ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World
News Feed Search
Basquiat bombs, Koons blooms at a $74.2 million Christie's sale
Bloomberg / November 11th, 2009
Price-savvy bidders sent Jeff Koons’ 1991 wooden sculpture titled “Large Vase of Flowers,” to a strong $5.7 million, within its presale estimate. The Christie's consignor was art publisher Benedikt Taschen, who paid $999,322 for the work in 2000. While magazine mogul Peter Brant's 16-foot-wide ...
Getty embarks on five-year King Tut project
LA Times Arts / November 10th, 2009
Tutankhamen's tomb is under new management, thanks to a partnership between the Getty Conservation Institute and Egypt. The tomb of Tutankhamen is one of the most popular attractions in Egypt. The new project will determine how to safeguard the site's treasures and slow the rate of deterioration. ...
"Ed Moses: Processed Art" Shows Evolution of Pure Spontaneity
Santa Barbara Independent / November 10th, 2009
Ed Moses is considered one of the founding fathers of the Los Angeles contemporary art scene. The dynamic, diverse collection of paintings on display at Ventura, California's Sylvia White Gallery is a testament to Moses’s place in art history. His large-scale works are simultaneously reminiscent ...
More of Madoff to be auctioned on Sat.
USA Today / November 10th, 2009
Just in time for the holiday season comes the gift-shopping list from the man who used to have everything –Bernard Madoff– courtesy of the U.S. Marshals Service. In the continuing effort to raise money for victims of Madoff's Ponzi scheme, an auction of jewelry and other items formerly owned by ...
German museum founder, mistress settle $48 million suit over Hirsts
Bloomberg / November 10th, 2009
Udo Fritz-Hermann Brandhorst, an heir to Germany’s Henkel AG & Co. fortune and a major art collector, avoided a public court case in New York by settling a lawsuit filed by his former mistress involving two Damien Hirst sculptures and a custody dispute. Venetia Kapernekas, a 49-year-old New ...
Exposing "The English Country House"
Luxist / November 9th, 2009
A stunning new book, The English Country House, by Mary Miers from Rizzoli is sourced from Country Life magazine's incredible archives. More than 400 images, mostly in color, highlight 62 houses encompassing a range of architectural styles spanning seven centuries beginning with the medieval ...
Painting over history on the Berlin Wall
CBS / November 9th, 2009
The 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is this week. Part of the celebration has been the restoration of 105 wall paintings on this literal symbol of the Iron Curtain. The same 118 artists from 21 countries who created the paintings in 1990 will repaint their pictures in the world's ...
Photography's debt to Caravaggio
Guardian / November 9th, 2009
Caravaggio experimented with lighting effects in his paintings and used models from the street - two centuries before the great photographic pioneers. Whether it's in Cartier-Bresson's immediacy or Bill Brandt's sepulchral shadows, you catch hints of Caravaggio's intensely lit and passionately ...
Online auction site launches for rich and famous
Reuters / November 9th, 2009
Millionaires down on their luck now have an exclusive place to sell their Italian castles, diamond chess sets, and super-yachts. An Internet auction site devoted to the super-wealthy launched officially Monday. BillionaireXchange said it has already played a role in the sale or exchange of more ...
Oxford's revamped Ashmolean can now "do drama"
Reuters / November 6th, 2009
T.E. Lawrence's Arab dress, an entire Japanese tea house and the best Aegean history collection outside Greece are now star exhibits at Britain's oldest public museum. The Ashmolean has re-opened after a multimillion pound renovation. The 39 new galleries, including four temporary exhibition ...
Parrish's landscape show is a tranquil respite
New York Times / November 8th, 2009
Before Long Island's Parrish Art Museum breaks ground on a 37,300-sq.-ft. expansion early next year, a must-see show, “American Landscapes: Treasures From the Parrish Art Museum,” displays some 50 paintings, about half by artists who lived or worked on Long Island. From Asher B. Durand to April ...
Sotheby's posts buzz-killing 3Q results
Blogging Stocks / November 8th, 2009
On the heels of a fantastic $181.8 million sale of Impressionist and modern art, where collectors lapped up Renoirs, Picassos, and Giacometti, Sotheby's posted a sobering net loss of $57.8 million (89 cents a share). This is worse than the $47 million loss (73 cents a share) it delivered a year ...
Judith Miller's Chairs
San Francisco Chronicle / November 8th, 2009
Internationally renowned antiques and collectibles expert Judith Miller is a chair addict. Miller's new book, "Chairs," gives her a chance to share her passion and celebrate 100 of her favorite chairs (out of a collection of 450) - from early antiques like the 1680 Windsor chair to a modern-day ...
Stolen painting creates buzz at National Gallery Ireland
Irish Indepedent / November 5th, 2009
A famous Irish painting whose location remained a mystery for 17 years after it was stolen in an audacious art heist was unveiled to the public on Wed. Jack Yeats' (brother of the poet William Butler Yeats) 1915 painting 'Bachelor's Walk, In Memory' was brazenly taken from Dunsany Castle, a ...
White House rejects bold abstraction
New York Times / November 5th, 2009
ARTnews has reported that the White House has quietly de-listed a painting by Alma W. Thomas that it chose last month, among some 45 pieces borrowed from several Washington museums, to decorate the private White House residence and the West and East Wings. “Watusi (Hard Edge),” from 1963, ...
New bidders, high competition drive up prices at Sotheby's
New York Times / November 5th, 2009
Following the tepid Christie's sale on Tues., Sotheby's sold a surprisingly strong $181.7 million worth of art, well above its high $163 million estimate for 66 works offered; 10 failed to sell. The strength of the evening lay in the material: Publisher S.I. Newhouse's Giacometti brought $19.3 ...
London dealer Mallett plans 2010 art fair
London Evening Standard / November 5th, 2009
Bond Street antique and art dealer Mallett, also of New York, announced yesterday plans for a new art fair in Chelsea Barracks next June. "Masterpiece London" will also include wine, classic cars and jewellery. The dealer is investing up to £100,000 in the fair as part of a consortium. Even ...
Chinese collectors eagerly repatriate their art
Bloomberg / November 4th, 2009
London auction houses are selling 16 million pounds ($26 million) of Asian art this week as a record number of buyers from mainland China flock to Britain. These newly wealthy collectors are buying at the highest level. By Nov. 3, west London dealer Marchant had sold 21 of the 54 pieces of ...
Peter the Great miniature demands $1.3 million
AP / November 4th, 2009
A miniature portrait of Czar Peter the Great in a diamond-encrusted frame — owned for decades by an Arizona family that didn't realize its historic significance — has been auctioned for $1.3 million. Sotheby's says the 18th-century Russian treasure was purchased Monday by an anonymous telephone ...
Plan would preserve Hopper's Cape Cod property
Cape Cod Times 1 / November 4th, 2009
After years of controversy over the construction of a 6,500-square-foot house next door, a plan is afoot to protect the Truro, Mass., summer house that once belonged to artist Edward Hopper. Built by Hopper and his wife Josephine in 1934, the 800-sq.-ft. white Cape house is on a bluff overlooking ...