impressionist art

Super Bowl Town Museums Put Impressionist Art On The Line

Filed under: Art, Sports

Super Bowl XLV is just over a week away and the rivalry between Green Bay and Pittsburgh has heated up. The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Carnegie Museum of Art have decided to make a friendly wager on the football game. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports that each is offering up an Impressionist work of art. If the Packers win the Carnegie Museum will send over Renoir's "Bathers with Crab" for a temporary loan where visitors can see it and not only take in some beautiful art but gloat a bit too. Should the Steelers prove victorious, "Boating on the Yerres" by Gustav Caillebotte will be taking the journey to the Carnegie.

This is the second year in a row that art critic Tyler Green has prompted a bet. Last year the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the New Orleans Museum of Art squared off which resulted "The Fifth Plague of Egypt", 1800, a landscape by British artist J.M.W. Turner spending a few months in new Orleans where it was displayed with a Lombardi-trophy-shaped sign designating the triumph.

Tags: caillebotte, green bay packers, impressionist, impressionist art, impressionists, Indianapolis Colts, renoir, Super Bowl XLV

Gaugin's 'Sunflower' To Top Christie's February Sale

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Paul Gauguin and Vincent Van Gogh had what can best be described as a turbulent friendship but their art is tribute to the enduring nature of shared inspiration and ideas. At Christie's London Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Auction on February 9 the highlight of the sale will be the image shown above Nature morte à "L'Espérance", a still life painted by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) in 1901 while he was living in Tahiti. You'll note that in the picture above a Christie's employee holds in an image of a Van Gogh sunflowers painting in her hand. That's no accident, Van Gogh died in 1890 and this painting is one of four that Gauguin, who died in 1903, painted as a tribute to his friend. This paining was shown at the artist's first landmark Retrospective in 1906, and appeared in over 20 major Museum exhibitions at, among other places, MOMA, the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Tate London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington. It has been unseen in public since 1989. It is estimated at £7 million to £10 million.

The auction will also include works Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, André Derain, Edgar Degas and Pierre Bonnard and the total pre-sale estimate is between £74 million and £109 million, healthily above last year's sale at the same time which carried estimates of between £57 million and £81 million. Four works to be sold by the Art Institute of Chicago include Nature morte à la guitare (rideaux rouge) by Georges Braque (1882-1963) which carries an estimate of £3.5 million to £5.5 million. Danseuses jupes jaunes (Deux danseuses en jaune), by Edgar Degas (1834-1917) a pastel that was acquired by the family of the present owner in 1899 and has since passed by descent is estimated at £3 million to £5 million.

Last year saw several record sales and Giovanna Bertazzoni, Director and Head of Impressionist and Modern Art, Christie's London continues to be optimistic saying: "2010 was a landmark year for the art market that witnessed record sales and results. This was driven in a significant way by the demand for rare and market-fresh works of Impressionist and Modern art which represented 7 of the top 10 prices paid last year at auction, 6 of which sold for over $50 million. The category continues to engage new collectors from both established and emerging markets, including China and Russia, and where there is a healthy supply it has been shown that there is a tremendous demand for the rarest and the best."

[via The Guardian]

Tags: christies london, impressionist art, Paul Gauguin

Modigliani Painting Sets Record

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

While most of America was watching election results last night, a few were focused on the art market and specifically on the lady shown above, Modigliani's "La belle Romaine" which garnered a record-setting $68.9 million at Sotheby's in New York City. Sotheby's brought in a total of $227.5 million in the sale of Impressionist and modern art against pre-sale estimates of $195 million to $266 million. It was a nice jump over last year's $181 million sale and another sign of a potential art market recovery.

Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 portrait of a lovely, mostly undressed brunette sold to an anonymous telephone bidder. It was estimated to sell for as much as $40 million. The Wall Street Journal reports that the work's seller, Turkish banker Halit Cingillioglu, bought it for $16.8 million 11 years ago. Another Modigliani in the same sale, a 1917 portrait of the artist's lover, "Jeanne Hébuterne (in a Hat)," went for $19.1 million to a telephone bidder. Monet's "Water-lily Pond," also from 1917, sold for $24.7 million. Henri Matisse's 1942 "Dancer in a Chair, Checkerboard Floor" went for $20.8 million, over its $18 million high estimate.

Not every piece up for bid found a home, 15 of the sale's 61 pieces failed to sell. Matisse's 1934 lavender portrait, "Titine Trovato in Dress and Hat" was up for auction for the second time in two years but Sotheby's failed to sell the work yet again. Pablo Picasso's 1970 double portrait, "Man and Woman With a Bouquet" also went unsold. Matisse has another shot today when Christie's holds its major sale of Impressionist and modern art that includes Matisse's bronze "Back IV" sculpture which could bring as much as $35 million.

Tags: amedeo modigliani, art market, claude monet, Henri Matisse, impressionist art, matisse, modern art, modigliani, monetary policy, Pablo Picasso, sothebys