Breaking news! The Sotheby’s recorded their biggest auction in their 268-year history. After selling 69 works, recording total of $375 million and achieving 95.6% sales value on Tuesday, Sotheby boosted to all art collectors around the world.
Yesterday, a Mark Rothko painting sold for $75 million and a Jackson Pollock painting for $40 million. Dealers feel this Rothko piece achieved such a high price because of the big size and tropical hues, which are considered desirable aspects by collectors. The Rothko was expected to sell for only $50 million, but five bidders chased after the painting, until a Sotheby’s specialist Charlie Moffett made the last call with $75 million.
Mark Rothko No 1Untitled Royal Red and Blue
Other works included were Andy Warhol’s Suicide piece which fetched $15.2 million and Franz Kline’s Shenandoah which sold for $9.3 million. Sotheby’s specialist Anthony Grant noted that the majority of the buyers were from United States, Malaysia, France, Switzerland and South America.
Andy Warhol, Suicide
While many attended the auction, most of the bids were made anonymously over the phone. Other top telephone bids recorded were Willem de Koonin’s Abstraction painting for $19.6 million, the Francis Bacon’s portrait Untitled (Pope) for $29.7 million and Gerhard RichterAbstract Painting for $17.4 million.
Francis Bacon, Untitled (Pope)
With the economy in mind, the Sotheby’s auction took an unexpected turn for many dealers and auctioneers, but the auction art market has always been an adrenaline driven experience. “If you want to talk about the market being happy, healthy and well, well, here it is. That’s probably about as good as it gets.” said Tobias Meyer, auctioneer and worldwide head of contemporary art (Sotheby’s).
-Yekaterina Sahakyan
posted by Katrina in journalism,news and have Comments Off
The British reggae/pop band UB40 began as friends who knew each other from various schools in the UK. The name “UB40″ stood for Unemployment Benefit, Form 40, referring to the document issued to people claiming unemployment benefit at the time of the band’s formation in 1978.
Needless to say, UB40 went on to sell over 70 million records and receive a Grammy Award nomination. Among their top hits was a cover of Neil Diamond’s “Red Red Wine”….
More than fifty years prior to UB40′s “Red Red Wine”, French artist Henri Matisse experimented with his own version of red subject matter as a tool for creative expression.
Matisse’s 1911 painting The Red Studio depicts the studio he used while residing in a suburb of Paris.
Through Matisse’s use of the red hue, color engulfs the painting and blurs the delineation of architectural form, a token of the artist’s painterly style.
The Red Studio by Henri Matisse
Russian-American abstract expressionist artist Mark Rothko filled his paintings with red as well.
The broadway show Red, which closed in 2010, featured an inside look into the thoughts and struggles of Rothko, played by Alfred Molina.
As a color often used to depict a range of powerful emotions, from passion to anger, red proved a fitting title for the Tony-nominated show.
Alfred Molina as Mark Rothko and Eddie Redmayne as Ken in the broadway show Red (Photo: Broadway)
Throughout Red, Rothko and his young apprentice throw red paint onto a larger-than-life canvas, emulating an authentic Rothko painting.
Canvas by Mark Rothko
For some good eats in a royally red atmosphere, head to The Red Cat in Chelsea for American-inspired cuisine.
With red walls and red plates, The Red Cat is the perfect place to bring that special someone, or to treat yourself to a lovely meal!
The Red Cat restaurant (Photo: The Red Cat)
Did you miss The Best Of Blue? More colors to come only at The Bare Square. And don’t forget…. like, share, and tweet your favorites!
Earlier this month, a series of four paintings by Abstract Expressionist Clyfford Still commanded the spotlight of the 2011 Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale. Of the 62 total works sold in just two hours for a total of $315.8 million, work by Still, the fame-shy painter of the twentieth century New York School of artists, earned $114.1 million under the gavel.
To the soundtrack of the art handler’s lockout just six floors below, “1949-A-No.1” shattered Still’s personal record, garnering a $61.7 million dollar lot price to the astonished applause of the art elite present for the evening’s proceedings. Still’s late wife, Patricia, had bequeathed the series of paintings in 2005 to the City and County of Denver, who in turn, sold the works to benefit the endowment of The Clyfford Still Museum, freshly opened in the heart of Denver, Colorado.
Clyfford Still's "1949-A-No.1," 1949. (Photo Credit: Paul Fraser)
According to John Elderfield, MoMA’s chief curator and the force behind the MoMA’s current Wilhelm de Kooning retrospective, “painterly paintings” were in high demand this year. “Maybe it’s the de Kooning effect,” he added. “With Richters and Stills flying off the walls.”
Regardless, it is difficult to say if the artist would appreciate such attention.
In life, “he didn’t like to be analyzed,” said the artist’s elderly daughter, Sandra Still Campbell, at the Clyfford Still Museum’s press preview. “And now he’s going to be analyzed to death.”
In the early 1940s, Still approached the peak of his career. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art showcased his first solo exhibition in 1943, and the adoration of the art establishment followed. Fellow artist Robert Motherwell exalted Still as a “bolt out of the blue,” and Jackson Pollack chided famously, “Still makes the rest of us look like an academic.”
Peggy Guggenheim came a-knocking in 1946, offering the artist a solo show at the infamous Art Of This Century gallery. And by the early 1950s, Still had established himself as a bona fide icon in the New York school of Abstract Expressionism. Works like “PH-235” and “1947-A-No.2” became watershed moments in the emergence of Color Field painting. They include the sprawling crags of color and dense layers of paint – a technique called impasto – that would come to epitomize Still’s visual language.
Clyfford Still "1944-N-No.1 (PH-235)," 1944. (Photo Credit: Mountain Living)
But for the artist, his unrest swelled as quickly as his fame.
Between 1952 and 1959, he refused to partake in any public exhibitions of his work. And by 1961, he had all but severed ties with the prominent galleries responsible for his growing success. That same year, he relinquished his position amidst the New York school of Rothko’s and Reinhardt’s, and fled to the country, groping for a life of obscurity in the lush woods of Westminster, Maryland until his death in 1980.
According to the artist, “Our age is one of science, mechanism, power and death. I see no point in adding to its mammoth arrogance the compliment of a graphic homage.”
At heart, he remained the blue-collar boy from Grandin, North Dakota. Despite his efforts, the art world never stopped paying attention.
The Clyfford Still Museum, now open in Denver, CO. (Photo Credit: Adobe Airstream)
Throughout his life, he kept his works close to the vest, offering art acolytes a mere 6% snippet of his oeuvre that encompasses over 2,400 works on canvas. According to David Anfam, one of the curators of the newly-opened museum named for its benefactor and focus, the public has never been offered unhindered access to such a comprehensive display of the artist’s masterworks.
“This is the first time we are seeing Clifford Styll whole,” he said.
James C. Russell, architecture critic for Bloomberg newswire, agrees: “Single-artist museums can embalm. This one astonishes.”
Find more information on The Clyfford Still Museumhere.
As fashion week comes to a close we are excited to see something a little different and creative coming from the world of fashion and overlapping into the art world. For colleague, friend, and designer Anne Bowen, the blend of art and fashion came naturally.
designer Anne Bowen
Anyone who sees Anne’s work would identify her dresses as works of art. To showcase her newest collection, she felt inspired to create an art installation with her designs and I love the concept.
The Anne Bowen Collection: Winter 2011 “Oneness” presentation explores how we, as individuals, are inextricably connected to one another. In this fashion installation/art piece, Anne, a ready-to-wear designer, entwines wool and silk threads from gowns on her models with the walls and ceilings of the room.
Inspired by the works of Abstract Expressionists Jackson Pollack, Phillip Guston and Mark Rothko, as well as present-day artists Chiharu Shiota, Marina Abramovic and Ana Mendieta, Anne creates a visual web that encases live models, her collection, and her audience, thus engaging her viewer in a more immediate way than traditional runway shows.
Number 31 by Jackson Pollock
I love her concept and her work, and I’m helping to co-host her visionary art & fashion event this coming Monday. I wish everyone could come, but space is limited, and Anne’s guest list is small and distinguished (like me–haha!).
Check out the video below to see some of Anne Bowen’s Fall 2010 Collection. (Long-time nAscent fans may recognize the set in Anne’s video as a great venue where we’ve held some events. Can you figure it out? Comment below!)
