Displaying items by tag: alberto giacometti

Simon Shaw, Co-Head of Sotheby’s Worldwide Impressionist & Modern Art Department, commented: “A key factor in tonight’s successes was our longstanding relationships with top collectors, and our partnership with them throughout the sale process – the three works from the Private American Collection that led our sale, Monet’s Le Pont japonais, and more were non-competitive consignments. It was a privilege to offer Picasso’s spectacular Le Sauvetage exactly a decade after we last auctioned it in New York, and we are thrilled to see its price double in that time. We are pleased to once again deliver exceptional results on behalf of a great American institution, with Monet’s Sur la Falaise à Pourville selling for well over its high estimate to benefit the Acquisitions Fund of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.”

Beyond the fields of lavender and honey-colored farmhouses, the land that launched a thousand fantasies is also home to another kind of delight: dazzling works of art and architecture by some of the great masters of modernism, from Picasso to Le Corbusier. Gully Wells goes on a treasure hunt.

One summer when I was a young and indolent teenager, I was packed off by my mother to stay for a week or so with some old family friends who lived in a farmhouse in the hills above Antibes on the French Riviera. Monsieur, tall with a wild bush of white hair, was a painter, and Madame, petite with olive-black eyes, was a sculptor.

Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on Tuesday, May 6, realized $285,879,000 (£168,668,610/€205,832,880), selling 89% by lot and 96% by value. This marks the highest total for Christie’s New York in this category since May 2010. Of the 53 works offered, 9 lots sold for over $10 million, 18 for over $5 million, and 43 for over $1 million. The sale was led by works from distinguished private collections, including Monet’s Nymphéas from The Clark Family Treasures and Picasso’s Portrait de femme (Dora Maar) from the Viktor and Marianne Langen Collection. Two additional sales, Works on Paper and the Day sale, will complete the series on Wednesday, May 7.

Brooke Lampley, Head of Department, Impressionist & Modern Art, Christie’s New York, commented, “Our strong performance tonight, the highest since May of 2010, is a testament to the continued strength of the global market for Impressionist and Modern works of art. Bidders from 36 countries competed in our sale tonight for a wide variety of works, from Monet’s classic Nymphéas and Modigliani’s engaging portrait of a red-haired man, to bold, modern works by Picasso and Kandinsky. Our global team has worked tirelessly to source the best works available this season, many of which had never been offered at auction, including star lots from the leading collections of the season: the Clark Family Treasures, the Estate of Edgar M. Bronfman and the Viktor and Marianne Langen Collection.”

Auction houses expect to sell as much as $2.3 billion of art in New York this month as billionaires from China to Brazil compete for trophy works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Jeff Koons in a surging market.

Two weeks of semiannual sales of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s (BID) and Phillips begin May 6, with online bidding as early as today. Their combined sales target represents a 77 percent increase from estimates for a similar round of auctions a year ago.

On March 15, the Museum of Modern Art’s William S. Paley Collection will go on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. “A Taste for Modernism” presents 62 works that cover all of the pivotal movements that defined the art world between 1880 and 1940. The exhibition features works by 24 major artists including Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and Francis Bacon. The William S. Paley Collection has been on a North American tour since 2012. The Crystal Bridges Museum will be the last venue to host the exhibition before it returns to MoMA.

Highlights from the exhibition include two works by Cézanne, which Paley acquired from the artist’s son; eight works by Picasso that trace his artistic evolution over the first three decades of the 20th century, including “Boy Leading a Horse” from his Rose period, the Cubist painting “An Architect’s Table,” and the collage-inspired composition “Still Life with Guitar”; Gauguin’s “The Seed of the Areoi,” which was inspired by the artist’s trips to Tahiti; and realist landscapes by Edward Hopper.

William S. Paley, the media mogul who built the CBS broadcasting empire, was an important art collector and philanthropist. Paley began collecting in the 1930s and had a particular fondness for French modernist movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, and Post-Impressionism. Paley played a major role in establishing MoMA as one of the most significant institutions in the world and he fulfilled various roles at the museum including patron, trustee, president, and board chairman from 1937 until his death in 1999.

“A Taste for Modernism” will remain on view at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art through July 7.

On February 5, Sotheby’s London’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale fetched 163.5 million pounds, significantly more than its pre-sale estimate of 128.4 million pounds. Out of the 89 lots offered, 10 failed to find buyers.

The highlight of the sale was Camille Pissarro’s ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps,’ a street scene that sold for a record 19.9 million pounds, nearly five times the previous record for the Impressionist master at auction. The painting, which is widely considered to be one of the most important Impressionist works to appear at auction in the last decade, was originally owned by the Jewish industrialist, Max Silberberg. During World War II, the Nazis forced Silberberg, who perished in a concentration camp, to get rid of his entire collection of 19th and 20th century artworks. ‘Boulevard Montmartre, Matinee de Printemps’ was restituted to Silberberg’s family in 2000.

The auction also saw the highest price for a Vincent Van Gogh painting offered at auction in London when ‘L’Homme est en mer’ sold for 16.9 million pounds. Other highlights included a print by Pablo Picasso titled ‘Composition au Minotaure,’ which sold for a record 10.4 million pounds and a work on paper by Alberto Giacometti titled ‘Homme Traversant une Place par un Matin de Soleil,’ which achieved a record 8.5 million pounds.

Two weeks of London sales kicked off on February 4 at Christie’s where works by Picasso, Rene Magritte and Juan Gris helped an auction reach 177 million pounds, a record for a sale in London. During the sale, Gris’ still-life ‘Nature Morte a la Nappe a Carreaux’ sold for 34.8 million pounds, a world record for the Spanish artist at auction.

Next month, Sotheby’s London will sell approximately 120 works from the collection of the late Jan Krugier, a preeminent dealer of 20th century art. Krugier, who passed away in 2008, sold works for Pablo Picasso’s family and was close friends with the artist. He operated galleries in Geneva and New York and was a powerful presence at art fairs such as TEFAF Maastricht and Art Basel.

37 works will be sold during an evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on February 5 and the remainder of the collection will be offered during the day sale on February 6. Most of the collection is comprised of works on paper and include pieces by Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso. Sotheby’s expects the entire collection to garner between $39 million and $57 million. The most expensive work to be offered is Alberto Giacometti’s cast bronze ‘L’homme qui marche III’, which is expected to fetch between $5 million and $8 million.

Last November, Christie’s New York held a highly anticipated sale of works from Krugier’s collection but the auction failed to meet expectations.

Christie’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art on November 5 failed to reach its low estimate of $188.8 million despite strong interest from buyers in the middle market. The 46-lot sale ended up fetching $144.3 million with the top lot being a portrait by Alberto Giacometti of his brother Diego. The painting sold to an anonymous buyer for $32.65 million, just past its low estimate of $30 million; Christie’s said that the price was a world record for the artist in that medium.

A number of lots were withheld from the sale after bidding fell short, including works by Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani. Brooke Lampley, head of Impressionist and Modern art at Christie’s, said, “We believed in the pictures. We didn’t find the bid in the room tonight but I’m sure we’ll either be receiving good after sale interest of you’ll see them in the future sale venue.”

On Tuesday, November 12, Christie’s will hold its highly anticipated sale of post-war and contemporary art in New York.

On November 6, Sotheby’s held an evening sale of Impressionist and modern art in New York, which realized a shocking $290 million. It was the auction house’s most successful sale behind a May 2012 auction, which included a version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream that sold for a record $120 million.

 The sale, which surpassed its low estimate of $212.9 million but fell short of its $307.9 million high estimate, included new world auction records for six artists. Highlights included Alberto Giacometti’s Grande tete mince (Grande tete de Diego), the evening’s top lot, which achieved $50 million; Pablo Picasso’s portrait of Marie-Therese Walter, Tete de feme, which garnered nearly $40 million, exceeding its high estimate of 30 million; and Claude Monet’s Impressionist masterpiece Glacons, effet blanc, which sailed past its high estimate of $14 million and sold for approximately $16 million.

Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department, said, “Tonight’s results speak for themselves and today’s efficient marketplace – collectors have a remarkable understanding not only of quality, but also of value. The key is matching their discerning taste with the right combination of fresh material and responsible estimates, and we did that this evening.”

A cast of Alberto Giacometti’s seminal Grande tête de Diego is expected to garner between $30 million and $50 million at Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art in New York on November 6, 2013. The work is part of a series of groundbreaking sculptures by Giacometti that personified the Existentialist movement during the Cold War. Grande tête de Diego, which was conceived in 1954 and cast in bronze a year later, will go on view in New York on November 1, 2013.

Simon Shaw, head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department in New York, said, “Of all his representations of the human figure, Grande tête de Diego is perhaps Giacometti’s most radical, visually engaging and emotionally impactful.” While Giacometti’s record at auction is $103.9 million, the world record for any piece of sculpture at auction, the most recent cast of Grande tête de Diego sold for $53.3 million at Christie’s in 2010.

Giacometti’s younger brother served as the model for Grande tête de Diego, which was made following the period that saw the creation of the artist’s recognizable, elongated figures. Giacometti’s works from the 1950s tend to be more solid, often executed with the matiére pétrie, or kneading method, which lent a more expressive quality to the figures.