13 May 2015
While all of the press was busy covering the sale of Picasso’s ‘Women of Algiers’ which at £110m smashed the record for any work of art sold at auction, the Scotish born Canadian artist Peter Doig has created a new record price for his work, at the same sale, at Christie’s in New York. The painting of a canoe in a […]
13 May 2015
A comprehensive Old Masters and 19th Century auction has been announced by Ketterer Kunst. The auction includes highlights from Italian Baroque and Flemish masters. Bidders will will be particularly interested in Il Guercino’s seminal painting David With Goliath’s Head (1650). The work is painted in the hallmark contrasting light and dark style of the baroque […]
12 May 2015
A painting from the 1950s by the 20th century master Pablo Picasso entitled Women of Algiers has become the most expensive painting to sell at auction, The painting went under the hammer last night at Christie’s Auctioneers in New York. Selling for a staggering $179.3m (£115m). The final price of $179,365,000 which includes Christie’s commission pushes the […]
11 May 2015
Sotheby’s, which has gone through major board changes in the last six months has reported a 127% Increase in First Quarter 2015 Adjusted Operating Income* to $22.2 Million First Quarter 2015 Adjusted Net Income* of $7.4 Million. Increase from First Quarter with a 2014 Adjusted Net Loss* of ($3.0) Million The three months ending 31 March 2015, Sotheby’s […]
5 May 2015
In November 2014 the $15 million, or £9.5 million estimate for a Georgia O’Keeffe work was shattered after a rather intense bidding war between two rivals. ‘Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1’, a 1932 painting of a simple white flower, was finally bought by a then-unnamed buyer with a telephone bid at Sotheby’s auction house. The […]
27 April 2015
Two Francis Bacon self-portraits not seen by the public for some time are going on public display after resurfacing in a private collection. relatives of the original collector have opted to sell the paintings, which are expected to fetch £15 million each at auction. Experts knew of the works’ existence, but did not know who […]
22 April 2015
Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale will offer two pieces from the collection of renowned publisher and art collector, Benedikt Taschen. Martin Kippenberger and Jeff Koons, leaders of the New York and Cologne art scenes, both controversial and ambitious artists, first met in Cologne in 1986, where Taschen’s publishing empire was founded a few years earlier. […]
22 April 2015
Two examples of Francis Bacon female nudes, a rare entity from the artist, will be on offer, priced from $25 million to $35 million, Phillips is staking its claim as a serious competitor to established auction houses at New York’s contemporary art sales next month. One of the works is a portrait of the voluptuous […]
22 April 2015
The collection of the highly regarded sculptor and philanthropist Lolo Sarnoff will be presented over several several sales in New York and London throughout the spring. The selection of work on offer spans important Impressionist & Modern Art, follows Sotheby’s legendary six-day, 700 lot auction in 1978 of the collection of Lolo Sarnoff’s step-father, Robert von Hirsch. Works by […]
20 April 2015
A stellar collection of Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian drawings and paintings will be presented for auction at Christie’s, this summer. One of the very best collections in private hands with museum-quality works, some of which have not been seen for decades will be offered as part of the Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art sale on 16 June 2015. This beautiful collection features 45 […]
16 April 2015
Works from two pioneering art world figures: Ileana Sonnabend, one of the most innovative, daring, and stimulating gallerists of 20th-Century art, and her daughter Nina Castelli Sundell, the visionary curator and scholar who worked to introduce contemporary art to audiences throughout the United States are to go under the hammer at Christie’s. Ileana Sonnabend devoted her life to the discovery, appreciation, […]
15 April 2015
Alberto Giacometti’s iconic and evocative sculpture, L’homme au doigt (Pointing Man) is to be offered at Christie’s upcoming spring auction in New York. Cast in bronze and one of an edition of six, standing whippet-thin at five feet ten inches, this dynamic and powerful figure is widely recognized as one of the most important sculptural achievements of the Modern era, created by the […]
12 April 2015
Six Impressionist masterpieces by Claude Monet have gone on view in London ahead of Sotheby’s latest Impressionist and Modern auction in New York. Nympheas (Water Lilies) which has not been seen in public since 1945, is expected to sell for an estimated $30-45m (£20.5m-£13m), when it goes under the hammer on 5 May. The Nymphéas paintings are among the most celebrated series […]
11 April 2015
Lucian Freud’s most famous and iconic subject will be offered as the highlight of Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary sale on May 13. Benefits Supervisor Resting is regarded as Freud’s ultimate tour de force, a life-size masterwork in the grand historical tradition of the female nude, painted obsessively with intense scrutiny and abiding truth. This bold and extraordinary example of […]
2 April 2015
Bonhams New York has reported the sale of all 740 lots of the Lauren Bacall Collection, totaling £2.45m ($3.64m). Lauren Bacall was 19 when she made her screen debut in To Have and Have Not (1944) opposite Humphrey Bogart. They married soon after in 1945 and had a son and a daughter, Stephen and Leslie. Although Bogart passed away in […]
27 March 2015
Sotheby’s Made in Britain sale, a dedicated auction celebrating the diversity of British art from 1900 to today has created ten new records for British Artists. . Over 30,000 people attended the viewing with strong prices achieved in both the day and evening sale sessions for works by some of the leading names of post-war British Art. The sale […]
26 March 2015
Christie’s will be offering Pablo Picasso’s Les femmes d’Alger (Version “O”) as the star lot in their New York Impressionist and Modern sale this Spring. The painting is the culmination of a herculean project which Picasso started after Matisse’s death, in homage to his lost friend and competitor, and which over a period of 2 months and after […]
22 March 2015
A good fair with strong sales is the word for TEFAF 2015 as it proves to show growth in many different areas. Contemporary and Modern art has positively taken hold at the fair this year, with a growing emphasis on this sector of the market. Many London art dealers were prominent at the fair displaying well presented stands. Buyers who have […]
21 March 2015
A sale of Important Ceramics by Pablo Picasso (Sotheby’s 18 March) has scuppered the master’s original intentions behind creating multiples. Picasso’s original dream that anyone could own one of his works, was further undermined, at Sotheby’s London, this week, as the results almost tripled their pre-sale low estimates to bring £1,726,625 ($2,548,153), with a 95% […]
19 March 2015
Cui Ruzhuo, the Beijing-born ink painter has toppled last year’s most expensive artist, oil painter Fan Zeng, from the top of the Hurun Art List 2015. His sales at auction reached $77 million, or £51 million in 2014, with ‘Landscape in Snow’ (2006) fetching $23.7 million, or £15.8 million at a Poly Auction sale in […]
19 March 2015
Modern art masterpieces from The Samuel Goldwyn family Collection will go under the hammer at Sotheby’s, in a series of auctions beginning in May 2015. The Goldwyn’s is legendary within the film industry, many will discover in these sales that their creative vision also extended to collecting fine art. Samuel Goldwyn Sr. assembled a core […]
16 March 2015
After a rocky year with investors, a near coup d’état, and lower than expected profits Sotheby’s has announced Tad Smith as the new President and Chief Executive Officer, effective March 31, 2015. He succeeds William F. Ruprecht who has served as CEO since 2000. Smith will also join the Sotheby’s Board of Directors Smith, 49, […]
16 March 2015
From Rembrandt to Warhol, is a veritable roll call of leading artists taking the stage at Sotheby’s London sale of Prints & Multiples on 17 March 2015, with estimates ranging from £3,000 upwards to £200,000. The auction opens with a particularly strong selection of Old Master prints, led by Rembrandt’s The Three Crosses, considered one […]
14 March 2015
The 2015 TEFAF art market report has been released reporting a staggering €51 Billion £36b world wide market. Growth especially in the online art market added €3.3 billion (£2.3b) 6% to the total. The middle market (priced between £1000-£30,000) accounted for much of online selling. Post-War and Contemporary art accounted for almost half of total […]
9 March 2015
Christie’s is auctioning Mark Rothko’s masterpiece No. 36 (Black Stripe), 1958, from the collection of the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden – one of Europe’s most important and prestigious private museums for Classical Modernism and Contemporary art based in Germany. With Rothko’s signature concordance of three shimmering rectangles of directly contrasting color asserting themselves against […]
9 March 2015
New York’s oldest established art fair for modern and contemporary works returned to Piers 92 & 94 from March 5-8 in what has been hailed as buoyant sales across the board. Artworks by over 1,500 artists from 199 galleries across the United States, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Further to record exhibitor applications, a […]
3 March 2015
Art Basel has announced details of its 46th edition in Basel, Switzerland, taking place June 18 to June 21, 2015. This year, 283 leading international galleries will present works ranging from the Modern period of the early 20th century to the most contemporary artists of today. The Basel show, whose Lead Partner is UBS, will […]
3 March 2015
The best known art fairs such as Art Basel and FIAC are slipping in popularity. Skate’s Art Market Research have published statistics for 2014 which showed art fair attendance was down 7.2% compared to 2013. They reported a total of 1,032,729 people attended the world’s top 20 art fairs in 2014. The top fair was […]
2 March 2015
Sotheby’s have officially released their 2014 figures which show a (20%) adjusted Operating Income profit over the prior year, reflecting the continued strength of the global art market along with the benefit of management’s cost reduction initiatives. With a turnover of $6.1b/£3.9 billion and after-tax basis, adjusted Net Income* is $142.4 million, an $11.6 million […]
16 February 2015
The newly relaunched Phillips Auctioneers have sold Ai Weiwei’s Circle of Animals / Zodiac Heads, 2010 for £2.8m ($4.3m) at the Contemporary Art Evening Sale which took place on Thursday, 12 February. The twelve gold-plated sculptures portraying the signs of the ancient Chinese zodiac had a pre-sale estimate of £2,000,000 – £3,000,000. “The Zodiac Heads […]
15 February 2015
The Post-War & Contemporary Art evening sale at Christie’s London realised a total of £117,142,500 / $178,408,028 / €157,556,663 selling 95% by value with outstanding sell-through rates. The top price of the evening was paid for Cy Twombly’s Untitled (New York City), which sold for £19,682,500 / $29,976,448/ €26,472,96 (estimate in the region of £16million). […]