798 District Blog

In response to the increasing interest throughout Asia and especially within China in the field of Impressionist and Modern art, Sotheby’s announced a major selling exhibition to be held this autumn. Modern Masters: Impressionism and Early 20th Century Art will comprise approximately 20 works representing many of the most important artists active in Europe from the late 19th and early 20th century and who left an indelible impression on art history, including Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso and Edgar Degas, among others. The exhibition will preview in Beijing from 22-25 October 2010 and will then move on to Hong Kong from 26-28 November 2010. The works included in this exhibition are priced from US$2 million to $25 million (HK$15.6 to $195 million).

“This exciting event is both a first for Sotheby’s and for China,” said Patti Wong, Chairman of Sotheby’s Asia. “We have been impressed by the interest in the field of Impressionist and Modern Art from within China and across Asia in our recent auctions. While we will continue to serve this market through our regular auctions of Impressionist and Modern Art in London and New York, mounting a selling exhibition specifically for the Asian market consisting of high quality works from significant artists in this field is a unique opportunity for our many clients in the region. Asian collectors have historically shown considerable interest in other Sotheby’s selling exhibitions of modern and contemporary sculpture – at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, UK and Isleworth Country Club in Orlando, Florida, U.S.A. We look forward to bringing this assembly of works directly to our discerning Asian clients, and continuing to develop enthusiasm among collectors for this important field.”

Read the full article

HONG KONG— One of the biggest names in Western art history is poised to headline not just one, but three separate sales in Hong Kong this fall. Seven works by Picasso will be featured in an exhibition and private sale at Sotheby’s in late November, and two of the city’s top galleries are offering an additional 33 works by the Spanish modern between them. Offering assured market power as an international center of finance, Hong Kong also provides a chance to test the Asian market’s burgeoning interest in Western art — and what could be better for the job than Picasso, with his ironically askew portraits and lascivious nudes?

Sotheby’s sale — which also includes pieces by Chagall, Monet, Degas, and Renoir — will cover the Picasso’s Blue Period, as well as his Cubist works and later Expressionist paintings from after 1960. The works will first be shown in Beijing from October 22 to 25 before being exhibited in Hong Kong from November 26 to 28. With prices ranging from $2 million to $25 million, the works on view will include the standout “Jeune Fille aux Cheveux Noirs (Dora Maar),” a celebrated 1939 portrait of the artist’s most famous lover and muse.

Read full article:

NEW YORK, NY.- Sotheby’s autumn Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York on 2 November 2010 will present a superb offering of works across the period. From an early painting by Eugène Boudin from 1868 to a Pablo Picasso canvas from the 1970s, the sale features classic Impressionist paintings, key Modern works, tremendous sculpture and powerful German Expressionist canvases. Highlights will include important works by Modigliani, Matisse, Monet, Rodin and Picasso, among many others. Prior to the auction, works from both the Evening and Day Sales will be exhibited at Sotheby’s New York galleries beginning 29 October. Highlights will also be exhibited at Sotheby’s London from 11 –15 October.

The cover lot of the Evening Sale catalogue is Nu assis sur un divan (La Belle Romaine), the finest painting by Amedeo Modigliani to appear on the market in years (est. in excess of $40 million)*. The work belongs to the artist’s most important series of nudes, all painted in 1917. While Modigliani began painting nudes in 1908, it was not until he abandoned his pursuit of sculpture in 1914 that he developed the unique style exemplified by La Belle Romaine. Modigliani evokes a voluptuous sensuality through his palette of amber and crimson tones, the model’s pose and the intimate setting. The work and artist both have a distinguished history at Sotheby’s. La Belle Romaine last appeared on the market in 1999, when it sold at Sotheby’s New York for $16.8 million, a world record price for any work by Modigliani at the time. More recently, Sotheby’s set the current record for a painting by Modigliani in 2004 with our sale of Jeanne Hébuterne (devant une porte) for $31.4 million.
Read full article:

SEATTLE (AP).- A traveling exhibition of essential works from Pablo Picasso’s personal collection is making its U.S. debut this week.

“Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso, Paris” will include paintings, drawings, sculptures and etchings by the artist and serves as a retrospective covering each notable artistic period of his eight-decade career.

Alex Nyerges, director of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the tour’s second U.S. stop, said that Picasso’s personal collection contained works the artist consciously chose to shape his artistic legacy, “and he was not a modest man.”

The touring exhibit was made possible because the Paris museum is undergoing a $28 million renovation that won’t be complete until 2012. U.S. showings will take place Friday through Jan. 17 at the Seattle Art Museum; Feb. 19 through May 15 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; and June 11 through Sept. 18 at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

Picasso’s 1904 oil-on-canvas masterpiece “La Celestina” shows a solitary, gray-haired bordello owner with a blinded eye. Picasso painted several similar portraits during his early-career Blue Period, characterized by somber tones and marginalized subjects such as beggars and prostitutes.
Read full article:

LONDON.- A collection of drawings, pastels and ceramics by the French poet, filmmaker, playwright and novelist, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), brought together by the late business tycoon and founder of Gucci timepieces, Severin Wunderman (1939-2008), made a remarkable £430,000 today (23 September) at Bonhams, Knightsbridge, with 90% sold by value.

Just an hour earlier, a selection of prints, ceramics and silver by the artistic master of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso, fetched a total of £220,812, with 85% sold by value.

Cocteau met Picasso in 1915 and the pair remained close friends for nearly 50 years. Their artistic relationship can be characterised by two comments: according to Arnaud, Picasso was “forever at the heart of Cocteau’s creative pantheon”, while Picasso was once heard to comment that “Cocteau is the tail of my comet.”

Highlights of the Picasso sale were two silver plates that he designed in the mid 1950s. Joueur de flute et Cavalier fetched £21,600 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000) and Dormeur sold for £19,200 (estimate £10,000 – 15,000). The highest selling ceramic was a platter entitled Tête de chèvre de profil (£12,000) and the top selling print was Le Cavalier (£6,240).

The best-seller in the Cocteau sale was Jeune Fille de Milly, 1951, which was painted at the house Cocteau bought with Jean Marais in Milly-la-Foret in 1947. It sold for £48,000 against a pre-sale estimate of £8,000 – 12,000.

Top prices were also paid for Les Gémeaux, which made £15,600 (estimate £7,000 – 10,000); Le Clown au Chapeau Rouge, which sold for £14,400 (estimate £5,000 – 7,000); and Portrait of Pablo Picasso, which made £10,800.
Read full article:

LONDON.- Sotheby’s autumn sale of Modern and Contemporary Prints will take place on Thursday, 16 September, 2010 and will offer collectors a broad selection of works spanning the twentieth century. Prior to the auction, the sale will be on public exhibition at Sotheby’s New Bond Street galleries beginning 12 September. The 176 lots are expected to realise in the region of £5.3 million.

Taking centre stage is the group of prints by Pablo Picasso from a Private European Collection, comprising 58 lots (23-81) and estimated to realise in excess of £2.5 million. Three of Picasso’s greatest prints will spearhead this section and these are Le repas frugal (lot 23; est. £120,000-180,000), La Minotauromachie (lot 27, est. £400,000-600,000) and La femme qui pleure (lot 28, est. £500,000-700,000). Each of these works is singularly important in the development of Picasso’s graphic oeuvre, reflecting key themes and demonstrating a mastery of technique that is unsurpassed. Throughout his life, Picasso restlessly explored the medium of the print, employing many techniques, including lithography, linocut, etching and drypoint. The rarity of these prints in a single sale alongside further examples of virtually every technique and style of Picasso’s printmaking represents an unparalled event in the international auction market.

From the same Private European Collection comes a superb lithograph by Henri Matisse, dating to 1925 and entitled Grand Odalisque à la culotte bayadère (lot 13). Estimated at £150,000-200,000, it is the most important and monumental lithograph in which the artist depicts his favourite model Henriette Darricarrère. Matisse had chosen lithography in the 1920s to produce a series of sensual odalisques in exotic settings and the present work shows Henriette seated with one leg raised and tucked under, a pose which fascinated the artist. The play of light and shade and the contrast between the rich textures – the bold stripes of the culotte, the floral pattern of the drapery that covers the chair and the model’s silken skin – all combine to dramatic effect, offset by Henriette’s calm and authorative gaze.

Read the full article

Four rare works by Picasso thought to be worth over £6m and an 1875 Cézanne oil on canvas will go on sale during Frieze week next month in an ambitious exhibition to be held at a London property part owned by a Russian billionaire. The show, entitled “The House of the Noble Man” (12-20 October), will open at 2 Cornwall Terrace, an 18th-century building off Regent’s Park in London near to the Frieze Art Fair site. The exhibition is curated by artist Wolfe von Lenkiewicz, whose works will feature in the display, and Russian curator Victoria Golembiovskaya. Around £20m worth of art will be for sale, approximately a third of the show, confirms Von Lenkiewicz.

According to the co-curator, the Picasso pieces on offer will include Buste d’Homme à la Pipe (1969, priced at £3m); the 1905 drawing The Family of Saltimbanques and a cubist painting, Nature Morte au Gobelet (around 1914). An 1875 oil on canvas by Cézanne, Don Quixote, is priced at £1.25m. Works by Yves Klein, Egon Schiele, Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst and Andy Warhol will also be for sale. Von Lenkiewicz’s own works will be in the £30,000-£60,000 price range.

Read the full article

Pablo Picasso was the 20th century’s most important artist. Picasso’s many-faceted personality is reflected in the wide array of creative paths he chose — his forms, colors, and the materials he used. The Picasso Story invites you to meet Picasso, the man, and to delve into his life and creative world, to walk in his footsteps, to discover him, and like him, to embrace your internal creative spirit, and to leave a legacy for the world. The Picasso Story has been on display in Berlin’s Humboldt Carré since November 1, 2009. At the heart of the exhibition is a collection of Picasso’s ceramics and graphic art, complemented by the incredible images of Edward Quinn, who accompanied Picasso as a photographer for decades.

Read the full article

On 26th April 2010, Museo Picasso Malaga presents a new approach to the artworks by Pablo Picasso that belong to its permanent collection, highlighting the wide range of themes the artist tackled during his prolific artistic career.

As from tomorrow, Tuesday 27th April, and again, with a second instalment, as from Tuesday 20th July, visitors will be able to discover the MPM collection’s new layout. Until October of this year, the public will be able to view all 233 works that make up the museum’s entire art holdings following its recent expansion, in two separate instalments.

A New Approach is the follow-up to the project for the expansion and consolidation of the MPM’s art holdings, after the creation of the Fundación Museo Picasso Malaga. Legado Paul, Christine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso. This process will culminate in October, when the collection will once again be shown alongside the works on free loan from the Fundación Almine y Bernard Ruiz-Picasso para el Arte ( FABA).

This presentation coincides with the publication of a guidebook which contains information and a number of brief essays on the MPM, as well as the full catalogue of the MPM permanent collection’s art holdings, and ten academic studies on its ten most representative artworks.

“Among the various sins of which I am accused, none is as false as the one that which states my work is fundamentally driven by a spirit of research. My objective when I paint is to show what I have found, not what I am looking for. In art, intentions are not enough and, as we say in Spanish: obras son amores y no buenas razones (actions speak louder than words). What matters is what one does, not what one intended to do”. This was how Pablo Picasso defined the purpose of his art. He tackled his work with talent, hard work, precise technique and, above all, indomitable creative freedom.

By presenting its permanent collection in this way, the museum is providing a storyline to the artist’s work; a fresh approach to the discoveries that led Picasso to be considered the most important artist of the 20th century. With this in mind, Museo Picasso Malaga is inviting visitors to examine ten key features of Picasso’s aesthetic legacy.

Read the full article

Picasso’s 1932 ‘Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust’ is seen at Christie’s auction house in New York.

Related Link: Collectors and Auctioneers See Signs that Art Market is on the Verge of Solid Recovery

A 1932 Pablo Picasso painting of his mistress has sold for $106.5 million, a world record price for any work of art at auction.

“Nude, Green Leaves and Bust,” which had a pre-sale estimate of between $70 million and $90 million, was sold at Christie’s auction house on Tuesday evening to an unidentified telephone bidder.

There were nine minutes of bidding involving eight clients in the sale room and on the phone, Christie’s said. At $88 million, two bidders remained. The final bid was $95 million, but the buyer’s premium took the sale price to $106.5 million.

Conor Jordan, head of impressionist and modern art for Christie’s New York, said he was “ecstatic with the results.”

“Tonight’s spectacular results showed the great confidence in the marketplace and the enthusiasm with which it welcomes top quality works,” he said.

The striking work of Picasso’s muse and mistress Marie-Therese Walter has been exhibited in the United States only once, in 1961 in Los Angeles to commemorate the 80th anniversary of Picasso’s birth. The painting, which measures more than 5 feet by 4 feet, shows a reclining nude figure with an image of Picasso in the background looking over her.

The painting had belonged to the late California art patron Frances Lasker Brody, who bought it in the 1950s. It had been kept in her family since then.

Part of the sale proceeds will benefit the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, Calif., where Brody was on the board.

The previous record for a work of art at auction was $104.3 million for “Walking Man I,” a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti sold on Feb. 3 at Sotheby’s in London.
The previous high price for a Picasso work was $104.2 million for “Boy With a Pipe (The Young Apprentice),” attained in 2004 at Sotheby’s New York.
On Wednesday, another rarely seen Picasso is slated to sell at Sotheby’s auction house. “Woman in a Hat, Bust” is a 1965 work inspired by Jacqueline Roque, the last love of Picasso’s life.
It is estimated to sell for $8 million to $12 million.

Read the full article