucas Gassel (Helmont c.1500-c.1570). The location of eleven of the pictures is known and there are several more which are only known by hearsay. Four of the series are in public collections. There is one at the MCC, Lords, London, and one in the Louvre Museum, Paris. By the 16th century tennis had become one of the most popular of all games in the royal courts. The court shown here is similar in construction to those at Falkland, Bruges and Richmond, but these pictures are of tremendous int ... More | | The British Museum Collection Reaches Record Audiences Worldwide
Museum employee Esme Wilson poses with the Marble Cycladic figurine of the "hunter-warrior" type at the British Museum in London June 28, 2011. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor.
LONDON.- On the occasion of the publication of the Annual Review of 2010/11, the British Museum announces future plans alongside a review of international successes in the last year. Review of 2010/11: • The British Museum remained the most popular cultural attraction in the UK for a fourth year running, receiving 5.8 million visitors in 2010/2011, 4.9% more than in the previous year. • The BM website continued to diversify with the launch in 2010 of a Chinese language version and a version in Arabic, both supported by the World Collections Programme. Online collection records grew to 1.93 million. There are now nearly 800,000 images of the collection available for public consultation on the BM website. About 8.7 million people accessed the main BM website in 2010/11, with 21 million visits overall to all the BM websites. • Popular temporary exhibitions continue to draw in large numbers of visitors, with I ... More |
Vancouver Art Gallery Exhibition Highlights the Surrealist Fascination with Indigenous Art
Yup'ik, Complex Mask, 1800-1905. Wood, feathers and white and red pigments. Private Collection, Courtesy Donald Ellis Gallery , Dundas , ON and New York , NY . Formerly Enrico Donati Collection.
VANCOUVER, BC.- It is said that when Surrealist André Breton first saw an indigenous mask from the Pacific Northwest , he called it “more surreal than the Surrealists.” During the 1930s and 40s, Breton and many of his Surrealist colleagues were intrigued and became avid collectors of this art and, in some cases, visitors to British Columbia and Alaska. For the first time in an exhibition, The Colour of My Dreams: The Surrealist Revolution in Art brings to light the Surrealists’ fascination with First Nations art. The Surrealists’ passion for Pacific Northwest First Nations art began in New York , where many artists fled as Europe slid from the First World War into fascism and a new conflict. Surrealists were drawn to the ‘authentic’ quality, inventiveness of form and visual ... More | | Exhibition at the Lowry Focuses on the Most Alluring Divas of Andy Warhol's Time
Liza Minnelli, ca. 1978 Collection of The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.
MANCHESTER.- This newly curated exhibition by The Lowry presents an unprecedented collection of some of Andy Warhol’s most iconic works, focusing on the most alluring Divas of his time. As well as presenting the stars he admired, the exhibition will focus on Warhol’s transformation into his own glamorous alter ego, within his self-portrait in drag photographs. The term Diva, meaning ‘Goddess’ was originally attributed to the ‘prima donna’ or first lady of opera (an art form Warhol had the greatest respect for), whose voice and inimitable talent could not be done without. They were revered characters, often with inflated egos and irritable temperaments. Today, the term Diva is used far more readily within the spheres of popular and entertainment culture to describe any powerful, glamorous, tempestuous and often egotistical male and female performers. Catapulted into stardom by their voice, th ... More | | Getty is First Museum to Provide Expanded Google Goggles Experience to Visitors
The Google Goggles application allows visitors to take a picture of any painting in the Getty Museum’s collection and instantly access mobile-optimized versions of the Getty’s paintings collection pages on the Web.
LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced a collaboration with Google that enables visitors using the Google Goggles ™ mobile application to now have immediate access to rich online resources for information about paintings in the Museum’s collection. The Google Goggles application allows visitors to take a picture of any painting in the Getty Museum’s collection and instantly access mobile-optimized versions of the Getty’s paintings collection pages on the Web. Visitors have the opportunity to listen to audio, get biographical information about the artist and learn about and locate other works by the artist at the Getty. Google Goggles also allows visitors to save a visual record of their trip through the galleries to explore after their visit and share with others. “Curators ... More |
Beijing Tax Authorities Seek Nearly $2 Million from Outspoken Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei
Activist artist Ai Weiwei gestures while speaking to journalists gathered outside his home in Beijing. AP Photo/Ng Han Guan.
By: Gillian Wong, Associated Press
BEIJING (AP).- Beijing tax authorities are seeking nearly $2 million in back taxes and fines from outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, who was released last week from nearly three months in detention, his close friend said Tuesday. Ai was released on bail last Wednesday and Chinese authorities said he confessed to tax evasion and pledged to repay the money owed. His family has denied he evaded any taxes and activists have denounced the accusation as a false premise for detaining Ai, who spoke out against the authoritarian government and its repression of civil liberties. The Beijing Local Taxation Bureau informed Ai that he owed around 5 million yuan ($770,000) in unpaid taxes and would be fined about 7 million yuan ($1.1 million) — totaling just over 12 million yuan ($1.85 million), said Beijing human rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan. Liu does not legally represent Ai, but has been a friend and supporter of the artist for many years. Chinese authorities sometimes try to silence c ... More | | Hungarian Photographers in Frame in United Kingdom's Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition
Boys run into Lake Tanganyika in a vintage picture by Hungarian photographer Martin Munkacsi, reportedly shot in 1930. A new exhibition at London's Royal Academy called "Eyewitness", which runs from June 30-Oct. 2. REUTERS/Estate of Martin Munkacsi, courtesy of Howard Greenberg Gallery.
By: Mike Collett-White
LONDON (REUTERS).- Robert Capa once said "It's not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian," and a new London exhibition on five leading figures of the medium shows that he was only partly joking. "Eyewitness: Hungarian Photography in the 20th Century" at the Royal Academy focuses on Capa, Brassai, Andre Kertesz, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Martin Munkacsi, who were all born in Hungary. All, apart from Capa, were born in the 1890s, all were Jewish though not strictly religious and all changed their birth names -- indicative of the anti-Semitism they experienced at varying stages of their lives. Yet they were not part of a "Hungarian school" despite these connections, and the exhibition, which runs from June 30-October 20, throws up as many contrasts and comparisons as it does similarities ... More | | 2011 Käthe Kollwitz Prize Awarded to Canadian Artists Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller
Canadian artists George Bures Miller (L) and Janet Cardiff attend a press conference at the Academy of the Arts in Berlin. EPA/SEBASTIAN TANKE.
BERLIN.- The Käthe-Kollwitz-Preis 2011 (Käthe Kollwitz Prize) has been awarded jointly to Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller. On this occasion the artist duo from Canada will be showing four works in the Akademie der Künste (Academy of Arts). The exhibition at Pariser Platz will focus on the construction and deconstruction of acoustic perception and illusionist spaces. The real occurrences in Cardiff’s and Miller’s stories only reveal themselves when people enter the space and engage their visual and tactile senses. An additional layer is revealed in the process of recalling and imagining spaces, objects and relations. As an observer-listener, the visitor is tugged back and forth between dream and trauma, horror and curiosity. What people see often fails to match with what they are hearing, or it is hard to associate a particular sound with its imagined location. One of these intriguingly narrative main works is entitled “Killing Machine” (2007), on displa ... More |
Martin Creed's Work No.1059, 2011 is the New Commission for the Scotsman Steps
Martin Creed's commission for the Scotsman Steps. ©The Fruitmarket Gallery, Photo: Alan Dimmick.
EDINBURGH.- The Fruitmarket Gallery commissioned a new work of public sculpture by Turner-Prize winning Scottish artist Martin Creed for Edinburgh’s historic Scotsman Steps. Work 1059 is a feast for the eyes – 104 steps leading from the Scotsman Hotel on North Bridge to Waverley Station and The Fruitmarket Gallery on Market Street, each step clad in a different colour of marble. Martin Creed is an artist of international reputation, who makes work of the highest quality. His work is generous, direct and convincing, with an economy of means that belies the complexity of its affect. In 2001, he won the Turner Prize with Work No. 227: The lights going on and off. His recent exhibition Down Over Up at The Fruitmarket Gallery was one of the highlights of the 2010 Edinburgh Art Festival, with over 60,000 visitors and an extremely positive press and popular reaction. The Scotsman Steps were built in 1899 as part o ... More | | Phillips de Pury & Company's June Contemporary Art Evening Sale Realizes $16,923,234
Ugo Rondinone, Get up girl a sun is running the world, 2006. Cast aluminium, white enamel. 457 × 396 × 396 cm. Est: £200,000-300,000. Sold at: £541,250, Image courtesy of Phillips de Pury & Company,
LONDON.- Phillips de Pury & Company’s June Contemporary Art Evening sale realizes £11,243,350/$16,923,234 in total, selling 95% by value and 87% by lot. In a packed sale room at the Ballroom at Claridge’s there was active bidding in person and on the telephones illustrating the depth and strength of the market, resulting in a 189% growth for Phillips de Pury & Company last year’s London June Contemporary Art Evening Sale. “We are very pleased with the strong and solid results for this evening’s sale that saw spirited bidding. We are thrilled with the record price for Ugo Rondinone who we first introduced to the secondary market and is an artist we have always championed.” Simon de Pury, Chairman, Phillips de Pury & Company. “We are delighted with our exceptional sold by lot and value ... More | | Early American Toys and Trains Raced Past their Estimates at Noel Barrett's Spring Sale
Self-framed Marathon Tires tin advertising sign, 22¾ inches by 19¾-inch, $16,520. Noel Barrett Auctions image.
NEW HOPE, PA.- Prior to Noel Barrett’s richly varied May 21, 2011 “Something for Everyone” sale, some collectors speculated that the whimsical clockwork veggie man on the catalog cover might take the blue ribbon on auction day. While the cheeky, 16-inch papier-mache Halloween figure did surpass expectations to sell for $16,520 (all prices inclusive of 18% buyer’s premium); it was a modestly estimated Lionel train set that took the express journey to the top of prices realized. The Lionel 408E standard gauge set with electric engine and twin Bild-A-Loco motors pulled four compartmented coaches identified as 412 California, 413 Colorado, 414 Illinois and 416 New York, the latter being an observation car. All of the cars – which were finished in tan and chocolate brown with cream window frames and peacock-blue accents – came with their original boxes. The ... More |
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 Against the Way Things Go at Gasser GrunnertNEW YORK, NY.- Everyday, functional objects have been known to transcend utility and enter into heightened subjective relationships with their possessors. Passionate gestures of devotion have ensued with a woman recently marrying the Eiffel Tower and another woman, the Berlin Wall. Art objects refuse to be defined by use value or ownership, but they can inspire collusion with those who made them and those who view them. Against the Way Things Go spotlights the artistic process as having inherently performative qualities and considers the art object as the medium for transference. The selected works resonate with human experience, whereby their makers physically wrestled them into existence, developed elaborate material processes, reincarnated the objects into new contexts, or presented an opening for the viewer to complete the work, resulting in objects that cannot be separated from the gestures of its own making. The ... More Bonhams & Butterfields Sells Indiana Jones, Tim Burton, Norma Shearer and Animation Art LOS ANGELES, CA.- Bonhams & Butterfields’ Entertainment Memorabilia auction on June 26, 2011 in Los Angeles featured a wide variety of items related to Hollywood, Rock ‘n Roll and Animation Art. Highlights included pieces connected to Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Rolling Stones, Charles Schulz, Douglas Fairbanks and Norma Shearer. Dr. Catherine Williamson, Director of Entertainment Memorabilia, said of the sale: “The market for both old and new Hollywood collectibles continues to grow. We saw strong participation online and in the saleroom for iconic pieces from the classic films of yesterday and today.” Props from Raiders of the Lost Ark were prominently featured during the June sale. Timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the film’s release in June of 1981, the offering included one of Indiana Jones’ six iconic bullwhips used in a stunt sequence (est. $50, ... More Los Angeles Modern Auctions Becoming Choice Auction House for Modern Art on the West CoastLOS ANGELES, CA.- Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) achieved strong prices for original modern paintings and sculpture in Sunday's auction, reinforcing LAMA as the auction house of choice for important 20th century original works. The June 26, 2011 Modern Art & Design Auction reached sales of $1.5 million selling 70.2% by lot and 71.5% by value. Original paintings and sculpture by top-tier artists brought the highest prices in the auction. Top lots include: • Robert Rauschenberg Untitled (Combine) 1958 (Lot 155 est. 100,000 – 150,000) realized $93,750 • Alexander Calder Butterfly and Spiral (Lot 10 est. $35,000 – 45,000) went over estimate bringing $75,000 • Angel Botello Untitled (No. 1781) (Lot 369 est. $45,000 – 50,000) and Untitled (No. 1919) (Lot 370 est. $35,000 – 45,000) totaled $90,000 • Richard Anuszkiewicz Gilt Order (Lot 15 est. $18,000 – 25,000) sold for $40,625 • ... More Museum of Fine Arts Houston to Launch Digital Archive of 20th-Century Latin American and Latino ArtHOUSTON, TX.- The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and its research institute, the International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), have devoted ten years and $50 million to initiatives in 20th-century Latin American and Latino art. In January 2012, the MFAH and ICAA will reach a milestone in these efforts: the initial launch of a digital archive of some 10,000 primary-source materials, culled by hundreds of researchers based out of 16 cities in the U.S. and throughout Latin America. The online archive will be available worldwide, free of charge, and is intended as a catalyst for the future of a field that has been notoriously lacking in accessible resources. The phased, multi-year launch begins with 2,500 documents from Argentina, Mexico and the American Midwest. Documents from other countries and communities will continue to be uploaded and made available. The first volume in a companion series of 13 ... More Minneapolis Institute of Arts Appoints Mary Jane Drews Director of External AffairsMINNEAPOLIS, MN.- The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) today announced the appointment of Mary Jane Drews as its new Director of External Affairs. Drews, who comes to the MIA from the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC), where she was Vice President of Development, assumed her new role on June 20, 2011. Bringing with her more than 20 years of philanthropic experience, Drews will manage the museum’s departments of Development & Membership, Marketing & Communications, and Community Relations. “The MIA is delighted to welcome Mary Jane Drews to our team,” said Kaywin Feldman, MIA Director and President. “She brings a breadth and depth of knowledge and experience from the world of cultural nonprofits and museums, which will be of enormous value to the MIA. We look forward to working with her to help advance the MIA’s mission in the coming years.” “This is an exciting time to be joining ... More Chinese Sculptor Moulds Memory of MaoYAN'AN, CHINA (REUTERS).- Sculptor Wang Wenhai has dedicated his life to one man - China's controversial former paramount leader Mao Zedong. Since Mao's death in 1976, Wang has made well over 2,000 sculptures of the "Great Helmsman," most of them from the soft, red clay dug from the nearby hills. A terracotta army of miniature Maos fills his tiny flat and studio in Yan'an. Wang, now 60, worked for two decades as a Mao Zedong thought propagator in Yan'an, a gritty north-western Chinese city which the Communist Party made their base for 13 years before taking control of China in 1949. "Because I used to work as a Mao Zedong thought propagator and spent all day promoting him, I have seen a huge number of .Chairman Mao portraits and file photos," Wang told Reuters. "Every photo of Mao has left a deep impression in my head. So when I make a Chairman Mao, I don't have to think much, it just comes out through my hands ... More |
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