ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Records Set for Bourgeois, Fontana in $331.8 Million Christie's Sale

ArtfixDaily / November 10th, 2015

Christie's continued on its winning streak Tuesday night with a $331.8 million sale of post-war and contemporary art, just a day after it sold a Modigliani nude portrait for a record-shattering $170.4 million. While not every lot in the sale was a winner (some fell below guarantees/estimates and ...

Sale of Norman Rockwell Painting Sets Up High School's Scholarship Fund

Boston Globe / November 10th, 2015

The Massachusetts House late last week passed a bill establishing a scholarship fund, using money from the 2014 sale of a painting that Norman Rockwell donated to a Gardner, Mass., principal in the 1940s, reports the Boston Globe. “Willie Gillis in Convoy," Rockwell's World War II-era work ...

Modigliani Nude Fetches $170.4 Million, Plus More World Records at Christie's

ArtfixDaily / November 9th, 2015

Naked ladies reclining on couches and a worried-looking nurse were two subjects that resonated with the world's most deep-pocketed buyers of blue-chip art on Monday night. Works by masters Modigliani, Lichtenstein, Courbet and Balthus brought record prices for the artists at ...

New Monograph, Building Mark the Rising Seven-Decade Career of Artist Ellsworth Kelly

Guardian / November 8th, 2015

Artist Ellsworth Kelly tells the Observer of his signature works: “The abstract expressionists didn’t use colour so much, and I wanted to bring it back in some sense. What I also always say about them is that they found their picture as they made it – the process led to its shape – whereas I had ...

Lincoln Document Sells for $2.2 Million at Heritage Auction

NBC / November 5th, 2015

An autographed manuscript penned by President Lincoln just six weeks before his assassination sold for $2.2 million on Wednesday in New York City. Heritage Auctions says a bidder who wishes to remain anonymous bought the final passage of Lincoln's famed second inaugural address, paying ...

Van Gogh Goes For $54 Million, Bill Koch's Picasso Brings $67.5 Million at Sotheby's

ArtfixDaily / November 5th, 2015

A day after the Masterworks sale of the Taubman collection brought a middling $377 million, at the low end of expectations, Sotheby's hammered down $306.7 million in a more upbeat Impressionist and Modern Art sale. Of the 47 lots offered, buyers eschewed several ...

Stella Reaches Record Price in $377 Million Taubman Art Auction

ArtfixDaily / November 4th, 2015

This month's anticipated sales in New York have begun with some of the finest artworks from the Taubman collection bringing a total $377 million, on the low side of its total estimate of $374.8 million to $526.5 million, on Wednesday night at Sotheby's. Several of 77 lots in the ...

Researchers Say Two Works Attributed to Heironymus Bosch Could Be By His Followers

Agence France / November 2nd, 2015

Two seminal works attributed to Dutch medieval master Hieronymus Bosch could instead be by his followers, according to an Agence France-Presse report citing Dutch media. Cutting edge technology, including ultrahigh-resolution digital macro photography, used ...

Taubman Collection Kicks Off November's $2.1-Billion Auction Series

Bloomberg / November 1st, 2015

About $2.1 billion of art is offered for sale at the major November auctions in New York. Nearly half of that staggering sum is guaranteed--basically already sold since the auction houses (or others) will buy it at a pre-determined price if a bidder does not--making $1 billion in art already ...

Monumental Civil War-Era Paintings Surface at Auction

Winston-Salem Journal / November 1st, 2015

A 410-foot, 360-degree panoramic painting depicting the Battle of Gettysburg was purchased in the 1960s by North Carolina artist Joseph Wallace King (d. 1996). The famous 1883 cyclorama (another version is at the Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center) was bought directly by King ...

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo Reopens With More Space Two Years After Tourist Breaks Statue

ArtfixDaily / October 30th, 2015

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence, Italy, re-opened on Oct. 29, 2015, following a gallery expansion. It is the world's largest repository of Florentine medieval and Renaissance sculpture with 750 statues and about 250 artworks including masterpieces by ...

George Lucas Museum Gets Approval from Chicago City Council

CS Monitor / October 29th, 2015

Chicago City Council voted Wednesday to approve the 30,000 square foot museum planned by 'Star Wars' creator George Lucas on the city's coveted lakefront. Months of opposition have stalled the green light for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art which would house his collection of American art, ...

Sony's Crackle Premieres Auction House Drama Series in Nov.

ArtfixDaily / October 28th, 2015

Sony's Crackle streaming service will launch a new drama on Nov. 19 that explores the behind-the-scenes of a high-end auction house and it comes with a bit of gunfire. The network describes The Art of More, its first scripted series, as showing “the underbelly and surprisingly ...

Ancient Treasure-Laden Tomb Discovered in Greece

MSN / October 26th, 2015

An unknown soldier whose treasure-laden tomb lay undisturbed for some 3,500 years was unearthed by US archaeologists in Greece. Gold, silver and ivory objects and jewelry were among the finds recovered from the site of the Mycenaean-era Palace of Nestor on Greece's Peloponnese peninsula. ...

New Renault Car Design Mimics Modernist Style of Le Corbusier

MSN / October 24th, 2015

French automaker Renault has rolled out a study for its Coupe Corbusier concept inspired by the work of the famed modernist architect and designer. The private unveiling took place at Villa Savoye, outside of Paris which showcases Le Corbusier's signature minimalist lines and ...

Dutch Museum Secures Majority of Known Heironymus Bosch Works for Unprecedented Exhibition

Guardian / October 25th, 2015

To commemorate the 500th anniversary of artist Heironymus Bosch's death (1450-1516), a small Dutch museum in the city of his birth is mounting a major exhibition of his famously wild and weird work. Noordbrabants museum in  ’s-Hertogenbosch will host the anticipated show ...

San Francisco Fall Antiques Show Highlights Something Old, Something New Aesthetic

ArtfixDaily / October 22nd, 2015

Rooted in Victorian times and infused with the energy of today's tech industry, San Francisco is a place where old and new, tradition and innovation, blend seamlessly. West Coast art collectors and designers just as easily mix styles and periods, and flock ...

Appeals Court Rules for Yale to Keep Van Gogh's 'The Night Cafe'

New Haven Register / October 21st, 2015

A 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that Yale University owns Vincent van Gogh's 1888 painting "The Night Café." Pierre Konowaloff had claimed that the work was taken from his great-grandfather Ivan Morozov's collection during the 1918 Bolshevik revolution which nationalized ...

Art Swindler Luke Brugnara Gets 7 Years in Prison

Courthouse News Service / October 21st, 2015

On Tuesday in San Francisco a federal judge sentenced former commercial real estate mogul Luke Brugnara to 7 years in prison for swindling a New York art dealer. The fraud verdict comes after the June 2014 disappearance of millions of dollars worth of art delivered to Brugnara. Art ...

Renovated Westmoreland Museum of American Art Showcases Newly-Acquired Collections

ArtfixDaily / October 20th, 2015

After a two-year renovation and expansion project tied to a $38 million capital and endowment fundraising campaign, The Westmoreland Museum of American Art marks its reopening in Greensburg, Penn., this weekend with special events and the debut of exhibitions showcasing the transformational gifts ...