Sotheby’s Hong Kong to hold Contemporary Asian Art Spring Sale 2013 on 5 April

HONG KONG.- Sotheby’s Hong Kong will hold its Contemporary Asian Art Spring Sale 2013 on 5 April at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, following the sale of private collection of You Are Not Alone – Yoshitomo Nara Works from the Kurokochi Collection and In Transition – The Didier Hirsch Collection of Contemporary Chinese Art from The 1990s, presenting 110 lots of meticulously selected contemporary Asian works. Estimated to fetch in excess of HK$140 million / US$13.3 million*, the auction this [...]

China Guardian announces sale of over 300 works of Chinese ink paintings and calligraphy

HONG KONG.- China Guardian Auctions Co, Ltd., the oldest auction house in Mainland China, specializing in Chinese artwork of all varieties, will build on the huge success of its first auction in Hong Kong in 2012 with a Spring Auction Sale Series on April 4-5 2013. Three hundred Chinese ink paintings will be presented, including 25 Hong Kong ink paintings, alongside their inaugural Chinese ceramics sale in Hong Kong. The preview will run from April 2-4, 2013. The total estimate for [...]

Wright presents the Shein Collection in the April Living Modern & Contemporary auction

CHICAGO, IL.- Wright’s highly anticipated lifestyle auction, Living Contemporary, mixes modern and contemporary art with 20th century design. Notable in the sale is an outstanding selection of studio ephemera and artwork by Christopher Wool, including a subversive business card and an early word painting with PRANKSTER broken over three lines (estimates range from $200 to $200,000). The works by Wool, belonging to a former longtime studio assistant, have never before been presented at auction. Also featured is the collection of Joseph and [...]

Photo-realist masterwork by Gerhard Richter to lead Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Contemporary Art on 14 May

NEW YORK, NY.- On 14 May 2013 Sotheby’s will present a 20th century masterwork by Gerhard Richter as the preeminent highlight of the spring Contemporary Art Evening Auction. Domplatz, Mailand was the result of a commission by Siemens Elettra to produce a monumental work for their Milan offices in 1968. The canvas was Richter’s most ambitious to date; spanning in excess of 9 by 9 feet, it was the largest figurative work he had created and its sheer technical accomplishment was remarkable. Today, [...]

Arthur Millner’s first Indian and Islamic Works of Art Online Auction to take place on 23rd April

LONDON.- Indian and Islamic Works of Art specialist Arthur Millner has joined forces with auction specialists Thomas Del Mar, Matthew Barton, Charles Miller and George Duckett at 25 Blythe Road adding to their diverse range of sales. Arthur will hold two online auctions each year, in April and November. The sales will include bronzes, sculpture, metalwork, textiles, ceramics and paintings. The bidding will be online, while the lots will be available to view in the gallery during the conventional series of viewing days [...]

Spring auctions at Koller Zurich: A re-discovered early work by Guido Reni sells for CHF 1.2 million

ZURICH.- At the spring auctions at Koller Zurich an early work by the Italian artist Guido Reni which had languished unrecognised for over 40 years in a Swiss private collection was sold for CHF 1.2 million. Of the 17 Old Master paintings which had adorned the Potsdam villa of the fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, 14 found new owners. The top lot was a Renaissance work by the 15th century Master of Frankfurt entitled “Allegory of Love” which sold for CHF 744 000. With [...]

Steven Cohen buys Pablo Picasso’s ‘Le Reve’ from casino owner Steve Wynn for $155 million

NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG).- Steven Cohen, owner of SAC Capital Advisors LP, has bought Pablo Picasso’s “Le Reve” for $155 million from casino owner Steve Wynn, a person familiar with the transaction said. The price is the highest paid by a U.S. collector for an artwork, art dealers told Bloomberg. Wynn had previously agreed to sell the painting to Cohen for $139 million in 2006. The purchase was canceled after Wynn, whose vision has deteriorated owing to retinitis pigmentosa, accidentally put his elbow [...]

Work by painter who defined 20th century Greek art for sale at Bonhams’ Greek Sale

LONDON.- ‘Autumn’, a seminal creation from 1976 by one of the major representatives of the ‘Thirties Generation’, Yiannis Tsarouchis, leadsBonhams Greek Sale on April 24 at 101 New Bond Street. It is estimated at £150,000-200,000. Born in the Athenian port of Piraeus in 1910, Tsarouchis, is regarded as one of the greatest Greek painters of the 20th century. During the 1930s he travelled widely, absorbing influences from Renaissance art, from Impressionism and from his friendship with Matisse and Giacometti which he fused [...]

Image of 1930′s Underground for sale at Bonhams Prints Sale on 16 April in London

LONDON.- As the building of Crossrail continues across London, Bonhams is to hold its Prints Sale on 16 April, which will feature a number of images of London transport from the 1930s. The sale will include celebrated works from the Grosvenor School, such as Cyril Power’s ‘The Tube Station’ as well as Cybil Andrews’ ‘Speedway’, both expected to fetch between £50,000 and 70,000. Power’s image of the Tube is an early representation of London transport. His ‘Tube Station’ gives us a taste of [...]

Sotheby’s New York to offer Jackson Pollock’s The Blue Unconscious painted in 1946

NEW YORK, NY.- On 14 May 2013 Sotheby’s New York will present The Blue Unconscious by Jackson Pollock as a major highlight of the Contemporary Art Evening Sale. The monumental canvas (84 x 56 in., 213.4 x 142.1 cm.) was painted in the critical year of 1946, just prior to the establishment of the artist’s celebrated drip paintings. Pollock executed the present work in the famed Long Island barn studio he established after moving to East Hampton with his wife, Lee Krasner, the [...]

Rare portrait of Matisse’s wife to highlight Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art Sale in New York

NEW YORK, NY.- Christie’s announced a magnificent portrait by André Derain titled Madame Matisse au kimono will highlight the Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art on May 8 in New York. This high fauve masterpiece is the most important portrait by the artist ever to appear at auction and represents a pivotal moment of artistic collaboration between André Derain and Henri Matisse. Derain painted Madame Matisse in August 1905, during the famous summer he spent with Matisse in Collioure, prior to [...]

Francis Bacon fragments from amateur’s studio sell for $70,000

LONDON (BLOOMBERG).- Francis Bacon works discovered on the backs of amateur paintings sold for almost $70,000 today at an auction in Surrey, southern England. The six works, showing background and architectural elements from what appear to be 1950s “Pope” paintings by Bacon, were on the reverse of canvases by the little-known artist Lewis Todd offered by Ewbank’s on the second day of a sale in Guildford. A top price of 27,544 pounds ($41,000) with fees was paid by a telephone bidder for [...]

Sotheby’s, Beijing GeHua Cultural Development Group join Tefaf Art Fair for assault on China art market

HELVOIRT (BLOOMBERG).- Sotheby’s is in talks with Tefaf, the world’s biggest art and antiques fair, on holding an event in China. “Tefaf Beijing 2014” is planned as a collaboration between the Maastricht, Netherlands-based event and Sotheby’s recently forged joint venture with China’s state-owned Beijing GeHua Cultural Development Group, the European Fine Art Fair said today in an e-mailed release. Sales of art and antiques in China raised 10.6 billion euros ($13.7 billion) last year, making it the world’s second- biggest market, according [...]

Pablo Picasso’s ceramic works from a private collection defy estimates at Sotheby’s London

LONDON.- Today, Sotheby’s London conducted two sales: Important Ceramics by Pablo Picasso From A Private Collection (including Modern and Contemporary Prints) and Old Master, Modern and Contemporary Prints. Important Ceramics by Pablo Picasso From A Private Collection (including Modern and Contemporary Prints) Sotheby’s London witnessed a sell-out auction, as all 100 important ceramics by Pablo Picasso sold as bidders competed fiercely for the prized works. While 94% of the ceramics sold above their high estimate, this important collection of playful plates, vases, jugs, [...]

Bonhams Urban Sale is a Banksy Surrealist feast as ‘Street Paintings’ make art world traffic

LONDON.- As the prices achieved by Banksy at auction continue to rise, Bonhams presents a selection of his most iconic images in their next Urban Art auction, to be held in London on 17th April. Three original stencil spray paint works will be included in the auction, with estimates ranging between £10,000 and £100,000. The auction’s star lot is a Banksy diptych canvas entitled “Monkey Detonator”, which displays his typical sense of surrealist humour. Measuring 152 by 76 cm., this painting carries an [...]