Displaying items by tag: impressionist art

The Art Institute of Chicago announced that Gloria Groom has been named the chair of the museum’s European Painting and Sculpture department. She will now oversee the museum’s collection of Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo, early 19th-century, Impressionist, and Post-Impressionist art.

Groom, who is also currently the Art Institute’s David and Mary Winton Green Curator, is known best for her work related to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, and has written about the work of Pierre Bonnard and Édouard Vuillard.

In the annals of Native American art history, Ralph T. Coe (1929-2010) ranks as one of the good guys. A scion of a wealthy Ohio family, he grew up amid Impressionist art, but he appreciated the aesthetic value of Indian art and strove to persuade reluctant art museums, which mainly recognized its ethnographic significance.

Trained in art history at Oberlin and Yale, and eventually director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, “Ted” Coe made his first purchase—a Northwest Coast totem pole—at age 26. By the time he died, he left some 2,000 pieces to the Ralph T. Coe Foundation, which has lent about 200 of them to the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian here for “Connoisseurship and Good Pie: Ted Coe and Collecting Native Art.”

A painting by Gustav Klimt that has been in private hands for over a century will be auctioned at Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale here on June 24. The work, “Portrait of Gertrud Loew,” painted in 1902, has an estimated sale price of 12 million to 18 million pounds (about $18 million to $28 million), and is for sale as a result of a settlement between the Felsovanyi family, the heirs of the painting’s subject, and the Klimt Foundation.

Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art realized $202,608,000 (£128,721,728/ €178,022,150) with sell-through rates of 93% by lot and 99% by value. Bidders from 34 countries competed in the room and on the phone for works by Impressionist and Modern masters, including Piet Mondrian, Chaïm Soutine, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger. Bidding on Modern works was particularly active, a testament to the energy brought to the market by crossover collectors and the success of Christie’s curated week of sales spanning both Impressionist & Modern and Post-War and Contemporary categories.

The collection of the highly regarded sculptor and philanthropist Lolo Sarnoff will be presented over several several sales in New York and London throughout the spring. The selection of work on offer  spans important Impressionist & Modern Art, follows Sotheby’s legendary six-day, 700 lot auction in 1978 of the collection of Lolo Sarnoff’s step-father, Robert von Hirsch. Works by artists such as Picasso, Chagall and Renoir are expected to sell for above the estimates. 

Warren Weitman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Americas, commented: “It is a great privilege for Sotheby’s to present works from this extraordinary collection."

There's always a battle going on somewhere between Sotheby's and Christie's for some piece of the art cake. But to get a sense of the biggest confrontation on the calendar, London is the place to be next weekend when the two auction houses exhibit highlights from their forthcoming New York sales of Impressionist, Modern (Monet to late Picasso) and Contemporary art (Rothko to today).

The most significant exhibit without a doubt is Picasso's eye-popping "Les Femmes d'Alger," 1955, based on a painting by Delacroix, that has a whopping $US140 million ($183 million) estimate from Christie's.

The granddaughter of one of the world’s leading dealers of Modern and Impressionist art, whose collection was looted by the Nazis, is launching her own gallery on New York’s Upper East Side.

Marianne Rosenberg, a long time international finance lawyer, has signed a lease on a space measuring around 1,500 sq. ft in the ground floor of a townhouse on East 66th Street between Madison and Fifth Avenue, in what was formerly the home of the Dickinson Gallery. The gallery, Rosenberg & Co, is scheduled to open on March 7 and will focus on the secondary Modern market, and also work with contemporary artists.

The Evening Sales of Impressionist and Modern Art and The Art of the Surreal that took place at Christie’s London on February 4 realized a combined total of £147,031,000/$222,751,965/€194,080,920, selling 88% by lot and 94% by value. The auctions had a combined pre-sale estimate of £92.8 million to £133.8 million. The top price was achieved by Joan Miró’s "Painting (Women, Moon, Birds)," which sold for £15,538,500/ $23,540,828/ €20,510,820 against an estimate of £4 million to £7 million. In total, 36 works of art sold for over £1 million / 45 for over $1 million.

Jay Vincze, International Director and Head of The Impressionist and Modern Art Department, Christie’s London: “We are very pleased with the strong results of this evening’s sales of Impressionist, Modern and Surrealist art which exceeded the top pre-sale estimate and welcomed registered bidders from 34 countries across 5 continents."

Sotheby's forthcoming London Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 3^rd February 2015 will be led by an exceptionally rare and important view of Venice by Claude Monet, "Le Grand Canal" of 1908, estimated at £20-30 million /$30.6 -45.9m / €25.6-38.3m.

Helena Newman, Sotheby’s Co-Head, Impressionist & Modern Art Worldwide, said: “The market for works by Claude Monet has now reached an all-time point of strength, with bidders coming from four times as many countries as a decade ago."

 As anticipation of the upcoming fall auction season continues to build, Sotheby’s has announced that it will offer the illustrious Schlumberger Collection during its Evening and Day Sales of Impressionist & Modern Art and Contemporary Art on November 4-5 and November 11-12, respectively. The collection, which brings together over ninety modern and contemporary masterworks from the twentieth century, is expected to fetch over $85 million.

Pierre Schlumberger, an aristocratic French oil-industry tycoon, and his beautiful Portuguese wife, São, are considered two of the most visionary collectors of the twentieth century.