The five days of sales of wine, jewellery, Asian and Chinese art, ceramics and watches raised nearly HK$2.5 billion ($316 million) overall, above estimates but paling against previous sales on tempered demand for certain lots as collectors became more selective.
The sales are a closely watched biannual barometer of emerging market demand in China and Asia for some of the world's most expensive artwork and luxury goods, with voracious Chinese buying turning Hong Kong into a global auction hub.
While the total take outstripped pre-sale forecasts of some HK$1.9 billion, and with 87.9 percent of more than 3,000 lots sold, it fell short of tallies for biannual sales last year as auctioneers increasingly lean toward the top-tier lots at the cost of lesser works amid challenging economic conditions.
One of the highlights came on Wednesday with the sale of the flower-shaped Northern Song ceramic, a pale colored bowl that went for HK$207.86 million ($26.65 million) after a 15 minute bidding war, triple its pre-sale estimate and setting the auction record for Song ceramics.
The previous record holder was a vase that went for HK$67.5 million ($8.6 million) four years ago.
Auctioneers said the shallow bowl, also known as a washer, was made exclusively for a Chinese emperor who could have used it to wash his calligraphy brushes.
"This kiln was in production for only 20, 30 years and made the most refined wares ever produced," said Nicholas Chow, Sotheby's Asia Deputy Chairman and International Head of Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art.
"It's very understated, it's very simple aesthetic ... reflects ideas of humility, modesty that were prevalent at the time with neo-Confucianism."
But results were harsher for broader Chinese ceramics and works of art, which sold only 52.5 percent of its lots.
Even noted collections suffered. The third sale of the Meiyintang Collection, a respected assemblage of Chinese porcelain collected over nearly half a century by Swiss tycoons, saw a quarter of its lots unsold.
Increasingly selective collectors of contemporary artworks vied for the feted masterpieces while a string of recent works by younger artists struggled for the spotlight.
This yielded lukewarm results for 20th Century and Contemporary Asian art sales, which saw 9.3 percent and 25 percent of lots unsold.
Demand for Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings was also muted with 20 percent of the lots remaining at a half-full auction room.
Prominent artists fared relatively well.
Zhang Xiaogang's 43.25 inch tall oil on canvas, "Bloodline - Big Family: Family No 2", featuring his signature tinted faces and portraiture reminiscent of family photos from the Cultural Revolution, scooped the record price of HK$52.18 million for the various-owner Contemporary Asian Art sale.
But a later work in his Bloodline series auctioned at below estimates.
"Buyers are becoming more rational, and the market is becoming more selective, with a focus on top quality work," said Evelyn Lin, Sotheby's Head of Contemporary Asian Art.
Appetite for classical artworks remained relatively firm as fine Chinese paintings scooped more than double the pre-sales estimate at some HK$468 million, selling 92.7 percent of lots.
Sotheby's said that, at its jewellery sale, an 8.01 carat emerald-cut blue diamond and diamond ring fetching HK$99.22 million was the second highest price per carat for a blue diamond at auction.
2012年4月5日星期四
2012年3月30日星期五
Prunella Clough and the art of 'saying a small thing edgily'
The best-known fact about the painter Prunella Clough is that she kept the price of her art low. Once, when moving house, she turned the contents of her studio into a bonanza sale. "PRICES SLASHED!" announced the cards she sent out, ornamented with the clichés of the marketplace, dynamically arranged. "Seconds. Slightly damaged goods. CASH AND CARRY. No reasonable offer refused. RACKS MUST BE CLEARED. TELL YOUR FRIENDS." For six days, people came and went, while she operated a cheap goods stall. For a prolific artist, it was a pragmatic way of reducing the contents of her studio. But it was also a sly dig at the commodification of art. Some of her friends found it embarrassing to see drawings, collages and paintings fast disappearing, at prices that bore no relation to their worth.
There have been various attempts by artists to challenge or subvert the art market. But earlier this year, when a version of Cézanne's Card Players reached the highest price ever paid for a work of art, it was Clough who first came to mind, and then Fernand Léger. If both have relevance in the 21st century, it is in no small part due to their belief that art can be made out of the ordinary and has a place in the everyday world. Léger wanted his mural-size canvases to be the kind of objects against which you could lean your bicycle. Clough in the early 1950s painted a series of pictures based on lorries and their drivers. She went down to London's docklands to draw cranes and pile drivers, but it was the lorries arriving and departing and the labour involved – in this pre-container age – in the loading and unloading of their cargoes that caught her attention. She closed in on the drivers in their cabs, catching moments of waiting, when the driver takes a nap or reads a newspaper, while pressing in on all sides are hints of the larger environment, a coil of rope, ladders, a factory chimney or segment of a crane.
Did Clough know of Léger's work? Almost certainly. She had a highly cultivated knowledge of art, and in the 1950s was an intimate friend of John Berger, who championed Léger. Together Clough and Berger went drawing down by the mainline marshalling yards at Willesden Junction in London. As a critic, Berger was then promoting realism, in whatever form it took, and he liked to compare Léger with Masaccio. Both, in his view, were painters of a new reality and of the new values associated with that reality.
Berger asked of Léger: "In the work of what other artist can you find cars, metal frames, templates, girders, electric wires, numberplates, road signs, gas stoves, functional furniture, bicycles, tents, keys, locks, cheap cups and saucers? Léger in fact forces us to consider a phenomenon which is so widespread that we scarcely notice it – the extraordinary degree to which most 20th-century art ignores any direct reference to the 20th-century environment. It is as though in our paintings we wish to be nowhere."
Clough, like Léger, was unusual in her attention to aspects of urban and industrial life that are mostly overlooked – if not deliberately ignored. She looked at things that bear the residue of use, are blighted by time or fallen into desuetude. Long before the term "edgelands" was coined, she was familiar with those areas where housing estates or factories peter out and the borders between urban and rural are renegotiated, infringed or forgotten.
There have been various attempts by artists to challenge or subvert the art market. But earlier this year, when a version of Cézanne's Card Players reached the highest price ever paid for a work of art, it was Clough who first came to mind, and then Fernand Léger. If both have relevance in the 21st century, it is in no small part due to their belief that art can be made out of the ordinary and has a place in the everyday world. Léger wanted his mural-size canvases to be the kind of objects against which you could lean your bicycle. Clough in the early 1950s painted a series of pictures based on lorries and their drivers. She went down to London's docklands to draw cranes and pile drivers, but it was the lorries arriving and departing and the labour involved – in this pre-container age – in the loading and unloading of their cargoes that caught her attention. She closed in on the drivers in their cabs, catching moments of waiting, when the driver takes a nap or reads a newspaper, while pressing in on all sides are hints of the larger environment, a coil of rope, ladders, a factory chimney or segment of a crane.
Did Clough know of Léger's work? Almost certainly. She had a highly cultivated knowledge of art, and in the 1950s was an intimate friend of John Berger, who championed Léger. Together Clough and Berger went drawing down by the mainline marshalling yards at Willesden Junction in London. As a critic, Berger was then promoting realism, in whatever form it took, and he liked to compare Léger with Masaccio. Both, in his view, were painters of a new reality and of the new values associated with that reality.
Berger asked of Léger: "In the work of what other artist can you find cars, metal frames, templates, girders, electric wires, numberplates, road signs, gas stoves, functional furniture, bicycles, tents, keys, locks, cheap cups and saucers? Léger in fact forces us to consider a phenomenon which is so widespread that we scarcely notice it – the extraordinary degree to which most 20th-century art ignores any direct reference to the 20th-century environment. It is as though in our paintings we wish to be nowhere."
Clough, like Léger, was unusual in her attention to aspects of urban and industrial life that are mostly overlooked – if not deliberately ignored. She looked at things that bear the residue of use, are blighted by time or fallen into desuetude. Long before the term "edgelands" was coined, she was familiar with those areas where housing estates or factories peter out and the borders between urban and rural are renegotiated, infringed or forgotten.
2012年3月13日星期二
100 Unearthed Lots and Asian Art Headline Clarke Auction's March 18th Auction
The last 100 lots of Clarke Auction’s March 18th sale include a variety of American and International oil paintings, drawings, and prints that the Auction had unearthed from a storage unit, earlier this week, but the discovery of the fine art is not the only conquest of Clarke Auction for the upcoming auction. The day’s auction, starts at 2:00pm, will include a worldly collection of art, furniture, and silver.
Just as Mark Antony adored Cleopatra, so too does Clarke have a fondness for Egyptian beauty, as exemplified in the oil and sand on masonite painting, entitled “Le Menestral,” by Egyptian artist Omar El Nagdi. The work portrays a faceless minstrel, layered atop the textured sand and masonite that recalls the dunes of the Egyptian Sahara. It is an undoubtedly magnificent piece that explores the 1961 modernity of Egyptian artistry and should stir some incredible bidding interest.
Directly across the Mediterranean from Egypt, Italy yields some rare works for the March 18th auction, including two landscapes by Guido Trentini. Trentini, who is most renowned for his portraits “Velia” and “Madonna,” also lent his talents to a few select landscapes. His featured paintings at the auction are the 1929 oil on panel of an Italian farmhouse and the 1927 Vienna landscape. Among other Italian works in the auction, a signed and dated oil on panel of a watermill by Pio Solero also stands out.
Worldly connoisseurs of the ancient world found the exotic and the intriguing in the Far East, and this week’s New York auction scene is not much different. Clarke Auction, along with Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams’ Auction houses, in New York City, embraces Asia Week New York 2012. Clarke’s Asian highlights for the March 18th auction include a signed Chinese ivory carved covered censor and a mixed media work entitled “Autumn Evening” by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The censor is complete with removable top adorned with foo dogs, carved dragon handles, and a wood base. The Kusama is watercolor and spray paint on paper. Other Asian highlights include a Famille Verte export bowl, a bronze Chinese warrior, a pair of carved Chinese hard stone plaques, a jade and brass inkwell, and a pair of Chinese hardwood carved chairs. Along with the Asian works, there is an exceptional highlight from Eurasia in the form of a Russian silver, possibly Faberge, bowl. The signed “plique-a-jour” enameled sugar bowl is estate fresh and intricately designed.
An American addition to the March 18th auction comes from the American Realist, Eugene Speicher. The Buffalo, New York born artist was well known for his affiliations with Hopper, Henri, and Rockwell Kent. Two lots from Speicher are available in the upcoming auction. The two Speicher lots are a 1912 oil on canvas of a spring landscape, as well another beautiful 1912 oil on canvas spring landscape with distant mountains. Both paintings are estate fresh from an Oyster Bay, Long Island location. Other notable American art highlights in the auction include three lots from Alexander Calder. The three lithographs are entitled, “McGovern,” “Seahorse,” and “Butterflies and Spiral,” respectively. Also, a lot of four plaster chess pieces by Tom Otterness will be featured. Finally, from the United States territory of Puerto Rico, expertly painted oil optical entitled “Point” by Paul Camacho is to be auctioned off as well.
Clarke Auction also features several Midcentury Modern furniture lots in the upcoming auction. The Midcentury highlights include some rare and worldly pieces. There is an early Eames lounge chair and ottoman, a Horst Bruning day bed, two Paul McCobb chests, and the rare "Cityscape" desk and "Cityscape" credenza by Paul Evans. The Evans twin pedestal desk is made of burl walnut with seven drawers and mirrored chrome. The "Cityscape" cabinet is also burl walnut and displays matte chrome. Both Evans' pieces came from the same New Rochelle estate and are in prime condition.
The Decorative Art highlights include 3 lots of stunning life-sized signed bronzes, marked "Houdan" and "H. Rouard Fondeur" on the base. All three pieces are of superior quality and condition from an Oyster Bay, Long Island estate. A 17th century tapestry of a lion and his prey is also featured in the sale from the same estate. The most abundant lots from the Decorative Art selection are porcelain. There are over 30 individual porcelain and collection lots that include seven lots by Belleek that make up almost 25 reticulated and polished porcelain items. Also among the porcelain lots, there are several beautiful examples of porcelain art from Meissen and Sevres. Meissen porcelin lots feature a lot of 4 porcelain figures, a pair of unusual candlesticks, a lot of porcelain lamps, a pair of porcelain covered urns with gilt bronze bases, and a porcelain grouping that includes a large Mottahedeh cache pot and stand. The Sevres lots feature a pair of Napoleonic Urns, and a teapot featured in the porcelain grouping previously mentioned.
Silver has always been a global symbol of prestige and wealth, and the featured lots at Clarke reinforce that belief. Highlights in the silver lots include an extremely heavy Tiffany Tray, a fine Mexican tea set, and a Tiffany reticulated silver filigree tazza and bowl. The Mexican tea set includes a Coffee Pot, creamer, open bowl, sugar, and server, weighing approximately 173 troy ounces as a set. Also for sale is an accompanying Mexican silver "Joyerian Reel" jug, weighing approximately 36 troy ounces. The tea set and jug were both consigned from a Park Avenue estate. Additional highlights among the silver lots are a 7 troy ounce sterling cup and saucer by Gustav Klingert, a Tiffany & Co. Chippendale style tray, and several sterling flatware lots.
Just as Mark Antony adored Cleopatra, so too does Clarke have a fondness for Egyptian beauty, as exemplified in the oil and sand on masonite painting, entitled “Le Menestral,” by Egyptian artist Omar El Nagdi. The work portrays a faceless minstrel, layered atop the textured sand and masonite that recalls the dunes of the Egyptian Sahara. It is an undoubtedly magnificent piece that explores the 1961 modernity of Egyptian artistry and should stir some incredible bidding interest.
Directly across the Mediterranean from Egypt, Italy yields some rare works for the March 18th auction, including two landscapes by Guido Trentini. Trentini, who is most renowned for his portraits “Velia” and “Madonna,” also lent his talents to a few select landscapes. His featured paintings at the auction are the 1929 oil on panel of an Italian farmhouse and the 1927 Vienna landscape. Among other Italian works in the auction, a signed and dated oil on panel of a watermill by Pio Solero also stands out.
Worldly connoisseurs of the ancient world found the exotic and the intriguing in the Far East, and this week’s New York auction scene is not much different. Clarke Auction, along with Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams’ Auction houses, in New York City, embraces Asia Week New York 2012. Clarke’s Asian highlights for the March 18th auction include a signed Chinese ivory carved covered censor and a mixed media work entitled “Autumn Evening” by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. The censor is complete with removable top adorned with foo dogs, carved dragon handles, and a wood base. The Kusama is watercolor and spray paint on paper. Other Asian highlights include a Famille Verte export bowl, a bronze Chinese warrior, a pair of carved Chinese hard stone plaques, a jade and brass inkwell, and a pair of Chinese hardwood carved chairs. Along with the Asian works, there is an exceptional highlight from Eurasia in the form of a Russian silver, possibly Faberge, bowl. The signed “plique-a-jour” enameled sugar bowl is estate fresh and intricately designed.
An American addition to the March 18th auction comes from the American Realist, Eugene Speicher. The Buffalo, New York born artist was well known for his affiliations with Hopper, Henri, and Rockwell Kent. Two lots from Speicher are available in the upcoming auction. The two Speicher lots are a 1912 oil on canvas of a spring landscape, as well another beautiful 1912 oil on canvas spring landscape with distant mountains. Both paintings are estate fresh from an Oyster Bay, Long Island location. Other notable American art highlights in the auction include three lots from Alexander Calder. The three lithographs are entitled, “McGovern,” “Seahorse,” and “Butterflies and Spiral,” respectively. Also, a lot of four plaster chess pieces by Tom Otterness will be featured. Finally, from the United States territory of Puerto Rico, expertly painted oil optical entitled “Point” by Paul Camacho is to be auctioned off as well.
Clarke Auction also features several Midcentury Modern furniture lots in the upcoming auction. The Midcentury highlights include some rare and worldly pieces. There is an early Eames lounge chair and ottoman, a Horst Bruning day bed, two Paul McCobb chests, and the rare "Cityscape" desk and "Cityscape" credenza by Paul Evans. The Evans twin pedestal desk is made of burl walnut with seven drawers and mirrored chrome. The "Cityscape" cabinet is also burl walnut and displays matte chrome. Both Evans' pieces came from the same New Rochelle estate and are in prime condition.
The Decorative Art highlights include 3 lots of stunning life-sized signed bronzes, marked "Houdan" and "H. Rouard Fondeur" on the base. All three pieces are of superior quality and condition from an Oyster Bay, Long Island estate. A 17th century tapestry of a lion and his prey is also featured in the sale from the same estate. The most abundant lots from the Decorative Art selection are porcelain. There are over 30 individual porcelain and collection lots that include seven lots by Belleek that make up almost 25 reticulated and polished porcelain items. Also among the porcelain lots, there are several beautiful examples of porcelain art from Meissen and Sevres. Meissen porcelin lots feature a lot of 4 porcelain figures, a pair of unusual candlesticks, a lot of porcelain lamps, a pair of porcelain covered urns with gilt bronze bases, and a porcelain grouping that includes a large Mottahedeh cache pot and stand. The Sevres lots feature a pair of Napoleonic Urns, and a teapot featured in the porcelain grouping previously mentioned.
Silver has always been a global symbol of prestige and wealth, and the featured lots at Clarke reinforce that belief. Highlights in the silver lots include an extremely heavy Tiffany Tray, a fine Mexican tea set, and a Tiffany reticulated silver filigree tazza and bowl. The Mexican tea set includes a Coffee Pot, creamer, open bowl, sugar, and server, weighing approximately 173 troy ounces as a set. Also for sale is an accompanying Mexican silver "Joyerian Reel" jug, weighing approximately 36 troy ounces. The tea set and jug were both consigned from a Park Avenue estate. Additional highlights among the silver lots are a 7 troy ounce sterling cup and saucer by Gustav Klingert, a Tiffany & Co. Chippendale style tray, and several sterling flatware lots.
2012年2月20日星期一
Contemporary sales: still some things to smile about
A week of contemporary art sales that ended last Friday proved that, for the right artists, the market is remarkably stable, unaffected by global economic uncertainties. Nearly 186 million was spent in nine sales at four auction houses, comfortably within the pre-sale estimate of 142 to 214 million. This time last year, before the eurozone crisis and talk of a double dip, the equivalent sales made only about 1.5 million more.
Although Bonhams had a rough ride earlier in the week, that was because the company has yet to find its feet at the deep end of this market. Its top-selling lot was a rare drawing of a young Lucian Freud by his friend, Frank Auerbach, which sold for a healthy 481,250 to the London dealer Pilar Ordovas, bidding for a private collector.
What the sale was missing was a few pictures by Gerhard Richter. At the other three salerooms, there were 25, mostly colourful abstract paintings of the kind that had sold so well in New York in November, and all but two sold for 33.8 million, easily surpassing the minimum 20 million expected; that’s 18.4 percent of the series spent on just one artist. I can’t remember any other contemporary artist, apart from Andy Warhol, dominating to such an extent.
The highest Richter price was 9.9 million for the large abstract which was illustrated in this column two weeks ago. Although it is these colourful, squeegee-executed works that are most widely sought after, other, less obviously commercial works from his extensive repertoire are also performing well. A painting of a blank piece of paper, curled at the corner for turning, was one of a series of only 11 of this subject made in 1965. When it was last sold in 2002, it was bought by a British collector for 53,000. Last week, the collector sold it for 1.5 million.
American art took a back seat – apart from a large stencil-style painting by hedge-fund favourite Christopher Wool of the word FOOL, which sold for a record 4.9 million, and a vibrant Orange Sports Figure by graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that sold for 4.1 million. The price for the Basquiat wasn’t huge by 2007 standards, but for the seller, who bought it in 1992, four years after the artist’s tragic suicide, for $66,000, it was a good return.
British art was led by a full-length portrait of Henrietta Moraes reclining on a bed by Francis Bacon, which took the top price of 21 million. It had been sent for sale by Sheldon Solow, the New York real estate developer and toast of Christie’s who had sold the record-breaking Henry Moore and Joan Miró a week earlier. Experts think Lucian Freud will be at the same level when one of his many masterpieces in private hands comes on to the market. Last week, though, it was Freud’s drawings appearing out of the woodwork because three made over 1 million for the first time last year.
At Sotheby’s, five drawings from the collection of his former dealer James Kirkman sold for 2.4 million – some to his last dealer, Acquavella Galleries in New York, and a fine late drawing of Lord Goodman to the Richard Green Gallery in London. Damien Hirst, though, was still struggling with the residue of his famous one-man Beautiful sale at Sotheby’s in 2008. A butterfly painting bought there for 253,250 could find no buyer last week at 100,000.
Photography has also been dragging its heels at auction, except, that is, for the two most expensive artists in this genre, Andreas Gursky and Cindy Sherman. In 2004, Sherman showed her latest photographs of herself – as a clown – in London, and they all sold priced from 35,000 to 50,000.
Last week, as she prepares for the opening of her major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, two clown photographs came up for sale, and the most expensive was sold by Phillips for a hefty 433,250 – not a record for Sherman, but the highest price to date for one of her clown photographs.
In spite of the profit-taking, this was not a market out of control. The auction rooms had largely got their estimates right – not an easy task in what is perceived as a volatile market. Most artists in these sales experience a price spurt at some point, and then it calms down. Last week, two of the latest market phenomena, Jacob Kassay and Ged Quinn, saw their prices stabilise. Sooner or later, Richter’s abstracts will level off, too. But for the moment, the auctioneers are enjoying the ride.
Although Bonhams had a rough ride earlier in the week, that was because the company has yet to find its feet at the deep end of this market. Its top-selling lot was a rare drawing of a young Lucian Freud by his friend, Frank Auerbach, which sold for a healthy 481,250 to the London dealer Pilar Ordovas, bidding for a private collector.
What the sale was missing was a few pictures by Gerhard Richter. At the other three salerooms, there were 25, mostly colourful abstract paintings of the kind that had sold so well in New York in November, and all but two sold for 33.8 million, easily surpassing the minimum 20 million expected; that’s 18.4 percent of the series spent on just one artist. I can’t remember any other contemporary artist, apart from Andy Warhol, dominating to such an extent.
The highest Richter price was 9.9 million for the large abstract which was illustrated in this column two weeks ago. Although it is these colourful, squeegee-executed works that are most widely sought after, other, less obviously commercial works from his extensive repertoire are also performing well. A painting of a blank piece of paper, curled at the corner for turning, was one of a series of only 11 of this subject made in 1965. When it was last sold in 2002, it was bought by a British collector for 53,000. Last week, the collector sold it for 1.5 million.
American art took a back seat – apart from a large stencil-style painting by hedge-fund favourite Christopher Wool of the word FOOL, which sold for a record 4.9 million, and a vibrant Orange Sports Figure by graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat that sold for 4.1 million. The price for the Basquiat wasn’t huge by 2007 standards, but for the seller, who bought it in 1992, four years after the artist’s tragic suicide, for $66,000, it was a good return.
British art was led by a full-length portrait of Henrietta Moraes reclining on a bed by Francis Bacon, which took the top price of 21 million. It had been sent for sale by Sheldon Solow, the New York real estate developer and toast of Christie’s who had sold the record-breaking Henry Moore and Joan Miró a week earlier. Experts think Lucian Freud will be at the same level when one of his many masterpieces in private hands comes on to the market. Last week, though, it was Freud’s drawings appearing out of the woodwork because three made over 1 million for the first time last year.
At Sotheby’s, five drawings from the collection of his former dealer James Kirkman sold for 2.4 million – some to his last dealer, Acquavella Galleries in New York, and a fine late drawing of Lord Goodman to the Richard Green Gallery in London. Damien Hirst, though, was still struggling with the residue of his famous one-man Beautiful sale at Sotheby’s in 2008. A butterfly painting bought there for 253,250 could find no buyer last week at 100,000.
Photography has also been dragging its heels at auction, except, that is, for the two most expensive artists in this genre, Andreas Gursky and Cindy Sherman. In 2004, Sherman showed her latest photographs of herself – as a clown – in London, and they all sold priced from 35,000 to 50,000.
Last week, as she prepares for the opening of her major retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, two clown photographs came up for sale, and the most expensive was sold by Phillips for a hefty 433,250 – not a record for Sherman, but the highest price to date for one of her clown photographs.
In spite of the profit-taking, this was not a market out of control. The auction rooms had largely got their estimates right – not an easy task in what is perceived as a volatile market. Most artists in these sales experience a price spurt at some point, and then it calms down. Last week, two of the latest market phenomena, Jacob Kassay and Ged Quinn, saw their prices stabilise. Sooner or later, Richter’s abstracts will level off, too. But for the moment, the auctioneers are enjoying the ride.
2012年2月16日星期四
A U.S. Flag Over London Art Sales
Global art collectors converged on London during the past two weeks for major auctions of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art. These sales are usually dominated by Europeans, but this time, the biggest players came from the U.S.
Confident American bidders lifted the sales to a combined $713 million, with Christie's $457 million total topping Sotheby's roughly $256 million. Overall, the results easily topped the houses' low estimates of $413 million.
New York real-estate developer Sheldon Solow was among the biggest sellers, getting $33.4 million at Christie's Tuesday for his Francis Bacon painting "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" as well as $26.6 million at the same house on Feb. 7 for his Joan Mir "Painting-Poem."
During the contemporary-art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier this week, American collectors bid on a majority of the priciest pieces on offer, largely over the telephone. Among their winnings: a $15.5 million "Abstract Painting" by Gerhard Richter, an $8.3 million Nicolas de Stael landscape, "Agrigente," and several squiggly lined abstracts by Cy Twombly. An American also took home Shanghai-based Zhang Huan's $228,304 "Ash Head No. 1" sculpture at Sotheby's on Wednesday.
American collectors feel like they're "farther down the road to economic recovery" than their Continental counterparts, said Christie's specialist Amy Cappellazzo. U.S. buyers also capitalized on the dollar's growing strength over most of the past year against the British pound to exert more purchasing power throughout these sales, she added.
New Jersey art adviser Eddie Mishon said his American clients feel "safe" buying art this season. On Wednesday, he bid on several works at Sotheby's before winning a $624,398 untitled oil-on-paper by Willem de Kooning: "I was working it," Mr. Mishon joked of his willingness to compete.
Throughout these sales, collectors gravitated to artists with global fan bases and easy-to-recognize styles like Richter, the German painter best known for creating wildly colorful abstracts by scraping an oversize squeegee across his canvases. Ten Richters came up for sale during the houses' evening sales this week, and nine sold for a combined $45.2 million. Dealers said the artist is enjoying a profile boost this season, thanks to a retrospective on view in London and Berlin.
Collectors and dealers also flocked to Lucio Fontana, the Italian artist who gained international fame in the 1950s by slashing his monochrome canvases with a knife. Right now, his red versions seem to outsell those slashed in paler colors. Christie's got $3.2 million for Fontana's red "Spatial Concept, Expectations" from 1967. Andy Warhol collector Jose Mugrabi also paid $943,963 for a gray 1962 version by Fontana with the same title.
Elsewhere during the contemporary sales, Asian bidders appeared to be branching out. Not only did they pay $2.8 million and $1.6 million for a pair of paintings by Chinese abstract painter Zao Wou-ki, but an Asian telephone bidder also won Berlinde de Bruyckere's $510,643 sculpture of a life-size, stuffed horse crouching on a table, "K 36 (The Black Horse)," a new price record for the artist at auction. Asians also won a $577,250 Damien Hirst Spot painting and a $416,443 photo of Madrid's Prado Museum by Thomas Struth.
Europeans, for their part, fought hard for a new favorite: Christopher Wool, the Chicago-born post-Conceptual artist whose paintings of stenciled words have long been more coveted in the U.S. At Christie's Tuesday, an untitled painting, with black letters spelling out the word "fool," sold to a European for $7.7 million, a new auction record for the artist.
Confident American bidders lifted the sales to a combined $713 million, with Christie's $457 million total topping Sotheby's roughly $256 million. Overall, the results easily topped the houses' low estimates of $413 million.
New York real-estate developer Sheldon Solow was among the biggest sellers, getting $33.4 million at Christie's Tuesday for his Francis Bacon painting "Portrait of Henrietta Moraes" as well as $26.6 million at the same house on Feb. 7 for his Joan Mir "Painting-Poem."
During the contemporary-art sales at Christie's and Sotheby's earlier this week, American collectors bid on a majority of the priciest pieces on offer, largely over the telephone. Among their winnings: a $15.5 million "Abstract Painting" by Gerhard Richter, an $8.3 million Nicolas de Stael landscape, "Agrigente," and several squiggly lined abstracts by Cy Twombly. An American also took home Shanghai-based Zhang Huan's $228,304 "Ash Head No. 1" sculpture at Sotheby's on Wednesday.
American collectors feel like they're "farther down the road to economic recovery" than their Continental counterparts, said Christie's specialist Amy Cappellazzo. U.S. buyers also capitalized on the dollar's growing strength over most of the past year against the British pound to exert more purchasing power throughout these sales, she added.
New Jersey art adviser Eddie Mishon said his American clients feel "safe" buying art this season. On Wednesday, he bid on several works at Sotheby's before winning a $624,398 untitled oil-on-paper by Willem de Kooning: "I was working it," Mr. Mishon joked of his willingness to compete.
Throughout these sales, collectors gravitated to artists with global fan bases and easy-to-recognize styles like Richter, the German painter best known for creating wildly colorful abstracts by scraping an oversize squeegee across his canvases. Ten Richters came up for sale during the houses' evening sales this week, and nine sold for a combined $45.2 million. Dealers said the artist is enjoying a profile boost this season, thanks to a retrospective on view in London and Berlin.
Collectors and dealers also flocked to Lucio Fontana, the Italian artist who gained international fame in the 1950s by slashing his monochrome canvases with a knife. Right now, his red versions seem to outsell those slashed in paler colors. Christie's got $3.2 million for Fontana's red "Spatial Concept, Expectations" from 1967. Andy Warhol collector Jose Mugrabi also paid $943,963 for a gray 1962 version by Fontana with the same title.
Elsewhere during the contemporary sales, Asian bidders appeared to be branching out. Not only did they pay $2.8 million and $1.6 million for a pair of paintings by Chinese abstract painter Zao Wou-ki, but an Asian telephone bidder also won Berlinde de Bruyckere's $510,643 sculpture of a life-size, stuffed horse crouching on a table, "K 36 (The Black Horse)," a new price record for the artist at auction. Asians also won a $577,250 Damien Hirst Spot painting and a $416,443 photo of Madrid's Prado Museum by Thomas Struth.
Europeans, for their part, fought hard for a new favorite: Christopher Wool, the Chicago-born post-Conceptual artist whose paintings of stenciled words have long been more coveted in the U.S. At Christie's Tuesday, an untitled painting, with black letters spelling out the word "fool," sold to a European for $7.7 million, a new auction record for the artist.
2012年2月13日星期一
Art sale helps a family
Watching art enthusiasts out-do each other with the on-line bidding for Summer Jamieson's latest acrylic painting has been exciting for the Waihopai Valley artist.
The Last Muster, a 1.5 metre-long work, sold for $4550 when the Trade Me auction closed at 8pm on Sunday.
It was Jamieson's contribution to the Walker Family Appeal which started after Brendon Edward Walker, 39, was electrocuted on the farm he managed at Quail Downs near Kaikoura on January 28. He left behind wife Sarah, a 7-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter.
"I hadn't met the family but I read about it in the newspaper and I was gutted for them [after the accident]," Jamieson said last week.
Her sons are a similar age to the Walker children, who had to call emergency services when they found their father dead in a paddock after he was hit by a power line and their mother was seriously burned trying to help him.
Jamieson is also friends with Mrs Walker's best friend Amanda Henderson, who started the appeal.
When Ms Henderson phoned and asked Jamieson to sell a painting that could be auctioned for the appeal, the artist refused.
"But I was happy to paint something specially for her."
Most of her paintings show hunting and wildlife scenes but a musterer seemed a more fitting tribute for Mr Walker, who loved his work in the high-country. "Mustering, that's what Brendon loved to do. Unfortunately, his life was cut short."
The Last Muster is a Jamieson original but she searched the web for ideas before starting it.
Special inspiration came from a Marlborough Express photographer who had followed a late-autumn muster in the Awatere in 2010. In one of the pictures he took, farm hand Sean Dobbs and his dogs became silhouette figures on the crest of a hill against the sky.
After painting her version of the scene, Jamieson learned Mr Dobbs had shifted to a property beside the one Mr Walker managed at Quail Flat and was friends with the Walker family.
"He was stoked the photo was used [for the painting]."
Photographer Ben Curran is pleased, too.
"You can look at the painting and see it's similar to the photograph; but it's a good rendition of it and it's a really nice painting," he said.
Knowing an image he captured through a camera lens had been recreated on canvas to help a family in need also felt good, Curran said.
The Last Muster auction closed on Sunday but the Walker Family Appeal continues until the end of the month.
The Last Muster, a 1.5 metre-long work, sold for $4550 when the Trade Me auction closed at 8pm on Sunday.
It was Jamieson's contribution to the Walker Family Appeal which started after Brendon Edward Walker, 39, was electrocuted on the farm he managed at Quail Downs near Kaikoura on January 28. He left behind wife Sarah, a 7-year-old son and a 9-year-old daughter.
"I hadn't met the family but I read about it in the newspaper and I was gutted for them [after the accident]," Jamieson said last week.
Her sons are a similar age to the Walker children, who had to call emergency services when they found their father dead in a paddock after he was hit by a power line and their mother was seriously burned trying to help him.
Jamieson is also friends with Mrs Walker's best friend Amanda Henderson, who started the appeal.
When Ms Henderson phoned and asked Jamieson to sell a painting that could be auctioned for the appeal, the artist refused.
"But I was happy to paint something specially for her."
Most of her paintings show hunting and wildlife scenes but a musterer seemed a more fitting tribute for Mr Walker, who loved his work in the high-country. "Mustering, that's what Brendon loved to do. Unfortunately, his life was cut short."
The Last Muster is a Jamieson original but she searched the web for ideas before starting it.
Special inspiration came from a Marlborough Express photographer who had followed a late-autumn muster in the Awatere in 2010. In one of the pictures he took, farm hand Sean Dobbs and his dogs became silhouette figures on the crest of a hill against the sky.
After painting her version of the scene, Jamieson learned Mr Dobbs had shifted to a property beside the one Mr Walker managed at Quail Flat and was friends with the Walker family.
"He was stoked the photo was used [for the painting]."
Photographer Ben Curran is pleased, too.
"You can look at the painting and see it's similar to the photograph; but it's a good rendition of it and it's a really nice painting," he said.
Knowing an image he captured through a camera lens had been recreated on canvas to help a family in need also felt good, Curran said.
The Last Muster auction closed on Sunday but the Walker Family Appeal continues until the end of the month.
2012年2月8日星期三
A market in need of supervision
The most striking thing about the art market—especially as it has grown from the small, passionate community of the early 1990s to a $50bn industry today—is that it largely functions along self-regulating lines. Prices, authenticity, standards and practices are all arrived at among the art world itself, without much reference or recourse to government—it feels like a libertarian’s dream of a free and unfettered market. But, the recent scandal engulfing the 165-year-old Knoedler Gallery, with the authenticity of works attributed rs including Robert Motherwell and Jackson Pollock coming under scrutiny to US painte, suggests that more adult supervision is required.
“Over the years, we have hoped that there would be some sort of investigation” into the circulation of allegedly fake works, said Richard Grant, the executive director of the Diebenkorn Foundation in an interview with the New York Times last December. A federal investigation has now been launched into the alleged forgeries, but questions over market regulation have dogged the industry for years. William Cohan, a New York Times writer, published a scathing attack on the trade in August 2010. “The art market is utterly unregulated. There are few rules, other than the basic ones of commerce and ethics. There is no Federal Reserve Board or Securities and Exchange Commission,” he wrote, referring to issues surrounding bronzes cast from rediscovered plaster moulds that were sold as genuine works by Degas.
Cohan’s proposed solution was not to create an agency to govern the art market but to shoehorn the trade under the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, Cohan made no effort to show how the oversight might work.
Indeed, there would be practical problems with art market regulation: works of art are not fungible, and value is impossible to calculate against any independent measure. Moreover, it is not the lack of laws that bedevils the art market but a see-no-evil, ask-no-questions attitude among many in the trade. It is worth bearing in mind that aggressive attributions, fudged provenance and too-good-to-be-true discoveries are nothing new. For more than 25 years, beginning in 1912, the American art historian Bernard Berenson helped the English art dealer Joseph Duveen to sell masterpieces to US plutocrats, famously embellishing attribution on occasion to justify the price.
Since then, however, the market has grown exponentially, which means that there are more people involved. For example, in the recent case brought against Knoedler and its former director Ann Freedman by the London-based collector Pierre Lagrange last December over an allegedly fake $17m Pollock, the number of intermediaries only added to the confusion. At least four individual entities stood between the seller and buyer: the dealers Jaime Frankfurt and Timothy Taylor acted as unwitting agents and liaised with Knoedler gallery and its then director, Freedman, on Lagrange’s behalf. The gallery and Freedman in turn dealt with Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales, who was herself allegedly representing the mysterious Mexican seller.
While intermediaries are not necessarily a sign of trouble, the chain of people involved in the Lagrange case seems to have created a diffusion of responsibility. The situation is not atypical. “There used to be clear pipelines that art would go into, but now there is a complex matrix,” says David Houston, the director of the curatorial department at the Crystal Bridges Museum. The institution has made no secret of its desire to buy a major Pollock, but is navigating busy waters. “We see a lot more middlemen in the market today than we did ten years ago—people who are part-adviser, part-dealer and part-picker,” he says.
Nevertheless, many in the trade say that Pollock’s massive prices (notably Mural, 1943, which is owned by the University of Iowa Museum of Art and is valued at $140m), and the fact that his output was limited, mean that the whereabouts of his works are relatively well known. Any buyer seriously looking for a work at the highest price level should “know exactly which works are out there, who owns them and whether they’re ready to part with them”, says the art adviser Todd Levin of the Levin Art Group.
Middleman or no, Lagrange’s confidence in the authenticity of the $17m Pollock was no doubt enhanced by Knoedler’s role in the deal. The gallery’s ties to the New York School painters, including the recently deceased Helen Frankenthaler, and its long-established reputation lent authority to its opinions. The gallery’s sudden decision to close on 30 November shocked many in the trade. There is a parallel with the events of the banking crisis in 2008 when long-standing firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapsed. “This may have warned people that even a solid source like a 165-year-old gallery can go out of business,” says the art dealer Richard Feigen, who opened his first gallery more than 50 years ago, selling works ranging from Old Masters to surrealists and contemporary artists. He recently demonstrated the importance of professional integrity when he stood behind the sale of a putative Max Ernst painting that turned out be one of the 62 acknowledged forgeries produced by the Wolfgang Beltracchi ring in Germany, a scam that was exposed last year . When the fraud was revealed, Feigen immediately reimbursed his client, and was in turn paid back by the seller.
New York bills of sale require a warranty of authenticity for a work of art (though this expires four years from the date of sale and may not be extended), which should be sufficient oversight of the market. Galleries and auction houses with plenty of financial reserves are able to stand behind works they sell, and so are essential in ensuring the viability of the current art market. Without them, the system cannot function—which may be one reason that the auction houses have been able to expand their private sales dramatically through the credit crisis and that brand galleries including Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth increasingly dominate the commercial scene.
“Over the years, we have hoped that there would be some sort of investigation” into the circulation of allegedly fake works, said Richard Grant, the executive director of the Diebenkorn Foundation in an interview with the New York Times last December. A federal investigation has now been launched into the alleged forgeries, but questions over market regulation have dogged the industry for years. William Cohan, a New York Times writer, published a scathing attack on the trade in August 2010. “The art market is utterly unregulated. There are few rules, other than the basic ones of commerce and ethics. There is no Federal Reserve Board or Securities and Exchange Commission,” he wrote, referring to issues surrounding bronzes cast from rediscovered plaster moulds that were sold as genuine works by Degas.
Cohan’s proposed solution was not to create an agency to govern the art market but to shoehorn the trade under the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. However, Cohan made no effort to show how the oversight might work.
Indeed, there would be practical problems with art market regulation: works of art are not fungible, and value is impossible to calculate against any independent measure. Moreover, it is not the lack of laws that bedevils the art market but a see-no-evil, ask-no-questions attitude among many in the trade. It is worth bearing in mind that aggressive attributions, fudged provenance and too-good-to-be-true discoveries are nothing new. For more than 25 years, beginning in 1912, the American art historian Bernard Berenson helped the English art dealer Joseph Duveen to sell masterpieces to US plutocrats, famously embellishing attribution on occasion to justify the price.
Since then, however, the market has grown exponentially, which means that there are more people involved. For example, in the recent case brought against Knoedler and its former director Ann Freedman by the London-based collector Pierre Lagrange last December over an allegedly fake $17m Pollock, the number of intermediaries only added to the confusion. At least four individual entities stood between the seller and buyer: the dealers Jaime Frankfurt and Timothy Taylor acted as unwitting agents and liaised with Knoedler gallery and its then director, Freedman, on Lagrange’s behalf. The gallery and Freedman in turn dealt with Long Island art dealer Glafira Rosales, who was herself allegedly representing the mysterious Mexican seller.
While intermediaries are not necessarily a sign of trouble, the chain of people involved in the Lagrange case seems to have created a diffusion of responsibility. The situation is not atypical. “There used to be clear pipelines that art would go into, but now there is a complex matrix,” says David Houston, the director of the curatorial department at the Crystal Bridges Museum. The institution has made no secret of its desire to buy a major Pollock, but is navigating busy waters. “We see a lot more middlemen in the market today than we did ten years ago—people who are part-adviser, part-dealer and part-picker,” he says.
Nevertheless, many in the trade say that Pollock’s massive prices (notably Mural, 1943, which is owned by the University of Iowa Museum of Art and is valued at $140m), and the fact that his output was limited, mean that the whereabouts of his works are relatively well known. Any buyer seriously looking for a work at the highest price level should “know exactly which works are out there, who owns them and whether they’re ready to part with them”, says the art adviser Todd Levin of the Levin Art Group.
Middleman or no, Lagrange’s confidence in the authenticity of the $17m Pollock was no doubt enhanced by Knoedler’s role in the deal. The gallery’s ties to the New York School painters, including the recently deceased Helen Frankenthaler, and its long-established reputation lent authority to its opinions. The gallery’s sudden decision to close on 30 November shocked many in the trade. There is a parallel with the events of the banking crisis in 2008 when long-standing firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers collapsed. “This may have warned people that even a solid source like a 165-year-old gallery can go out of business,” says the art dealer Richard Feigen, who opened his first gallery more than 50 years ago, selling works ranging from Old Masters to surrealists and contemporary artists. He recently demonstrated the importance of professional integrity when he stood behind the sale of a putative Max Ernst painting that turned out be one of the 62 acknowledged forgeries produced by the Wolfgang Beltracchi ring in Germany, a scam that was exposed last year . When the fraud was revealed, Feigen immediately reimbursed his client, and was in turn paid back by the seller.
New York bills of sale require a warranty of authenticity for a work of art (though this expires four years from the date of sale and may not be extended), which should be sufficient oversight of the market. Galleries and auction houses with plenty of financial reserves are able to stand behind works they sell, and so are essential in ensuring the viability of the current art market. Without them, the system cannot function—which may be one reason that the auction houses have been able to expand their private sales dramatically through the credit crisis and that brand galleries including Gagosian, Pace, David Zwirner and Hauser & Wirth increasingly dominate the commercial scene.
2012年2月1日星期三
Garage Sale Slave or Gallerist?
A building on Art Walk-friendly A Street was filled with antique tables and hand-woven carpets from around the world. But Pastiche: A Gallery of Art, as it was called, had no future. Owners Rick and Joanne Soued opened it temporarily last year with the hope to close it down as soon as possible.
That's because instead of holding garage sales at their home off Highway 66, the Soueds became provisional gallerists in a downtown rental.
They took out a three-month lease on a 1920s cottage and created a pop-up gallery to get, they hoped, the most exposure and the highest price for a $650 antique caned office chair, $22 silk Thai oil paintings and other sentimental objets d'art.
Although most people trying to divest of their home furnishings still turn to makeshift yard sales, poster-pointing garage sales or well-advertised estate sales, homeowners who think they can get more money are becoming short-time retailers. Many turn to the growing number of consignment shops and antique malls to display their goods.
Until November, Bonnie McCormick and Dolly Rapp were buyers, not sellers. But when McCormick's husband, Branson, asked her politely to get a keepsake Toledo wood cook stove out of the dining room, she and her sister Dolly dreamed up the idea of selling it at a place they like to shop: the Ashland Artisan Emporium.
They rented a 6-foot-by-8-foot space for about $80 a month. They filled it with once-loved furnishings, knickknacks and family heirlooms from each of their long-lived-in homes.
Like most of the other stalls at the Ashland Artisan Emporium, the sisters' offerings are eclectic, from new slippers to vintage fruit jars. An unwrinkled 1948 Baby Care Manual, protected inside a plastic sleeve with a homemade price tag marked at $5, rests on top of the Toledo stove, which is tagged at $600.
"We live too far from anyone to have a garage sale," says McCormick. "And this place is fun to browse, especially during the cold winter months and the hot summer months."
The sisters don't have to watch their merchandise; the antique mall's staff considers that part of the service to earn its 15 percent commission. Still, the sisters show up often to restock their booth, decorate for a holiday — they have ceramic chick dishes to unload for Easter — and try to avoid seeing anything in the other 200 booths and wall spaces that they need to buy. "Not bringing anything home is my goal," says McCormick.
Owner Michelle Christian says when she opened the emporium in late 2010 in the Ashland Street Cinemas shopping center, most of the vendors were artists and crafters selling new, handmade work. But then more people wanting to downsize showed up with cars full of stuff, and now the store is half new, half previously owned.
After they closed their experimental gallery on A Street, the Soueds moved remaining pieces — lithographs, fabrics, even an inlaid door from Morocco — to the emporium. They are now long-distance sellers; they sold their house here and moved to Arizona.
"The gallery took a ton of effort to put together and maintain," says Rick Soued. "The Ashland Artisan Emporium is a godsend for people to show and sell some very nice things that would otherwise not be possible if conventional rentals and overhead needed to be paid."
On the other side of the town, Kathy Buffington of Ashland Recycle Furniture also has seen her clientele shift since she bought the store 11 years ago. Consignment sales have more than doubled to represent 95 percent of her inventory, and most of it sells in a month.
"Individuals from all income levels and as far away as 300 miles bring in usable items like an overstuffed Pottery Barn-style chair or a rustic farm dining table," says Buffington. "A lot of people are simplifying, downsizing, moving, and some just want to change it up a bit in their décor. It's always fascinating to see what's coming in the door."
Retailer Ken Silverman, who has owned Nimbus near the Plaza for about 30 years, is trying something new, too: He has hung artwork by pastel master Virgil Sova that was owned by Silverman's late mother on walls in his popular gallery.
Visitors wandering through the expansive shop during the Art Walk this Friday will pass by new contemporary blown glass, Frank Philipps ceramics and tabletop art. Then, in a 400-square-foot section that is as highly curated as the rest of the space, they will see eight pieces of art that once adorned Silverman's mother's home.
"The display is a tribute to her," says Silverman. "She personally knew Virgil Sova and she valued these pieces. At the same time, I'm in charge of her estate and I'm the only one of her four sons with a gallery, so we decided that rather than send them off to an auction in Portland or San Francisco, I could put them up here for a while and see what response we get."
The paintings, signed prints and lithographs will be sold at the price she paid for them over the decades, from $250 to several thousand dollars, and in their original frames. Collectors sometimes prefer to buy art and furnishings as they were displayed in a home, believing it adds to the story and value.
That's because instead of holding garage sales at their home off Highway 66, the Soueds became provisional gallerists in a downtown rental.
They took out a three-month lease on a 1920s cottage and created a pop-up gallery to get, they hoped, the most exposure and the highest price for a $650 antique caned office chair, $22 silk Thai oil paintings and other sentimental objets d'art.
Although most people trying to divest of their home furnishings still turn to makeshift yard sales, poster-pointing garage sales or well-advertised estate sales, homeowners who think they can get more money are becoming short-time retailers. Many turn to the growing number of consignment shops and antique malls to display their goods.
Until November, Bonnie McCormick and Dolly Rapp were buyers, not sellers. But when McCormick's husband, Branson, asked her politely to get a keepsake Toledo wood cook stove out of the dining room, she and her sister Dolly dreamed up the idea of selling it at a place they like to shop: the Ashland Artisan Emporium.
They rented a 6-foot-by-8-foot space for about $80 a month. They filled it with once-loved furnishings, knickknacks and family heirlooms from each of their long-lived-in homes.
Like most of the other stalls at the Ashland Artisan Emporium, the sisters' offerings are eclectic, from new slippers to vintage fruit jars. An unwrinkled 1948 Baby Care Manual, protected inside a plastic sleeve with a homemade price tag marked at $5, rests on top of the Toledo stove, which is tagged at $600.
"We live too far from anyone to have a garage sale," says McCormick. "And this place is fun to browse, especially during the cold winter months and the hot summer months."
The sisters don't have to watch their merchandise; the antique mall's staff considers that part of the service to earn its 15 percent commission. Still, the sisters show up often to restock their booth, decorate for a holiday — they have ceramic chick dishes to unload for Easter — and try to avoid seeing anything in the other 200 booths and wall spaces that they need to buy. "Not bringing anything home is my goal," says McCormick.
Owner Michelle Christian says when she opened the emporium in late 2010 in the Ashland Street Cinemas shopping center, most of the vendors were artists and crafters selling new, handmade work. But then more people wanting to downsize showed up with cars full of stuff, and now the store is half new, half previously owned.
After they closed their experimental gallery on A Street, the Soueds moved remaining pieces — lithographs, fabrics, even an inlaid door from Morocco — to the emporium. They are now long-distance sellers; they sold their house here and moved to Arizona.
"The gallery took a ton of effort to put together and maintain," says Rick Soued. "The Ashland Artisan Emporium is a godsend for people to show and sell some very nice things that would otherwise not be possible if conventional rentals and overhead needed to be paid."
On the other side of the town, Kathy Buffington of Ashland Recycle Furniture also has seen her clientele shift since she bought the store 11 years ago. Consignment sales have more than doubled to represent 95 percent of her inventory, and most of it sells in a month.
"Individuals from all income levels and as far away as 300 miles bring in usable items like an overstuffed Pottery Barn-style chair or a rustic farm dining table," says Buffington. "A lot of people are simplifying, downsizing, moving, and some just want to change it up a bit in their décor. It's always fascinating to see what's coming in the door."
Retailer Ken Silverman, who has owned Nimbus near the Plaza for about 30 years, is trying something new, too: He has hung artwork by pastel master Virgil Sova that was owned by Silverman's late mother on walls in his popular gallery.
Visitors wandering through the expansive shop during the Art Walk this Friday will pass by new contemporary blown glass, Frank Philipps ceramics and tabletop art. Then, in a 400-square-foot section that is as highly curated as the rest of the space, they will see eight pieces of art that once adorned Silverman's mother's home.
"The display is a tribute to her," says Silverman. "She personally knew Virgil Sova and she valued these pieces. At the same time, I'm in charge of her estate and I'm the only one of her four sons with a gallery, so we decided that rather than send them off to an auction in Portland or San Francisco, I could put them up here for a while and see what response we get."
The paintings, signed prints and lithographs will be sold at the price she paid for them over the decades, from $250 to several thousand dollars, and in their original frames. Collectors sometimes prefer to buy art and furnishings as they were displayed in a home, believing it adds to the story and value.
2012年1月11日星期三
Sotheby’s selects Raza’s ‘Village With Church’ painting for New York sale
A painting entitled ‘Village With Church’ by renowned artist Sayed Haider Raza will appear at Sotheby’s March 2012 Asia Week sales in New York. It will be one amongst rare lots to highlight the sale and is estimated to sell for $1.5/2.5 million. It will feature in Sotheby’s sale of Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art on 19 March 2012 and will be on view beginning 16 March.
The painting was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III from the landmark 1958-59 exhibition Trends in Contemporary Painting In India and remained in their historic collection until 1994. It represents the apex of Raza’s early period. Having spent a considerable portion of his career in France, he was deeply moved by the works of the European modernist masters, particularly Cezanne and van Gogh. He is the receipt of the prestigious Prix de la Critique (Critic's award) in 1956. Village with Church exudes a dynamic, tempestuous energy which is characteristic of the artist; a hybrid of the lyrical abstraction redolent of the postwar ecole de Paris, and the vibrancy and direct color treatment of a Rajput miniature. Village With Church is one of the seminal paintings from this period and stands as an enduring legacy of one of the pioneers of Indian Modern Art.
Priyanka Mathew, Head of the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s said: “We are delighted to bring this important and historic painting to auction. John D. and Blanchette Rockefeller were two of the most important early champions of modern Indian painting in the United States. Their patronage and support was key in introducing the work of the Progressive Artists’ Group in America, of which Village With Church is such a significant example.”
The painting was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. John D. Rockefeller III from the landmark 1958-59 exhibition Trends in Contemporary Painting In India and remained in their historic collection until 1994. It represents the apex of Raza’s early period. Having spent a considerable portion of his career in France, he was deeply moved by the works of the European modernist masters, particularly Cezanne and van Gogh. He is the receipt of the prestigious Prix de la Critique (Critic's award) in 1956. Village with Church exudes a dynamic, tempestuous energy which is characteristic of the artist; a hybrid of the lyrical abstraction redolent of the postwar ecole de Paris, and the vibrancy and direct color treatment of a Rajput miniature. Village With Church is one of the seminal paintings from this period and stands as an enduring legacy of one of the pioneers of Indian Modern Art.
Priyanka Mathew, Head of the Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art Sale at Sotheby’s said: “We are delighted to bring this important and historic painting to auction. John D. and Blanchette Rockefeller were two of the most important early champions of modern Indian painting in the United States. Their patronage and support was key in introducing the work of the Progressive Artists’ Group in America, of which Village With Church is such a significant example.”
2011年12月29日星期四
Festival offers art and music for a good cause
The third annual Sandscapes festival will be held at Dubai Park next weekend with an art exhibition, workshops and live music among the activities lined up.
The exhibition will feature the work of Russian, Syrian and Asian art students, and funds raised from the sale of paintings will be used to buy art supplies for students with special needs who study at the Mawaheb studio in Dubai's Bastakiya area.
"The idea behind this event is to provide a platform where art and music can come together for amateurs," said Manupriam Seth, a Dubai-based artist who organises the festival together with his wife Harpreet, an architecture professor at Ajman University.
"This is a community event and all the participants are based here. So this is an opportunity for residents to come together, meet each other and paint, draw and sing," said Mr Seth.
Local bands will perform a variety of musical styles, from jazz and rock to Indian classical music, at the festival. The line-up includes a band of students from Emirates International School.
Festival-goers will also be able to buy T-shirts and a fabric-painting kit for Dh30, and take part in a group painting session.
The organisers hope to attract more than 300 art lovers to Sandscapes 2012, which will take place on January 6 from 3pm to 9pm at the Dubai Park in Oud Metha, opposite the Ismaili Centre.
About 150 people took part in the event last year, when it was held at the Emirates Marine Environmental Group reserve at Ghantoot.
"There was complete integration at last year's event so we are really looking forward to this," said Gulshan Kavarana, an art teacher at Mawaheb.
"Last year, there were families with children with special needs and other families as well, and their real focus was on the art. That's what all the people truly cared about."
"It was great for the children because the show is held outdoors and draws different people from all walks of life."
The exhibition will feature the work of Russian, Syrian and Asian art students, and funds raised from the sale of paintings will be used to buy art supplies for students with special needs who study at the Mawaheb studio in Dubai's Bastakiya area.
"The idea behind this event is to provide a platform where art and music can come together for amateurs," said Manupriam Seth, a Dubai-based artist who organises the festival together with his wife Harpreet, an architecture professor at Ajman University.
"This is a community event and all the participants are based here. So this is an opportunity for residents to come together, meet each other and paint, draw and sing," said Mr Seth.
Local bands will perform a variety of musical styles, from jazz and rock to Indian classical music, at the festival. The line-up includes a band of students from Emirates International School.
Festival-goers will also be able to buy T-shirts and a fabric-painting kit for Dh30, and take part in a group painting session.
The organisers hope to attract more than 300 art lovers to Sandscapes 2012, which will take place on January 6 from 3pm to 9pm at the Dubai Park in Oud Metha, opposite the Ismaili Centre.
About 150 people took part in the event last year, when it was held at the Emirates Marine Environmental Group reserve at Ghantoot.
"There was complete integration at last year's event so we are really looking forward to this," said Gulshan Kavarana, an art teacher at Mawaheb.
"Last year, there were families with children with special needs and other families as well, and their real focus was on the art. That's what all the people truly cared about."
"It was great for the children because the show is held outdoors and draws different people from all walks of life."
2011年12月18日星期日
As markets plunge, Asia's wealthy flock to art
Despite giddy Chinese art prices showing some strain from global economic uncertainty, collectors like Lo think values will continue to rise due to limited supply and continued strong demand as Asian collectors become more affluent.
"As East and West get into more of a confluence in taste and in the market place, it will still go up," said Lo, a Cambridge-educated writer and jewellery designer, a slim, elegant woman famously known for wearing mis-matched designer shoes.
She is one of Hong Kong's leading art collectors -- her home is stacked with rare Chinese furniture, stone carvings and paintings, including an inkbrush panorama of the Grand Canyon by Chinese 20th century master Wu Guanzhong.
"These days art investment has entered into the mainstream of investment, especially for younger people. You cannot divorce love of the piece from what lies behind, the value of it."
Hong Kong has played a key role in Asia's art market boom. Its auction market turnover -- anchored by Sotheby's and Christie's -- skyrocketed 300 percent from 2009 to 2010, powered by a wave of Chinese millionaires buying art with avid fervor.
"Hong Kong has became the sales centre of the world," said Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby's Asia, with revenue in the former British colony on par with New York and London.
Despite the art market's vulnerability to shocks, including the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, when unrealistic estimates left scores of unsold lots amid tepid bidding even in the red-hot Chinese ceramics market, Asia's rapid wealth accumulation will likely see more and more money flow into art and alternative investments such as wine.
Asia's wealth management and private banking industry remains a sparkling growth area for many struggling banks, with an estimated 3.3 million high net worth individuals worth more than $1 million, according to Capgemini and Merrill Lynch's latest annual World Wealth report.
With a combined wealth of $10.7 trillion, Asia's wealthy have even eclipsed the $10.2 trillion held by Europe's generational millionaires.
"The exponential growth in the number of emerging market (millionaires) ... is expanding the global market for investments of passion," the report said.
SAFE HAVEN?
While art often comes straddled with hefty commission, storage and insurance costs, it can serve as a fun portfolio diversifier, mixing decent returns with aesthetic pleasure.
Even as the euro zone debt crisis rages and buffets regional stock markets, the Mei Moses Global Art Index, a widely tracked art indicator, showed an 11.8 percent rise in 2011 to November.
"It may not be a good time for sellers but it's an excellent time for buyers. During late 2008 and 2009, I highly advised clients to buy," said Bobby Mohseni, director of MFA Asia, an art consultancy. "With Chinese contemporary art, some prices have gone exceptionally high and that's just over a decade ... so it's best to look at upcoming or mid-tier artists."
While stocks on the S&P 500 have outperformed Western art over the past 25 years, according to Mei Moses data, top Chinese and Asian art is still comparatively cheap compared with Western impressionists or American contemporary art. A Mei Moses index for traditional Chinese art showed a 24 percent jump in the first three quarters this year.
"The confidence in the Chinese contemporary art market remains high despite art market confidence dropping sharply in the U.S. and European contemporary market," Anders Petterson, head of art research consultancy ArtTactic, told Reuters.
Even for those with less purchasing muscle, experts say bargains can still be had in less spotlighted categories, including modern Filipino and Indonesian painters, as well as photography, and Chinese snuff bottles, to name a few.
"Collect what other people aren't collecting," said Tony Miller, a former top Hong Kong government official and long-standing collector of scholars' objects and Chinese art. "If you can't afford Qi Baishi paintings and they're going at HK$2 million a throw, well, go for prints."
Qi is one of the masters of inkbrush paintings and his pieces sell for millions of dollars.
Owners of Hong Kong's art galleries, many of them crammed along the winding Hollywood Road in the Central district, say timing is the key.
"If you get good works of art, then without any question it is (a safe haven) but it doesn't have the liquidity. That's the difficulty," said Sundaram Tagore, whose galleries in Hong Kong and the United States feature a stable of culture-bridging artists.
"If you're trying to sell at the wrong time it becomes part of the distressed market but if you're selling at the right time then you could make 100 times more, maybe more than property or any bonds can provide you."
The search by Asian investors for alternative assets has extended beyond art into wine, gems, watches, postage stamps and other memorabilia -- the rarer and more exclusive, the better.
With about two-thirds of the world's stamp collectors in Asia, the stamps and collectibles market has surged, says Geoff Anandappa of stamp and memorabilia retailer Stanley Gibbons.
Hong Kong-based InterAsia Auctions -- which specialises in Asian stamps -- broke world records for Chinese stamps in September, raking in $12.6 million over four days. A 1941 Dr Sun Yat-Sen inverted centre stamp fetched $221,000, up 66 percent from a similar sale a year ago.
Chinese and Asian buyers have cornered the fine wine market, with a Hong Kong Acker Merrall & Condit wine auction in December bringing in $9 million, including a single superlot of 55 Romanee Conti vintages that fetched a record-breaking $813,000.
Similarly, Asian buying is behind the boom for diamonds and gems. China is on course to become the world's top diamond buyer and retailers in Hong Kong report a rise in the number of men coming to buy loose diamonds for investments.
A Hong Kong jewellery retailer recently raised $2 billion in one of the city's biggest initial public offerings this year to fund expansion in the region.
"It's not the old days of 'safe as houses', put your money in the bank and that will sort you out," said Jon Reade of the Art Futures Group, a Hong Kong-based art investment firm.
"Those are the days probably of my parents' generation ... people are getting more creative with their money."
"As East and West get into more of a confluence in taste and in the market place, it will still go up," said Lo, a Cambridge-educated writer and jewellery designer, a slim, elegant woman famously known for wearing mis-matched designer shoes.
She is one of Hong Kong's leading art collectors -- her home is stacked with rare Chinese furniture, stone carvings and paintings, including an inkbrush panorama of the Grand Canyon by Chinese 20th century master Wu Guanzhong.
"These days art investment has entered into the mainstream of investment, especially for younger people. You cannot divorce love of the piece from what lies behind, the value of it."
Hong Kong has played a key role in Asia's art market boom. Its auction market turnover -- anchored by Sotheby's and Christie's -- skyrocketed 300 percent from 2009 to 2010, powered by a wave of Chinese millionaires buying art with avid fervor.
"Hong Kong has became the sales centre of the world," said Patti Wong, chairman of Sotheby's Asia, with revenue in the former British colony on par with New York and London.
Despite the art market's vulnerability to shocks, including the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, when unrealistic estimates left scores of unsold lots amid tepid bidding even in the red-hot Chinese ceramics market, Asia's rapid wealth accumulation will likely see more and more money flow into art and alternative investments such as wine.
Asia's wealth management and private banking industry remains a sparkling growth area for many struggling banks, with an estimated 3.3 million high net worth individuals worth more than $1 million, according to Capgemini and Merrill Lynch's latest annual World Wealth report.
With a combined wealth of $10.7 trillion, Asia's wealthy have even eclipsed the $10.2 trillion held by Europe's generational millionaires.
"The exponential growth in the number of emerging market (millionaires) ... is expanding the global market for investments of passion," the report said.
SAFE HAVEN?
While art often comes straddled with hefty commission, storage and insurance costs, it can serve as a fun portfolio diversifier, mixing decent returns with aesthetic pleasure.
Even as the euro zone debt crisis rages and buffets regional stock markets, the Mei Moses Global Art Index, a widely tracked art indicator, showed an 11.8 percent rise in 2011 to November.
"It may not be a good time for sellers but it's an excellent time for buyers. During late 2008 and 2009, I highly advised clients to buy," said Bobby Mohseni, director of MFA Asia, an art consultancy. "With Chinese contemporary art, some prices have gone exceptionally high and that's just over a decade ... so it's best to look at upcoming or mid-tier artists."
While stocks on the S&P 500 have outperformed Western art over the past 25 years, according to Mei Moses data, top Chinese and Asian art is still comparatively cheap compared with Western impressionists or American contemporary art. A Mei Moses index for traditional Chinese art showed a 24 percent jump in the first three quarters this year.
"The confidence in the Chinese contemporary art market remains high despite art market confidence dropping sharply in the U.S. and European contemporary market," Anders Petterson, head of art research consultancy ArtTactic, told Reuters.
Even for those with less purchasing muscle, experts say bargains can still be had in less spotlighted categories, including modern Filipino and Indonesian painters, as well as photography, and Chinese snuff bottles, to name a few.
"Collect what other people aren't collecting," said Tony Miller, a former top Hong Kong government official and long-standing collector of scholars' objects and Chinese art. "If you can't afford Qi Baishi paintings and they're going at HK$2 million a throw, well, go for prints."
Qi is one of the masters of inkbrush paintings and his pieces sell for millions of dollars.
Owners of Hong Kong's art galleries, many of them crammed along the winding Hollywood Road in the Central district, say timing is the key.
"If you get good works of art, then without any question it is (a safe haven) but it doesn't have the liquidity. That's the difficulty," said Sundaram Tagore, whose galleries in Hong Kong and the United States feature a stable of culture-bridging artists.
"If you're trying to sell at the wrong time it becomes part of the distressed market but if you're selling at the right time then you could make 100 times more, maybe more than property or any bonds can provide you."
The search by Asian investors for alternative assets has extended beyond art into wine, gems, watches, postage stamps and other memorabilia -- the rarer and more exclusive, the better.
With about two-thirds of the world's stamp collectors in Asia, the stamps and collectibles market has surged, says Geoff Anandappa of stamp and memorabilia retailer Stanley Gibbons.
Hong Kong-based InterAsia Auctions -- which specialises in Asian stamps -- broke world records for Chinese stamps in September, raking in $12.6 million over four days. A 1941 Dr Sun Yat-Sen inverted centre stamp fetched $221,000, up 66 percent from a similar sale a year ago.
Chinese and Asian buyers have cornered the fine wine market, with a Hong Kong Acker Merrall & Condit wine auction in December bringing in $9 million, including a single superlot of 55 Romanee Conti vintages that fetched a record-breaking $813,000.
Similarly, Asian buying is behind the boom for diamonds and gems. China is on course to become the world's top diamond buyer and retailers in Hong Kong report a rise in the number of men coming to buy loose diamonds for investments.
A Hong Kong jewellery retailer recently raised $2 billion in one of the city's biggest initial public offerings this year to fund expansion in the region.
"It's not the old days of 'safe as houses', put your money in the bank and that will sort you out," said Jon Reade of the Art Futures Group, a Hong Kong-based art investment firm.
"Those are the days probably of my parents' generation ... people are getting more creative with their money."
2011年9月15日星期四
The Bonhams Yoshida Hiroshi Collection Turns Heads
Bonhams New York joined the Fall Asia Week auctions this week with two sales on Sept. 13: the Sartin Collection of Asian Art and Fine Japanese Works of Art.
Among the variety of collectable artifacts and art, the Japanese sale boasted an unusually large collection of Yoshida Hiroshi woodcuts and paintings from the collection of Yoshida Chizuko, the artist’s daughter-in-law.
“This collection comes from his descendants in Japan. His family has given us these paintings to sell because the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster made them worried they couldn’t protect the collection and that it [would] end up being lost. So they hope … they will sell and end up in safer places,” explained Jeff Olsen, Bonhams director of Japanese Art.
According to The Art of Japan website, “Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950) was 44 years old, with a very successful career as a painter already behind him, when he met Watanabe Shozaburo, who persuaded Yoshida to make his first woodcut. He subsequently became one of the most prolific and, at least in America, the best- known of the shin hanga artists.”
“He’d travel around the world and paint on location, then go back to his studio and design his woodcuts,” Olsen said.
“Woodcuts took time and required in-depth work with the carving and ink. It’s hard to say how many of his prints are out there, but it is a finite amount as he printed each individual work himself,” continued Olsen.
Many in the collection were familiar and loved works, but there were some even seasoned dealers hadn’t seen before, according to Olsen, so that was good for collectors.
Being works on paper, they are fragile, and many show slight signs or aging or marks. This is part of the reason for the range of price estimates, from the mid-hundreds to over $10,000.
From the 67 lots offered, a number of non-Japanese subjects done in traditional Japanese woodblock style did well. All but eight of the Yoshida collection sold during the sale, most achieving the pre-sale estimates.
During his 1924 tour of North America, Yoshida was inspired greatly by several landscapes, including Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. An oil on canvas titled “Niagara Falls” (1924), estimated at $4,000 to $6,000, sold for $6,875. “Grand Canyon” (1924) sold for $13,750, above the estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.
The highlight of the sale was the 1925 woodcut titled “Yosemitto-koku erukyapitan (El Capitan in Yosemite Valley)” which sold for $20,000, double the pre-sale estimate.
Other series covered in the sale included “Europe,” “Ten Views of Fuji,” and “India and Southwest Asia.”
Among the variety of collectable artifacts and art, the Japanese sale boasted an unusually large collection of Yoshida Hiroshi woodcuts and paintings from the collection of Yoshida Chizuko, the artist’s daughter-in-law.
“This collection comes from his descendants in Japan. His family has given us these paintings to sell because the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster made them worried they couldn’t protect the collection and that it [would] end up being lost. So they hope … they will sell and end up in safer places,” explained Jeff Olsen, Bonhams director of Japanese Art.
According to The Art of Japan website, “Yoshida Hiroshi (1876–1950) was 44 years old, with a very successful career as a painter already behind him, when he met Watanabe Shozaburo, who persuaded Yoshida to make his first woodcut. He subsequently became one of the most prolific and, at least in America, the best- known of the shin hanga artists.”
“He’d travel around the world and paint on location, then go back to his studio and design his woodcuts,” Olsen said.
“Woodcuts took time and required in-depth work with the carving and ink. It’s hard to say how many of his prints are out there, but it is a finite amount as he printed each individual work himself,” continued Olsen.
Many in the collection were familiar and loved works, but there were some even seasoned dealers hadn’t seen before, according to Olsen, so that was good for collectors.
Being works on paper, they are fragile, and many show slight signs or aging or marks. This is part of the reason for the range of price estimates, from the mid-hundreds to over $10,000.
From the 67 lots offered, a number of non-Japanese subjects done in traditional Japanese woodblock style did well. All but eight of the Yoshida collection sold during the sale, most achieving the pre-sale estimates.
During his 1924 tour of North America, Yoshida was inspired greatly by several landscapes, including Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. An oil on canvas titled “Niagara Falls” (1924), estimated at $4,000 to $6,000, sold for $6,875. “Grand Canyon” (1924) sold for $13,750, above the estimate of $8,000 to $12,000.
The highlight of the sale was the 1925 woodcut titled “Yosemitto-koku erukyapitan (El Capitan in Yosemite Valley)” which sold for $20,000, double the pre-sale estimate.
Other series covered in the sale included “Europe,” “Ten Views of Fuji,” and “India and Southwest Asia.”
2011年6月6日星期一
Sotheby's in London Sells a Group of Paintings by Vereschagin for $5.7 Million
Tonight, in Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Important Russian Paintings a group of works by renowned Russian master Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin of Russian, Indian and Balkan scenes brought the well above-expectations combined total of £3.7 / $5.7 million (pre-sale estimate for the group: £1.2-1.9/$1.9-3.1 million). The top-selling lot of this group also set a new auction record for the artist.
Headlining the evening auction and this component of the sale was Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin's oil on canvas The Taj Mahal, Evening, which is one of the most important works to have resulted from Vereschagin's trip to India from 1874 to 1876. This museum quality painting witnessed intense competition for several minutes from no fewer than four clients in the saleroom and on the telephone banks. Setting a new record for the artist at auction, the work finally sold to a round of applause for £2,281,250 ($3,749,919) to an anonymous buyer on the telephone.
Commenting on the sale of this remarkable offering, Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of the Russian Art Department , said: “It has been a huge privilege to bring to the market such a number of highly desirable and quality works by this renowned Russian Master, Vereschagin. The international competition for these works in this evening’s sale is enduring testament to this artist’s output and the quality of the works on offer, which saw huge interest pre-sale. We are also thrilled to have set a new record for the artist at auction with the £2.2 million price achieved for his The Taj Mahal, Evening.”
The second highest price of the group was paid for Vereschagin’s oil on canvas On Campaign realised 481,250 ($791,079) against an estimate of £400,000-600,000 and the artist’s oil on canvas The Chief Mosque in Futtehpore Sikri, far surpassed pre-sale expectations of £80,000-120,000, bringing £373,250 ($613,548).
Headlining the evening auction and this component of the sale was Vasily Vasilievich Vereschagin's oil on canvas The Taj Mahal, Evening, which is one of the most important works to have resulted from Vereschagin's trip to India from 1874 to 1876. This museum quality painting witnessed intense competition for several minutes from no fewer than four clients in the saleroom and on the telephone banks. Setting a new record for the artist at auction, the work finally sold to a round of applause for £2,281,250 ($3,749,919) to an anonymous buyer on the telephone.
Commenting on the sale of this remarkable offering, Jo Vickery, Senior Director and Head of the Russian Art Department , said: “It has been a huge privilege to bring to the market such a number of highly desirable and quality works by this renowned Russian Master, Vereschagin. The international competition for these works in this evening’s sale is enduring testament to this artist’s output and the quality of the works on offer, which saw huge interest pre-sale. We are also thrilled to have set a new record for the artist at auction with the £2.2 million price achieved for his The Taj Mahal, Evening.”
The second highest price of the group was paid for Vereschagin’s oil on canvas On Campaign realised 481,250 ($791,079) against an estimate of £400,000-600,000 and the artist’s oil on canvas The Chief Mosque in Futtehpore Sikri, far surpassed pre-sale expectations of £80,000-120,000, bringing £373,250 ($613,548).
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