World Art News at IrishArt.com

Joe Boyle Abstract Solo Show

2010-08-26T05:42:00.001+01:00

Joe Boyle - "Moved" Solo Exhibition Gormleys Fine Art - Belfast - 26th Aug - 11th Sep 251 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel: +44 (0)28 9066 3313 "I paint in intuitive response to some idea or theme about which I can feel passionate. By expressing my intuition in the abstract, I avoid the usual constraints of the determinate concepts associated with representation. I thereby achieve a greater freedom of expression. I find the ongoing improvisation implicit in abstraction immensely liberating. The inherent instability of improvisation is a conduit for my creativity. The challenge is to sustain that initial sense of freedom generated by the excitement of an impending expedition in search of judgements of taste. I try to overcome this difficulty by establishing spontaneous and emerging relationships between colour, line, tone and texture, with a view to exciting and igniting the canvas. I want my paintings to be complex and visually stunning, yet resolved into a unifying simplicity. I don't just take a “Line for a walk”, rather I invite Line, Tone, Texture and Colour on to my canvas and let them have a party". Joe Boyle 2010 Irish Art

The Saatchi Gift

2010-07-03T21:35:00.000+01:00

William Langely in The Telegraph writes "that last week's announcement that Charles Saatchi, the adman turned art collector, is giving his £25 million gallery to the nation was remarkable for more than its generosity. The Saatchi fortune was made during the phenomenal rise of the brothers' advertising firm into the industry's first global mega-agency. The ideas that flowed from the Saatchis' fertile minds – "Labour Isn't Working" and the "Pregnant Man" campaign for the Health Education Council – made them the talked-about force in marketing. Born in Baghdad to Iraqi-Jewish parents, the boys had, from the beginning, a sense of being outsiders that nourished their creative instincts. It was through his first wife, Doris Lockhart, that Saatchi became interested in contemporary art. By 1985, he had his own gallery, and was snaffling up prime works on the scale of the Medicis. The cash-strapped London arts scene had never seen the kind of financial firepower that Charlie brought to the marketplace, and the whiff of Leftist disdain, even alarm, hung in the air. Yet Saatchi's support for contemporary art – and, in particular, young British artists such as Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas and the thankless Hirst, has had a healthy effect, bringing lesser-known work into the mainstream, and created a thriving field where there was previously only scepticism and condescension. Even Brian Sewell, once Saatchi-basher-in-chief, has mellowed. Last year, he confessed: "Having long been among the most doubting of Saatchi's critics… I must argue that without assistance from any public funds… he has single-handedly taken over one prime and vital duty of Tate Modern – to keep us abreast of contemporary art elsewhere. I can think of no earlier collector of then contemporary art… who has done so much to achieve this end." In 2003, the Saatchi collection moved to London's old County Hall, and, two years ago, into the 70,000sq ft Duke of York's HQ building in Chelsea. It is the 200 core works here, including Emin's famous bed, that Saatchi has given to the nation. After he retires, the gallery will be renamed The Museum of Contemporary Art, thus removing Saatchi's name from his own creation. A typically modest touch? Or another cry for attention"?

Irish Art - Michael Egan and Sara Cunningham-Bell

2010-06-21T22:44:00.000+01:00

Sara Cunningham-Bell & Michael Egan Michael Egan is a recent graduate who won the Graduate Prize at Ulster Society of Artists 2009 and was an Invited artist at the RUA. Sara Cunningham-Bell is an award-winning artist with work in the collections of Mater Hospital, Hastings Group, Pope Benedict XVI and many others. "Wall Street" is a play on the financial chaos we are experiencing world wide. It looks at the effect on children and the next generation. The "Brothers" is based on the competitive and supportive relationship between brothers within the family - both positive and negative. "Downhill to Finish" is based on the physical area of Downhill Beach County Antrim with the idea of how life is referred to as a race, and the challenge to run it with as much conviction on the last day, as on the first. "Towards More" is a play on the change of political power internationally, the upheaval of the old replaced with a contrasting new politics and the industrial wealth moving power from the West to East. Irish Art Michael Egan and Sara Cunningham-Bell Square Space Gallery - Belfast - 24th June - 29th July 2010 34 Shaftesbury Square Belfast, Tel: 02890 200850

The RA Art Show in London

2010-06-18T19:11:00.000+01:00

Ossian Ward writes in TIME OUT that 'the RA's 'Summer Exhibition' presents itself as a bastion of openness and egalitarianism, but really, even after 242 years, it's still a microcosm of our sheltered art world: you're either in it by rights as a member of the club, or you get lucky enough to bask in its glow of exposure for a couple of months. Those hopefuls who submit and get accepted are generally corralled into the wall-to-wall blur of the Weston Rooms, while the Academicians pick and choose from their stable of mates for the grander galleries. Allen Jones RA (he of the objectifying table sculptures of kinkily clad women) takes centre stage by curating the opening salvos of fiery abstract paintings by John Hoyland RA and Jeffery Camp RA under the show's woolly rubric - 'raw'. The freshness of Albert Irvin RA and Maurice Cockrill RA (you get their credentials already...) proves that there's gestural fight in these old dogs yet, although Jones himself slightly does his selection down by describing it as the 'scribbling' room. So it is, on to the 'fiddly' and 'lumpy' room (my terminology this time), with Michael Criag Martin's overlapping letters and Matthew Collings and Emma Biggs providing eye-watering pattern, while David Nash's giant block of elm and Hughie O'Donohue's shapeless paintings give good girth. The hang 'em high ethos can diminish even painters as good as Tal R, Basil Beattie and Ed Ruscha in Room III (the 'blobby' one) but can also be a great leveller, reducing the perceived importance of big names by haphazard juxtaposition with relative unknowns. Similarly, in Fiona Rae's curated section - which reflects not only her own 'blingy'/'drippy' style but reserves the biggest space for a painting by her husband, Dan Perfect - the well-trodden roll call of decent Brit names is joined by what looks like a Rachel Kneebone sculpture, except it's actually by someone called Melissa Gamwell. That's part of the fun: not really knowing who's who until you locate the work's corresponding number in the compendious guide. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Claire Rollinson - Irish Art Featured Artist

2010-06-16T11:50:00.000+01:00

Following Martin Gale's sell out solo show, Caroline Mullan launches into her summer show with a mix of quality art from her talented stable of gallery artists - some of the most collectable and respected artists in Ireland. Her latest new gallery artist - Claire Rollinson - features with 12 works and her exceptional paintings are sure to find favour with Mullan's regulars. Whilst collectors will no doubt want to add Rollinson's work to their collections, they will be spoilt for choice with others like William Crozier, Donald Teskey, Martin Gale, Lisa Ballard, Keith Wilson, Comhghall Casey, Geoffrey Robinson, Frances Ryan, Jacinta Feeney, Orla de Bri, Chris Wilson, Sean Campbell, Mary Theresa Keown, Padraig Macmiadhachain, Breon O'Casey, Michael McGuinness, Karen Nickell, Leo Higgins, Anna Campbell and Petr Holecek. Belfast collectors look forward to this summer show because it never fails to deliver quality and this year is no exception. A "must-see" show. Summer Mixed Show - Belfast Mullan Gallery - Belfast - Sat 19th June - End of Aug 2010 239 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel: 02890 202434 http://www.mullangallery.com Irish Art

Masterpiece With Botched Nose Job

2010-06-13T21:42:00.003+01:00

The Guardian reports that 'the Louvre Museum in Paris is facing accusations that restorers have carried out two botched nose jobs on a woman pictured in one of its 16th-century masterpieces. Art experts on both sides of the Channel say that a principal character in Supper at Emmaus, a 1550s painting by the Renaissance master Veronese, has been scarred by "vulgar cosmetic" surgery. After the first operation, the patient emerged with "a mutilated nose tip that hovers disconnectedly over an anatomical void", according to critics. Subsequent corrective surgery has left her with an unnaturally wide nostril and swollen lips, they say. Michel Favre-Félix, president of the Association for the Respect and Integrity of Artistic Heritage (Aripa) in Paris, said: "Veronese had pictured a noble family mother, as an echo to the Virgin Mary, and it has been turned into a caricature of a 21st-century adolescent, with bloated cheeks and a ridiculous pout." His concerns were echoed by Michael Daley, director of restoration watchdog ArtWatch UK, who said: "It's an astonishing own goal by the Louvre because this time, after criticisms of their first repaint had appeared in the French press, the Louvre covertly repainted it again, but without leaving any record of their action in their own files." He criticised "picture surgeons" who act like cosmetic surgeons, "prettifying" unique images, and condemned restorers who are doing more harm than good. Before-and-after photographs of the Veronese offer "incriminating" evidence, Daley said, proving that the changes were "unwarranted and indefensible". Mark Zucker, professor of art history at Louisiana State University and a specialist in Italian Renaissance art, said: "Shocking is a good word to describe what the restorers have wrought." Although restorers concede the errors of their predecessors, the rate of restorations is accelerating, critics say. Their criticisms, to be published this month in ArtWatch UK Journal, come ahead of a meeting on 18 June by a Louvre committee, apparently to decide whether to restore another masterpiece, Leonardo Da Vinci's Virgin and Child with St Anne'. For full source and full article including "nose job images" click the Headline. Irish Art

$10m Art Sale From Lehman Brothers

2010-06-04T20:30:00.002+01:00

The Guardian reports that 'art collectors will get another chance to snap up remnants from the office walls of the world's most notorious failed bank in an auction by Sotheby's in September of over 400 art items from Lehman Brothers' once renowned hoard, including work by Damien Hirst, Gerhard Richter and Félix González-Torres, following a smaller sale from the company's collection last October. Liquidators to the defunct Wall Street firm announced today that a large slice of Lehman's collection will go under the hammer in September in an auction expected to raise $10m (£6.89m). The proceeds will go to creditors who are still owed billions of dollars following the bank's spectacular collapse in September 2008. Kelly Wright, an adviser to Lehman's estate, described the lots as a "visionary" collection: "Many of the works were acquired from cutting-edge and emergent artists who have since evolved into the vanguards of the contemporary art world." Lehman inherited a significant chunk of the collection when it bought a US asset management firm, Neuberger Berman, in 2003. Neuberger's founder, Roy Neuberger, had been an enthusiastic corporate acquirer of art and Lehman subsequently built on his stockpile. An early Damien Hirst wall piece called We've Got Style (The Vessel Collection – Blue) ( is set to be the biggest seller with an estimated price tag of $800,000 to $1.2m. A cabinet full of ceramic objects, the piece was produced before Hirst's art hit the headlines when work such as his shark preserved in formaldehyde attracted record multimillion-pound prices. Other valuable items in the auction include The Long Way Home by China's Liu Ye, a 1992 abstract painting by Gerhard Richter and John Currin's portrait Shakespeare Actress which is set to fetch $500,000 to $700,000. The Sotheby's sale is the second major batch of Lehman works to be sold – an earlier, less valuable, collection of contemporary art including work by David Hockney and Roy Lichtenstein was auctioned off in Philadelphia seven months ago, raising $1.35m'. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

£30 million Monet Water Lily?

2010-06-03T19:43:00.001+01:00

The Guardian reports that 'a breathtaking waterlily painting by Claude Monet was today added to one of the most anticipated series of high-end art sales for years. Both Christie's and Sothebys are set to sell some exceptional works at their June sales of impressionist and modern art. Christie's, announcing the addition of the French painter's Nymphéas (1906) to its catalogue, said its 23 June art auction would be the most valuable ever take place in London. The painting has an estimate – arguably a conservative one – of between £30-40m. The estimates of all 63 works in the sale add up to £163m-£231m. Some astonishing prices have been paid for art at auction this year. The record price for any work was broken first in London in February – a Giacometti 'Walking Man' sculpture sold for £65m – and then once more in New York when a Picasso sold for $106m (£70m). Giovanna Bertazzoni, head of impressionist and modern art at Christie's, London, said there was a "fierce international demand" for the "rarest and the best." He added: "The strong results at our art auctions over the last year, and during the last six months in particular, have further fuelled the confidence of vendors. We are witnessing a great willingness from clients to consign works of art of the highest quality." The Monet up for sale was part of his famous exhibition of waterlily paintings held at the Galerie Durand-Ruel in Paris in 1909. Robert E Dell, the Paris correspondent of the Burlington Magazine, wrote, rather excitedly, at the time: "One has never seen anything like it. These studies of water lilies ... are beautiful to a degree which one can hardly express without seeming to exaggerate." The work being sold is one of nine surviving pieces painted by Monet in 1906. It has spent most of its life in the collection of the Durand-Ruel family and was bought by the present anonymous owner at auction in 2000'. Other highlights of the Christie's sale include a Picasso, 'Portrait of Angel Fernández de Soto', being sold by the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation with an estimate, also, of £30-40m. Deep-pocketed art-lovers can also bid on works by Klimt, Van Gogh and Matisse. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Banksy Work Threatened in Detroit

2010-06-02T18:57:00.001+01:00

A mural painted by the pseudonymous British artist Banksy has been taken off display at a nonprofit art gallery in Detroit after the art gallery said the work had been threatened with defacement or destruction, reports Dave Itzkoff for the New York Times via the Detroit Free Press. The mural, which depicts a boy holding a can of paint and standing next to the message I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WAS TREES, was discovered at the city’s abandoned Packard Plant in May. A few days later the seven-by-eight-foot, 1,500-pound cinder block wall bearing the work was taken by artists from the 555 Nonprofit Art Gallery and Studios, who said they were given permission by a crew removing scrap metal from the plant. Carl W. Goines, the executive director and co-founder of the art gallery, told The Free Press, “There was a lot of anxiety with the threats, so our board of directors requested that we move it until it can be displayed safely.” The gallery artists said they were not seeking to sell the Banksy work and were trying to preserve and protect it. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Artist Louise Bourgeois dies at 98

2010-06-01T08:23:00.001+01:00

Adrian Searle of The Guardian writes that: Louise Bourgeois, the French-born, American-based artist best known for her sculptures of vast metal spiders, died yesterday in a New York hospital at the age of 98. Bourgeois, who only found widespread acclaim late in life, had suffered a heart attack at the weekend, a spokeswoman said. With her death, American and European art has lost not only a tremendous and hugely influential artist, but a direct link between the art of the 21st century and belle epoque Paris, with cubism, symbolism, surrealism and abstract expressionism, and all that followed. As an emigre French artist who moved to New York in 1938, her art career developed slowly. Critical and commercial success only came when she was in her 60s. Although it was not until 1982 that New York's Museum of Modern Art gave her a retrospective – the first it had ever mounted of a woman artist – she was by then already well-known, if regarded as uncategoriseable, marginal, even eccentric. The exhibition transformed her into the grande dame of American art. In the same year, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe took a number of famous portraits of Bourgeois. She wore a black coat of monkey fur and carried something under her arm as a sort of prop: a big, obscene black latex sculpture, resembling a gigantic penis and balls. She insisted it was not a phallus at all. It was, she said, her little girl. In Mapplethorpe's images, Bourgeois smiles mischievously for the camera. The image is immensely seductive. Bourgeois made sculptures in all kinds of media; she made wonderful prints and drawings, created claustrophobic installations and fabricated little sewn dolls and giant metal spiders with equal care. She even recorded herself singing childhood songs, broadcast in an empty Venetian tower. There were many-breasted creatures, beautifully carved marble hands, things that were sexual and strange and filled with secrets and barely suppressed violence. Refusing to describe herself as a feminist, she was one anyway. She has lessons for all artists alive now – inpersistence, commitment and individuality, and in the difference between art made as an adjunct to a career, and art borne out of inner necessity. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

French embrace Impressionist Art

2010-05-29T09:39:00.002+01:00

A Guardian report argues that "the French critical elite has rejected the Impressionists twice since they burst onto the global art scene in a haze of colour and brushstrokes: first in the 19th century, because they were too radical, and then, in the 20th, because they were not radical enough. Now, however, the country that gave birth to Claude Monet and his circle of painters is undergoing something of a conversion. And, in an attempt to reassess the legacy of some of its most celebrated – and bankable – artists, France is preparing itself for a summer of repentance, rosy skies and record-breaking ticket sales. From next week onwards, Normandy will erupt in a four-month celebration of the painters who were drawn to its light and landscapes to create some of their best-known works. Around 300 art exhibitions, concerts and events will be held throughout the region, chiefly a show at Rouen's Musée des Beaux-Arts showcasing, among other works, 11 of Monet's studies of the city's cathedral.An accompanying exhibition at Paris's Musée Marmottan, due to start in mid-June, will explore the influence of the Impressionists on 20th-century figures such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. The crowning event of the season will be held under the glass dome of the Grand Palais, where the first French Monet art retrospective for 30 years will open to the public in September. Experts are insisting the reasons for the change of heart are purely artistic. More prosaically, French museums know the Impressionists offer a failsafe way of refilling their depleted coffers". For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Voyeurism at the Tate

2010-05-26T23:13:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that it promises to be the most intrusive art exhibition Tate Modern has ever held: 13 rooms of photographs and video footage of things we really should not be seeing – ranging from sex and death to outrageous invasions of privacy. Somewhat presciently, given the coalition government's promise of legislation to regulate the use of CCTV, the scariness and scale of surveillance features heavily in Voyeurism, which opens to the public on Friday. The exhibition suggests that, as a society, we have always been voyeurs – it is just that technology now makes it so much easier. In essence, it is a photography exhibition which raises the question of whether photography is actually a good thing, and includes work by well-known figures including Brassaï, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Lee Miller, Guy Bourdin, Nan Goldin and Robert Mapplethorpe. The show ranges from images that are straightforwardly voyeuristic, such as Helmut Newton fashion shots, to much more challenging work such as the US photojournalist Susan Meiselas's Carnival Strippers series, in which she photographs leering men in an audience watching strippers. There are also celebrity stalking and paparazzi shots, including snaps of Richard Burton and Liz Taylor canoodling in their swimming costumes and a tearful Paris Hilton on her way to court, and images by Alison Jackson, the photographer who uses lookalikes to comic effect. Newspaper coverage of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales is also included. One of the most difficult rooms contains journalistic images of death and violence and some people will undoubtedly whistle through the room, upset by awful images of suicide, execution and lynching. It includes images such as Tom Howard's electrocution of Ruth Snyder, from 1928, and Eddie Adams' haunting photograph of a Viet Cong officer being executed in 1968. The show has been created and curated by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art – to where it will transfer in the autumnExposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera is at Tate Modern, 28 May – 3 October For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Portrait Of Dead Mother Could Win BP Prize

2010-05-25T09:22:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that a painting shortlisted for the UK's most important art prize for portraiture depicts the artist's 100-year-old mother shortly after her death. The work, one of three in the running for the £25,000 BP art Portrait award, was made at an undertaker's premises over three days, just after Annie Mary Todd had died in hospital.The artist, 63-year-old Daphne Todd, had painted her mother several times during her lifetime, and they had agreed that she could paint her after her death. "I talked things through with the undertaker, and they kindly gave me the time and space to paint the portrait. She was on a trolley, raised up on pillows, as I remember last seeing her in hospital." She added: "For me it was a form of digesting facts ... it was very therapeutic spending that amount of time making the work; in fact, though I miss my mother very much, I didn't seem to do any other sort of grieving." Studying her mother so deeply after her death "was a form of finding out, of analysis". "People do change and move after death. They sink into themselves; they continue on their way." She had worked on the piece until she began to "feel uncomfortable", she added. The other two shortlisted artists are 38-year-old American David Eichenberg, for Tim II; and the British artist Michael Gaskell, 47, for Harry. The art award this year received 2,177 entries, an increase of more than 270 on last year. An exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, which opens on 24 June and then tours to Lincoln and Aberdeen, will show 58 works. The winner will be announced on 22 June. See the image by pressing the link. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Rude Art

2010-05-23T05:34:00.002+01:00

The Guardian reports that visitors to Tate Britain's next show may be surprised, or even offended, to come across a large image of Mary Whitehouse and Rupert Bear depicted in sexual congress in front of the pope. The artist responsible, Gerald Scarfe, is almost as astonished. Three decades after he drew it, the work has been included in Rude Britannia, an exhibition devoted to the British love affair with "naughty" art which opens in a fortnight. "I'm amazed the Tate are showing it, really," he said, explaining that his caricature was drawn more than three decades ago in response to the late moral crusader's attack on the satirical magazine, Oz. "It was because Mrs Whitehouse – or Mrs Righteous as I called her – complained and then went to see the pope. So I did a picture of her being entered by Rupert, who was the mascot of the magazine, being watched by the pope. Underneath it read: 'Mrs Mary Righteous explains her position to the pope.'" Whitehouse sued, Scarfe recalls. "The solicitor's letters were hilarious because of the legal language in which it was all discussed." Tate Britain has decided to celebrate the strain of culture that Whitehouse most decried: British prurience and the comic possibilities that it provides. Rude Britannia includes drawings by the great satirists, Hogarth and Gillray, alongside the work of modern artists such as Sarah Lucas and Grayson Perry, and casts an analytical eye over a wide range of visual jokes, from paintings and sculptures to films, comic books and postcards. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Bacon & le Brocquy Irish Art Auction

2010-05-22T22:16:00.000+01:00

Independent.ie reports that legal eagles are expected to be among those hoping to swoop on a top barrister's irish art collection when it goes under the hammer later this month. Paintings by Francis Bacon and Louis le Brocquy are among the works in the late Jim O'Driscoll's catalogue, to be sold at the Whyte's auction in Dublin. The Important Irish Art event will also feature a sought-after Paul Henry painting discovered at a valuation in Belfast. A staunch supporter of avant-garde Irish artists, Mr O'Driscoll amassed his impressive collection over four decades. Many of the contemporary works he snapped up were loaned for exhibitions in public galleries and museums. "He had an eye for the paintings and became very good friends with a lot of artists," said a Whyte's spokeswoman. "We've had a lot of legal people in. It will be a coveted item within the legal profession to have something from his collection." The Paul Henry landscape - a separate lot in the auction - is thought to depict the MacGillycuddy's Reeks in Co Kerry. Auctioneers at Whyte's are predicting the piece will reach between 60,000 euro and 80,000 euro at the auction on May 31. The spokeswoman said: "To uncover a Paul Henry in this day and age is unusual because most people have pillaged their assets looking for a Henry. It's nice. It gets people's hopes up that there's a gem out there." For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

100 Million Euro Art Heist

2010-05-21T21:04:00.002+01:00

Alastair Sooke writes in The Telegraph that "the thief who raided the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris earlier this week, making off with five stunning art works of the early 20th century, including a Picasso and a Matisse did not use the intricate gadgets, or a sophisticated plan involving a phalanx of accomplices. Instead, he opted for audacity: in the middle of Wednesday night, wearing black clothes and a mask, he pulverised a padlock and broke a window before stealing the canvases, valued by the museum at 100 million euros (£86 million). A bloke, in a mask, breaking a padlock, and making off with the loot: it just seems too far-fetched. But the truth is that a spectacular art heist always thrills the public imagination – from the Mona Lisa disappearing from the Louvre in 1911 to the theft of The Scream from the Munch Museum in Oslo in 2004. In part, this is because people secretly respect the chutzpah and daredevilry required to successfully make off with a work of art from a museum. But our fascination with these cases also stems from the underlying question of what happens to the paintings once they have been stolen. Significantly, the paintings in Paris were taken from different rooms – suggesting that they were stolen to order, rather than falling victim to a smash-and-grab. It is tempting to imagine that, somewhere in the world, perhaps in the wilder reaches of Russia, or in a fortified yacht moored off a little-known Caribbean island, there is an art-loving Mr Big, at whose request this raid took place. It is easy to picture a Blofeld-like villain, sitting alone, and stroking a fluffy white cat, while gazing lovingly at Modigliani's Woman with a Fan. Because, of course, none of these paintings could ever be sold. Indeed, they are so recognisable that they could barely be shown to anyone. Many rich people buy art so that they can show it off to others. But the putative master criminal behind this heist would be forced to enjoy his paintings by himself. To do this, he would have to be the ultimate connoisseur, with exquisitely evolved aesthetic sensibilities". For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Aussies Zap Banksy Art

2010-04-29T05:35:00.003+01:00

CBC News reports that officials in Melbourne, Australia, are red-faced after a city cleanup crew painted over street art by internationally renowned artist Banksy. Melbourne has a policy of encouraging street art and Banksy had created several art murals during a visit to the city in 2003. But the city also has a problem with gangs tagging walls and public property, and it sent a crew last week to clean up a downtown laneway. The overzealous workers painted over the tags, but also the Banksy art mural. The work by the elusive British artist, who does not want anyone to know what he looks like, was a stencil of a parachuting rat wearing aviator goggles. "Apparently what happened was that the residents requested that the laneway be inspected and cleaned because it was in pretty awful condition in terms of tagging, and also a whole lot of other people had dumped rubbish [there]," said city CEO Kathy Alexander. "Unfortunately the contractors were not made aware by us that that was an important piece of art and unfortunately that means the piece is gone." Lord Mayor Robert Doyle says it is difficult to protect street art, which is vulnerable to others painting it over. He called the gaffe an "honest mistake." In Britain, Banksy's work has been defaced by vandals and ordered painted over by some local councils who do not want to encourage graffiti artists. However, his art works have sold for more than $1 million at auction. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Irish Art Exhibition - Julien Friers in Belfast

2010-04-28T10:54:00.001+01:00

Julian Friers was born in Bangor, Co. Down in 1956. His father was a wood sculptor whose work was influenced by nature, and this enthusiasm subsequently affected the interests and future of his son. At the age of nineteen he attended Art College, but left after three months to pursue the dream of becoming a wildlife artist. He had his first exhibition in 1976. Since then his international reputation has increased rapidly with paintings in many important collections. The rugged landscapes of Scotland and Ireland have been the primary inspiration for his work over the intervening years. The opportunity to paint animals and habitats of the desert has encouraged the desire to travel and paint species throughout the world. He is fortunate to have received many opportunities to exhibit internationally with the worlds most respected wildlife painters. In recent years his reputation as a wildlife painter has taken him to Germany, Holland, Saudi Arabia, Morocco and the USA. Julian Friers - Solo Exhibition Gormleys Fine Art - Belfast - 29th Apr - 13th May 2010 251 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel: +44 (0)28 9066 3313 Irish Art

Woman Faked Picasso Art

2010-04-28T09:02:00.000+01:00

CNN reports that a Los Angeles, California, art dealer, federal authorities say, thought she'd done the math: Pay an art restorer $1,000 to create a knock-off of Pablo Picasso's 1902 pastel, "The Woman in the Blue Hat." Then sell the fake as original art for $2 million. She may have not counted on the feds getting involved. That woman, 70-year-old Tatiana Khan, agreed to plead guilty to federal charges related to the sale of the phony Picasso, authorities said Tuesday. The woman is scheduled to appear in federal court next month to plead guilty to felony counts of making false statements to the FBI and witness tampering, federal authorities said. "Khan falsely told an FBI agent who was investigating the sale that Khan had obtained the drawing from an acquaintance," a Department of Justice statement said. "Khan also admitted that she told the art restorer to lie to the FBI by saying that she only did restoration work for Khan and did not do any art copying work." For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

New Saatchi Art Show

2010-04-27T14:16:00.000+01:00

This Is London reports that Charles Saatchi is to present his biggest exhibition of new British art since the record-breaking Sensation show more than a decade ago. Newspeak: British Art Now will showcase more than 60 artists living and working in the UK across two exhibitions, the first opening in June and the second in October. It will be the largest art show at the Saatchi Gallery, which opened off the King's Road two years ago, and is an expanded version of one premiered last autumn at the Hermitage in St Petersburg. Saatchi, 66, lent his collection of Young British Artists to the Royal Academy for the Sensation show in 1997. Although the likes of Damien Hirst had already won the Turner Prize, it broke all records for a contemporary show and had an international impact. Newspeak could certainly set records for the new Saatchi Gallery, even though its displays of work from China and from the Middle East ranked as the first and second most-visited shows in London in The Art Newspaper's survey of attendances last year. Newspeak: British Art Now Part I will run from June 2 until October 17. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Queen's Art Collection Online

2010-04-25T11:24:00.002+01:00

Always keen to take advantage of the latest technology, the Queen has made a fascinating appointment, The Telegraph reports. She has taken on an internet pioneer to help make the Royal family's art collection available online creating a new post for Jemima Rellie, who put the Tate Gallery at the cutting edge of the online art revolution. She will be the director of publishing and new media at the Royal Collection, which contains around 200,000 works of art worth an estimated £10 billion. Last year, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that the Queen was to relaunch her art website with the help of Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the web. According to senior royal sources, the monarch, who celebrated her 84th birthday last week, had been "hands on" about the redesign and her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh - who embraced computers and the internet well before his wife - had been equally interested. In 2008, she visited the London headquarters of Google and the previous year had launched The Royal Channel on YouTube, the video-sharing website. Rellie joins the Palace from the Getty Conservation Institute in Los Angeles, where she had worked since leaving the Tate in 2007. In 2001, she was appointed the Tate's first head of digital programmes and established the award-winning Tate Online. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

The Art of Dance Exhibition in Scotland

2010-04-24T11:13:00.000+01:00

ArtDaily reports that The National Galleries of Scotland opens "Dance", a vibrant art exhibition which explores this fascinating theme through some of the most famous artworks in the national collection. Dance contrasts fourteen works of art of the very highest quality made in different periods, styles and media selected from both the National Gallery of Scotland and the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, as well as the ARTIST ROOMS collection jointly owned by the National Galleries of Scotland and Tate. This refreshingly different approach allows the visitor to discover the richness of a subject which has inspired artists since ancient times. Highlights from this exhibition include two beautiful nineteenth-century studies of classical ballet dancers by Edgar Degas, a dynamic painting of high-kicking ‘Tiller girls’ by Walter Sickert (1938-39), an exuberant late-1950s linocut by Pablo Picasso and a captivating moving sculpture La Jalousie II [Blind Jealousy II], 1961, by the Swiss artist Jean Tinguely. The depth and breadth of the art work included demonstrates the continued prominence of dancing in society both as a professional and amateur activity. Three recent art acquisitions are also included: a charming genre scene by the Scottish artist Alexander Carse (c.1770-1843), The Penny Wedding, 1819; and two arresting photographs by Diane Arbus from the ARTIST ROOMS collection. Tricia Allerston, Head of Education, says: ‘Dance is a fantastic theme for an exhibition and we are sure that a very broad range of our visitors will enjoy it. We were amazed to discover how many artworks in the National Galleries of Scotland’s collection were inspired by the theme of dance and had a really tough time narrowing them down.’ For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

“Degenerate Art” Database Launched

2010-04-23T14:16:00.002+01:00

Berlin’s Free University has gone live with an Internet database documenting the fate of more than twenty-one thousand art works condemned as “degenerate” by the Nazis and seized from German museums in 1937, Bloomberg’s Catherine Hickley reports. The website, the result of eight years of research by art historians at the university, includes works by Franz Marc, Emil Nolde, Otto Dix, Marc Chagall, Max Beckmann, Wassily Kandinsky, and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. It gives details of the art museums they were seized from and their current location, in cases where it is known and where the work wasn’t destroyed. “We are hoping that this will yield more information about the fate of some of the art, perhaps from private collections and archives,” Meike Hoffmann, one of the scholars involved in the project, told a news conference in Berlin yesterday. “We also want to draw attention to and document the wonderful collections of modern art the German museums had in the 1930s.” For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Long-Lost Art Works For Sotheby's

2010-04-22T18:50:00.002+01:00

The Wall Street Journal reports that a treasure trove of art masterpieces by Cézanne, Picasso and other major artists of the 19th and 20th centuries are going on sale in June, after disappearing during World War II and later being discovered in a Société Générale vault. The art collection, valued at about £17 million is set be sold by Sotheby's at auctions in London and Paris. According to Sotheby's, the art collection had been hastily deposited at Société Générale in 1940 by Erich Slomovic, a Yugoslavian, before he fled Paris to escape the Nazis. Slomovic, who was Jewish, was killed by the Nazis in 1942, leaving the collection at the bank. Sotheby's said the works were in Mr. Slomovic's hands on consignment from Ambroise Vollard, the prominent Parisian dealer who gave Picasso his first exhibition in 1901. The trove had remained forgotten and untouched for 40 years until 1979 when Société Générale realized it was owed decades of unpaid storage fees. Under French law, it was permitted to open the vault and sell any contents to recoup the debt. Inside, the bank found paintings, prints, books and drawings by some of art history's foremost artists. Since the collection's discovery, it has remained hidden from public view due to legal challenges by the distant heirs of both Slomovic and Vollard. Following the resolution of the legal dispute in 2006, the proceeds of the sale will go to the heirs of Vollard. Helena Newman, vice chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide at Sotheby's, described it as an "extraordinary collection" giving a glimpse into the world of a legendary dealer. The trove includes more than 140 paintings, prints, books and drawings by key artists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The collection will be displayed at Sotheby's in London (June 16-22) and in Paris (June 24-29). Among the jewels are André Derain's Arbres à Collioure, which is estimated to break the artist's record and sell for £14 million. Painted in 1905, in the coastal town of Collioure in the South of France where Derain and Matisse spent the summer working together, it is the Fauve artist's most important work ever to come to auction and reflects the influence of the intensely bright Mediterranean light. Other important works include Paul Cézanne's Portrait d'Émile Zola, an oil on canvas, estimated at £725,000. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Stolen Da Vinci painting - 5 cleared

2010-04-22T07:21:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that 5 men accused of trying to extort £4.25m from one of Britain's richest peers for the return of a stolen Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece have all walked free after an eight-week trial. The jury at the high court in Edinburgh decided today that the prosecution had failed to prove that the three solicitors and two private detectives were guilty of a complex conspiracy targeting the Duke of Buccleuch, one of the country's most senior peers. The five were accused of threatening to destroy Madonna of the Yarnwinder, a Da Vinci painting that was insured for £15m but unofficially valued at £30m to £50m – unless the duke paid them £4.25m for its return. The men insisted they had been honestly trying to broker the return of the 500-year-old painting – one of only two Da Vinci paintings in private hands – in return for what they believed was a fair reward. They accused two undercover police officers who posed as the duke's agents of deliberately conning them into believing their offer had been accepted. The prosecution alleged that all five men were guilty of an elaborate extortion attempt: they had repeatedly refused to alert the police that they knew how to recover the stolen painting, and had threatened that "volatile" individuals would destroy the Da Vinci unless their ransom demands were met. The painting was the most valuable single art work stolen in Britain. The investigation into its disappearance went worldwide. The FBI put the painting on its 10 most wanted list. Neither of the thieves has been caught. Dumfries and Galloway police confirmed today that the theft "remains a live investigation". For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Dennis Hopper's Art Retrospective

2010-04-21T01:38:00.003+01:00

The Guardian Reports that a retrospective of art work by the actor Dennis Hopper, curated by his friend and fellow film-maker Julian Schnabel is to open at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art. According to the Los Angeles Times, the art exhibition, the first under the museum's new director Jeffrey Deitch, will open on 11 July and is entitled Art Is Life. It will include work from Hopper's various styles and periods, including abstract expressionist painting, pop art collage, graffiti-inspired oils and portrait photographs, the best-known of which feature Paul Newman, Tina Turner and Andy Warhol. There will also be some film content, including a "sculptural installation" that involves the projection of Easy Rider and two of Hopper's other movies. The art exhibition's haste is in part motivated by Hopper's condition – the actor is battling terminal prostate cancer. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

300 of Picasso's Art on Show

2010-04-20T07:14:00.002+01:00

ArtDaily reports that Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, a landmark exhibition of 300 works by Pablo Picasso will provide an unprecedented opportunity to see one of the most important collections in the world of the artist's work. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from April 27 through August 1, 2010, this is the first exhibition to focus exclusively on the remarkable array of works by Picasso in the Met's collection. The art exhibition will reveal the Museum's complete holdings of the artist's paintings, drawings, sculptures, and ceramics—never before seen in their entirety—as well as a significant number of his prints. The exhibition encompasses the key subjects for which Picasso is so well known: the pensive harlequins of his Blue and Rose periods, the faceted figures and tabletop still lifes of his Cubist years, the monumental heads and classicizing bathers of the 1920s, the raging bulls and dreaming nudes of the 1930s, and the rakish musketeers of his final years. Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art will feature 34 paintings, 58 drawings, a dozen sculptures and ceramics, and an extensive selection of prints - all acquired by the Museum over the past 60 years. Importantly, the exhibition includes many works on paper by Picasso that have rarely, if ever, been exhibited before at the Metropolitan. The Metropolitan's collection reflects the full breadth of Picasso's multi-sided genius as it asserted itself over the course of his long and influential career. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

How Bacon Starved for Art

2010-04-18T07:27:00.000+01:00

The Guardian Online reports that he was one of the 20th century's greatest artists, whose paintings change hands for more than £40m, but Francis Bacon's early struggle to sell his art became so desperate that he threatened to become a cook or a valet, according to unpublished letters that have just come to light. Bacon, a self-taught artist, was 40 before he gained proper recognition. The letters, dating from the 1940s, reveal that he was frequently reduced to begging for handouts from his dealer, his debts no doubt aggravated by his addiction to gambling. The correspondence, contained in the archives of the Lefevre Gallery in London, is between Bacon and Duncan Macdonald, then its director. It is certain to deepen future biographers' understanding of the artist's struggle to launch his career. Barry Joule, the artist's friend who is now writing a Bacon memoir, said: "I haven't seen these letters before. They're a revelation. I've read everything on him inside out. The struggle is not covered in the biographies and is perhaps overlooked because of the prices paid for his paintings later in his life." In one letter, Bacon reveals his battle to afford basic art tools: "If you know of anyone who will take the risk and supply me with paints, canvas, and the minimum of vittles, think of me. I might make them money. Richard Shone, editor of The Burlington Magazine, which will publish the letters in May, said: "One day a really comprehensive biography of Bacon will be written and these letters will be indispensable." For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Don't Touch The Art, says MOMA

2010-04-17T10:30:00.001+01:00

The Guardian reports that New York's Museum of Modern Art is well accustomed to the challenges of protecting its priceless collection from visitors' prying hands - but in its current show, a retrospective of performance art by Marina Abramovic, it has rubbed up against an unexpected problem. The Artist Is Present features a rotating set of actors in teams of eight who stand facing each other or lie on the floor, dressed only in their birthday suits. The directors of MoMA knew the production would push against the boundaries of propriety for some, but what they hadn't anticipated was that a few of the visitors would be overly tactile in their interaction with the art. Both female and male actors have reported incidents where they have been touched or even groped while performing in the nude, while some say they have been pushed and shouted at. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Art Fake Secrets Revealed

2010-04-16T05:53:00.000+01:00

The Guardian reports that The National Gallery is to reveal secrets of its art fakes in a new exhibition and will reveal how the experts detect forgeries – and they're more common than you think. When the National Gallery was bequeathed an exquisite painting of the Virgin and Child with an Angel in 1924 officials must have been delighted: an early 16th-century masterpiece by Francesco Francia, the artist from Bologna, was to grace the museum's collection. Until, that is, an almost exactly similar art work turned up for auction in London in 1954. Problem: which was the original and which a copy? For a time, scholars disagreed over which work had the better claim. In 1998 it looked like the London painting had been accepted as genuine. But recent research has been carried out, and the picture examined using infrared reflectography. That technique revealed what lies beneath the paint: the underdrawing, the first thoughts of the painter as the work was planned. According to Rachel Billinge, a researcher at the gallery: "We could see little dots, indicating that the image had been 'pounced' from a cartoon, which is a perfectly good Renaissance technique. But then I looked at the hair of the angel, and saw what looked like graphite pencil marks." And that was the worst possible news. Graphite was available in only one place in the early 16th century: Cumbria. The lovely pencilled curls could not have been drawn by an Italian in the 16th century and the work could not be an original. The exhibition will focus attention on the role of the art gallery's scientific department, which has pioneered the latest techniques in infrared imaging as well as x-ray techniques, pigment analysis and dendrochronology, a technique whereby wood can be dated by examining its rings. The show will explore how such techniques revealed that one portrait, acquired in 1990, had been tampered with – given a bright-blue background using a pigment not available until the 18th century – to make it resemble a more valuable Holbein, perhaps by a an art dealer on the make. All this leaves Billinge with a healthy respect for the copyist and faker. "Sometimes the faker has gone to such lengths you can respect their techniques – much more so than the originals, churned out in a workshop by some bored apprentice," she said. Close Examination is at the National Gallery, London WC2, from 30 June to 12 September. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Hanging Your (Uninvited) Art

2010-04-15T08:24:00.000+01:00

As the crowds trickled through the Sully wing of the Louvre one recent afternoon, a stocky, middle-aged Frenchman looked around furtively before whipping a gilt-framed painting from under his leather jacket and fixing it to the wall, reports The Guardian. Placed alongside the august portraits of Salle 59, the miniature – a vanité depicting two skulls – held its own amid the splendour of the room's more conventional art treasures. But its presence was not welcome and when the artist returned to see it today it had been removed by irate museum staff. "Now I have to write a letter to the president director-general or someone to get it back. It's pathetic," he said. Pascal Guérineau, 47, has in recent weeks become the bête noire of Paris's most prestigious galleries and their eagle-eyed security guards. The stunt this week was not his first offence. Last month he hung one of his own art works in the Musée Maillol in between a Christian Boltanski and a drawing by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The museum, which only spotted the rogue picture at closing time, was not amused. By hanging pictures in some of the capital's most high-profile exhibitions, he says, he is drawing attention to the desperation felt by many contemporary creatives who struggle to gain recognition. The French art world, he says, has time only for artists who have made it big, or who are already dead. Olivier Lorquin, the museum's president, who was reportedly left furious by the illicit exhibit, described Guérineau's drawing – as "bad, useless, a real piece of crap" and insisted that no problems had been revealed in the gallery's security system by the artist's "ignoble" action. For full source and full article click the Headline. Irish Art

Irish Art Auctions - April, Dublin

2010-04-14T18:59:00.002+01:00

GORMLEYS ART AUCTIONS - Berkeley Court Hotel, DUBLIN This auction will take place on Sunday 18th April 2010 at 2pm in the D4 Berkeley Court Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4 - The Grosvenor Suite. 280 quality works of Irish Art will be offered including: Conor, Middleton, Blackshaw, Wilks, McDonnell, Murphy, Le Brocquy, Hamilton Vallely and Campbell feature. 200 lots have a guide price of ?500 - ?3000 including works by Knuttel , Morris, Sutton, Waldron, Gillespie and Maccabe among others, contributing to an interesting and exciting sale. Viewing will be held 16-18th April during the following times: Friday from 5pm to 9pm Saturday from 11am to 7pm Sunday from 11am to 2pm WANT TO BID ONLINE? Once registered you will be able to place bids for items in any of Gormleys Auctions, take part in Live Auctions and purchase 'Buy Now' items right away. GO TO: http://www.gormleysartauctions.com/auction.asp?AuctionID=33 to see works offered for auction. GO TO: http://www.gormleysartauctions.com/pg_login.asp to register to bid Online or Live at the auction. Entries are now also being accepted for Gormleys May auction. For more information on selling your works please send an email to info@gormleysartauctions.com ----------------------------------------------- WHYTES AUCTIONS - DUBLIN Next Dublin sales at Whytes is History & Literature on 23 April followed by an Important Irish Art on 31 May. Contact Ian Whyte (Iw@whytes.ie) or go to http://www.whytes.ie to take part - selling or buying.

Banksy On His Film and The Art World

2010-04-14T07:55:00.000+01:00

What is art? And who gets to make it? Wired.com reports that for nearly two decades, enigmatic British street artist Banksy has challenged the rarefied art world, transforming public spaces into culture-jamming spectacles. The hoodie-sporting, spray-can–wielding Scarlet Pimpernel makes his directorial debut with Exit Through the Gift Shop, a documentary billed as “the first great art-disaster movie.” And what a brilliant disaster it is. The film centers on the relationship between the elusive Banksy and Thierry Guetta, an amateur French filmmaker who owns a store in Los Angeles. Guetta begins recording the clandestine antics of Banksy (and other street-art luminaries, including Shepard Fairey and Space Invader) with a mix of bumbling awe and utter incompetence. As the film project stalls, Banksy begins to realize Guetta isn’t really a filmmaker at all, but a Warhol-y mess in the making, with big plans to become the Next Big Thing. Below, Banksy talks to Wired.com in an e-mail interview about the film (which opens Friday in select cities), his secret identity and why Guetta, aka Mr. Brainwash, is the quintessential artist of our times. Wired.com: After watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, I still couldn’t figure out if Guetta, the director-turned-artist, is for real. He doesn’t seem to know anything about art, yet you allowed him to make a film — and then he turned the tables on you. What do you think about him now? Banksy: As far as I’m aware, Mr. Brainwash doesn’t know very much about art, especially his own. He seems to mainly judge the success of an art show by how many square feet it covers and whether it makes any money. This probably makes him the ultimate artist of our times. Wired.com: You keep your identity secret — ostensibly because of your methods. Your appearance in the film suggests you will at some point unmask yourself. Is this documentary a small part of some greater burlesque theater, with your identity as the ultimate reveal? Banksy: The film is the end of my public life rather than the beginning. This is the most you’ll ever see of me, if I can help it. Wired.com: Your work explores power, tests power and is therefore revolutionary, encouraging people to subvert the powers that be. Mr. Brainwash kind of did this to you. He looked at the power structure around him (you and Fairey) and exploited it for his own ends. Does that make him a student — or a con man? Banksy: Thierry essentially trespassed into the art business, and even in the wild world of vandalism there’s a lot of conservatism — people don’t like to see the rules being broken. The story of Mr. Brainwash should be inspirational, and in the hands of a more cheerful director it probably would’ve been. The film might come across as a bit cynical, but it’s important not to forget these are revolutionary times in art. There’s a whole new audience out there, and it’s never been easier to sell it, particularly at the lower levels. You don’t have to go to college, drag ’round a portfolio, mail off transparencies to snooty galleries or sleep with someone powerful. All you need now is a few ideas and a broadband connection. This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count. (For full source and full Wired.com Interview click the Headline). Irish Art

Camille Silvy Retrospective For National Portrait Gallery

2010-04-13T07:46:00.002+01:00

ArtDaily reports that the first retrospective exhibition of work by Camille Silvy, one of the greatest French photographers of the nineteenth century, will open at the National Portrait Gallery this summer. Marking the centenary of Silvy's death, "Camille Silvy: Photographer of Modern Life, 1834-1910", will include over a hundred objects, many of which have not been exhibited since 1860. The portraits on display offer a unique glimpse into nineteenth-century Paris and Victorian London through the eyes of one of photography's greatest innovators. This exhibition is being organised by the Jeu de Paume, Paris, in collaboration with the National Portrait Gallery, London. Focusing on Silvy's ten-year creative burst from 1857-67 when he was working in Algiers, rural France, Paris and London, the exhibition will show how Silvy pioneered many branches of the photographic medium including theatre, fashion, military and street photography. The exhibition draws on works from public and private collections including that belonging to Silvy's descendants, seen for the first time, along with a cache of letters in which Silvy describes to his parents how he set up and ran his London studio. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

300 Picasso in US Art Exhibition

2010-04-12T01:36:00.001+01:00

Three hundred paintings, sculptures, ceramics as well as prints by Spanish master Pablo Picasso - some never before seen in their entirety - will be the highlight of a three month long art exhibition, Spicezee reports. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art" from April 27 - August 1 will feature 34 paintings, 58 drawings, a dozen sculptures and ceramics, and an extensive selection of prints (some 200 from a total of 400), all acquired by the museum over the past 60 years. According to the organisers, the art exhibition encompasses the key subjects for which Picasso is famous: the pensive harlequins of his Blue and Rose periods, the faceted figures and tabletop still lives of his Cubist years, the monumental heads and classicizing bathers of the 1920s, the raging bulls and dreaming nudes of the 1930s, and the rakish musketeers of his final years. Complementing the presentation of the artist`s works will be photographs of Picasso by Man Ray, Brassai, Arnold Newman, David Douglas Duncan, and others, all drawn from the museum`s collection. The exhibition is organized by Gary Tinterow, Engelhard Chairman, with Susan Alyson Stein, Curator, both of the Metropolitan`s Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art. "Picasso in The Metropolitan Museum of Art" will be accompanied by the first comprehensive catalogue of the musuem`s collection of works by the master. This illuminating publication has been prepared by members of the museum`s curatorial and conservation staff under the direction of Picasso scholar Gary Tinterow, who edited the catalogue and wrote the introduction. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

The British Art Forger...

2010-04-10T12:29:00.000+01:00

The secretive international art market - according to expert estimates - is awash with forgeries, reports The Guardian Astonishingly, some put the figure at up to 40%. It's extraordinary that John Myatt, an impoverished part-time art teacher and failed songwriter from Staffordshire, managed to get away with it for so long – producing more than 200 paintings over 10 years, which were sold around the world for a total of about £2m. With an aversion to the smell of expensive oils, which also took a long time to dry, he used house paint mixed with turpentine, linseed oil and lubricant jelly. His favourite targets were the modernists, the cubists Gleizes and Braque, Ben Nicholson, Nicolas de Stael, Giacometti and a dozen others. But whatever doubts were harboured by the experts – and there were many – they were assuaged by that other essential ingredient of the good fake: the provenance. Laney Salisbury and Aly Sujo, two American journalists, have produced a riveting and perceptive account of Myatt and his Svengali – the obsessive and enigmatic fantasist John Drewe, who, with charm and apparent wealth, insinuated himself into some of Britain's leading art institutions and then systematically falsified and corrupted their archives to create bogus histories for Myatt's fakes. The two men met in 1986 when Myatt, struggling to bring up his two children, placed a personal ad in Private Eye offering "genuine fakes". He was impressed when a Professor Drewe called and offered him commissions. It took a while before Myatt realised – only half-reluctantly – that he was being drawn into a gigantic art fraud. Drewe's downfall came from an unexpected source, which pitches Salisbury's tense narrative into the realm of thriller. In 1993 Drewe left his Israeli partner, Batsheva Goudsmid, an eye doctor, for another woman and wrongly accused her of mental instability and abuse of their children. Goudsmid took her suspicions and a briefcase full of Drewe's forgery kit, which he had left at their house, to the police. Scotland Yard's art and antiques squad were alerted and Goudsmid turned up two black rubbish bags full of incriminating documents. The story of the painstaking, two-year investigation that led to Drewe's appearance at Southwark crown court is a wonder. Myatt served four months of a one-year sentence and has since become a celebrity – selling "legitimate fakes", lecturing and starring in several TV series, the latest of which, Virgin Virtuosos, is currently being shown on Sky Arts. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

The hunt for Caravaggio's bones

2010-04-09T20:55:00.002+01:00

The Associated Press reports that mystery swirls around the death of the great Italian painter Caravaggio, who died at age 39 after a dissipated life of street brawls, brothels, and boozing. Now, as art lovers mark the 400th anniversary of the artist's death in this beach town on the Tuscan coast, researchers are digging for answers. Descending into a dark crypt one recent day, researcher Antonio Moretti took his shovel to a waist-high pile of centuries-old skulls and bones, the mass grave that scholars have homed in on as the likely final resting place of Michelangelo Merisi — better known as Caravaggio. Moretti and a team of fellow scientists and art academics hope to find the bones, conduct carbon and DNA testing and discover how Caravaggio died. The project has drawn a measure of skepticism since so much time has passed since the artist's death. Caravaggio died in Porto Ercole in July 1610. For a long time, he was believed to have simply collapsed on the beach. But the team says documents show that Caravaggio was taken to a hospital in Porto Ercole upon his arrival and died there a few days later. To this day, his remains are missing. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

& Years For Phony Art Sales

2010-04-08T14:16:00.002+01:00

A Los Angeles woman who sold $20 million US in phoney art through manipulated TV auctions and duped more than 10,000 art collectors has been sentenced to seven years in prison. Kristine Eubanks, 52, received the federal penitentiary sentence after having pleaded guilty in 2007 to a host of charges, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and tax evasion. Eubanks and her husband, Gerald Sullivan, conducted art auctions that were televised on DirecTV and The Dish Network on Friday and Saturday nights from 2002 to 2006. The couple claimed to sell art from "estate liquidations all over the world" - Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Marc Chagall, and forged signatures on some pieces. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Diaghilev - Ballet and Art at the V&A

2010-04-07T17:55:00.002+01:00

The V&A’s major autumn exhibition, "Diaghilev and the Golden Age of the Ballets Russes 1909–1929", will explore the world of the influential artistic director Serge Diaghilev and the most exciting dance company of the 20th century, reports ArtDaily. Diaghilev combined dance, music and art in bold ways to create ‘total theatre’. A consummate collaborator, he worked with Stravinsky, Chanel, Picasso, Matisse and Nijinsky. Diaghilev’s dramatic performances transformed dance, reawakening interest in ballet across Europe and America. This major retrospective will celebrate his enduring influence on 20th–century art and design and will include more than 300 objects from the V&A’s own unrivalled collection and from a variety of lenders. The energy of the Ballets Russes’ performances will be brought to life through giant backcloths, costumes, art, film and sound. Specially created films will be on show throughout including footage of composer and broadcaster Howard Goodall explaining the development of music that accompanied the Ballets Russes. Treasures on show will include Picasso’s huge front cloth for Le Train Bleu, as well as original costumes and set designs, props and posters by artists and designers like Léon Bakst, Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau and Natalia Goncharova. These will tell the story of a company which began in the social and political upheaval of pre-revolutionary Russia and went on to cause a sensation with exotic performances that had never been seen before. Diaghilev and The Golden Age of the Ballets Russes will be at the V&A from 25 September 2010 until 9 January 2011. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Hockney Is Art Thieves’ Favourite

2010-04-05T01:38:00.006+01:00

The Times Online reports that - for David Hockney - it may be the most unwelcome accolade of his illustrious art career. He has been named as the living British artist most frequently targeted by art thieves across the world. A survey of the most-stolen British artists, compiled by the international Art Loss Register and obtained by The Sunday Times, places the Yorkshire artist at number three — less popular in the criminal underworld than Henry Moore or Sir Thomas Gainsborough, but ahead of old masters such as Turner and Constable. At least 68 Hockney paintings and prints have been stolen from art galleries, private homes and museums around the world, a dark reflection of both his enduring popularity and his prodigious output. Many more may have vanished without being reported to the register. Julian Radcliffe, a register director, said that the global black art trade had burgeoned over the past decade to a £3.3 billion business. Its database contains 53,000 works stolen in the UK, compared with 21,000 in America, 15,000 in France and 11,000 in Germany. “It’s partially because so much British art is insured, compared to Germany or France, but also because we have so much to lose,” he said. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Matisse's "Dance" - 6 Week Loan to Amsterdam

2010-04-04T01:38:00.001+01:00

From Thursday 1 April for six weeks only, the painting Dance (1909-1910) by Henri Matisse will be included in the art exhibition Matisse to Malevich, ArtDaily reports. Pioneers of modern art from the Hermitage. Dance, which will be seen at the Hermitage Amsterdam only until 9 May, has never previously been displayed in the Netherlands. It is one of the icons of art history and comes from the collection of the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. It is rarely loaned out. This monumental painting, measuring 260 x 391 centimetres, is an important addition to the exhibition. Its innovative and unconventional design makes this a key work in Matisse’s oeuvre. Throughout his life Henri Matisse (1869-1954) was inspired by the theme of the dance. The composition of Dance is sober. Five nude women move round, stirred by a dance. Their pink bodies stand out against a green surface and a blue sky. Here Matisse opted for highly simplified form and colour. There are no shadows and hardly any suggestion of space. The figures and the background have become colour fields, which are all equally involved in the scene. Dance, so ground-breaking and unconventional in its day, is the most forceful and emphatic expression of French Fauvist painting. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Matisse Stars at Sotheby's

2010-04-03T05:59:00.002+01:00

ArtDaily reports that Sotheby’s 5 May 2010 Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York will feature Henri Matisse’s spectacular "Bouquet pour le 14 Juillet 1919", the artist’s emotional celebration of the first Bastille Day following World War I (est. $18/25 million)*. The present art work also heralds the fresh and colorful style that would define Matisse’s career from 1919 onward, and signals the artist’s renewed sense of optimism following one of the most troubling periods of his career. The large and ambitious masterpiece (45 1/2 x 35 in, 116 x 89 cm) was presented by the artist to his dealers Bernheim-Jeune shortly after its completion and it remained in Bernheim’s family collection until it was sold at auction in France in the early 1980s. At that time, the picture achieved a record price, and since then, it has been in the same private collection for over a quarter of a century. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Best Selling Author's Art Auction

2010-04-02T05:42:00.000+01:00

Best-selling author Michael Crichton's art collection is going on the auction block in May reports Taiwan News. Among the highlights is Jasper Johns' "Flag." Christie's art auction house says the pop art rendition of the American flag has never been on the public market. Crichton, who died in 2008, was a leading authority on Johns. He bought the work directly from the artist. About 70 artworks from the collection will be displayed at Christie's Rockefeller Center art galleries, from Friday through April 13. They include works by David Hockney, Jeff Koons, Pablo Picasso and Roy Lichtenstein. Christie's says the Johns collection is the most comprehensive to come to market. The sale is May 11-12. Crichton wrote "Jurassic Park" and "Andromeda Strain." For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Tate Modern's New Major Gauguin Exhibition

2010-04-01T08:56:00.000+01:00

Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) is one of the most influential and celebrated artists of the late nineteenth century. "ArtDaily" reports that this is the first major exhibition in London to be devoted to his art work in over half a century. Opening at Tate Modern on 30 September 2010, "Gauguin: Maker of Myth" will trace the artist’s unique approach to storytelling. Bringing together over 100 works from public and private collections from around the world, the exhibition will take a fresh and compelling look at this master of modern art. A Post-Impressionist and a pioneer of modernism, Gauguin’s powerful and bold images were seen as radical as he distanced himself from the influence of Impressionism. Gauguin’s life has for generations epitomised the idea of the artist as romantic bohemian, looming as large as his art in the public imagination. This art exhibition will challenge commonly held assumptions about the artist and his practice. It will reveal to a twenty-first century audience the complexity and richness of his narrative strategies and explore the myths and fables that were central to his creativity. "Gauguin: Maker of Myth" will feature many of his iconic art works including "Vision of the Sermon", inspired by Brittany, and "Teha’amana has Many Parents", 1893 - painted during his time of self-imposed exile in Tahiti. Gauguin sought to escape European civilisation in the South Seas. Inspired by Tahiti’s tropical flora, fauna and daily island life he also immersed himself in its fast-disappearing Maori culture to invest his art with deeper meaning, ritual and myth. While Tahiti revitalised Gauguin’s artistic oeuvre, the works were a continuation of his earlier practice in Brittany, Martinique and Arles, in which Gauguin first explored ideas around religion, fable, myth and tradition. After leaving Europe for Tahiti in 1891, apart from two further years in France, the remainder of Gauguin's life was spent in the South Seas. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Most Visited Art Galleries in 2009.

2010-03-31T09:34:00.000+01:00

Charles Saatchi opened the new Saatchi Art Gallery on the King’s Road in Chelsea in 2008, hoping that it would attract “well over one million visitors” a year. The Art Newspaper’s (click title for link) 15th annual survey of attendance figures confirms that Saatchi has hit that target, tempting 1.2 million to visit. “The Revolution Continues: New Art from China” art exhibition and “Unveiled: New Art from the Middle East” attracted 4,139 and 3,828 people a day respectively, tallied by automatic counter. This made them the first and third most visited shows in the UK. Only the “Banksy effect” stopped Saatchi securing a top one and two in the UK. The street artist/local boy made good drew almost 4,000 people a day to see his interventions, or “remix”, of Bristol’s City Museum and Art Gallery. As in London, in Paris and Moscow young art museums have toppled long-established ones from the top of the exhibition tree in each respective city. But globally Japan’s museums remain in a league of their own when it comes to organising blockbuster exhibitions - three filling the top four places with three filling the top four places with the Musée Quai Branly in Paris in fifth with shows like three filling the top four places “Picasso and the Masters”. In terms of strength in depth from one institution, New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is unrivalled. In 2009 its exhibitions provided seven of the top 16 shows - Joan Miró, Rist, Van Gogh and Ensor. As large-scale art exhibitions can take several years to prepare, the effects of the financial recession — and the scarcity of business sponsorship to mount them — will begin to become apparent in next year’s list. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Earl Spencer’s £30m attic clearout

2010-03-30T20:56:00.003+01:00

It is the poshest and potentially most lucrative art clear-out of the year, The London Evening Standard reports. Earl Spencer, the brother of Princess Diana who has just asked for the hand in marriage of his third wife, is set to make a small fortune after clearing out his attic cupboards for what is set to be a multi-million-pound series of sales at Christie's. A Rubens, hailed as one of the most important works by the artist left in private hands, is expected to make £8-£12 million and an Il Guercino, £8 million. Other works have also tumbled out of the storerooms at Althorp, the ancestral family home in Northamptonshire, which is undergoing a £10 million re-roofing and restoration project. Even more treasures are to be sold from Spencer House in St James's, their London home until 1924 and one of only a handful of the capital's great 18th-century private palaces to remain intact today. More than 500 lots are destined for the attic sale. The art Old Masters will be sold on 6 July, works of art from the Spencer collections on 8 July and other works of art, the Spencer carriages and the attic sale on other dates this summer. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art On The Couch

2010-03-30T14:17:00.002+01:00

Freud loved art and collected it, reports The Guardian. In his London home, you can see the art collection that came with him when he fled Vienna: a rich and diverse array of archaeological objects, a Rembrandt print, images of Egypt. It is often said that although Freud was the contemporary of Gustav Klimt, he showed no interest in modern art; but this is not fair. He dreamed about Arnold Böcklin's symbolist masterpiece The Isle of the Dead, and his books are themselves works of modernism that went on to inspire the surrealists. His famous book on Leonardo da Vinci is anything but conservative. Making bold claims about Leonardo's sexuality, personality and the way works of art relate to real life, his book on this Renaissance art genius is hugely suggestive and stimulating. It's one of the classics on Leonardo and always will be. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art Atheist Paints the Pope

2010-03-29T06:52:00.002+01:00

“Oh, you are my Raphael!” Pope Benedict exclaimed, whilst a German self-confessed atheist was drawing him during a recent audience in Rome, reports The Art Newspaper. Leipzig based Michael Triegel will reveal his early sketches for the painting of the pope during an April exhibition of his work and the completed art work will be given to the Pope in September. As the Pope did not want an extended sitting for the portrait, Triegel had to gather as much material as he could during his brief papal audience, when he was allowed to draw and photograph the pontiff. Once the painting is completed it will be hung in the foyer of the Institut Papst Benedikt XVI in Regensburg, which collects and studies the writings of the Pope. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

‘Visions – Spectacular Art from the Ulster Museum’

2010-03-28T20:16:00.000+01:00

Ulster Museum & Art Gallery - Belfast - 26 Mar-26 Oct 2010 Botanic Gardens, Belfast BT9 5AB Tel: +44 (0) 28 9042 8428 ‘Visions – Spectacular Art from the Ulster Museum’ features more than 170 works of major Irish artists of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries including Hone, O’Conor, Osbourne, Lavery, Yeats, Henry, Dillon, Le Brocquy, Ballagh and O’Donoghue. One of the museum’s newest acquisitions, Ghost Story by Turner Prize Finalist Willie Doherty is shown as part of an exhibition exploring contemporary Irish art. The British and international highlights include work by JMW Turner, LS Lowry, Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet, Karel Appel, Bridget Riley, Gilbert & George, Graham Sutherland and Patrick Caulfield. A new publication by Ulster Museum’s Curators of Fine Art detais 100 of the best Irish works of art and is on sale at the museum. Tim Cooke, Director of National Museums Northern Ireland, says: “This new exhibition will build upon the success of the Sean Scully retrospective in re-establishing the Ulster Museum and Belfast as a venue for exceptional art exhibitions.” Unmissable show. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Did Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's ear?

2010-03-26T19:37:00.000Z

A new study claims Vincent Van Gogh may have made up the story to protect painter Paul Gauguin who actually lopped it off with a sword during an argument, The Telegraph reports. German art historians say the true version of events never surfaced as the two men both kept a "pact of silence" – Gauguin to avoid prosecution and Van Gogh in a vain attempt to keep a friend with whom he was hopelessly infatuated. The prevailing theory is that the Dutchman, who painted Sunflowers and the Potato Eaters, almost bled to death after slashing his own ear with a razor in a fit of lunacy on the night of December 23, 1888. He is said to have wrapped it in cloth and handed it to a prostitute in a nearby brothel. However, the new work from experts in Hamburg offers a very different version. Gauguin, an excellent fencer, was planning to leave Van Gogh's "Yellow House" in Arles, southwestern France, after an unhappy stay.He had walked out of the house with his baggage and his trusty épée in hand, but was followed by the troubled Van Gogh, who had earlier thrown a glass at him. As the pair approached a bordello, their row intensified, and Gauguin cut off Van Gogh's left earlobe with his sword – either in anger or self-defence. He then threw the weapon in the Rhône. Van Gogh delivered the ear to the prostitute and staggered home, where police discovered him the following day, the new account claims. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Turner May Reach £18m

2010-03-26T19:30:00.000Z

A vision of Rome shimmering in hazy evening light by JMW Turner, once bought by a future prime minister on his honeymoon, is to be auctioned at Sotheby's this summer, when it is estimated to make up to £18m, The Guardian reports. Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino - the last and one of the greatest in the artist's 20 year series of views of the city, has only been sold twice in 171 years, and is still in the family of the 5th Earl of Rosebery. It was bought by Turner's friend and patron Hugh Munro from the Royal Academy of Art exhibition in 1839 where it was first shown, and then in 1878 by Lord Rosebery and his new wife, Hannah Rothschild, for the astounding price of 4,450 guineas – but then she was the only child of the millionaire banker Baron Meyer de Rothschild. Sotheby's described the painting as one of the last Turner masterpieces in private hands. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Jack Packenham - New Irish Art 2000-2008

2010-03-26T19:01:00.001Z

Jack Pakenham - Recent Works McKenna Gallery - 1st - 24th Apr 2010 31 Castle Street, Omagh Tel: 028 8224 7105 Jack Packenham was born in Dublin. He read French, Spanish and Philosophy at Queen's Universtiy Belfast. Following his graduation he spent a winter painting and writing on the Balearic Island of Ibiza before enrolling as a post graduate at Stranmillis College Belfast. Having worked for almost 30 years teaching English at a Belfast secondary school, Pakenham now works full time as a painter. He has held over 35 solo exhibitions and his irish art work forms part of numerous private and public collections including The Irish Museum Of Modern Art, the Arts Council Of Northern Ireland and the Ulster Television collection. Pakenham is perhaps most well remembered for his 'Belfast Series' of images which emerged circa 1975. These reflect the increasingly turbulent political situation within Northern Ireland. The work emotes the feelings of tension, drama, horror and conflict that are all so apparent within a divided society. This new exhibition of irish art features paintings from 2000-2008. Well worth a visit. For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Irish Art Auctioneer joins with USA Auctioneer

2010-03-18T18:58:00.001Z

Irish Art Auction in New York on 23 March Whyte’s return to the US market with a joint auction with Bloomsbury Auctions and Dreweatt’s. The Irish Sale held by Bloomsbury Auctions in association with Whyte’s is in New York on 23 March with viewing from 17-22 March. Bloomsbury Auctions, with salerooms in New York, London and Rome are the leading antiquarian books auctioneers in the world, and have joined forces with Dreweatt’s - the UK’s fourth largest fine art auction house. Dreweatt’s have salerooms in Bristol, Newbury and other prime locations in the south of England. Whyte’s were active players in the US market but when demand at home outstripped supply, export sales dwindled. With the downturn in the economy here and the faster recovery in the US, Whyte’s return to their former largest customer base with further auctions with Bloomsbury/Dreweatt in New York, London and Dublin over the coming months. Catalogues at www.bloomsburyauctions.com or www.whytes.ie.

Conor Stolen from Irish Library

2009-04-20T19:18:00.000+01:00

BBC News reports that a painting by the Belfast artist William Conor has been stolen from Bray Public Library in County Wicklow. Fluter's Tune is thought to have been taken on Thursday, but the theft was not noticed until the next day. It depicts an elderly man playing a flute watched by a woman with a baby. Irish police are investigating. Conor, best-known for his depiction of working-class life in Belfast, was a government World War I artist. Born in Belfast in 1881, he died in 1968. Works by Conor have sold for more than £100,000. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Gallery Owner - $88M Art Theft

2009-03-30T23:18:00.000+01:00

The Star.com reports that the owner of a now-closed Manhattan art gallery with a star-studded clientele was painted as a thief who stole $88 million from art owners, a bank and investors, including tennis great John McEnroe. Lawrence B. Salander used the money to try to corner the Renaissance art market and to support an extravagant lifestyle that included private jet travel, a lavish party for his wife at New York's Frick Collection museum, and the purchase and maintenance of his Manhattan town house and a 66-acre estate, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said. Morgenthau said Salander defrauded a total of 26 victims in two primary ways: In one, he sold art work not owned by him and kept the money. The district attorney said Salander sometimes sold a piece of art owned by someone else several times. In the other, Morgenthau said, Salander lured investors into bogus or nonexistent "ghost" investment opportunities. He said this was the scheme Salander used to bilk McEnroe out of more than $2 million. He was arraigned in Manhattan's state Supreme Court and held on $1 million bail. Justice Michael Obus set April 8 as his next court date. Salander faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of first-degree grand larceny. Defence attorney Charles Ross said he expected Salander to make bail and be released by Friday. He said his client "pleaded not guilty to every charge and we're going to vigorously defend against every allegation in court." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Nude Taoiseach Art

2009-03-24T18:16:00.002Z

The Guardian reports that: "Politicians are notoriously prickly when it comes to full disclosure, but Brian Cowen now has more reason than most to fear the naked truth. A portrait of the nearly nude taoiseach resting on a toilet has mysteriously appeared in one of Dublin's major art galleries, prompting a police hunt across Ireland for a Banksy-style subversive artist. Cowen, who would be the first to admit he is no oil painting, has found himself the subject of not one but two semi-naked portraits left in the Irish capital. A portrait of Cowen holding his underpants was left in the Royal Hibernian Academy, while one of the taoiseach seated on the toilet ended up in the republic's National Gallery, the latter within a stone's throw of the prime minister's office in central Dublin. The Garda Síochána (Irish police) confirmed yesterday that it is investigating who was behind leaving the nude paintings in the galleries. The National Gallery said it called in the police but could not comment further except to say that the painting had been up for no more than 20 minutes before it was taken down. "It was not authorised to be on display and the Garda are investigating," the gallery said in a statement. The Royal Hibernian Academy said it was considering whether to bring in the Garda to investigate. A woman who saw the nude at the RHA offered to buy it. "It's reasonably well painted. It's not the worst thing I've ever seen," said James O'Halloran, of Adam's Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers in Dublin. Cowen was already a visual target for Ireland's political cartoonists. In the Irish media he is often portrayed as thick-lipped, bulging out of an ill-fitting suit, his shirt poking out of his trousers and a cigarette stuck out of one of his ears". (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Housewife Art Under Hammer

2009-03-24T08:46:00.000Z

Artdaily.com reports that Christies New York will offer a selection of works from the Collection of Betty Freeman in the May 13 Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale. Leading the selection is one of the most important works to come to the auction market by David Hockney, Beverly Hills Housewife, (estimate: $7-10 million), 1966-1967. The Evening Sale selection of works from the collection comprises 19 lots and is estimated at $26-40 million. A diptych measuring twelve feet long and six feet high, David Hockney’s Beverly Hills Housewife depicts a 1960’s California housewife standing on the patio of her well-appointed home. The painting’s modernist setting is testament to the refined and minimalist sensibilities of the subject, who is none other than Freeman herself. Having recently arrived in Los Angeles, the British artist asked Freeman if he could come to her house and paint the swimming pool in her backyard for a series that would become famously representative of his oeuvre, the ‘California Dreaming’ series. Upon arriving, Hockney decided to focus the work on Freeman, immediately finding that she, like many Los Angeles residents he had met, was very much a function of the space that she existed in, and the space that she existed in was very much a function of her. Infused with pervasive and powerful silence, Beverly Hills Housewife not only captures the artist’s detached fascination with the California landscape, it also demonstrates his predilection for scenes bathed in crisp light and hyper-real colors, a distinct departure from the work being created by Hockney’s Post-War British counterparts at the time. Painted between 1966-1967, the work depicts a tanned, sculptural Freeman in bright pink dress standing on her covered patio. Hockney added the antelope trophy head on the wall to create a deliberately humorous face-off between the Freeman and fictional character. Beverly Hills Housewife would become the centerpiece of Betty Freeman’s collection. She was to remain in the same house, memorialized on canvas, for the remainder of her life. The painting not only conveys the essence of the California good life, it also stands as a testament to the remarkable life-long friendship between the subject and the artist. In addition to Beverly Hills Housewife, the New York Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale will also feature works from the Collection of Betty Freeman by Roy Lichtenstein, Dan Flavin, Alexander Calder, Sam Francis, Andy Warhol, and Claes Oldenburg. Roy Lichtenstein’s Frolic, 1977, (estimate: $4-7 million), was inspired by his own 1962 painting, Girl with Ball, by ads and comic books, and by one of the greatest painters in art history – Pablo Picasso. In Frolic, Picasso is seen through the filter of Pop, as his celebrated 1932 painting Baigneuse au ballon de plage in the collection of New York’s MoMA is interpreted with an unusual and irreverent twist. Andy Warhol’s Portrait of Man Ray, 1976 (estimate: $2-4 million), will also be featured as part of the collection. One of Warhol’s most definitive portraits, his execution of Man Ray is a testament of his adoration of the celebrated artist. Man Ray’s work had a very significant impact on Warhol’s career, but with this portrait it becomes evident that Man Ray’s being had just as much of an influence. This portrait reinforces the larger theme within Warhol’s oeuvre regarding the concept of the artist as celebrity, putting Man Ray among the ranks of the glittering cultural icons by which Warhol defined his life and work, including Marilyn Monroe, Marlon Brando, Mick Jagger and Mohammed Ali. Typewriter Eraser (estimate: $1.4-1.8 million), epitomizes Claes Oldenburg's revolutionary approach to sculpture as an objectification of mundane objects. Produced in 1976, this work marks a period of technical expansion for the sculptor, in which he experimented with new materials and an everincreasing scale. A rare, early painting by Sam Francis from 1954 entitled Grey (estimate: $2.5-3.5 million) will also be offered. First exhibited in Dorothy Miller’s seminal Twelve Americans show at the MoMa, the work was acquired directly from Francis’ private collection by Betty Freeman, who enjoyed a long and close relationship with the artist. A selection of works from the Collection of Betty Freeman will also be included in the Post-War & Contemporary Art Day Sale on May 14. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Lowry Art Trickery?

2009-03-03T19:23:00.000Z

Wigan Today reports that an art lover from Cheshire accused of tricking a dealer into buying a fake LS Lowry has told a court he thought the painting was genuine. Maurice Taylor - who calls himself Lord Taylor Windsor after buying the title on the internet for £1,000 - sold the Mill Street scene to businessman David Smith during a meeting in a Ritz hotel room in 2007. Mr Smith, managing director of Neptune Fine Arts, paid over £230,000 before discovering the work was bogus. Taylor, 60, who lives in a mansion near Congleton, had bought the snowy scene featuring matchstick-style figures three years earlier through friend and Lowry expert Ivan Aird. Mr Aird acted as an agent for the previous owner Martin Heaps who, the crown say, sold the picture for £7,500 with an invoice describing it as "After Lowry" because it was created by artist Arthur Delaney. Prosecuting at Chester Crown Court, Sion Ap Mihangel, said Taylor knew the picture was fake, invented history to boost its provenance, and doctored the invoice so it appeared he was sold a genuine work. Taylor admitted telling his buyer and auctioneers Bonhams he bought the painting several decades earlier from industrialist Eddie Rosenfeld. He said he did not know why he lied but claimed Mr Aird asked him not to say he bought the painting through him. He said Mr Aird told him the painting was genuine and said: "When he sold me that picture there was never a question in his mind. I didn't question him, he told me it was original." A team of experts from Bonhams later assessed the work and were taken in by it. They provided a £600,000 insurance valuation and laid on the red carpet treatment, hoping Taylor would sell it through them. Mr Mihangel said Taylor acquired the Bonhams valuation to strengthen his selling position and to ensure a private sale. Taylor denies denies six counts of fraud and one of forging an invoice. The trial continues. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Caged Art Recognised

2009-03-01T10:44:00.001Z

The New York Times reports that 1974 Tehching Hsieh, a young Taiwanese performance artist working as a seaman, walked down the gangplank of an oil tanker docked in the Delaware River and slipped into the United States. His destination: Manhattan, center of the art world. Once there, though, Mr. Hsieh found himself ensnared in the benumbing life of an illegal immigrant. With the downtown art scene vibrating around him, he eked out a living at Chinese restaurants and construction jobs, feeling alien, alienated and creatively barren until it came to him: He could turn his isolation into art. Inside an unfinished loft, he could build himself a beautiful cage, shave his head, stencil his name onto a uniform and lock himself away for a year. Thirty years later Mr. Hsieh’s “Cage Piece” is on display at the Museum of Modern Art as the inaugural installation in a series on performance art. But formal recognition of Mr. Hsieh (pronounced shay), who is now a 58-year-old American citizen with spiky salt-and-pepper hair, has been a long time coming. For decades he was almost an urban legend, his harrowing performances — the year he punched a time clock hourly, the year he lived on the streets, the year he spent tethered by a rope to a female artist — kept alive by talk. This winter, owing to renewed interest in performance art, new passion for contemporary Chinese art and the coinciding interests of several curators, Mr. Hsieh’s moment of recognition has arrived from many directions at once. The one-man show at MoMA runs through May 18. The Guggenheim is featuring his time-clock piece in “The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia, 1860-1989” through April 19. M.I.T. Press is about to release “Out of Now,” a large-format book devoted to his “lifeworks.” And United States Artists, an advocacy organization, has awarded Mr. Hsieh $50,000, his first grant. He is gratified by the exhibitions. But he judges the book, which is 384 pages and weighs almost six pounds, to be the definitive ode to his artistic career. “Because of this book I can die tomorrow,” said Mr.Hsieh. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Yves Saint Laurent Art Auction

2009-02-21T20:45:00.001Z

The Financial Times reports that at 9am this Saturday morning the doors of the Grand Palais in Paris will open on an exhibition of the art collection formed by the couturier Yves Saint Laurent and his business and civil partner Pierre Bergé. The three-day, 733-lot art auction, organised by Christie’s in association with Pierre Bergé & Associés, is expected to realise €200m-€300m (half the proceeds are to benefit scientific research in the fight against Aids). This is a sale that has it all: glamour, celebrity and, above all, objects of impeccable provenance, quality and rarity. Yves Saint Laurent also used his art collections as inspiration for his designs), eventually turning to modern painting, acquiring the “Demoiselles d’Avignon”, for instance, directly from Picasso’s studio and commissioning sumptuous art deco furniture. The first of many purchases made through the Parisian dealer Alain Tarica was Brancusi’s rough-hewn, totemic oak sculpture of the Parisian hostess Léonie Ricou, acquired from Léger’s widow for around $500,000 (€15m-€20m). The whole of Mondrian is summed up in three superlative works and their glorious Matisse, “Les coucous, tapis bleu et rose” of 1911 (€12m-€18m), which has never been lined or varnished, dates from that rare phase in the artist’s oeuvre when he moves on from fauvism to orientalism, the Spanish fabric depicted featuring in many subsequent works. What is clear is that there was never any sense of hierarchy in their art collecting; every object, major or relatively minor, was there to add its own particular magic, and resonance, to the grander scheme. They were not in pursuit of trophies per se; rather, gathering pieces of a visual, intellectual and emotional jigsaw evoking that heroic age of early-20th-century French culture and creativity. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Gormleys - "20 Years in Irish Art" Celebration

2009-02-13T20:22:00.002Z

Over the last 20 years Oliver Gormley’s passion for art and success driven attributes have helped develop Gormleys into the respected business it is today. This gallery continues to work towards building sustainable relationships with both artists and collectors, selecting artists in whose future and creativity they believe in - both established and emerging. Many of their artists are now receiving critical acclaim and appear in important collections. Twenty years experience in the art business, have left Gormleys Fine Art in a strong position to offer solid advice to their collector clients. The gallery walls in Belfast and Dublin during the "20 years" Celebration exhibitions will show artists such as John Behan, Paddy Campbell, Ian Pollock, Eileen Meagher, Peter Monaghan, Arthur Maderson, Liam O’Neill, James Brohan, Charles Harper, J.B. Vallely, Lorcan Vallely, Michael Smyth, Barry Kerr, Jonathan Aiken, Paul Donaghy, Ken Hamilton, Rita Duffy, Rowland Davidson and Jane Swanston. "20 Years Celebration" Exhibition - Belfast + Dublin Gormleys Fine Art - Belfast - 19th Feb - 19th Mar 2009 Belfast Gallery 251 Lisburn Road, Belfast Tel:+44 (0)28 9066 3313 belfast@gormleys.ie Dublin Gallery 24 South Frederick St Dublin 2 Tel: +353 (0) 1 6729031 dublin@gormleys.ie Irish Art

"Nazi" Picasso's Stay In NY

2009-02-10T09:42:00.002Z

Time/CNN reports that it may have been possible for Picasso's boy to lead that horse without a rein, but it appears that the Museum of Modern Art didn't have the famous painting on as tight a leash as you might have thought. For more than a year that 1906 picture, one of the high points of MoMA's art collection, has been the focus of a Holocaust restitution fight that also involved another Picasso, Le Moulin de la Galette, this one hanging at the Guggenheim. Yesterday both museums settled out of court with three plaintiffs seeking return of the paintings, which they claim had been relinquished under duress by their Jewish owner in the 1930s. As with most settlements the details of this one are sealed, so we may never know whether or how much money changed hands. And by itself the mere fact that the two art museums chose to settle doesn't mean they didn't have faith in their own arguments. (Or, for that matter, that the plaintiffs didn't have faith in their's.) But jury trials are a crapshoot and for the museums at least, the paintings were too important to lose. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Sales Calm Jittery Art Market

2009-02-09T14:50:00.000Z

The Financial Times reports that predictions of an art market meltdown were confounded in London this week as six sales of impressionist, modern and contemporary art at Christie’s and Sotheby’s turned in solid results. The art auction houses managed to restore confidence to a jittery market with successful sales by radically shrinking the size of the catalogue and lowering estimates compared with last year. Some distress selling is, however, beginning to filter through. Among the week’s highlights were a classic impressionist painting by Monet that fetched £11.2m ($16.5m), a Degas sculpture that sold for £13.3m and a carved stack of cartoon-like animals by Jeff Koons that made £2.8m. The day sales, which offer more moderately priced works, also proved successful. “We feel a lot better than we did a week ago,” said James Roundell, a London art dealer. “At best, people thought the sales would be patchy. These results send a positive message to the market.” Sotheby’s two sales of impressionist and modern art this week totalled £43.9m, compared with the £144.4m it garnered in February last year. Christie’s three sales made £82.5m; last year they fetched £136.5m. Sotheby’s pared-down auction of contemporary art this week made £17.9m, with just two of the 27 lots remaining unsold. Last year the same sale made a record-breaking £95m. While distress selling is starting to appear in the market, few works could be positively identified as having come from collectors hit by the global financial crisis. At Sotheby’s, Jerome Fisher, the art collector and owner of Nine West shoes who reportedly lost large sums through investments with Bernard Madoff, is believed to have been the consignor of a large Degas pastel showing two dancers, estimated at £3.5m-£4.5m. The painting attracted no bids and went unsold at £2.9m. At Christie’s, five works came from a buyer who had failed to pay after winning them in February last year. They returned to the saleroom this week, incurring a big loss for the vendor. The most expensive, Alexej von Jawlensky’s expressionist portrait of a sulky girl, “Mädchen mit roter Schliefe” (1911), was the cover lot for Christie’s catalogue last year when it sold to a “private European” for £2.9m. This time it sold for £1.9m. More moderate losses hit Kandinsky’s colourful watercolour of psychologist Poul Bjerre in a Swedish landscape, which sold for £433,250 – the buyer had paid £670,100 for it last year. A Sisley riverscape bought last year for £446,100 sold for £385,250 this week. While estimates and prices have dropped sharply in the art market, a few vendors still turned a profit. The Degas “Petite danseuse de quatorze ans” (cast in 1922) consigned by Sir John Madejski, Reading football club’s owner, made £13.3m at Sotheby’s – he bought it in February 2004 for just over £5m. The sculpture went to a Japanese buyer benefiting from the strong yen, which has gained 35 per cent against the pound over the past year. The Koons sculpture,“Stacked” (1988), which made £2.8m at Sotheby’s on Thursday, had been bought in 1997 for $250,000 by Richard Cooper, a Chicago collector. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Police Seek Art Dealer

2009-02-01T08:10:00.000Z

An Australian art dealer has disappeared, leaving clients wondering where their money and art works are. Police are trying to determine if Ron Coles was involved in art forgery, the Melbourne Sun-Herald reported. The newspaper cited sources in the art world who said that dubious paintings ostensibly by well-known Australian painters may be flooding the market. "It's been common knowledge for a while -- we knew this was going to blow," one source told the newspaper. "Nobody wanted to undermine confidence in the art industry. Like it or not, the truth is now going to emerge." The source said one painter, d'Arcy Doyle, "was not a prolific painter and yet in recent times, there has been a never-ending stream of fresh works." Coles, who operated a gallery in Sydney, offered art as an investment, with many of his clients putting money from their retirement accounts into portfolios of artworks. Police say they have received 150 complaints from people who say Coles owes them money, including some who say they saw art they thought they owned on the Internet attributed to other owners. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

US University Flogs Its Art

2009-01-28T05:33:00.000Z

A US university is being forced by the sagging economy to close its celebrated museum of modern art and sell off its 8,000-piece art collection, which includes works by Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol. Brandeis University's board of trustees voted unanimously to close its Art Museum as part of a campus-wide effort to preserve the university's educational mission in the face of the historic economic recession and financial crisis. The art museum will close in "late summer 2009" and the art collection will be sold through a top auction house. Proceeds from the sale will be reinvested in the Massachusetts-based university "to combat the far-reaching effects of the economic crisis and fortify the university's position for the future." Michael Rush, director of the museum, valued the art collection at around $350 million dollars. The announced closure of the museum, which was inaugurated in 1961, came as "a total surprise and shock" to Rush and other art museum staff, the director of the museum told AFP. "We weren't asked to attend the meeting" last week, where the decision was made, Rush said. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art of Andrew Wyeth

2009-01-27T04:51:00.004Z

The Museum of Modern Art announced it will loan the iconic Andrew Wyeth painting, Christina's World, to the Brandywine River Museum in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, where a memorial for Wyeth will be held on January 31. Wyeth, described as "one of the most popular and also most lambasted artists in the history of American art" in a NY Times obituary (the Brandywine website says he's "often referred to as America’s most famous artist"), died last week at age 91 in his Chadds Ford home. Here's the MoMA's description of Christina's World: The woman crawling through the tawny grass was the artist's neighbor in Maine, who, crippled by polio, "was limited physically but by no means spiritually." Wyeth further explained, "The challenge to me was to do justice to her extraordinary conquest of a life which most people would consider hopeless." He recorded the arid landscape, rural house, and shacks with great detail, painting minute blades of grass, individual strands of hair, and nuances of light and shadow. In this style of painting, known as magic realism, everyday scenes are imbued with poetic mystery. The Times also has an interesting article about the debate over Wyeth's work and status as an American painter. The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts museum director David Brigham told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Andrew Wyeth captured a sense of the American dream and, when we look closely at his art, our longings and anxieties, too. He was one of the great chroniclers of everyday life in rural America, and one of the great interpreters of the American experience in the mid to late 20th century." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Joe Boyle's Art at Waterfront Hall, Belfast

2009-01-25T22:10:00.002Z

There is a small number of artists that savvy Irish Art collectors should carefully track in 2009 - and Joe Boyle (a previous Conor Prize Winner at the Royal Ulster Academy) - is one of them. This Belfast Waterfront exhibition fuses three themes. The first is Boyle's response to a trip to China investigating 17th century dry brush calligraphy combined with Chinese contemporary aspiration for a western iconography. The second is the notion that the fragment can intentionally signify the whole - as part of an ancient object may be considered a work of art - despite that not being the original artistic intention. In this exploration Boyle chooses the Eye as the part that signifies the whole in a meaningful manner - presenting an opportunity to explore different ways of seeing aspects of change in Irish Society. The final theme is a response to Landscape which employs notions of metaphor, edge and parameter to explore emotions which we experience and are challenged by what is often a familiar and sometimes threatening environment. Joe Boyle - Solo Gallery 2 Waterfront Hall 2 Lanyon Place, Belfast Tel: 028 9033 4400 Opens Tuesday 3rd February (7pm- 9pm) until 27th February 2009 Irish Art

Art of 2 Year Old

2009-01-09T10:55:00.001Z

The Belfast Telegraph reports that critics of abstract paintings like to denigrate such works by claiming they could easily have been created by a child. Now a Melbourne art gallery owner has discovered there is truth in that old chestnut after he agreed to exhibit paintings by an artist who turned out to be a two-year-old girl. Mark Jamieson, director of the Brunswick Street Gallery, was shown the paintings by Nikka Kalashnikova, a Russian-born photographer whom he represents. The artist's name was Aelita Andre, Kalashnikova said, omitting the fact that Aelita was her daughter, and a toddler. Mr Jamieson liked her work, and decided to feature it in a group exhibition opening next week. It was only after he began publicising the show that he learnt Aelita's identity. "I was shocked, and, to be honest, a little embarrassed," he told the Melbourne Age yesterday. He hesitated about whether to go ahead with the show, but resolved: "We'll give it a go." Mr Jamieson said it was difficult to judge abstract art. "There are different approaches," he said. "There is a formal approach and then there is a free-form approach that comes off a more intuitive base. And if you're thinking about the latter, perhaps a two-year-old can do it as well as a 30-year-old." Aelita has been painting since before she could walk, according to her mother. Kalashnikova initially thought nothing of it, but last August, when Aelita was 19 months old, she became convinced there was real potential in her work. She gave her a canvas primed with red paint, and her daughter produced a painting that is among those about to go on show. Asked why she did not disclose the artist's identity, Kalashnikova said she and her husband, the artist Michael Andre, wanted the work judged on its own merits. Aelita's paintings will be priced from $300 (£140) to $2,000. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Nazi Art Loot

2009-01-09T08:47:00.001Z

The Telegraph reports that museums should be allowed to keep art looted by the Nazis according to Sir Norman Rosenthal, the former exhibitions secretary of the Royal Academy. Despite being the child of Jewish refugees, Sir Norman said he thought "history is history" and descendants "distanced by two or more generations" from the works' original owners did not have an "inalienable right" to reclaim their forbearers' property. Writing in The Art Newspaper, Sir Norman said an agreement reached in Washington, DC, in 1998 - that committed 44 countries to try to return looted art to the owners or their descendants - should be revisited. He wrote: "This process has been ongoing for 10 years and the items in question have often been claimed by people distanced by two or more generations from their original owners. "I believe history is history and that you can't turn the clock back or make things good again through art. Ever since the beginning of recorded history, because of its value, art has been looted and as a result, arbitrarily distributed and disseminated throughout the world." He went on: "Of course, what happened in the Nazi period was unspeakable in its awfulness. I lost many relatives whom I never knew personally, and who died in concentration camps in the most horrible of circumstances. But I believe grandchildren or distant relations of people who had works of art or property taken by the Nazis do not now have an inalienable right to ownership, at the beginning of the century." In April 2000 a Spoliation Advisory Panel was set up by the government to advise on the process of reuniting art looted by the Nazis with its rightful owners or their descendents. It periodically rules on what should happen to particular contested items. Often, a museum is allowed to keep an item but told it must pay the owner or descendents a fee that matches its value on the open market. A spokesman for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport described the current situation to try to return looted art as "a simple, right and fair way of righting historic wrongs". It had "no plans" to change, a spokesman added. Sir Nicholas Serota, director of the Tate, urged caution. He said: "It would be premature to impose a moratorium now but at some point in the future this may be appropriate." Anne Webber, co-chair of the Commission for Looted Art in Europe, accused Sir Norman of being "out of touch". (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Picasso: Challenging The Past

2009-01-07T06:17:00.001Z

One for the Diary... Art by the 20th-century great are shown alongside works by the Old Masters (Manet, Rembrandt, Cezanne...) who Picasso referenced, challenged and drew inspiration from.National Gallery (25 Feb-7 Jun 2009) Irish Art

Matisse Art Stolen

2009-01-05T08:25:00.001Z

BBC news reports that more than 30 art works, including prints by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, have been stolen from a Berlin art gallery. The art works - worth an estimated 180,000 euros ($250,000/£173,000) - were stolen over the New Year holiday. Picasso's 1947 Profil au Fond Noir and Nude in a Rocking Chair (1913) by Matisse are among the pieces missing. The works, including sculptures and etchings, were taken from the Fasanengalerie, a private art gallery near western Berlin's shopping district. Le Boupeut, a colour print by Georges Braque, is also missing. The gallery's owner discovered the theft around lunchtime on Thursday. Given the volume of art stolen, police suspect the involvement of two or more people. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Lowry Art For sale

2009-01-02T23:16:00.000Z

The BBC reports that two oil paintings by LS Lowry have gone on sale at an antiques fair for nearly £500,000. The two paintings are among 12 by the Salford artist worth a total of £1m, at the Westonbirt School Antiques and Fine Art Fair near Tetbury, Gloucestershire. One of the works, a busy street scene, is signed and dated 1953 and is being sold for £325,000. The second, a view of an industrial landscape in Salford, has a price tag of £150,000. About 50 dealers from across the UK are expected to take part in the fair, which will last until Sunday. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Top Art Falters in Credit Crunch

2008-12-31T08:16:00.004Z

Bloomberg reports that Damien Hirst’s record “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever” sale and collapse of Lehman Brothers in September marked the turning of the art market in 2008. The financial-market rout curtailed spending by U.S. and European art collectors. Falling commodity and equity prices suppressed demand from art buyers from the emerging economies of Russia and the Middle East. In 2007, Sotheby’s and Christie’s International’s regular mixed-owner sales of contemporary art in New York and London totaled a record $2.4 billion with fees. This year, because of a slowing of demand in the final quarter, the equivalent auctions totaled less than $2 billion, a decline of 17 percent, according to figures compiled by Bloomberg News. Sotheby’s and Christie’s lost at least $50 million and $40 million each from failed art guarantees in their final-quarter sales. Auction houses are cutting staff, abandoning guarantees of a price to sellers, and reducing estimates on individual art works. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Demanding Old Masters Art Market

2008-12-16T14:37:00.000Z

ARTPRICE reports that compared with the rising stars of the contemporary art market from China, India and the Middle-East whose markets have been stimulated by speculative temptation, the market for works by Old Masters is much less volatile and therefore much less risky. However, it is not completely sheltered. The Old Masters segment was badly hit during the last crisis: after the peak that was reached in 1990, its price index lost half its value in 1993, before stabilising towards the middle of the decade. Masterpieces are rare and buyers are choosy. Hence when increasingly rare museum-quality pieces come up for sale in the Old Masters segment, the bidding tends to go exceptionally high.  Over the last decade, the segment has generated a number of highly publicised hammer prices. The absolute winner over the period is Peter Paul RUBENS with his Le Massacre des innocents which in July 2002 became the world's most expensive Old Master when it sold for £45 million (M$ 69,7) at Sotheby’s, pushing up the artist's annual sales revenue by 1,790%! When exceptional pieces finally come up for auction, their prices easily take off. For example, the market for Jean Antoine WATTEAU - whose key works are few and far between - was shaken by the arrival at auction of La surprise, a masterpiece that experts had believed lost for 160 years. Between 1996 and 2008 only 13 of his works were auctioned and, until that sale, none of the works presented had the requisite qualities to engender a 7-figure bid. In July 2008, his Surprise - estimated at between £3 and £5 million - fetched a bid of £11 million (M$ 21,7), illustrating the enthusiasm that such rare works generate and the strength of demand in the sector. Even in periods of crisis, major works by Old Masters are hotly disputed: on 2 December 2008 a new record was also generated for Portrait of a lady as Flora by Giovanni Battista TIEPOLO (1696-1770). The piece tripled its estimate with a winning bid of £2.5 million (M$ 3,7). However, collectors of Old Masters do not allow themselves to get carried away by the prestige of a signature even when faced with a diminishing number of works (rarefaction). The artistic excellence of a work and its physical condition are imperatives which not even Pieter II BRUEGHEL can escape, his lesser quality works selling for as little as half the price that one of his comparable works (in terms of theme and size) might fetch. For example, a version of The wedding Feast, of which he created several oil versions – modifying some colours and enhancing the composition at each stage – can cost anywhere between £130,000 to £280,000. The last version offered at Christie’s on 2 December sold beneath its low estimate (£250,000) at £220,000 ($333 630). However, the figure can be regarded as relatively good given the freeze observed on other autumn sales. In fact, that sale on 2 December at Christie’s posted a relatively low bought-in rate of 23%. The next day, the Old Masters sale at Sotheby’s was less successful with 39% of the works offered being bought-in. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art Therapy for Schizophrenia

2008-12-14T21:58:00.000Z

BBC News reports that Government advisers are expected to recommend art therapy on the NHS for people with schizophrenia. The National Institute of Clinical and Health Excellence (NICE) will promote use of programmes offering music, art and dance therapy for the first time. Activities include playing musical instruments and creating collages. An expert panel found the therapy works particularly well in patients with "negative" symptoms such as withdrawal and poor motivation. Schemes use trained therapists, with degrees in art, music or dance, and encourage people with schizophrenia to be creative as well as participating in group activities. A consultation on the new recommendations will be open until November, with final guidance due next year. Dr Mike Crawford, an expert in mental health services at Imperial College London who has carried out studies on arts therapy, said the therapies help people communicate. Alison Cobb from the mental health charity Mind said: "While medication for schizophrenia can help tackle symptoms such as psychosis, medication alone fails to address some of the other problems people may experience, such as problems communicating and socialising with others. "Art therapy is a non-threatening and accessible therapy that can help people express their feelings without the need to talk them over." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Belfast Gallery Cuts Cost of Art

2008-12-12T09:42:00.001Z

SqSpace Gallery (in the VSB building on Shaftesbury Square, Belfast) have majored on emerging artists - sprinkled with well established artists for their Christmas show. Artists like 2008 RUA Conor Prizewinner Audrey Smyth and those with collector demand like Jonathan Aitken, Michael Flaherty, Verner Finlay, RUA member Robert Bottom and Paul Donaghy, the latter with a recent sell-out show at Gormleys. SqSpace have sourced the best possible prices for their Christmas show and only two out of 39 works (18 artists) are over the £1000 mark with prices starting at £245. Their philosophy is to "do business" with the very best deals possible. "With money already very tight, we believe the art market needs to respond and this Christmas show will bring those giving special gifts and Irish art collectors the benefits of art at the lowest prices we can. The artists get paid the same - we are trimming our selling fees". Expect this philosophy to continue in 2009.

Art Shows Resilience

2008-12-04T06:52:00.002Z

Sotheby's sold Old Masters' paintings worth £13.3 million on Wednesday, close to the top end of expectations and bucking the recent art market trend of disappointing results. The top lot on the night was Frans van Mieris the Elder's "A Young Woman in a Red Jacket Feeding a Parrot," which fetched £3.6 million including a buyer's premium compared with pre-sale art estimates of £500-700,000 without the premium. Not far behind was a portrait on marble of 16th century Florentine banker Bindo Altoviti by Girolamo da Carpi, which went under the hammer for £3.1 million well above expectations of £200-300,000. "This evening's art sale showed enormous strength for quality paintings with attractive estimates that are fresh to the market," said Alex Bell, international head of Sotheby's old masters' department. "The results prove that the market for old master paintings, which enjoys a stable collecting base, is both robust and resilient." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art Basle May Shine

2008-12-01T09:20:00.001Z

There was a time when demand for contemporary art was so high that art gallery owners were literally scouting art schools to pluck the work of promising artists. Like home prices, the money paid for contemporary and modern art soared to lofty heights. To some, collecting art seemed like a great investment. Now on the eve of the seventh edition of Art Basel Miami Beach with the economy in disarray and many of the Wall Street high rollers and collectors out of jobs, art prices have thudded down to more terrestrial levels. At the same time, Art Basel Miami Beach has grown astronomically with more than 20 satellite fairs and dozens more impromptu art events around town. More than 220 galleries from around the world will be showing the works of more than 2,000 artists. With just four days to squeeze it all in, some wonder if Art Basel has become too large. Tighter wallets, bigger art festival. Seems like we're set up for an imbalance. However, for four days in December, South Florida will become the most important art center on the planet with a flurry of parties, art videos, talks by leading art personalities, open houses, private-collection visits and lots of art communing. Even if sales and prices are disappointing this year and visitors don't spend quite so lavishly on entertainment and lodging, Art Basel remains a stellar event. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art Prices Rollercoster

2008-11-10T05:45:00.001Z

The Scotsman reports that Gerhard Richter – the man dubbed Europe’s greatest living painter – has attacked the staggering prices that the international art market has notched up in the past decade. Even the price tags on his own paintings, which tipped £7 million earlier this year, he says are “too high”. The painter of giant, vibrant tableaux expresses scorn for the auction antics of celebrity artists such as Damien Hirst. “This has to do with these mad prices we have now, because we are losing our culture, when you see the auction catalogues full of bulls*** and hype,” he says. Aside from the very greatest Old Masters, Raphael or Leonardo, “paintings shouldn’t cost more than a million”. Asked if he thinks auction prices are now falling, he says, “I hope so.” A few days ago the Art Newspaper published figures on the astonishing growth in value of contemporary art sold at auction over the past few decades. From 1984 to the end of September 2008, average prices for the top quarter of art sales rose from $20,000 to $660,000 – up by 3,100 per cent. In the top 10 per cent, the average price grew from $43,000 to $2 million, a gain of nearly 4,400 per cent. After rising steadily from 2000, growth went wild in 2006. Richter, along with the art world’s critics and Cassandras, however, may finally be about to see their gloomy predictions realised. Over the past few months, as the credit crunch has made its impact felt, art dealers and auctioneers have clung to the hope that the art market may be one of the few sectors able ride out the recession. For a while, the see-sawing results seemed to bear them out. Each poor sale in New York or London that brought warnings of a downturn would be followed by one that saw stellar works break multimillion pound records. Serious jitters took hold at the end of last week, however, when auction houses struggled to find buyers for works from Manet and Renoir to Rothko. In New York, two private art collections expected to fetch more than $100 million (£63 million), brought in less than half that. The sale, at Christie’s auctioneers in Manhattan saw 17 out of 58 works failing to sell and others bringing much lower prices than predicted. Toulouse-Lautrec’s Portrait de Henri Nocq, estimated at $6-8 million, sold for $4.5 million. As the week progressed, one Picasso painting went for more than $20 million but two others remained unsold. “Obviously in the future we will have to lower estimates,” said Christie’s honorary chairman and auctioneer Christopher Burge, though he insisted “there is still a great deal of money left for the art market”. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Irish Art Thieves Took Taxi

2008-11-10T05:43:00.000Z

Bungling Irish art thieves led Gardai to their door last weekend when they brought their loot home in a taxicab. Two men were apprehended at a residence in Kilmore following the theft of three paintings. It is believed that the thieves were easily located after they hired a taxi to ferry them, and two of the paintings home following the robbery. According to Gardai a plate glass window in Greenacres was smashed and paintings removed from the display. Gardai this week said that while investigations into the matter are 'not yet complete', they are 'not looking for anyone else in connection with the matter'. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Christies Art Sale Falters

2008-11-07T09:52:00.000Z

Bloomberg reports that French billionaire Francois Pinault attended his company Christie's International's New York art auction of impressionist and modern art last night, and watched from a sky box as almost half the lots failed to sell. Buyers passed on 44 percent of the 82 pieces offered. Sales tallied $146.7 million, against the low estimate of $240.7 million. It's the week's third evening auction that missed estimates and a sign the global financial crisis continues to undermine demand for the most-expensive art. Works by Henri Matisse, Claude Monet and Alexander Archipenko found little or no interest. Collectors felt no urgency to vie for anything less than stellar, especially at prices that seemed suddenly steep, dealers said. A disappointing sale the previous night at Christie's set the stage for last night's low expectations. On Nov. 5, art works of Park Avenue widow Rita Hillman and real estate heiress Alice Lawrence fetched $47 million, less than half the low estimate of $103 million. On Nov. 3, Sotheby's impressionist sale tallied $223.8 million, a third below the $338 million low estimate. The evening's biggest prize was Gris's green 1915 cubist still-life, "Livre, pipe et verres," estimated to sell for more than $12.5 million. New York private art dealer Franck Giraud bought it for $20.8 million. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Barnsley, Art & The Beatles

2008-11-06T09:07:00.000Z

As the Star reports, contemporary art galleries don't open in Barnsley every day. And when the Hive Art Gallery was launched at Elsecar Heritage Centre earlier this year there were a few people questioning whether it would work. Now an exhibition featuring the art of Sir Peter Blake, who created the famous Sgt Pepper's Hearts Club Band Beatles album sleeve, is proof that it does. Other work featured at the exhibition includes art created by Iain Nicholls who has created a visual exploration of the route of the River Dearne from its source at Birds Edge in the Pennines to Darfield. Gallery curator Patrick Murphy says the exhibition is going well. He said: "People commented that we were mad opening a contemporary art gallery in Barnsley, and that people wouldn't be interested. "We have found the opposite to be true. "There is clearly an eager audience for contemporary visual art." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Titanic Artist New Belfast Art Show

2008-11-02T15:42:00.004Z

Jim McDonald Solo - East Belfast Memories Exhibition Jim McDonald has painted in Canada, England, and Ireland. A three year period in Kildare saw his love of horses produce racing scenes still sought by many enthusiasts of the sport. He worked in the Delorean factory as illustrator before painting full time. In Canada, McDonald was commissioned to paint a portrait of The Governor General of Canada. This led to portraits of other well known personalities. McDonald's paintings have always been popular, from early watercolours and pastels to bold and colourful oils of today. Notable influences are McAuley, Conor, Yeats and Turner - but he is constantly experimenting, and his current project displays a trend towards even more colourful and fascinating subjects which are very collectable. Last year, the Royal Mail published two "Titanic" stamps using McDonald's images. These new works on East Belfast Memories are highly evocative of a long-gone period in Belfast and seem certain to give McDonald his second sell-out show in a row. Jim McDonald Solo - East Belfast Memories Vans Fine Art - Belfast - 13th Nov - 27th Nov 2008 135 Bloomfield Avenue, Belfast Tel: +44 (0)28 90454131 (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art, Blood and Lipstick

2008-11-02T04:54:00.002Z

The Telegraph reports on Kate Moss's self-portrait 'Who needs blood when you've got lipstick?'. Painted in 2005-2006, it is a self-portrait in lipstick marked with her own lip prints and stains of her former boyfriend Pete Doherty's blood. Estimated to fetch between £30,000 and £40,000, the painting is not signed, but is inscribed by Doherty "Who needs blood when you've got lipstick?", and comes with a receipt of sale made out on a Soho House napkin from Doherty, who originally owned the painting. Also for sale is a self-portrait print by Doherty, "Look what they have done to the boy", which is signed in blood and estimated at £8,000 to £10,000. Robin Barton of the Bankrobber art gallery in west London, who published the Doherty print, remembers supplying the canvas for Moss. "It was just a cheap canvas from Portobello Road that cost about £15. I don't know of any other paintings she did." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Toilet Art Pulls Crowds

2008-11-01T11:15:00.000Z

Reuters reports that a public toilet in Munich which has been transformed into an art museum has attracted hundreds of people in the first days after opening. Built in 1894, the toilet house was originally constructed to serve nearby households which lacked necessary facilities. After being in use for over a hundred years, the toilets were locked up in 1992 because they were very rarely used. "On the night we opened, around 800 people came to see our work," initiator of the museum project, Mathias Koehler told Reuters. He said that a toilet was a great place for artistic expression because art is a form of relief in the same way that going to the toilet is. The art exhibited is mainly graffiti often with a political theme. Examples include images of Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel flanking a urinal in the corner of the room. Four artists contributed their work to the exhibition. Although the 70-square meter museum is only temporary, Koehler said he could not rule out making it permanent if public interest remains high. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Bill Cullen to Open Dublin Viscardi Art Show

2008-10-31T14:09:00.003Z

It is always an unmissable event when an important artist like Claudio Viscardi shows new work - his multi-layered compositions of infinite depth combine complexity with a rare poetic quality. Viscardi is a dual Irish-Swiss citizen living in the Beara peninsula in SW Ireland using natural, rare pigment such as lapis lazuli, malachite, rock crystal and ground marble to create in his very individual style. This new exhibition explores imaginary landscapes intermingled with the moods of the Beara Peninsula and those of New York and Venice. Re-occurring themes of night and day are further explored, deepening Viscardi's fascination with night landscape - evolving day into night. Viscardi himself comments: "My technique of the semi fresco and the continued research with historical and natural pigments, has brought me to allow the sea and skies to move on the canvas and capture the light, moods and realism of the landscape." Viscardi is internationally collected and seriously investable. A downloadable PDF of the full catalogue can be found at IrishArt.com http://www.IrishArt.com (Click - "View the Catalogue" under the Gormley front page article). Bill Cullen opens the PRIVATE VIEW: 6.30-8.00pm Thursday 6th of November Wine Gormleys Fine Art - Dublin - 6th Nov - 20th Nov 2008 24 South Frederick St, Dublin 2 Tel: +353 (0) 1 6729031 (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Nazi Looted Art Story

2008-10-30T03:40:00.002Z

After 10 years of detective work, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts has concluded that a $2.8 million painting it has owned for decades was stolen by the Nazis. The museum has returned the 1911 painting, Fernand Leger's "Smoke Over Rooftops," to the French heirs of a Jewish art collector who died in 1948. The institute's saga began in 1997 when the museum received a letter claiming that the painting had been taken from Alphonse Kann, a legendary French art collector who owned "tons of Picassos, Braques and late-19th-century Impressionist paintings." His story helped inspire a 1964 movie, "The Train," starring Burt Lancaster, about a trainload of art that the Germans tried to spirit away before the Allies liberated Paris in 1944. Much of Kann's art was returned to him after World War II, but not the Leger. That painting was bequeathed to the museum in 1961 by a Minneapolis businessman who bought it from the Buchholz Art Gallery in New York in 1951. No one questioned the picture's history. Nazi-era archives were sealed in France and inaccessible in Soviet-controlled Eastern Europe. Responding to the claim took years because the museum had to establish if it was legitimate. Was this Leger the same one Kann had owned? ("Smoke Over Rooftops" was a theme Leger painted at least six times.) If so, what had happened to the picture between 1939, when Kann fled Paris on the eve of war, and 1949 when a New York art dealer bought it from a French gallery? Did Kann sell it freely, or did the Nazis confiscate it? "Many of the people who could tell stories and remember what happened were gone," Not until the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 did people began to grapple seriously with the fallout of the Nazi practice of confiscating art from Jewish collectors or forcing them to sell it under unconscionable circumstances. At that point museums realized they had to "do the right thing," which often meant returning the art to heirs, even if the art had been acquired innocently. Resolution of the Leger painting's fate required a French lawsuit and years of painstaking scrutiny of Nazi-era documents, gallery and auction records in four countries. The research established that, after Kann fled to London, the Nazis confiscated the bulk of his collection and in 1940 moved it to the Jeu de Paume, a museum in central Paris, where it was inventoried and stayed during most of the war. The art collection was so extensive that the Nazis' list ran to 60 typed pages. The Leger painting, however, remained in Kann's house until Nov. 5, 1942, when France's German-controlled government auctioned the house's contents. A Paris art dealer, Galerie Leiris, bought the Leger at that auction and subsequently sold it to Buchholz Gallery. Leiris was essentially a front for a prominent German-Jewish art dealer, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, who had transferred title to his business to his French Catholic sister-in-law, Louise Leiris, when the Nazis moved in and threatened to confiscate his company. Buchholz Gallery was established in the 1930s by Curt Valentin, a protege of a Berlin art dealer, Karl Buchholz, who was one of four German art dealers whom the Nazis allowed to sell the modern art they confiscated from museums and private collectors. While Valentin has not been implicated in the Nazis' nefarious deeds, his role in the transfer of modern art out of Europe is ambiguous at best. Making matters more difficult, the current owners of Galerie Leiris refused to open its archives until forced to do so by a 2001 lawsuit in a different case. Settling such claims is expensive. The Minneapolis museum hired art scholars in Paris and London, corresponded with bureaucrats in Germany and studied archives in New York, Los Angeles and Washington. What will happen to the Leger painting now is unclear. No one from the French collector's family could be reached for comment. Initially the museum hoped Kann's heirs would lend or give it to the museum but that proved impossible. Asked if the institute would try to buy it back if the Leger were to be offered at auction, the museum made clear they had "..two other very nice Leger paintings in the art collection."

Vettriano's No To Monty Art

2008-10-29T04:34:00.001Z

The Scotsman reports that although Jack Vettriano is one of the world's best-selling painters as yet he has been shunned by the Scottish art establishment. His best known painting, The Singing Butler, sold at art auction for £744,000 and is one of the most reproduced paintings of modern times, but none of his works has ever been acquired by Scotland's national galleries. Now, the Fife-born former miner has revived his long-running feud with the National Galleries of Scotland claiming he was finally asked to paint a portrait for its art collection – only to turn the opportunity down because he did not like the proposed subject matter -golfer Colin Montgomerie. Vettriano told an audience at a charity event on Monday how his dealer had revealed an approach from the galleries, which have none of the artist's works in their collections. He said: "I was in France when I got a call from my art dealer, who said there might have been a breakthrough. 'The national galleries would like you to do a portrait'. I said, 'Who?'. 'Colin Montgomerie'. "I said, 'I'm afraid that the answer is no, I don't do men with breasts, and I don't mean that as unkind to Colin Montgomerie". Later in the evening at an Audience with Jack Vettriano, the artist was asked if he would ever paint a man as anything other than a prop for women. He replied: "I have to paint a face I like. Have you seen Colin Montgomerie's face recently?" However, gallery chiefs denied knowledge of any approach being made and insisted the National Galleries of Scotland had not commissioned a portrait of the golfer. A go-between, believed to be trying to break the impasse between the NGS and Vettriano, is thought to have suggested the idea to gallery officials. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery last night insisted it had not instigated the approach and that the idea of a commission had not been formally discussed or approved. Last year, the then director of the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art described the artist's work as "lifeless". (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Middleton - $71,500 At Art Auction

2008-10-27T16:45:00.001Z

An original oil painting by the renowned Irish artist Colin Middleton (1910-1983), titled Teresa and executed in 1947, sold for $71,500 at a multi-estate sale by Richard D. Hatch & Associates. Middleton was probably the most eclectic Irish painter of the 20th century, moving easily between Cubist, Surrealist and Expressionistic styles. He was self-taught and prolific, producing hundreds of works in the 1930s alone. At a Hatch auction held last year, two of Middleton’s works sold for $70,000 each. Teresa was expected to fetch about $50,000, but bidding was lively and competitive. ‘Considering the current state of the economy, compounded by a local gas shortage, this sale was nothing short of amazing,’ said Richard D. Hatch. ‘The turnout was wonderful. A pencil drawing by Louis Le Brocquy (Irish, b. 1916), titled Tinker Man (1946), soared to $38,500; and an original oil painting by Irish artist Neville Johnson titled Family that seemed a good buy for $5,500. At a sale of Irish art held recently by Sotheby’s, three watercolors by Le Brocquy finished in the top ten. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

CBC News And Art Market

2008-10-27T16:33:00.000Z

CBC News reports that as many people anxiously eye the daily rise and fall of stock markets around the world, some experts are advising they look into alternative investments like fine art. The art market has a life of its own, and "prices have gone up tremendously in the past five years," Montreal curator Paul Maréchal told CBC News. Not only are high-profile works by masters such as Pablo Picasso or Claude Monet fetching record prices, the markets for contemporary art and for emerging artists are also seeing a boom. In an economic downturn, savvy investors can find deals by snapping up affordable paintings, prints and drawings for sale later, Maréchal said. "There will be less competition in the sales rooms and at galleries and so on, and so forth. If you are fortunate to have some money, it's a blessed time to buy art, definitely," he said. Outside of art, other investment alternatives include real estate and wine futures. However, caution must still be taken with these markets, said Jeremy Tabarrok, an investment executive with ScotiaMcLeod. "Just as with the stock market, wise investing through art [means] leaning on experts in the galleries, experts in the field. You can actually bring a profit with it as well." (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

More Art Buyers Than Expected

2008-10-25T19:06:00.002+01:00

The Economist reports that FTSE 100 index has fallen 30%, the Dow 40%. The interbank market is virtually frozen and Goldman Sachs is one of many firms that is defenestrating bankers by the bushel. That is the news from October alone, which goes some way towards explaining why, as the season opened for the autumn auctions of contemporary art, pundits were predicting a bloodbath. There were bad moments, it is true. Phillips de Pury, which had to be bailed out by a Russian luxury-goods group, Mercury, over the summer, fared worst of all, buying in 31 of the 70 lots on offer at its art sale on October 18th. Richard Hamilton’s circular “Epiphany”, which a Sotheby’s marketeer thought to have reproduced as a badge for guests to wear at the launch party for its autumn sale and which featured on the contents page of the art auction catalogue, also failed to find a buyer on October 17th. So did works by Howard Hodgkin, Anish Kapoor and Cindy Sherman. Bidders, together with art-market observers, will be turning to New York next for the Impressionist and Modern sale on November 6th. If it is true that only rare and beautiful work will do well in recessionary times, the picture to look out for is Lot 58, “Deux Personnages (Marie-Thérèse et sa Soeur Lisant)”. Two figures stand at an open window reading from the same book. Such is the radiance and light-heartedness of this creation that you can almost smell the lemony light of early morning that is shining into the room. Owned since 1984 by a private European art collector, “Deux Personnages” has rarely changed hands or been exhibited in public. The painting easily outshone the others hanging around it when it was put on display in Christie’s newly decorated main hall in London earlier this month. It is not the artist’s most obvious work, and many viewers will have looked with some surprise at the signature in the top left-hand corner of the frame. It belongs to Pablo Picasso. The estimate in the catalogue is $18m-25m, but if the consignors are willing to lower their reserve, you might just pick up a bargain. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Stolen Chinese Art Row

2008-10-25T19:05:00.000+01:00

Chinese officials have voiced anger over the planned sale of two national treasures in an auction of art amassed by the late French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. The two animal sculptures that once decorated the Old Summer Palace in Beijing were stolen in 1860, when French and British troops destroyed the famous complex. China's repeated requests for the two art pieces to be returned have so far been rejected. The sculptures are expected to fetch some 10 million euros each, a price China rejects as unacceptable. The art auction will be held in February. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art Market Stays Steady

2008-10-25T06:02:00.001+01:00

The years-long frenzy to buy contemporary art appears to be coming to an end as the crunch bites, but the art market held steady in Paris this week when top gallery owners gathered for the FIAC art fair. Shrugging off falls on London's once juicy market and a slowdown at its Frieze Art Fair, dealers reported it was basically business as usual yesterday at the yearly four-day gathering of 189 leading world art galleries, closing at the weekend. "Crisis, what crisis?" said French art gallery owner Yvon Lambert. Deals, however, "are perhaps taking a little longer to clinch," he added. "Some buyers are thinking harder. Before you'd get impulse buying, now people are really talking art." Many gallery owners agreed, with New York's Lachner saying that "people are focusing more on essentials, on building an art collection." Staged inside the lacy metal-worked Grand Palais, as well as the Louvre museum, the fair showcases works by top contemporary artists such as Mitchell, Louise Bourgeois, Bridget Riley or Marc Quinn as well as moderns like Picasso, Picabia or Calder. Works on sale by Britain's Quinn — famed for a 2006 sculpture of Kate Moss in yoga position and another this year of the model in solid gold-sold like hot cakes at well over 100,000 euros a shot."Great works sell whatever the times," said Hopkins-Custot gallery. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Banksy Art To be Cleaned Off

2008-10-24T07:08:00.001+01:00

The 7m tall art work, painted in giant white letters on a concrete wall in April, was intended as a criticism of Britain's Big Brother culture and specifically the prevalence of CCTV cameras. "One Nation Under CCTV", it screams, from a wall on which a CCTV camera is also mounted. A child figure perched in a letter appears to be painting the message on the wall, which overlooks a post office yard in Oxford Circus. The art work, Banksy's biggest in London, was painted under the cover of darkness after the artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence, despite being watched by the CCTV camera. But Westminster Council says the work will be painted over, The Times reported today. The council says it will remove any graffiti, regardless of the reputation of its creator. Banksy has no more right to paint graffiti than a child, the council says. "If we condone this then we might as well say that any kid with a spray can is producing art," Robert Davis, the chairman of Westminster's planning committee, told The Times. "To go and deface other peoples property is graffiti. Just because he's famous doesn't give him that right." Banksy started out as a street artist, but his work is now coveted by celebrities and has earned him a lot of money. In February, his Andy Warhol-inspired screen print of supermodel Kate Moss sold for £96,000 ($210,550) at a street art auction in London. And a wall he had painted sold for £208,100 ($453,700). Banksy's work has been bought by actress Angelina Jolie and singer Christina Aguilera. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Christie's To Sell Top Art

2008-10-22T05:22:00.001+01:00

ArtDaily.org reports that on November 6, Christie's New York Fall Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale will follow the November 5 art sale of The Modern Age, enticing the international collecting community with exceptional pictures and sculptures from seminal masters. Primarily from a number of private collections and many never seen before at market, the sale of 85 lots is expected to realize in excess of $250 million, with leading artists including Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Alberto Giacometti, Henri Matisse, Juan Gris and Gustav Caillebotte. The sale will be led by Pablo Picasso’s outstanding Deux personnages (Marie-Thérèse et sa soeur lisant), 1934, (estimate: $18-25 million). Making its first appearance at auction, this important painting is Picasso’s culminating work in a series of six paintings portraying Picasso’s mistress, Marie-Thérèse Walter, and her sister together reading a book in front of an open window. Deux personages shows Picasso in a surrealist idiom informed by the sinuous lines, biomorphic elements and springtime colors associated with Marie-Thérèse. She helped inspire and rejuvenate Picasso and brought a youthful and passionate quality to the portrait. The sale’s cover lot, also never seen at auction, is an extremely rare and gloriously strident Expressionist masterpiece by Wassily Kandinsky, Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909 (estimate: $15-20 million). Infused with mysticism, it offers Kandinsky’s distinct version of painterly modernism. Kandinsky’s inspiration for the Improvisation series stemmed from the discovery of the idyllic village of Murnau, a town south of Munich. Following the spectacular prices achieved for Alberto Giacometti over recent seasons including the world auction record set in May for Grande femme debout II realizing $27,481,000 at Christie's New York, another fine example from the master’s prime Post-War period, Trois Hommes qui marchent I, will be offered (estimate: $14-18 million). Conceived in 1948 and cast in 1950, the three male figures express one of the central themes of the artist’s work during this period: the memories of marching soldiers or harried refugees he saw in wartime newsreels. Another early leading art work is Juan Gris’s symphonic Livre, pipe et verre, 1915 (estimate: $12.5-18.5 million), steeped in Picasso’s influence but also representative of the younger artist’s distinctive voice. The painting showcases Gris’s exploration of contrasting objects by highlighting them in white against a dark tonality resembling a photographic negative. Furthermore, he experimented with the layering of planes and started working with rich and varied colors, giving up on the limited tonalities of his earlier collages. Livre, verre et pipe is a prime example, showing why Gris is often referred to as Cubism’s most exquisite colorist. The art auction also features Nu au feuillage vert, fond noir, 1936, painted by Henri Matisse (estimate: $12-18 million). “I do Odalisques in order to do nudes,” Matisse declared in 1929. The painting portrays a nude Lydia Delectorskaya, his young Russian-born assistant and muse. Throughout the week, Matisse dictated to Lydia some notes, which she carefully recorded and photographed the painting once each day. These invaluable photographs document the crucial moments when Matisse was taking decisive steps that would bring the picture to its conclusion. It is a rare event to have the opportunity to witness the conception and progression of this important modern painting. Gustave Caillebotte’s Le pont d’Argenteuil, et la Seine, 1883, (estimate: $8-12 million) is anything but traditional. Rather than depicting the entire structure from a distance, Caillebotte drew in close to the Argenteuil road bridge, concentrating on a single span, which slices across the canvas at a slight angle. Le pont d’Argenteuil, et la Seine reflects the artist’s interest in the landscapes and views of Argenteuil and Caillebotte’s characteric use of intense range of blues. The sale will also feature a strong group of eight sculptures by Henry Moore. Other highlights of the Evening Sale are Paul Cézanne’s Le pont et le barrage à Pontoise (estimate: $7-10 million), a beautiful landscape that hallmarks Cézanne’s mature work; Claude Monet’s Vétheuil au soleil (estimate: $5.5-7 million), a sun-filled painting that embraces nature; and Henri Matisse’s Deux masques (La tomate) (estimate: $5-7 million), a collage on paper making its first appearance at art auction. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Irish Landscape Art For Belfast

2008-10-21T21:12:00.001+01:00

‘Contemporary Irish Landscapes’ is a 3 person show sponsored by IrishArt.com celebrating the uniqueness of the Irish landscape, particularly in the North West corner of Donegal and Ulster. Ian Gordon, Pat Irwin and Hugh McIlfatrick interpret the landscape in their own unique ways through vibrant colour and light. Ian Gordon studied at Wimbledon School of Art, before moving to an abandoned farm in Donegal where he worked on conceptual art burying embroidery in beautiful places. Eventually he returned to more traditional painting through which he felt he could achieve the same aims and exhibits widely in Ireland and Europe. McIlfatrick is self taught and left his teaching career to become a full time painter drawing inspiration from the Donegal area. He has been involved in many exhibitions and was runner up in the Bass Irish Arts Award. Pat Irwin is also self taught and works in Limavady, a short distance from the northwest coast and its local scenery is a principal subject for nearly all of his paintings. Irish Landscapes | Gordon | Irwin | McIlfatrick | Square Space Gallery - Belfast - Oct 30th - Nov 28th 2008 34 Shaftesbury Square, Belfast Tel ; +44 (0) 2890 200850 http://www.sqspace.com (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Australian Art Master Dies

2008-10-21T21:09:00.001+01:00

One of Australia's foremost painters, Sydney-born surrealist James Gleeson, has died in the New South Wales capital at the age of 92. Gleeson, who was born in Sydney, has had his art work exhibited for the past 70 years. Works by Gleeson were donated to the National Art Gallery of Australia in September 2007 as part of one of the largest collections of Australian surrealism art ever collected. His works have been featured at the Art Gallery of NSW, the National Gallery of Victoria and the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Gleeson, who lived in Sydney, wrote several books, including one on the work of Australian sculptor and painter William Dobell. He used the human form less and less in his later works. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Money & The Art Market

2008-10-20T20:51:00.000+01:00

Yahoo News reports that the mood was frosty at London's Frieze Art Fair. Bidders were sparse at Christie's and Sotheby's. Even Andy Warhol's multicolored skulls failed to lift the art world's gloom. A week of slowing sales and sagging prices suggests the global financial meltdown has finally ended the art-market boom that saw paintings and sculptures become must-have commodities for the world's elite. At Sotheby's and Christie's — where price records have tumbled regularly in recent years — the major autumn auctions of contemporary art generated at least a third less money than predicted, with many works going unsold. "A lot of the froth and hype has gone from the contemporary market," Melanie Girlis, art market editor of The Art Newspaper in London, said Monday. Art world observers have been predicting a crash since the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis began rippling around the world. Many of the buyers driving the art world sales frenzy were hedge fund and private equity millionaires — among the first to suffer as the credit crunch took hold. But prices stayed high, thanks in part to Russian and Middle Eastern buyers who were insulated from the worst of the economic woes. In May, Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich bought two paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud for a total of $120 million. Last month, a Sotheby's auction of works by Britart star Damien Hirst defied market jitters by generating almost $200 million. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art

Art - Freud painting of Bacon

2008-10-19T07:56:00.002+01:00

The BBC reports that a rare portrait of the artist Francis Bacon, painted by his contemporary Lucien Freud, is to be sold at auction at Christie's in London. The unfinished picture, which is expected to fetch between £4m and £7m, sprang from the friendship between two of the 20th century's greatest talents. Bacon died in 1992, but Freud is still working at the age of 85. The only completed painting of Bacon by Freud was stolen from a gallery in Berlin in 1988 and never recovered. The BBC's Lawrence Pollard said Bacon was already regarded as a master painter before his death and most critics would rank him as one of the most important artists of the late 20th Century. Those same critics would also agree that Freud is the pre-eminent living painter of our age, our correspondent added. The two men met shortly after the Second World War and were both figurative painters. The auction is to be held at a Post War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on Sunday.

Hirst Art tops £110 million

2008-09-16T19:49:00.000+01:00

A two-day sale of art work by Damien Hirst has set a new record for an auction dedicated to one artist of £111 million, Sotheby's said. Sotheby's said the previous art record set in 1993 for 88 works by Picasso had stood at 20 million US dollars. Hirst, 43, who is criticised by some for using an army of assistants to help him create his art, has called the auction a "mini retrospective" and "probably the most amazing show I've put on". He is selling more than 220 new works directly through the auction, saving millions by cutting out dealers' commission. He said: "I think the art market is bigger than anyone knows. "I love art and this proves I'm not alone and the future looks great for everyone." The auction saw a foal in formaldehyde inside a steel and glass tank entitled The Dream sold for £2.3million with a butterfly work of art called Reincarnated, selling for £1.6million, well in excess of an upper estimate of £700,000. The Golden Calf sold for £10.3million, the highest price ever paid for a Hirst at auction. The Kingdom, a tiger shark in formaldehyde - went for more than £9.5million, far higher than the auction house's estimate for between £4million and £6million. (For full source and full article click the Headline). Irish Art