Displaying items by tag: Portrait

Damien Hirst has unveiled his new series of paintings in Brazil, following his universally panned exhibitions at the Wallace Collection, where he showed a group of Francis Bacon inspired skull paintings and his 2012  exhibition of "Parrot Pictures" at White Cube Bermondsey. For his latest painting exhibition, Hirst has created what he describes as "portraits of living cities," the "Black Scalpel Cityscapes" are made up of vast numbers of surgical instruments that combine to create bird’s-eye views of urbanized areas from around the world. With the series, Hirst investigates subjects pertaining to the sometimes-disquieting realities of modern life – surveillance, urbanisation, globalisation and the virtual nature of conflict – as well as elements relating to the universal human condition, such as our inability to arrest physical decay.

In the paintings, manmade features and natural elements such as buildings, rivers and roads are depicted in scalpels as well as razor blades, hooks, iron filings and safety-pins, all set against black backgrounds.

The J. Paul Getty Museum was revealed as the buyer that paid a record $65.1 million for Edouard Manet's "Spring," a celebrated portrait of a Parisian actress as an embodiment of the season.

The painting will join several other Manet works on display by the end of the year, the Los Angeles museum said.

"Spring" was auctioned Wednesday at Christie's in New York City. The price, which included Christie's commission, was well above the expected high price of $35 million.

A celebrated portrait of a Parisian actress by Edouard Manet set a new auction record for the artist Wednesday, during the second day of a major fall sale in New York of impressionist and modern art.

“Le Printemps,” or “Spring,” was sold at Christie’s Wednesday for $65 million, almost doubling the previous record of $33.2 million for the French impressionist.

A newly restored Rembrandt will go on show this week harboring a little-known surprise, a full-scale portrait by the Dutch master hidden from the viewer.

Conservators have spent the last three and half years restoring "Portrait of Frederick Rihel on Horseback," a life-size depiction of a nobleman from Amsterdam and his steed painted in the early 1660s towards the end of the painter's turbulent life.

On the final leg of its Smithsonian-organized, cross-country tour, Annie Leibovitz’s “Pilgrimage” exhibition will land at the New-York Historical Society from November 21 through February 22, 2015. While Leibovitz may be best known as a portraitist to the stars, this collection of images contains nary a celebrity portrait — at least not in the traditional sense.

When Leibovitz’s longtime partner Susan Sontag died in 2004, she took to the road to visit places and things that the couple had always wanted to see together.

A painting of the French king Henri III (1551-89) that disappeared from the Louvre during the Second World War turned up at a Paris auction last week. The work was found by a curator at the Château de Blois thanks to an internet search alert, and will soon return to the Louvre.

The small portrait depicting Henri III at prayer, estimated at €400-€600, was due to be sold on Friday, 17 October, in an auction of antique paintings, furniture and art objects held by Ader-Nordmann at the Hôtel Drouot.

Nothing could be more tranquil than the woman in a shimmering painting by Claude Monet, forecast to set a new record for a portrait by the artist.

He captured Alice Hoschedé relaxing in a shady corner of his sunny French garden – but appearances were deceptive: in 1881 storm clouds were about to burst around the household.

The painting, "Alice Hoschedé au jardin," will be auctioned at Sotheby’s in New York in November, estimated at up to $35m (£22m).

An early portrait by Pablo Picasso recently rediscovered in Sweden will go up for auction at Stockholms Auktionsverk this week. "Portrait d’homme, Dionís Renart" was painted in 1899 when the artist was just 18 years old. It depicts his good friend at the time, fellow-artist Dionís Renart i Garcia with whom he reveled in bohemian Barcelona’s cafe Els Quatre Gats. The painting is signed with his early moniker P. Ruiz P.

The identification of the portrait’s subject is a recent feat, perhaps first recorded in the small catalogue produced to accompany the portrait’s sale in Stockholm on October 22nd.

A major portrait by Francis Bacon will be one of the highlights of the evening sale of Post-War and contemporary art in New York. Painted in 1960, "Seated Figure" stems from Bacon's total obsession with Velazquez's "Portrait of Pope Innocent X" and stands as an exceptional example of the artist’s painterly practice. It is a rare occasion for a major painting from Bacon's Papal series to be offered for auction, having remained unseen by the public for 35 years before being acquired by its present owner in 1996, "Seated Figure (Red Cardinal)" is a crowning culmination of Francis Bacon’s renowned Papal series. This major work will be on view in London before being sold at auction in New York on November 12th.

Luxuriant swathes of cream, violet, and aquamarine form the Pope’s features, highlighted by delicate gossamer-like sweeps of pure, bright white that form the folds of his silk cloaks.

Masterpieces by Vincent Van Gogh, Andy Warhol, Claude Monet and Henri Matisse will be among the 300 artworks to be loaned from French museums to the Louvre Abu Dhabi for its December 2015 opening.

The £400m museum will feature paintings and sculptures from 13 French cultural institutions, including Leonardo da Vinci’s "Portrait of an Unknown Woman," Claude Monet’s "Saint Lazare Station" and Andy Warhol’s "Big Electric Chair" as well as ancient statues, vases and masks from across Asia and Africa.

The loaned works will join the permanent collection of Louvre Abu Dhabi, which will be the first universal museum to open in the Arab world.