ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World
News Feed Search
Dealers shift with the market
New York Times / December 3rd, 2009
Leading purveyors of 20th century decorative arts, Two Zero C Applied Art and Historical Design, are selling off inventory this week in separate auctions while Art Nouveau specialists Jason Jacques and Lillian Nassau are adding mid-to-late 20th century collections to their galleries. Paintings ...
Paris auction house raided, 12 detained
AP / December 3rd, 2009
In Paris on Wednesday, while major museums are closed due to strikes, French police raided auction house Hotel Druout. Twelve people, including an auctioneer, were detained after police found a stolen Courbet painting worth euro900,000 ($1.3 million) at a Hotel Druout employee's house. Courbet's ...
George Washington letter may overthrow price record
Reuters / December 2nd, 2009
A signed four-page letter from George Washington to his nephew is expected to break sales records in one of two manuscript auctions at Christie's in New York on Dec. 4. The letter, in which Washington shared his firm support for the ratification of the American Constitution, could fetch up to ...
'Master of Shadows' reveals Rubens' secret life
Los Angeles Times / December 2nd, 2009
It's hard to imagine an artist more thoroughly out of fashion than the great 17th century Flemish master Peter Paul Rubens. His paintings' classical references, overheated religious drama, and High Baroque style are often lost on today's viewers. A contemporary woman described as "Rubenesque" ...
At the Frick, scholars pursue the study of art collectors
The New York Observer / December 1st, 2009
Inge Reist is director of the two-year-old Center for the History of Collecting in America at the Frick's Art Refernce Library—essentially it's a think tank. Research is focused on the history of art collecting and patronage. According to Ms. Reist, the material conditions under which art was ...
Steady sales buoy Boston art show
Antiques and the Arts / December 1st, 2009
With the American Art Fair now in full swing at New York's National Academy, those with high hopes for an American art market recovery may take note of buyers' preferences at the Boston International Fine Art Show in mid-November. A sampling of collectors' picks: Vose Galleries parted with an ...
At Auction: Many Wyeths, pretty Potthast, sultry Sargent, and a great Hassam
Bloomberg / December 1st, 2009
On the heels of a major Wyeth exhibition at Kansas City's Kemper Museum, Christie's and Sotheby's in New York are offering twenty-two works by N.C. Wyeth, his son Andrew and grandson Jamie, with a combined high estimate of $12.6 million. Sotheby's also has Childe Hassam's exquisite "The White ...
Vivid pink diamond, Fabergé hammered to new heights
Telegraph / December 1st, 2009
A Graff ring with a bubblegum pink diamond sold for a record HK$83.5 million ($10.8 million) at a successful Christie's Hong Kong auction fueled by Chinese buying. The potentially flawless stone broke the per-carat record for a diamond. While on the other side of the globe, a re-discovered trove ...
First-edition Anne of Green Gables expected to set auction record
Canada.com / December 1st, 2009
"One of the most sought-after children's books" for North American bibliophiles — a first edition copy of Anne of Green Gables — is to be sold at auction in New York next week. The widely-loved classic novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery, first printed in April 1908, is expected to ...
Art history books of the year
Telegraph / December 1st, 2009
Among the Telegraph's picks is the extraordinary "Vincent van Gogh: the Letters: the Complete, Illustrated and Annotated Edition" (www.vangoghletters.org), the inspiring product of 15 years’ research, and Martin Gayford’s "Constable in Love," a romantic account of the muse behind the ...
Tiny treasure takes in a surprise £228,000
Daily Mail / November 30th, 2009
A vase valued at just £375 broke an auction house record when it sold for a staggering £228,000 at the Welsh auction house Byrne's. The anonymous consignor said the tiny vase had been in her family for generations, and nobody thought it was of any value. But a London dealer buying on behalf of a ...
He changed the way we look at US
Boston Globe / November 30th, 2009
Robert Frank’s “The Americans’’ certainly is a book, one that consists of 83 photographs taken during 1955 and 1956. It is also one of the defining documents of American culture, bearing witness to a larger, stranger, more mythic America than anyone had ever previously presented. The National ...
Bidders battle hard for Chinese paintings
Bloomberg / November 30th, 2009
Christie's Asian art sales in Hong Kong sent records tumbling. One reason is the new buying power of Mainland Chinese such as Shanghai-based Wang Wei, who has spent more than 1 billion yuan ($146 million) this year with her stock-investor husband, Liu Yiqian. The couple paid HK$7.2 million for a ...
V&A reveals $53 million medieval, renaissance gallery
Times Online / November 30th, 2009
It has been a massive undertaking. An entire wing of the Victoria and Albert Museum has been requisitioned. A suite of ten galleries has been completely overhauled. More than £30 million has been spent. But now, at last, the new Medieval and Renaissance Galleries, with 2,000 objects that ...
Canadian art busts auction records
Vancouver Sun / November 29th, 2009
Lawren Harris's "sketch" painting "The Old Stump, Lake Superior" sold for $3.51 million Thursday at the Heffel auction in Toronto, making it the second most valuable painting ever sold at auction in Canada. The sale overall realized $20,773,642.50, the second highest-grossing Canadian art ...
Vivid pink diamond may rock Hong Kong
New Tang Dynasty Television / November 29th, 2009
On the heels of record-breaking auctions of colored diamonds in Geneva this November, a rare, 5-carat pink diamond to be auctioned by Christie's in Hong Kong on December 1 is expected to fetch between $5-$7 million, near world record prices. The stone's "vivid pink" is considered near ...
Norman Rockwell's photographers paint a mixed picture
NPR 1 / November 29th, 2009
Artist-illustrator Norman Rockwell's rosy America and literalist technique might polarize opinions, but there's no denying the permanence and influence of his vision. Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, a new book with a companion exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, shows ...
Rembrandts, real and fake, at Getty Museum exhibit
LA Times Arts / November 29th, 2009
Hundreds of paintings formerly attributed to the 17th century Dutch master have been demoted in the course of a massive research project funded by the Dutch government and investigations by specialists around the world. And the work goes on. This three-decade, international ...
Chinese scroll painting sells for record $24 million
Reuters / November 25th, 2009
A rare, classical scroll by a Ming dynasty artist fetched $24.8 million at a Beijing sale, the highest price ever paid for a Chinese painting at auction, in a positive sign for the downturn-stricken Chinese art market. "Eighteen Arhats" by 16th century Ming dynasty painter Wu Bin, was sold to ...
Kemper's Wyeth family reunion spans three generations
The Pitch Kansas City / November 25th, 2009
In N.C. Wyeth's "Octave Plunged," a man fights a raging current, viewed from below the falls over which his hewn raft is about to plummet. He's a lone traveler pitched heroically against the elements. The painting leads the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art's exhibition Wyeth: Three Generations ...