Displaying items by tag: Christie's

The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts will sell a painting by Edward Hopper to start an endowment fund to acquire contemporary art. East Wind Over Weekhawken is one of two paintings by the American Modernist artist in the museum’s collection. The work will be sold at auction at Christie’s in New York in December and is expected to garner between $22 million and $28 million.

East Wind Over Weehawken was purchased by the museum from Hopper’s dealer, Frank K.M. Rehn, in 1952 for $2,750. If the painting realizes its pre-sale estimate, it will quintuple the funds generated annually for acquisitions. While a portion of the endowment will be used for purchasing historic art, the majority of new acquisitions will be in contemporary art, mainly American painting and sculpture.

The Pennsylvania Academy will keep its other Hopper painting, Apartment Houses, which was purchased from the artist directly and was the first oil painting by Hopper to enter the Pennsylvania Academy’s collection.

The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AK will soon debut a recently acquired painting by the American Modernist painter Edward Hopper. The work, titled Blackwell’s Island, was sold at Christie’s in May to a private collector for $19.2 million – the second highest price ever paid for a painting by the artist at auction. The Crystal Bridges Museum later announced that they had acquired the work from the private collection. The painting is slated to go on on view by mid-September in the museum’s Early 20th Century Art Gallery.

Blackwell’s Island depicts what is now known as Roosevelt Island, located off of Manhattan in the East River. The painting, which features a wide expanse of blue sky above swirling water and an industrial skyline, creates a sense of distance between the viewer and the impersonal subject. The composition promotes feelings of loneliness and isolation, which pervade much of Hopper’s work.

Crystal Bridges’ President, Don Bacigalupi, said, “This is a most ambitious composition for Hopper. He painted this work at the height of his powers and it exemplifies some of the best of Hopper’s style: a complex architectural composition with a full range of light and shadow, few people and drama of the past colliding with the present in the form of historic architecture meeting modern.”

While the Crystal Bridges Museum has a number of Hopper’s works on paper in its collection, Blackwell’s Island is its first major oil painting by the artist.

Artvest Partners, which is helmed by Michael Plummer and Jeff Rabin, Christie’s former Chief Operating Officer of Financial Services and Vice President of Financial Services, respectively, will transform The Spring Show NYC for its 2014 iteration. The goal of the fair’s redesign is to better serve the global collector community that gathers in New York each year to attend the various important spring auctions. Launched in 2011 by the Art & Antique Dealers League of America and produced by The Art Fair Company, the Spring Show NYC presents art and design from antiquity to the avant-garde.

Artvest will revamp the Spring Show NYC’s look and feel as well as bring new dealers on board for the show. Clinton Howell, President of the Art & Antique Dealers League, said, “After fielding requests from leading dealers from the around the globe who were looking for a suitable venue to exhibit their best works in New York during the Impressionist & Modern auction week, we realized that we needed to reconfigure the Spring Show NYC to accommodate this demand.”

The Spring Show NYC will take place at the Park Avenue Armory from April 30, 2014 to May 4, 2014.

AXA Art Insurance Co. has leveled a lawsuit against Christie’s over several paintings that were destroyed last October during Hurricane Sandy. The claim states that the auction house failed to secure a valuable art collection that was being kept in one of its storage facilities in Brooklyn, New York despite the ongoing warnings about the damage Hurricane Sandy was expected to bring.

Paintings worth at least $1.5 million, which once belonged to the late cellist Gregor Piatigorsky and his chess champion wife, Jacqueline, were left on the ground floor of the storage facility where they were damaged by rising flood waters. While the suit didn’t specify which works were destroyed, the Piatigorskys’ collection included paintings by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet and Chaim Soutine.

A rep for Christie’s told the New York Daily News that they have not yet been served with court papers.

A necklace by the American sculptor Alexander Calder, which was purchased at a flea market for $15 in 2005, will be sold at Christie’s this fall. The brass necklace from 1938 is expected to bring between $200,000 and $300,000.

Philadelphia resident Norma Ifill spotted the rare necklace while she was browsing a local flea market. She was drawn to the piece’s tribal aesthetic but it wasn’t until she visited a Calder jewelry exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Museum that she realized she had a true treasure in her possession. Ifill spoke with the exhibition’s curator and later took the necklace to the Calder Foundation in New York, where her find was deemed a genuine Calder. She also learned that the piece was once on display at the Museum of Modern Art.

The necklace will be offered on September 26, 2013 at Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art auction.

The Worcester Art Museum has acquired Paolo Veronese’s Venus Disarming Cupid (circa 1560), one of the last works by the Renaissance master still in private hands. The work was gifted to the museum by the New York-based collector Hester Diamond and will go on view on September 20, 2013 alongside works by Rembrandt, Jacob van Ruisdael and El Greco as part of the exhibition (remastered).

Hester acquired Venus Disarming Cupid at Christie’s in 1990 when its owner consigned it to the auction house as Circle of Francois Boucher. Shortly before the sale, the painting was attributed to Veronese and enthusiastically endorsed by the art historian and Veronese expert Terisio Pignatti. The revered painting has an impressive provenance, once residing in the collection of the German Prince of Hohenzollern-Hechinger and appearing on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2006.

Matthias Waschek, the Worcester Art Museum’s director, said, “It is rare that a museum can announce the acquisition of a single Italian Renaissance work, let alone one as spectacular as this Veronese. Venus Disarming Cupid is a game changer for our collection.”

After filing for bankruptcy last month, the city of Detroit has hired the international auction house Christie’s to appraise a portion of its city-owned art collection, which is housed in the Detroit Institute of Arts. City officials have not yet decided if they will sell any works in an attempt to quell creditors.

Rumors about the fate of the D.I.A.’s illustrious collection circulated quickly after representatives from Christie's visited the museum this past June. The auction house confirmed on Monday, August 5, 2013 that they have been hired to appraise the D.I.A.’s holding but did not specify which portion of the collection they would be evaluating. The auction house said in a statement, “Christie’s was asked to assist due to our expertise in this area across all fine art categories and eras. We understand that a valuation of all the City’s assets (extending well beyond the art) is one of many steps that will be necessary for the legal system to reach a conclusion about the best long term solution for the citizens of Detroit.”

The office of Detroit emergency manager Kevyn Orr will pay for the appraisal, which will cost $200,000 and is expected to wrap up in October. Christie’s will only appraise works of art that are city-owned and are not subject to donor restrictions that could prevent a possible sale.

Christie’s first-half sales increased by 9% thanks in part to its record postwar and contemporary art sale, the most expensive auction ever held. The sale, which took place May 15th in New York, garnered $495 million and set 23 new salesroom highs for artists including Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Christie’s brought in over $1 billion in total contemporary art sales.

Interest in postwar and contemporary art has increased significantly in the past few years. This year alone Christie’s saw a 52% rise in new clients bidding on contemporary works less than $200,000. The auction house’s second most lucrative category was impressionist and modern art, which fetched over $625 million during the first-half.

Christie’s releases its sales total twice a year. The auction house’s total first-half sales reached $3.6 billion.

On November 4, 2013, Christie’s will auction works from the private collection of the prominent art dealer Jan Kruiger. The sale, which will take place five year’s after Kruiger’s death, is expected to garner over $160 million. A consequent sale of works on paper and sculpture will likely bring around $15 million.

The sale at Christie’s will present a mere fraction of Kruiger’s personal collection. The remainder has either been sold privately or resides with his family. Highlights from the upcoming auction include Wassily Kandinsky’s landscape Herbstlandschaft, which carries an estimate of $6 million to $8 million, and Pablo Picasso’s sheet-iron sculpture Tete (Head), which is expected to fetch $25 million to $35 million.

While Christie’s and Sotheby’s were in close competition to helm the sale, Christie’s allegedly offered a more profitable financial package to Kruiger’s heirs, giving them a more significant percentage of the buyer’s premium.

Kruiger opened the Jan Kruiger Gallery of New York, which specialized in 19^th century, 20^th century and contemporary art, in 1967. It remained a fixture of the art world for decades.

Christie’s announced that it will hold its first ever sale in India during December of this year in order to tap into the country’s burgeoning art scene. The London-based auction house has had an office in Mumbai for the past 20 years.

The upcoming sale will include domestic artwork and according to Christie’s chief executive, Steven Murphy,” will reflect “the increased international appeal of Indian art and the growing participation of Indian collectors across international sale categories.” The sale will be the first of its kind by an international auction house in India.

Interest in western art has increased in India over the past decade thanks in part to the country’s substantial economic growth. The first auction of international masterpieces in India took place last year in New Delhi and included works by Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso. The demand for Indian artworks outside of India continues to grow. In 2010, a painting by Indian artist Syed Haider Raza sold for nearly $3.6 billion at Christie’s London, setting the record for a modern Indian work.