I'm no art critic, which is perhaps why I'm a little mystified by the astronomical sale of Le Bassin aux Nympheas by Claude Monet for £40,921,250, ($80,451,178) at a recent sale at Christie's London. This new sale obliterates the record set at Christie's New York in May by Monet's "Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil" which went for $41.181 million.
Le Bassin aux Nymphéas was fought for by three bidders, two on the telephone and one woman at the front of the room. The Guardian reports that at one point the woman bidder asked for more time but she eventually had the winning bid. The painting is one of Monet's large-scale Nymphéas which led to his Grandes décorations, the frieze now in the Musée de l'Orangerie, Paris. Dated 1919, when Monet signed the picture and sold it with three sister-works, Le bassin aux nymphéas is one of the tiny handful of pictures from this period that he sold.
As the Guardian article mentioned, quoting art expert Charles Dupplin, right now the art market is an interesting spot. Records are being smashed all over the place while the middle section of the market appears to be sagging. This mimics in some ways the state of the entire luxury market which has remained robust at the ultra high end but has shown serious weakness in the lower and middle ranges.
Compared to his diamond-covered skull, Damien Hirst's latest work for sale, a bull in formaldehyde, with a head crowned by a solid-gold disc, and hooves and horns cast in 18-karat gold is practically a deal. The Golden Calf will be auctioned off at Sotheby's in New York in September and is estimated to bring in $16 to $24 million. The calf comes in a gold-plated stainless steel and glass box. The monumental piece is part of Beautiful Inside My Head Forever, a major auction of new works by Hirst, on September 15 and 16. The auction will include formaldehyde sculptures, new paintings, new cabinets and preparatory drawings,
Celebrities often buy and sell art, (as Hugh Grant did last year when he parted with his Warhol) but it's rarer that the painting belongs to a band. The piece above, a powerful painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat belonging to rock band U2, will be auctioned July 1 at Sotheby's London. Untitled (Pecho/Oreja), completed in 1983, is estimated to sell for £4-6 million ($7.775-11.662 million) but could go higher.
U2 bassist Adam Clayton first spotted the painting, which is acrylic, oil stick and paper collage on canvas, and the band bought it way back in 1989, a year after Basqiat's untimely death. It has hung in their Dublin studio ever since. The painting, which was begun when Basquiat was just 22 features some of his popular motifs including the stylized, skull-like face, the small crown and his use of words and scrawled lines to invoke an urgent chaos. BBC News reports that the current auction record for a Basquiat work stands at $14.6 million.
These hand-crafted jars come in such vivid lollipop-like colors they seem almost lickable. They are created by Elizabeth Lyons of More Fire Glass Studio and have inflated stoppers that give them the look of game pieces. Each one measures 19" x 8", they come in green, orange, or ruby and sell for $775 each.
More Fire Glass Studio is located in Rochester, New York and they also offer classes in making glass beads, jewelry and more.
It seems that whenever a question of big spending comes up all around the world, one name is always bandied about. Mukesh Ambani may be the world's richest man but it's Roman Abramovich who does the most spending. And he was at it again last week busy at both Sotheby's and Christie's. The Art Newspaper reports that the Russian billionaire bought both Francis Bacon's Triptych, 1976, which sold at Sotheby's New York for $86.3 million and Lucian Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping, 1995, which sold at Christie's for $33.6 million. Why the interest in art from a man who is more famous for his real estate and his huge yachts? Apparently he's looking to furnish his London home. and his girlfriend, Dasha Zhukova, is also an art lover who is planning to is to open a new gallery in Moscow specializing in contemporary art.
Imari porcelain is one of the most striking styles of Japanese porcelain. The style originated circa 1616 in the city of Arita and the porcelain ware was distributed to Japanese locations through the northern Kyushu port of Imari. The traditional color palette for Imari porcelain is very vivid with an underglaze of cobalt blue, and overglaze of iron red and details in gold paint. Sometimes green and yellow polychrome enamel colors were also used as accents. The rich ornamental look of Imari porcelain is reminiscent of the brocading of Japanese textiles. Next month, Flying Cranes Antiques (located in galleries 55, 56 and 58 in The Manhattan Art and Antiques Center, 1050 Second Avenue at 55th St - NY, NY 10022), will feature a display of Japanese Imari porcelains. Exhibited for sale will be rare forms executed in the rich palette characteristic of the ware. The Flying Cranes Antiques Imari porcelain collection includes various forms: bottle shapes, vases, covered jars, foliate plates dating circa 1850-1880. The cost range for the exhibition is in the $800 to $15,000 with many pieces in the $1,000-2,500 range. Shown here is one of the exhibition pieces - a Japanese Imari porcelain shell-form plate (19th Century - Circa 1850-1880 which has a price of $2,200.
The big wow from Sotheby's contemporary art sale on Wednesday, was the record price set for a Francis Bacon. His "Triptych, 1976" sold for $86.281 million setting a record for postwar art and topping the estimate of around $70 million. Sotheby's had their best night in their nearly 300-year history bringing in a total of $362 million, which bested the $348.2 million haul from Christie's just the night before. While at the Christie's sale a Mark Rothko painting went for over $50 million, at this sale a similar painting went unsold. Seventeen other artists also set record including Robert Rauschenberg, who died this week. His "Overdrive" sold for $14.6 million. Takashi Murakami's amusing sculpture "My Lonesome Cowboy" went for $15.16 million which is rather amazing considering his previous record for $2.7 million. At the sale 87 percent of the 83 lots were sold and the sale exceeded the high presale estimate of $357 million. Fine art spending is alive and well, if there's a fall coming, well, inevitably there will be one, it seems it won't be for a while yet.
I've never been a big fan of fake fruit as decor but these fruit sculptures of glass by Anthony Biancaniello are really beautiful. Each of Biancaniello's designs have a common theme, be it a uniform shape or color scheme, used throughout and he usually works with pairs or groups of objects to create the desired artistic effect. He also, apparently, really likes fruit.
These sculptures are a great way to have the classic beauty of a fruit still life in your home without the often associated tackiness. Prices range from $245 to $1150.
Gallery: Art Glass Sculptures by Anthony Biancaniello
As my colleague, J.P.S. mentioned when talking about an upcoming Christie's contemporary art auction, the economy may be sluggish but we don't think the art market is headed for a crash quite yet. Proof of that could be sen yesterday when Christie's auctioned off "Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil" a painting of a bridge by Impressionist Claude Monet. The painting brought in $41.181 million, setting a new record for the popular French artist and besting the estimate of $35 million to $40 million. The previous record for a Monet painting, $36.5 million for his 1904 "Nympheas," was set just last year. No word on who the buyer and seller are.
The online market in high-end modern and contemporary furniture in design is really heating up.. A couple of months ago I mentioned that Christie's rebranded its House Sales as Christie's Interiors to help decorators, collectors and newcomers acquire one-of-a-kind objects and collectibles. Another antiques and design site, 1st Dibs also helps people access a world full of vintage design finds without combing through antique stores.
The latest entry into the market is Artnet's Design Marketplace which shows furniture and decorative art from over 150 galleries in 75 countries. The site shows over 3,000 works for sale from over 1,000 renowned designers including Carlo Mollino, Isamu Noguchi, Jean Royère, Marc Newson and Zaha Hadid, among many others. You can search by designer, object type, style/period, price and location of the item. The prices range from a couple hundred dollars for a vase to pieces like this "room-within-a-room" inspired by a traditional Dutch bedstee by designer Hella Jongerius. The walls and cupboards of Jongerius's Bedstee are loosely upholstered and there is also a soft sculpture of a candleholder. The piece is being sold through NY shop Moss and sells for $80,000.
In terms of pop art, Kate Moss is definitely a successor to Marilyn Monroe as a most used (or perhaps overused) icon. Banksy's prints of Moss as the modern Marilyn sold for £96,000 at the Bonham's Urban Art auction in February (a set of the six prints sold for around $94,000 back in 2006). Now the Helium Foundation, is releasing a complete portfolio of all six Kate prints for sale. The Helium Foundation hasn't released pricing information on the prints but there is a limited edition of 20 sets. Is Kate a sound investment? It would certainly seem so currently, pictures of Kate Moss by a variety of artists have commanded high prices in several auctions. Check out the gallery below for a few sample of Kate as an art muse.
Imagining inheriting more than a billion dollars worth in fine art. Sounds pretty nice right? Until you have to pay the taxes on that. The NY Times reports that the heirs of the legendary dealer Ileana Sonnabend have sold around $600 million worth of paintings and sculptures in a pair of private deals to cover their estate taxes. Works sold include pieces by Roy Lichtenstein, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons, whose Rabbit sculpture, shown at right was part of the deal. Ms. Sonnabend died last October at the age of 92 and all the big auction houses and dealers have been clamoring for the honor of selling off her impressive collection.
The names the people who bought the art have not been revealed but insiders say that GPS Partners, dealers Franck Giraud, Lionel Pissarro and Philippe Ségalot bought $400 million worth of art on behalf of several clients and that a second group of just Andy Warhols was sold to the Gagosian Gallery for $200 million. It is assumed that GPS Partners and Larry Gagosian will then sell some of the works to many of the world's top collectors.
Sonnabend's heirs, her son and daughter, will try to hold on to as much of the collection as they can including Robert Rauschenberg's 1959 "Canyon" which cannot be sold because it features a stuffed bald eagle and that would violate the federal prohibition on trafficking in endangered species.
Although there are plenty of causes, both locally and around the world, that need money for urgent and life-saving purposes, there is something to be said for giving a little energy and money to saving the arts as well. What is the world without beauty and creativity? One such charity is the Sundance Institute, founded by Robert Redford in 1981 as a way to "discover, support, and inspire independent film and theatre artists from the United States and around the world," and to get those works out to audiences. Perhaps most famous for its annual "Sundance Film Festival," the Sundance Institute has many programs and different ways to get involved so get inspired and check it out.
Posted Mar 7th 2008 8:02AM by Rigel Gregg Filed under: Art
If you're looking to buy beautiful pieces of fine art you don't always have to battle it out in the auction world. TEFAF, or "The European Fine Art Fair," is scheduled to start this week and will run from March 7th - 16th. Last year the fair sold more than $500 million in fine art, and this year they hope to not only meet but exceed that number.
TEFAF is geared towards the "highest caliber of collector," and they are actually looking to avoid big crowds because they "threaten the fair's reputation of quality and exclusivity." Among many valuable items that will be available for sale is the 1890 "The Child with an Orange" by Van Gogh for $30 million.
I've talked a lot about Jeff Koons as an artist but what about Jeff Koons, art collector. The artist, whose monumental work, Hanging Heart, brought in $23.4 million at auction last fall, is also an avid collector and his taste might surprise you. The baby-faced artist, who traffics in large works of kitschy pop, puts some of his earnings back into the art market spending big on the traditional masters. The Art Newspaper reports that Koons paid $6.3 million at Sotheby's in New York for a the work shown at right, a large limewood carving of St Catherine, dating from around 1505, by German 16th-century sculptor Tilman Riemenschneider. He is also said to be the lender of an 1866 Gustave Courbet nude to the Metropolitan Museum's current exhibition on the French artist. He bought that painting last June at Sotheby's for around $3.2 million. It's sort of comforting to know that while Koons is benefiting from the booming art market he's also having to pay the same exorbitant prices that everyone else is facing right now.
