ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World
News Feed Search
Naval Flag Collection Fetches $784,500 at Auction
Washington Post / May 1st, 2012
Eleven rare and historic naval flags brought a total of $784,500 at a Freeman's auction in Philadelphia, according to reports. Banners that flew over the course of two centuries from the USS Constitution...
Estate of Artist Lucien Freud Valued at $156 Million
Reuters / April 30th, 2012
itish portrait painter Lucien Freud left 96 million pounds ($156 million) in his will. According to the Mail on Sunday newspaper, the amount is a record for an artist's estate in the UK. Freud, who died last year, bequeathed...
Recovered Hassam, Courbet at Auction
CBS / April 29th, 2012
Back on July 2, 1976, a violent home invasion robbery took place in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. The robbery netted furs, rugs, silverware—and three significant works of art. Two of those artworks, by seminal Realist artist Gustave Courbet and American Impressionist Childe Hassam, were recovered...
May Auction Sales Set to Soar or Simmer?
Forbes / April 26th, 2012
As May draws closer, media reports surrounding the first round of modern and contemporary art sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s are focusing on whether the top lots will push the auction market to new levels.
A Provenance Under Investigation
Vanity Fair / April 25th, 2012
It is going on six months since the sudden shuttering of New York's Knoedler Gallery, yet the scandal surrounding it continues to loom large, dragging other galleries into the miasma. Michael Shnayerson, contributing editor to Vanity Fair, ponders whether or not the gallery, and its former president, will ever be free of the dark cloud that was the “David Herbert Collection”...
Saint Louis Art Museum Restores an American Treasure
ArtfixDaily / April 24th, 2012
This summer, the Saint Louis Art Museum unveils "Restoring an American Treasure: The Panorama of the Monumental Grandeur of the Mississippi Valley." The second of a two-part exhibition series, this behind-the-scenes look at conservation of the 348-foot Panorama is a continuation of work begun in ...
New York Magazine's Rules for Making It in the Art World
New York Magazine / April 23rd, 2012
Decidedly in the realm of contemporary art, 100 people made New York Magazine's list of who to know in the art world, part of a feature titled "How to Make It in the Art World." Those with influence are...
Italian Museum Burns Art in Government Protest
CNN / April 22nd, 2012
An Italian museum of contemporary art is protesting government austerity measures in a drastic way: by burning their inventory. Led by director Antonio Manfredi, the Casoria Contemporary Art Museum in Naples kicked off the protest this week by setting fire to a painting by...
Bomb Threat Closes Swedish Museum During Controversial Exhibition
New York Daily News / April 18th, 2012
Tensions were running high in Stockholm, Sweden, after a bomb threat closed the city's modern art museum. On April 17, the Moderna Museet was evacuated after officers received the threat, delivered in English, and a bomb squad was dispatched to the museum. The threat came only a couple days after the opening of...
Huguette Clark's Jewels Tally $21 Million at Auction
ArtfixDaily / April 18th, 2012
Jewels belonging to the reclusive heiress Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at age 105, sold for $21 million on Tuesday. A record price was set for a pink diamond sold in the U.S.
Rediscovered Hudson River School Painting Nets Six-Figures
Antiques and the Arts / April 17th, 2012
"Fresh is best" is a dictum often applied to the auction market. A fresh-to-market work by the Hudson River School master Jasper F. Cropsey painting that had descended in a California family for 80 years created buzz at Mid-Hudson Auction Galleries in New York on March 24.
U.S. Luxury Retailers Cater to Chinese Tourists
New York Times / April 17th, 2012
Over one million Chinese tourists visited the U.S. last year, and that number is expected to double in 2014. During their visits, luxury goods are often purchased to take advantage of a tax rate a third less than China's. On average, each Chinese tourist spends $6,000 on a visit here, $2,000 more than tourists from other countries. High-end retailers, from luxury brands to antiques dealers, are responding with...
Stolen Cezanne Recovered in Serbia
New York Daily News / April 15th, 2012
It was just recently that a watercolor study by French Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne was rediscovered as part of the estate of Texas resident Dr. Heinz F. Eichenwald, a prominent collector who died in September. Now another Cézanne has come to light, this time in Serbia. The artwork, entitled “The Boy in the Red Vest," circa 1888, was one of four paintings stolen at gunpoint from...
How an Art Dealer Inspired an Icon of Modern Art
Yorkshire Post / April 11th, 2012
It's rare that an artist asks his art dealer to direct his creative output. Such was the case in 1985, when Pop artist Andy Warhol left the decision of what to create for his next exhibition in the hands of...
Titanic Auctions Mark Disaster's 100th Anniversary
ABC News / April 11th, 2012
One hundred years ago, on April 14, the supposedly unsinkable Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, resulting in one of the world's worst sea disasters. Auctions commemorating the tragedy this week offer up a poignant array of artifacts related to the ship.
Art Forger Dupes Multiple Museums, Gets an Exhibition
Live Science / April 9th, 2012
More than 100 forged artworks, copies of originals by the likes of Western artist Maynard Dixon, American artist Charles Courtney Curran, and French painter Paul Signac, have infiltrated at least 50 institutions as gifts in 20 states. In a recent twist...
Google Accelerates Art Project
Businessweek / April 8th, 2012
Google Inc. has expanded its Art Project to include more than 150 museums worldwide, among them 29 museums in 16 US cities. Recent additions to Google's virtual tours of museum collections include...
$26.7 Million Bowl Boosts Sotheby's Hong Kong Sales
Reuters / April 5th, 2012
Sotheby’s five-day Hong Kong spring auction series managed to rake in $316 million, despite tepid sales in some areas. A Song dynasty ceramic, a Ruyao bowl more than 900 years old, set an auction record at $26.7 million.
$5 Find Could Be $2 Million Andy Warhol Sketch
BBC / April 4th, 2012
A possible early Andy Warhol drawing has been discovered in an unlikely place. English businessman Andy Fields purchased a drawing by legendary art patron Gertrude Stein at a Las Vegas garage sale for the astonishingly low price of $5, a notable find in and of itself. The seller's aunt had once babysat for Andy Warhol...
At Home with Antiques: Diana and Mark Jacoby of Philip Colleck Ltd.
New York Social Diary / April 2nd, 2012
Purveyors of fine English furniture and objects, Diana and Mark Jacoby reside in a pre-Civil War period brick building on Manhattan's East 58th Street. Their personal belongings are intermingled with the inventory of Philip Colleck Ltd.