Arshile Gorky, Painting (1947-1948), All images are by Osman Can Yerebakan for Art Observed.

Hauser & Wirth’s first exhibition for Arshile Gorky, the seminal Armenian-American painter of Abstract Expressionism, focuses on a four-year period in his life, beginning with his stay at Crooked Run Farm in Virginia, and concluding around the time of a series of unfortunate events in 1947, a year prior to his passing. Already an established artist as a key figure in non-figurative painting during the mid 1940’s, Gorky retreated to his wife’s parents’ farm in search of creative stimuli that would augment his interest in fluid nonlinear forms and subliminal themes. His isolation from the New York art scene—a network the artist always chose to remain distant from while his peers Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning dominated the social circle—ultimately manifested itself in contemplative and personal narratives and natural colors. (more…)

Sotheby’s saleroom with Rothko, No 1 (Royal Red and Blue) photo by ArtObserved

Last night Sotheby’s held its highest grossing auction ever. The Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaled over $375 million, just over the projected high estimate of $374 million. Auctioneer Tobias Meyer rejoiced stating “I can hardly express how thrilled we are.” According to Sotheby’s, it has experienced a record-breaking year in 2012, with Contemporary Art sales totaling over $1 billion.

Rothko, No 1 (Royal Red and Blue) Courtesy Sotheby’s
(more…)

Arshile Gorky, Untitled (Study for Pastoral) 1947 via Gagosian

Arshile Gorky‘s ‘1947,’ currently on view at Gagosian‘s Madison Avenue location, operated around the recent discovery of a painting, Untitled (Pastoral), that was produced in this same year but has otherwise never before been exhibited. Hidden for sixty-four years, resting beneath Pastoral on the same stretcher, the work was only uncovered in 2010 during a reframing. Surrounding this new work, the exhibition also shows paintings and drawings drawn from the world’s collections of Gorky – most of which haven’t featured in New York shows for twenty years.

More text and images after the jump> (more…)

Andy Warhol, Coca-Cola [4] [Large Coca-Cola], 1962 (est. $20-25 million, realized $34.5 million), via Sothebys.com

Auction goers at Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale on Tuesday night were offered glass bottles of Coca-Cola before entering the saleroom in honor of the auction’s featured lot – Andy Warhol‘s Coca-Cola [4] [Large Coca-Cola]. The painting sold for $35.4 million against a high presale estimate of $25 million and was, like the Warhol for sale at Phillips Monday night, the evening’s top lot. The Sotheby’s auction was comprised of 54 lots (not including a work by Felix Gonzales-Torres, which was withdrawn) that brought in $222.5 million against presale estimates of $151.8-214.5 million. The sale had a sell through rate of 90.7% by lot and 97.1% by value with 5 of 54 lots unsold.

More after the jump…

(more…)

Lawrence Salander Appears for Sentencing, via New York Post–>

Art dealer Lawrence Salander, 61, was sentenced to 6-18 years in prison on Tuesday for defrauding clients of more than $120 million. Salander, formerly of Salander-O’Reilly Galleries, was arrested last March on charges of more than 100 counts of grand larceny and other felony offenses.  He pleaded guilty to 29 of those counts earlier this year, admitting to having engineered an elaborate series of fraudulent investment schemes over the course of more than a decade.  His offenses include selling single works of art to multiple buyers, selling shares of artwork owned outright  by other investors, and leveraging works he had already sold to secure bank loans.

Prior to closing in 2007, Salander-O’Reilly Galleries had been known for their eclectic Old Master and Modern holdings.  Their high-profile clientele included tennis champion John McEnroe and actor Robert De Niro’s late father, Robert De Niro Sr. According to the New York Times, McEnroe had acquired a 50% share of two important Arshile Gorky paintings, titled “Pirate I” and “Pirate II,” in 1994. Salander subsequently sold these paintings in their entirety to another dealer, while simultaneously listing them as security to obtain a loan from Bank of America.  In an effort to constantly expand his business and maintain an ostentatious lifestyle, Salander continued to engage in increasingly audacious personal and professional transactions.

(more…)

Gagosian Gallery, 17-19 Davies Street, London. All images via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted.

Starting February 10, Gagosian Gallery at 17-19 Davies Street, London holds the exhibition entitled “Arshile Gorky: Virginia Summer 1946″, featuring works on paper by the renowned Armenian-American artist. The exhibition at Gagosian Gallery coincides with the major retrospective at Tate Modern, London that includes 178 works by the artist and covers his entire career. The show at Gagosian focuses on the works produced by Gorky during the summer of 1946, when the artist was recovering from a cancer operation in a remote farmhouse in Virginia. Still too weak to paint, Gorky produced three hundred works on paper during that summer, fourteen of which are on display at Gagosian Gallery.

Untitled (Last Painting), Arshile Gorky, 1948

More images, text and links after the jump…
(more…)

Arshile Gorky’s “Waterfall” (1942-43). Image courtesy of the museum. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art is currently showing a retrospective of Arshile Gorky’s work. Closing in January, the exhibition includes “creative chambers” which explore thirty years of Gorky’s artistic evolution in still-life, from Cubism to Surrealism. After it closes in Philadelphia, the show will travel to Tate Modern and LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art.

Gorky’s “Water of the Mill,” courtesy of PMA. © 2009 Estate of Arshile Gorky / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

more images and story after the jump…
(more…)

‘Study for Agony I’ (1946-7) by Arshile Gorky, part of a Christie’s auction which will include works from the Kathleen and Richard Fuld collection, via Art Market Monitor

“I’ve been selling things for the past few years, but nobody cared until now,” Kathleen Fuld was reported to have said to the New York Times in an interview with Carol Vogel. Kathleen Fuld, trustee of MoMA–and wife of beleaguered Lehman Brothers’ CEO Richard Fuld–recently announced that she will be auctioning 16 works of post-war and contemporary art through Christie’s on November 12th, following a related report  (covered by AO) that Lehman may sell some or all of its 3,500-work corporate collection. The Fulds make regular appearances on ARTNews list of Top 200 collectors, and have been collecting since the 1980s, focusing mostly on drawings and studies that yield insight into the artists’ creative process. The auction will include drawings from the likes of Barnett Newman, Arshile Gorky, Willem de Kooning and Agnes Martin, and is expected to raise $15 to $20 million.

Study in Financial Agony: Lehman Chief’s Wife Hires Christie’s to Auction $20 M. Collection [New York Observer]
Fallen Tycoon to Auction Prized Works [Wall Street Journal]
Kathy Fuld, Wife of Lehman CEO, to Auction Artworks [Bloomberg]
Lehman Brothers CEO is a top art collector. For a few more minutes. [C-MONSTER]
The Russians Aren’t Coming, They’re Already Here! Lehman Chair Looks to Moscow to Sell His Art Collection [New York Observer]
Fuld Folds Paper [Art Market Monitor]
Modern Drawings Head for Auction [New York Times]

(more…)

Cubist Still Life by Arshile Gorky, one of the paintings stolen from the Los Angeles’s couples home via LA Times

An unidentified elderly couple of Enico, Los Angeles were at home preoccupied while a thief, or possible thieves, entered their home and stole an art collection worth millions of dollars. At least a dozen paintings were stolen including works by Marc Chagall, Hans Hofmann, Chaim Soutine, Arshile Gorky, Emil Nolde, Lyonel Feininger, Diego Rivera, and Kees van Dongen. Each stolen work was worth at least six figures, some of them closer to $1 million. While the theft occurred in August police waited until September to publicly announce the crime and the $200,000 reward for information leading to the return of the paintings. The couple remains unidentified by police as does the source of the reward money. It remains unclear if was a single thief, or a group. Police are also uncertain if it was a common thief-likely to pawn off the paintings immediately, or a more sophisticated thief with ties to collectors or criminal gangs specializing in pilfered artwork. Art theft is by FBI estimates is a $6-billion-a-year global industry.

Swift L.A. art heist claims couple’s collection worth millions [LA Times]
A Dozen Artworks Stolen from L.A. Collectors’ Home [ArtInfo]
Find stolen paintings, collect $200,000 [Two Coats of Paint]

(more…)

Vawdavitch, Franz Kline (1955) via Artinfo

Next Friday, September 12, the new Haunch of Venison gallery in New York City will open its doors for the first time with an exhibit called “Abstract Expressionism – A World Elsewhere”. The exhibition will feature over 60 works from Franz Kline, Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, Barnett Newman, Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, David Smith and Clyfford Still. The Christie’s owned gallery represents notable artists such as Bill Viola, Keith Tyson, and Wim Wenders and has additional locations in London and Zurich. When the gallery was purchased last year by François Pinault, the owner of Christie’s auction house, there was a substantial amount of controversy surrounding the transaction. The purchase of the gallery presented a new take on the relationship between auction houses and galleries, and how the line might blur between the primary and secondary markets of the art world.

Christie’s auction house buys London’s Haunch of Venison contemporary art gallery [IHT]
Haunch of Venison’s New York Moment [The Imagist]
American Perspective [Artinfo]
Auction Houses Vs. Dealers [NYSun]
Haunch of Venison – “Abstract Expressionism—A World Elsewhere” [Haunch of Venison]

(more…)