ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World
News Feed Search
Georgia O'Keeffe: Early work exceeds estimate; abstracts in museum show
Washington Post / February 4th, 2010
A rare avocado still-life painting by Georgia O'Keeffe, hidden away for decades in a private Cape Cod collection, sold at a Skinner's auction last week for $225,150, with fees. "Alligator Pear in White Dish," painted in 1921, was estimated by the Boston firm at $100,000 to $150,000. A traveling ...
Spring blooms in Japanese exhibitions
Japan Times / February 4th, 2010
Two timely exhibitions at Tokyo institutions are bringing together paintings, objects and fabric works that illustrate the importance of the seasons in Japanese aesthetics, with a focus on the period between New Year's and cherry blossom viewing (hanami) in late March and early April. One show ...
Chinese TV shows popularize antiques
New York Times / February 4th, 2010
Some four decades after the Cultural Revolution rejected old culture, an attitude adjustment towards Chinese historical objects has caused a sea change toward collecting antiques. Wildly popular antiques reality shows are captivating audiences with high drama. On "Collection World," a guest ...
Pop artist Koons chosen to decorate next BMW Art Car
Wired / February 3rd, 2010
Since 1975 BMW has occasionally invited artists to use its cars as canvases. The result has been some striking vehicles, like the M1 Group 4 racer (shown here) that Andy Warhol painted in 1979. The list of renowned artists to paint BMWs also includes Alexander Calder (who did the first Art Car), ...
In Paris, twentieth-century antiques rise on rue de Lille
France Today / February 3rd, 2010
Thirty years ago, the French considered collecting even 19th-century antiques to be avant-garde. But in this new 21st century, Parisian taste has whizzed fast forward. In the antiquaire stronghold of the Carré Rive Gauche, the rue de Lille has metamorphosed into Modernist Row. A stroll reveals ...
Giacometti sets world record price for art at auction
Guardian / February 3rd, 2010
A sculpture of a grimly determined walking man by 20th century Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti broke records by becoming the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction when it was bought for £65m. The price, achieved at Sotheby's in London, was five times more than its estimate of £12m-18m, ...
Tiffany art pottery vase with great glaze, rare form surges to $50K
Auction Central news / February 3rd, 2010
Rago Arts and Auction Center's 20th Century Design Weekend, Jan. 16-17, totaled $3.28 million with buyer's premium. A highlight of the 2-day auction was a rare Louis Comfort Tiffany cabbage-shaped vase in mottled polychrome matte glaze which more than doubled the high estimate. Garnering $50,020, ...
LACMA publishes archived exhibition catalogs online
Unbeige - Mediabistro / February 3rd, 2010
Last week, Los Angeles County Museum of Art launched a new "Reading Room" Web feature, which includes complete scans of 10 of their art catalogs, with heavy emphasis on the 1960s. Start looking at one and you'll get hooked almost immediately, particularly the New York School catalog. The museum ...
New bidders strengthen London auction
Bloomberg / February 2nd, 2010
A rarely-seen Pablo Picasso portrait fetched 8.1 million pounds ($12.9 million), twice the presale top estimate, in London last night as telephone bidding from Russian buyers boosted the market for 20th-century European art. Christie’s International raised 76.8 million pounds as it sold 69 of ...
Dumpster-diving at the Winter Antiques Show
Antiques & the Arts / February 2nd, 2010
A twilight landscape by Jasper Francis Cropsey came with a metal tag bearing the artist's name and two crosses, an element adding to the painting's value and authenticity. When Alex and Laurel Acevedo of Alexander Gallery went to set up their show booth, the metal tag, waiting to ...
Lockwood De Forest landscapes embody quietude
Sullivan Goss - SGTV / February 2nd, 2010
Ethereal landscapes and nocturnes painted en plein air by Lockwood De Forest (American, 1850-1932) are the subject of a Sullivan Goss Gallery exhibition of works from the artist's estate. A noted interior designer with an Orientalist style, who collaborated with William Comfort Tiffany, De Forest ...
Highlights: American International Fine Art Fair
ARTFIXdaily / February 1st, 2010
The second year of David Lester's glamorous, revamped American International Fine Art Fair (AIFAF), from February 3-8, 2010, takes place at the Palm Beach County Convention Center. Now considered the “crown jewel” of American art fairs, AIFAF is the only American art and antiques fair rated 5 ...
Hong Kong auction of stamps tallies $HK57 million
BusinessWeek / February 1st, 2010
A rare Chinese stamp from 1897 sold for HK$4.8 million ($617,959, exlcuding 15% fees) to an Asian bidder, setting a record price for a single Chinese stamp at auction. The “Small One Dollar” is one of only 32 recorded copies featuring a one-dollar overprint on a stamp with a face value of three ...
Chinese may be the next big buyers of Impressionists
Wall Street Journal / February 1st, 2010
Experts say Chinese collectors may emerge as the latest power players to bid up Western icons they once ignored. Until recently, Asians have fixated on collecting their own cultural heritage. Now, with a new season of major Impressionist and Modern art auctions just begun, an influx of collectors ...
Computer maker CEO Dell buys $100 million photo archive
Bloomberg / February 1st, 2010
Billionaire Michael Dell’s investment firm, MSD Capital LP, has acquired about 185,000 vintage photographic prints from the Magnum Photos agency in what is thought to be among the largest photo transactions in history. While no price was disclosed, the collection has been insured for ...
Art financier gets into auction guarantees
Wall Street Journal / January 31st, 2010
Asher Edelman, the former corporate raider who helped inspire the character of Gordon "Greed is Good" Gekko in the 1987 film "Wall Street," has taken up a new position: art financier. Going beyond art lending, he says he intends to guarantee artworks bound for auction, even lower priced works. ...
California modernism as seen by Leland Lee
Palm Springs Life / January 31st, 2010
Chinese-American photographer Leland Y. Lee carefully framed images of celebrated 20th century architecture. In fact, some of his pictures are worthy of Lee’s former employer, the late Julius Shulman, the renowned architectural photographer who died last July. This month, at age 91, Lee ...
A personal look at an artist's super-stardom
Variety / January 31st, 2010
Reviewed at Sundance, the new documentary "Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child," is a tender ode from one friend to another, but it's also another wheel in the hype machine that persists around the late, famed painter who blew apart the art scene in the 1980s. That it is both at the same time ...
Reincarnating Diamond: Wittelsbach-Graff on view in D.C.
Irish Times / January 31st, 2010
The first obituary of 2010 in Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine newspaper was headlined “The Elimination of Eternity”. The reference was to “Wittelsbach Blue”, an azure 35-carat diamond that once graced the crown of the Bavarian royal family. After paying a record €19 million at auction for it, ...
'Leonardo-like' portrait triples high estimate
New York Times / January 28th, 2010
The portrait of a woman made famous because it is not by Leonardo da Vinci sold at Sotheby’s on Thursday for $1.5 million. That price, which included the auction house’s fees, was triple the high estimate of $500,000. “Portrait of a Woman, Called ‘La Belle Ferronnière’ ” has been the subject ...