salvador dali

A Look Inside The World's Richest Man's New Museum

Filed under: Art, Wealth

Last fall we saw video renderings of the plans for the new Soumaya museum planned by Mexico's richest man Carlos Slim. The new branch of the museum named for his late wife is the the second one that he has created. The six-story museum was designed by his son-in-law Fernando Romero. The modern and shiny aluminum structure is composed of over 16,000 tiles. The building has five stories of exhibition space totaling 183,000 square feet with six halls. The AP shot some photos as the museum prepared for its inauguration on March 1 by Mexico's President Felipe Calderon.

Tags: auguste rodin, carlos slim, dali, mexico city, mexico city museum, rodin, salvador dali, soumaya museum

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Did Abramovich Just Bag a Bacon for $37 Million at Sotheby's?

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art, Wealth

Last month when we wrote about an important Francis Bacon triptych being auctioned off at Sotheby's, we predicted it would blast past its $14 million high estimate. And indeed on Thursday Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud (above) sold for a whopping $37 million, or more than two and a half times the top quote, at the auction house's Looking Closely sale of 20th century artworks in London. In our original post we also put forward Bacon-loving oligarch Roman Abramovich as the likely buyer, since he's in the midst of decorating his new $230 million mega-mansion in London; while Thursday's purchaser was anonymous, we bet the Freud triptych will be hanging on Abramovich's wall before long. The Thursday sale, from works said to have belonged to the low-profile Geneva collector George Kostalitz who died last year, also saw a new auction record for any surrealist work of art – Salvador Dali's Portrait de Paul Eluard, which sold for $21.6 million.

Tags: art, auctions, contemporary art, Francis Bacon, London, Roman Abramovich, Russian billionaires, Salvador Dali, Sothebys, wealth

No Sale For Gauguin's Sunflowers

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

On Tuesday night at Sotheby's in London a Picasso work sold for over $40 million but at the Christie's London Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Auction on Wednesday night the top lot didn't find its buyer. The highlight of the sale was supposed to be "Nature morte à L'Espérance", a still life painted by Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) in 1901 while he was living in Tahiti. The painting was a tribute to Gauguin's friend and fellow artist Vincent Van Gogh who died in 1890. This painting 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 had been unseen in public since 1989 and was estimated at £7 million to £10 million. According to ArtInfo, bidding stalled out at £5.8 million.

The auction soldiered on quite well without the lot. It raised £61.9 million ($99.6 million) which was toward the lower end of the expected range. Two records were set, one for the top lot of the night, Pierre Bonnard's "Terrasse a Vernon" which sold for £7.2 million ($11.6 million) handily beating the estimate of £3 to 4 million. A record was also set for Salvador Dali's surrealist version of a beach scene when Etude pour 'Le miel est plus doux que le sang', 1926-27, estimated at £2 to 3 million, brought in £4,073,250.

Tags: art, christies, paul gauguin, pierre bonnard, salvador dali

New Dali Museum Opens In Florida

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Architecture & Design

On January 11 at 11:11 a.m., the new Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida had its official opening marked with an exuberant parade featuring Salvador Dali lookalikes with curving mustaches and a whole carnival of characters. The $36 million museum took two years to build and replaced an older museum that had long drawn Dali aficionados around the world. The museum has over 2,140 pieces, including 96 oil paintings and eight master works and is the largest collection of Dali's work outside his home country, Spain. The new larger museum also has a cafe, patio and garden. In between the galleries a 75-foot spiral staircase that takes patrons to the third floor. HOK and the Beck Group designed the museum which has reinforced concrete walls that can protect the artwork from a category 5 hurricane. As Annie Scott reported back in September, the Dali Museum will be occupied throughout 2011 with a special exhibit called Viva la Revelacion!, displaying all paintings and highlighting other major works from the permanent collection to celebrate the new building. Today marks the first day the new museum is open to the public. Admission is $21.

Tags: art, art museum, salvador dali, st petersburg

$14 Million Francis Bacon Stars in Sotheby's Sale

by Jared Paul Stern (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

A triptych portrait of artist Lucian Freud by Francis Bacon is the starring attraction at Sotheby's' Looking Closely sale of 20th century works in London on February 10. Three Studies for a Portrait of Lucian Freud (above) is estimated at up to $14 million. However, now that Bacon enthusiast Roman Abramovich has a new $230 million mega-mansion to decorate, we bet it could go much higher. Other top lots in the sale, said to have belonged to the low-profile Geneva collector George Kostalitz, who died last year, include works by Freud himself, Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall. "The works were bought between the 1960s and the 1990s," Helena Newman, Sotheby's European chairman of Impressionist and Modern Art, tells Bloomberg. "It's a personal collection of pieces that can be lived with on a domestic scale." The total high estimate for the works on offer is $85 million.

Tags: art, auction, contemporary art, Francis Bacon, London, Lucian Freud, Roman Abramovich, Salvador Dali, Sothebys

Salvador Dali Museum Opening in St. Petersburg, Florida, Her Royal Highness Infanta Cristina of Spain to Attend

by Annie Scott (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Events, Art

The Salvador Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida

On the auspicious date of January 11, 2011 (1/11/11) at 11:11 AM, the new Salvador Dalí Museum will open in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a grand opening party to be attended by Her Royal Highness Infanta Cristina of Spain as guest of honor.

St. Petersburg, Florida may seem like an unlikely home for Dali, but the Dali Museum actually originated there in 1982 after St. Petersburg offered financial support to collector and industrialist A Reynolds Morse and his wife Eleanor Reese to house their already substantial collection. Today, the museum contains more Dali masterworks than any other museum in the world and has the largest collection outside of Spain. The annual attendance is over 200,000 people per year, bringing an economic impact of an estimated $50 million to St. Petersburg.

The opening of the new, visually stunning $36 million building will double the current space of the Dali Museum to 66,450 square feet. Construction began in December 2008, and the attractive, innovative structure can reportedly withstand a category five hurricane. The roof is 12-inch thick solid concrete. The walls are 18 inches. All this is to protect the precious Dalis, of course, of which there will be 2,140, including 96 oil paintings.

The Dali Museum will be occupied throughout 2011 with a special exhibit called Viva la Revelacion!, displaying all paintings and highlighting other major works from the permanent collection to celebrate the new building. An Education Gallery will feature student exhibits and invite visitors of all ages to explore Dali's illusions and visual experiments.

Gallery: The New Dali Museum - St. Petersburg, Florida

Tags: Cristina of Spain, Dali, Dali Museum, Florida, Infanta Cristina, Salvador Dali, St. Petersburg

Recreation of Salvador Dali's Home Town To Be Built In China

by Deidre Woollard (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art, Real Estate Developments

A Chinese businessman is planning to his own Neverland ranch on an island near Shanghai and now comes news that Salvador Dalí's home town may be recreated by Chinese developers. The Costa Brava fishing port of Cadaqués will be recreated in Xiamen Bay, where mainland China looks out towards Taiwan.

The Guardian reports that architects from developers China Merchants Zhangzhou visited Cadaqués in June to check it out, taking measurements and photographs so that they can recreate the charming seaside town complete with narrow streets and whitewashed buildings and a harbor full of little fishing boats. The replica town will sit on over 100 acres of land with a similar coastline and is expected to have room for approximately 15,000 tourists who want a European experience without the travel. Other replica towns recreating English villages and other European locations are already popular.

The developers plan to add art to their town and may have local Spanish artists show their work there. The Chinese developers also plan to add an artificial island. The Guardian article says that there was a prior attempt to recreate the town in the Dominican Republic but because Cadaqués wasn't consulted it isn't recognized as an official replica. Given Dali's love of both money and whimsy, we think he'd approve.

Tags: cadaques, china, costa brava, salvador dali

May Art Sales to Bring Records and Liquidity

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Auctions, Art

The Impressionist and Modern Art sales on May 4 and 5, 2010 are likely to confirm a continued climb in art auction pricing. We're now six months or so into the badly needed upswing, and there's plenty of room for optimism. Not only are the presale estimates and sales on the way up, but the number of pieces being resold quickly is on the rise, as well. This means that there's a high degree of liquidity in the art market: collectors can sell easily and without worry (as long as the inventory doesn't suck, in which case there's no hope, of course).

The increase in art market liquidity is due in part to the return of guaranteed minimum pricing, in which the auction houses assume some sales risk for attractive or desirable pieces that they feel can beat the numbers and attract buyers and sellers of other strong works. According to ArtPrice, there are "tens of millions of dollars for major works" committed via guaranteed minimum pricing, indicating that confidence is up.

It's the price guarantees that have led to the arrival of some strong pieces at the early may auctions this year, including pieces from the collections of Mrs Sidney Francis Brody, Raymond and Miriam Klein, Bernard Goldberg and Michael Crichton. Brody's works alone could fetch up to $150 million. The high estimate for Christie's is $300 million, a target that doesn't include the top lot, "Nude, Green Leaves" by Pablo Picasso, which as Jared Paul Stern revealed in a recent column is expected to bring in as much as $90 million. Other artists with eight-figure estimates include Henri Matisse, and Alberto Giacometti.

Don't just look for good news – also a expect a few records to b set. Sotheby's has high hopes for pieces by Salvador Dali and Auguste Rodin.

Source

Tags: alberto giacometti, art auction, art auctions, art market, artist, Artists, auction, auction houses, auction-house, auctions, Christie, Christies, ChristiesAuction, ChristiesAuctionHouse, contemporary, contemporary art, giacometti, Henri Matisse, impressionist, impressionists, michael crichton, modern art, Pablo Picasso, picasso, rodin, Salvador Dali, Sotheby, sothebys

Dali Swiped From Dutch Digs

by Tom Johansmeyer (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Art

Armed robbers absconded with two paintings from the Scheringa Museum for Realist Art in Spanbroek last Friday. One of them was a piece by Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali. An exact number of thieves was not reported, but they were "several," and they wore masks. Walking into this museum with guns, they threatened the museum staff and dashed off wit the prize.

Driving off in a little black car, the art bandits left with "Adolescence," painted by Dali in 1941, and "La Musicienne," by Polish art deco painter Tamara de Lempicka (1929). Both paintings ~~are~~ were owned by the museum.

If you have a taste for Dali, look for the fence. Just don't get caught!

Source

Tags: amsterdam, art, art theft, artist, ArtTheft, dali, netherlands, salvador dali, SalvadorDali, surreal, surrealism, surrealist

"Bird In Hand" Compact Designed by Salvador Dali

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Cosmetics and Fragrance

Talk about a "designer" accessory -- this post WWII "Bird in Hand" compact was designed by artist Salvador Dali himself. Of course you would never really use it, but talk about an interesting collector's piece! He's a cute little bird (not at all bizarre like so many of Dali's art pieces) with all kinds of compartments inside. He opens up by pushing on the tail, which reveals a place for powder (the original puff is intact) and a place in the tail for pills, plus his head pulls off as a place for lipstick. $1695

Very cool and funky -- they just don't make them like this anymore!

Via Book of Joe

Gallery: Salvador Dali "Bird In Hand" Compact