The Economist profiles the long-awaited publication of Francis Bacon’s catalog raisonné, which will be released on April 28th, the 24th anniversary of the artist’s death. The five-volume collection is priced at £1,000 ($1,430), and features over 800 illustrations. (more…)
One of Francis Bacon’s strongest self-portraits will go on sale at Sotheby’s this coming May, carrying an estimate of $22-$30 million. “Two Studies for a Self-Portrait goes straight in at number one of all the paintings I’ve handled in my career” says Oliver Barker, Senior International Specialist in Contemporary Art. “It’s certainly among the greatest self-portraits ever offered at auction.” (more…)
Five paintings by Francis Bacon, valued at upwards of €30 million, have been stolen from a home in Madrid, The Guardian reports. One unnamed expert states that they will be difficult to sell on the market. “It is not at all easy to sell a Francis Bacon, large or small, without that getting to the ears of those who pore over such a rarified sector,” they said. (more…)
A Francis Bacon painting has been discovered on the back of two paintings by Irish artist Tony O’Malley. O’Malley seems to have divided the wooden board backing his works, on which Bacon’s piece, Figure, is painted, to create two other paintings, but the pair have recently been reunited, and are being sold at Christie’s in London as a set, estimated at £20,000- £30,000. “Now these paintings, and the lost Bacon study, will be reunited and viewed together for the first time in almost 60 years,” the auction house said in a statement. (more…)
A selection of previously unpublished diaries by Eric Allden, a close friend of Francis Bacon’s, who writes on the artist’s early years. “His people live in Ireland, County Kildare, and he told me that when he was 16 he ran away to Paris, but was brought back, though soon after he was permitted to return there,” Allden writes in one passage. (more…)
The New York Review of Books has published an essay by writer Colm TóibÃn on the late work of Francis Bacon, taken from the artist’s catalog for his exhibition at Gagosian in New York this fall. “There is a restlessness here that we also find in Beethoven’s late chamber music—a feeling that Bacon might begin again, that he is searching for some way to make images that he knows will only be possible for artists of the future, if they are even possible at all,” TóibÃn writes. (more…)
The Francis Bacon catalog raisonné is set to be released next spring, featuring over 100 works never seen publicly before. “The stuff that has been written about Bacon, some good and much of it less good, is based on about a third of his work,” says art historian Martin Harrison, who has spent the last decade attempting to track down every work. (more…)
Cy Twombly, Untitled (New York City) (1968), via Sotheby’s
Tonight Sotheby’s has logged its response to Christie’s moderate outing last evening, as the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale saw steady, albeit occasionally slow proceedings, bringing a final sales tally of $294,850,000 with 13 of the 57 lots offered going unsold. (more…)
Interior designer William Pearce created a living room inspired by and centered around Francis Bacon’s “Triptych 1974-77” for his client’s Atlanta apartment. Everything from the drapes to the carpet to the cadenza was either designed or chosen with the paintings in mind. Pearce sourced materials from around the world to create a worthy home for the triptych, which sold for $46.1 million at a 2008 auction to an anonymous buyer. (more…)
Christie’s London art auction next month will see the sale of another iconic Francis Bacon painting, a portrait of the painter’s lover George Dyer, which is estimated to sell for $49 million. “These sellers understand margins, and the uplift can be colossal,” says dealer Alan Hobart. “The auction houses have the buyers at the top end of the market. It’s globalized money. Bacon is now an auction commodity.” (more…)
The Wall Street Journal reports that two sources close to the record-setting sale of a Francis Bacon triptych last year at Christie’s have said that the work was purchased by Elaine Pascal Wynn, the billionaire ex-wife of casino mogul Steve Wynn. While her motives are unclear, sources state that she purchased the work through dealer Bill Acquavella, who placed the $127 million bid by phone. (more…)
Francis Bacon, Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), Image via Christie’s
Tonight, the week of Post War & Contemporary Art Evening Sales commence with Phillips kicking off the week long auctions. After last week’s mixed results in sales, with Christie’s and Sotheby’s hosting their respective Impressionist & Modern Art Sales, the contemporary art offerings will provide a more definitive litmus test of the international art market’s power and predilections. A great deal of press and attention has been drawn to the forthcoming sales, both nationally and internationally, attributed to exceptional offerings in all three houses, and a multitude of enormous price tags to accompany the museum-quality works.
Andy Warhol, Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster) (1963), Image via Sotheby’s (more…)
Acquavella Galleries New York. All photos by Caroline Claisse for Art Observed.
Running alongside the hustle and bustle of Frieze’s Contemporary Art proceedings next door, the Frieze Masters section is showing an exceedingly strong set of galleries and works, albeit somewhat removed from the spotlight its adjacent fair receives each year. Mixing classic works by artists like Francis Bacon and Picasso with works by still active artists like Robert Long and Richard Serra, the fair offered a more subdued, but equally impressive offering. (more…)
“Francis Bacon in Raincoat,” 1967, photo by John Deakin, (c) The Estate of Francis Bacon, all images courtesy the National Museum of Art Tokyo and The Estate of Francis Bacon
Recently concluded at the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo is a solo exhibition of works by Francis Bacon. Marking the first viewing of Bacon’s work in Japan in 30 years the exhibit is a retrospective focusing on the theme of the body, as well as the first exhibition of the artist’s work since his death in 1983.
Study for Portrait of P.L.(1962), the Francis Bacon painting of his lover Peter Lacy, will go on the auction block next month as part of Sotheby’s May 14th Contemporary Art Auction in New York. Expected to sell between $30 and $40 million, the painting could serve as a test of the art market’s current health. Bacon’s current record at auction is $86.2 million. (more…)
Several works by painter Francis Bacon have been discovered on the backs of amateur paintings, and are expected to sell for at least £100,000 at auction next month. The works, which bear similar elements to Bacon’s “Pope” paintings, were found on the back of several works by Guildford painter Lewis Todd. Both artists had been given supplies by Cambridge’s Heffer Gallery, but it is uncertain how Bacon’s canvases ended up at the gallery. (more…)
The auction room at Christie’s, via Christie’s
With the conclusion of Contemporary Art Auction Week yesterday in London, dealers, collectors and artists headed home, having seen well over $200 million exchanged during what many are calling a particularly successful season. This year, Asian, Russian, and other international collectors continued to make their presence known, including a number of first- time bidders who swooped in one some of the more highly valued works available. (more…)
The Francis Bacon triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait is expected to sell for $24 million at auction next month. The work will join paintings by Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat in a 56-lot auction by Sotheby’s with a minimum valuation of $101 million, based on hammer prices. (more…)
Beginning in 1945, Château Mouton Rothschild has commissioned various artists, from Pablo Picasso to Francis Bacon, to create a graphic for its labels. Now it has asked Jeff Koons to design the label for 2010 label of its Pauillac first growth. Koons is one of the world’s most expensive living artists, and has designed an image of The Birth of Venus and a sailing ship under sunny skies. (more…)
Franz Ackermann, Walking South (2012), courtesy Faena Arts Center
Before installing the site-specific Walking South at Faena Arts Center in Buenos Aires, Franz Ackermann walked, trained, biked and bussed across the city for two months. Once, he took the train to the outskirts of the city and walked the same distance back, all part of his psychogeographical plan to map the city.
The result is a 260-square-meter (equal to ten highway billboards) multi-layered, 25-panel installation bursting with Ackermann’s emotional response to the landscape, dirt, people and air of Buenos Aires. Black and white photographs of buildings, cars, and street corners are a somber base for bright, unexpected shapes that extend from a busy center node, which is a tangle of red, blue, and grey tentacles growing from jellyfish-like bodies. These irregular bodies float among and encircle photos of reality, both connecting and confusing the viewer.
Annegret Soltau (b. 1946), NY Faces, chirurgische Operationen, 2001-2002, 51 x 51 cm, photo restitching, © Annegret Soltau
A series of paintings by Francis Bacon curated into dialogue with 5 internationally-acclaimed contemporary artists (Swedish Nathalie Djurberg, Romanian Adrian Ghenie, Italian Arcangelo Sassolino, Japanese Chiharu Shiota, and German Annegret Soltau) opened at the Centre for Contemporary Culture Strozzina (CCCS) in Florence, Italy on October 5th, 2012 and will remain on view until the end of January 2013.
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
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Sotheby’s has several high-profile works being offered in its November sales. Works from the Embiricos estate are expected to bring $30 million; among them Francis Bacon‘s “Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne” has a presale estimate of $9 – $12 million. Picasso‘s “Nature Morte aux Tulipes” from 1932 is being offered from a separate unidentified “important private collection” at $35-50 million, under an irrevocable bid. (more…)
Sotheby’s announced that a Francis Bacon ‘screaming pope’ painting from 1954 will be sold at auction on Nov. 13th in New York. The work has been in a private collection for almost 40 years and the presale estimate is nearly 200 times what the owner paid, at $18-25 million. (more…)
