ARTFIXdaily News Feed - Breaking News from the Art World

Biennale to present next generation of French art dealers

ArtfixDaily / June 8th, 2010

A new exhibition space to showcase 25 emerging galleries will be introduced at France's 25th Biennale this fall. The prestigious art and antiques show, featuring 80 established art dealers and 7 leading jewellers, takes place September 15 to 22, under the dome of the Grand Palais in Paris. ...

Tate Modern going global with acquisitions

ArtfixDaily / May 25th, 2010

A decade after its inception, Tate Modern has displayed some 880 new acquisitions, both gifts and purchases. In a press release, Britain's bastion of modern and contemporary art states that it will continue to aggressively pursue new artworks from regions other than Europe and North America. ...

Ravi Varma: art as enterprise in colonial India

The Hindu / May 9th, 2010

Ravi Varma's rise on the Indian art scene was meteoric. From the end of the 1870s until his death in 1906, at the age of 58, he was the best known and most sought after painter in India. But his fall from grace was as dramatic as his rise. Rupika Chawla's new book Raja Ravi Varma: Painter of ...

Chinese Imperial jade elephants may stack up to $3 million

Bloomberg / May 5th, 2010

Chinese collectors are expected to bid as much as 2 million pounds ($3.03 million) for a pair of 18th-century green jade elephants which originally adorned a throne room of the Emperor Qianlong. The pair is being offered by the British auction house Woolley & Wallis on May 19 with an ...

Bid-less Indonesian auction folds

BBC / May 5th, 2010

No bidders registered for an Indonesian auction of more than 270,000 treasures recovered from a 10th-century Chinese shipwreck. A $16 million deposit was required of bidders. The sale was only announced one week ago. The auction included mostly ceramics as well as some delicate jewel-studded ...

A-list office art in Iowa exhibition

Des Moines Register / May 3rd, 2010

Since the 1960s, the John Deere Company has decked out their Eero Saarinen-designed headquarters in Moline, Ill., with works by international A-listers such as Henri Toulouse-Lautrec, Marc Chagall and the Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz. Their focus expanded to include a wide swath of ...

Clars' browse-worthy May auction

Auction Central News / April 29th, 2010

Bolstered by four big estates, Clars' May 15-16 auction includes some important 17th and 18th century furnishings and a fine selection of art from Old Masters to contemporary artists. Asian art and jewelry round out the Oakland, Calif. firm's sale. Top-notch Western artists represented ...

Dubai auction sets highest price for Arab art

Maktoob / April 28th, 2010

An Egyptian painting from 1934 became the most expensive work by an Arab artist on Tuesday, selling for $2.43 million at a Christie's auction in Dubai. “Les Chadoufs” by Mahmoud Said shows a woman in a veil carrying water and two men and donkey drawing water from a well. The pre-sale estiamte ...

When art museums become a brand

The Atlantic / April 27th, 2010

Mega-cafes and gift shops. Massive new spaces. Brand building and franchising. Kyle Chayka writes in The Atlantic, "Are Fine Art Museums the Next Starbucks?" "Institutions as diverse as New York's Whitney and Museum of Modern Art, DC's Corcoran and National Gallery and Philadelphia's Barnes ...

'BRIC' auction: Russia leads, China dominates in numbers

Telegraph / April 26th, 2010

A painting by the Russian artist Erik Bulatov fetched 713,250 pounds, snagging top lot position in a £7.2  million sale held by Phillips de Pury & Co at the Saatchi Gallery last weekend in London. Sheer weight of numbers saw China prevail over Brazil, Russia and India in the inaugral ...

Kirman catapults to record $9.5 million

The Economist / April 21st, 2010

Frenchwoman Martine Marie-Pol (1870-1939), Comtesse de Béhague, a noted collector of antiquities and Islamic art, once owned an exquisite Kirman rug. The rare rug descended in her family, returned to the market in the 1980s, and was consigned by a dealer to a Christie's Islamic and Indian sale ...

Country house sale: Givenchy gowns to sporting art

Luxist / April 21st, 2010

The contents of billionaire Patricia Kluge's Albemarle House, a lavish take on high-style country living in the English tradition, will be auctioned by Sotheby's on June 8 and 9. The grand 45-room estate in Albermarle County, Va., will be open May 31 for buyers of the auction catalog to preview ...

So-called Man with a Golden Gavel is banking on BRIC

Guardian / April 20th, 2010

Auctioneer Simon de Pury tells the Guardian, "I don't think the market is as jittery as you suggest." He cites rapid-fire bidding at last week's Phillips de Pury auction of 318 works from the estate of Nina Abrams, late wife of publisher Harry N Abrams. The collection fetched $6 million, twice ...

LACMA committee steps up for new acquisitions

LA Times / April 19th, 2010

More than six dozen couples helped raise $1.8 million for new acquistions to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collections over the weekend. The Annual Collectors Committee Weekend has been likenend to an "American Idol" competition with several curators taking stage to passionately promote ...

Peony blossom paintings rich in symbolism

Korea Times / April 12th, 2010

A massive, 10-panel Korean screen, probably late 18th-century, is rare for its continuously painted band of peonies in full bloom. The screen is part of an exhibition at the National Museum of Korea on now through June 20. The exhibition also features nine other peony-patterned paintings from ...

Crusader sword, "Lockheed Lounge" coming to auction

Financial Times / April 11th, 2010

Islamic art is on the block in a series of London auctions this week. Among the highlights, Christie's is offering a circa-1400 Crusader sword with an estimate of £150,000-£200,000. FT writer Georgina Adam also notes that the financial troubles of CNET founder Halsey Minor has pushed to market ...

Six museum (re)openings keep art fresh this Spring

MSNBC / April 6th, 2010

New or newly expanded museums around the country this spring will showcase everything from Tiffany lamps to Wyeth paintings, as well as some cutting-edge new architecture to house it all. “Wyeth: An American Legacy, Treasures from the Farnsworth Art Museum” and Japanese woodblock prints are on ...

Blue-chip Chinese contemporary art returns to red-hot

New York Times / April 6th, 2010

Asian art sales surged in Hong Kong early this week. Sotheby's sale of contemporary Asian art brought $18.7 million with Liu Ye's (b. 1964) "Bright Road" fetching $2.45 million, an artist record and nearly three times the estimate. With rising real estate prices in Hong Kong and mainland China, ...

Balinese painting soars to record $3.3 million

Bloomberg / April 5th, 2010

A 1960s oil painting of Balinese villagers by Indonesia’s Lee Man Fong fetched a record HK$25.3 million ($3.3 million) at Sotheby's in Hong Kong. The 2-meter-long “Bali Life,” depicting a rustic scene of the islanders at rest, became the most expensive Southeast Asian artwork at auction. Prices ...

Hottest museum shows of 2009

The Art Newspaper / April 3rd, 2010

The Art Newspaper has listed the 30 most visited museum exhibitions worldwide for the 2008- 2009 season. Topping the list are four blockbusters at Japanese museums. Shows on twentieth-century masters ranked high including Kandinsky at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and Joan Miró at MoMA in New ...