ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

New York art fairs this weekend

New York Times / March 4th, 2010

The ADAA's Art Show, the Armory Show, and all the peripheral fairs are in full swing. Milton Avery's Wild Moon and Sea (1961) is one stand-out from Knoedler & Company at the Art Show. Click to view more highlights in a photo gallery compiled by the New York ...

Defunct museum sued for trying to sell Ansel Adams collection

associated press / March 4th, 2010

The son of famed photographer Ansel Adams is suing California's Fresno Metropolitan Museum to keep the bankrupt museum from selling six works by his father. He says the sale would violate a donation agreement. Museum officials have been talking to various auction houses about selling ...

U.S. returns stolen Peter the Great pendant to Russia

Seattle Times / March 4th, 2010

U.S. authorities seized a silver medallion with an engraved image of Peter the Great from a Seattle antiques dealer for repatriation to Russia. The piece had been stolen from the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg in 2006. Later, it was sold online. In 2007, a Hermitage curator's ...

Imperial Chinese vase soars to €110,000 at Irish country auction

Daily Mail / March 4th, 2010

A Chinese vase sold for 1,000 times its estimate of £130 at Sheppards Irish Auction House. The stunned audience saw the piece hammered down for a staggering €110,000 (£99,990) after an intense bidding war between a dealer and collector who had flown in for the sale. The 12-inch blue and white ...

Bernard Goldberg to close Madison Ave. gallery

Bloomberg / March 3rd, 2010

The successful hotelier and art collector who became a dealer in 20th-century American art, Bernard Goldberg, 77, is exiting the business. His New York gallery's inventory of 175 artworks and furnishings, estimated at up to $10 million, will head to Christie's to be auctioned in several upcoming ...

Phaidon's shunga book may not be for the coffee table

Luxist / March 3rd, 2010

Hokusai, Utamaro, and Kuniyoshi are among the most well-known names sought by collectors of traditional Japanese art of the 17th to early 20th centuries. Woodblock prints of the ukiyo-e period are highly-prized for scenes such as a gentle snowfall around a temple. The same artists depicted much ...

Court hears about solicitor's role in Leonardo heist

Times Online / March 3rd, 2010

A solicitor is on trial in Edinburgh for offering to help return a stolen Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece in exchange for a reward. Marshall Ronald, 53, denies being part of a plot to extort £4.25 million from a Scottish duke. Ronald had sent a letter to a London loss adjuster claiming that he was ...

School offers no guarantees on auctioned art

NJ.com / March 3rd, 2010

A landscape listed as the work of 19th c. American artist William Mason Brown was bought at a school fundraising auction by a New Jersey man in 2001. The catalog gave the 25-by-30-inch framed painting an estimate $18,000 to $25,000. He paid $16,000. Fast forward to 2009, the man takes the ...

The best of the best lures collectors to Maastricht

Financial Times / March 2nd, 2010

From a newly discovered “Winter Landscape with Skaters” (1611) by Adam van Breen – one of the earliest winter landscapes by any Dutch painter - offered by exhibitor John Mitchell, to a stunning Cycladic marble head from 2500-2400BC from dealer Rupert Wace, word is getting out about the treasures ...

Art dealer Ernst Beyeler passes away at 88

Mediabistro / March 2nd, 2010

Swiss art dealer turned collector Ernst Beyeler died last Thursday at his home in Basel. His career began at an antiquarian book and print shop, but really launched with some saavy purchases (ie., Klees, Giacomettis) from steel magnate David Thompson.  In 1997, Beyeler and his wife put ...

Keno Bros. to unveil new furniture line

Luxist / March 2nd, 2010

With their celebrity cache garnered from appearing on "Antiques Roadshow," American furntiure specialists Leigh and Leslie Keno are lending their names and expertise to a partnership with furniture maker Theodore Alexander. Their new line of antiques-inspired home furnishings will include 40 ...

For buying modern masters and emerging talents, Armory Week is on

Bloomberg / March 2nd, 2010

New York's big week of 12 modern and contemporary art fairs and various events is buzzing with talk of pop artist Jeff Koons' curatorial picks from the collection of Greek tycoon Dakis Joannou. On view at the New Museum are 100 works in "Skin Fruit," including, of course, a Koons. At the Art ...

Munch exhibit sans "The Scream" is missing a link

Bloomberg / March 1st, 2010

"...I was almost mad…You know my picture 'The Scream'...," Munch wrote of his seminal work, a stirring representation of modern man's anxiety. "The Scream" is one of the world's most widely recognized works of art, integral to the artist's "Frieze of Life" series. It's not part of a new ...

"American Moderns on Paper" puts tucked-away treasures in full view

Star-Telegram / March 1st, 2010

Texas is in for a treat. About 100 works on paper by American masters from Georgia O'Keeffe to Andrew Wyeth---many rarely exhibited because of their delicate, light-sensitive constitutions---will be on view through May 30 at Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum in a special loan exhibition from ...

Peter Stuyvesant collection to be auctioned in Amsterdam

NRC / March 1st, 2010

In the 1960s, a cigarette factory in The Netherlands was adorned with contemporary art, mostly big and colorful abstract paintings, in an effort to inspire productivity among the workers. On March 8, 163 masterpieces from this coveted corporate collection will be on the auction block in ...

Showdown of Western art auctions on the horizon

Great Falls Tribune / March 1st, 2010

Since 1969, the Great Falls Ad Club's annual Russell Auction has raised about $5.6 million for the C.M. Russell Museum, founded in honor of the great Western painter, in Montana. A controversial split with the Ad Club was orchestrated recently in an attempt to raise more funds ...

British antiques dealers confident about upcoming London show season

Financial Times / February 28th, 2010

Operating below the billionaire-level of masterpiece buying is the traditional antique business which relies on venues such as the upcoming British Antiques Dealers Assoc. annual fair in Chelsea to showcase fresh goods. With the loss of the Grosvenor House fair, BADA, set for March 17 to ...

Lily Safra named as Giacometti buyer

Bloomberg / February 28th, 2010

Dealers say that London-based billionaire Lily Safra was the purchaser of the record-breaking Alberto Giacometti sculpture "Walking Man I" last month at Sotheby's for 65 million pounds ($104.3 million), the world record auction price for any piece of art. Bloomberg quotes Philip Hoffman, chief ...

U.K. puts export ban on Raphael drawing

Times Online / February 28th, 2010

A Raphael drawing that fetched £29 million, a world record price for an Old Master drawing at auction, has been barred from export by Britain's Culture Minister. A committee determined the work is of outstanding aesthetic merit. The temporary ban will allow time to try to ...

A mysterious heiress, her legacy unknown

MSNBC / February 28th, 2010

She grew up with a Rodin and Rubens in the home. Now, Huguette Clark, at 103 years old, owns a $100+ million Santa Barbara oceanfront mansion which has been unoccupied since 1963. Her 52-acre New Canaan estate and a 15,000-sq.-ft. Fifth Avenue apartment are empty, ...