Piet Mondrian, Ovale Komposition mit Farbflächen (1914), photo courtesy Martin Gropius Bau © Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Nie-derlande

With his famous works focusing on geometric lines and primary colors, Piet Mondrian’s history as an artist is often obscured by his iconic later output.  Yet, the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin is exhibiting work by Piet Mondrian in an exhibition entitled The Line, taking the artist’s creative evolution and exposition as its starting point.  Initially starting his career painting in the Impressionist style, this exhibition of Mondrian’s work dedicates itself to showcasing the artist’s career and subsequent development of his unique stylistic innovations.  With over 50 drawings and paintings, the journey through Mondrian’s career is exposed through his many lenses and creative phases, and is the first major exhibition of the artist’s work in Berlin since the opening of the Neue Nationalgalerie in 1968.

Piet Mondrian, Komposition mit rot, schwarz, gelb, blau und grau (1921), photo courtesy Martin Gropius Bau © Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, Nie-derlande

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Jeffrey Gundlach is offering a $1.7 million reward for information that would lead to the return of artwork stolen from his Santa Monica home last week, with no questions asked. He is offering one of the largest rewards ever offered for a single piece: $1 million for a 1936 Mondrian, “Composition (A) En Rouge Et Blanc”.

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Jeffrey Gundlach, Santa Monica art collector and Wall Street tycoon, returned home from a trip to New York to find $10 million in artwork missing. Jasper Johns’ “Green Target”, along with works by Piet Mondrian, Richard Diebenkorn, Franz Kline, Joseph Cornell, Philip Guston and others were taken. No word yet on whether there was a security video, as the investigation is underway.

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Five Points/Triangles by Alexander Calder, 1957
All images via Gagosian Gallery unless otherwise noted

Currently on view at Gagosian Gallery, New York is an exhibition of the large-format sculptures of Alexander Calder, produced between 1957 and 1970. The exhibition pays tribute to the late oeuvre of this renowned American sculptor, illuminating the period when Calder almost exclusively dedicated himself to sculpture of monumental proportions – the genre that brought him the international acclaim.

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Danseuses, Edgar Degas (1896) all images via Christie’s

Last night, November 3, the fall auction season in New York kicked-off at Christie’s with their Impressionist and Modern evening sale – the smallest since May 2004. While vigorous bidding wars ensued for the finer pieces in the sale, there was no escaping the deathly silence that occurred when auctioneer, Christopher Burge, called for bids on a number of the auction highlights which included works by Camille Pissaro, Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, that eventually went unsold. Of the 40 lots on sale, 28 sold – making the overall total of $65,674,000, under the low-end estimate of $68,650,000.

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TeÌ‚te de femme, Pablo Picasso (1943) estimated to sell for between $7,000,000 and $10,000,000 at Christie’s Modern and Impressionist evening sale tonight. via Christie’s

Christie’s Modern and Impressionist sale this evening, November 3, marks the beginning of the fall auction season in New York. Headlining tonight’s sale are works by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and Henri Matisse. Tomorrow Sotheby’s will follow with their Modern and Impressionist evening sale which is highlighted by Alberto Giacometti’s bronze Falling Man, estimated to sell for $8 million – $12 million along with works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Camille Pissarro and Giacometti’s fellow modern masters Wassily Kandinsky, Joan Miró and Pablo Picasso. The combined total of the evening and day sales from both auction houses is estimated at as much as $607 million, down from $1.7 billion just two years ago.

ArtObserved will be on site to cover the proceedings on twitter at the show and in a review tomorrow. We are set to continue our auction season coverage next week when the Contemporary sales kick-off on Tuesday, November 10, at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Company.

L’Homme Qui Chavire (Falling Man), Alberto Giacometti (1951) via Sotheby’s

Related Links:
Christie’s Homepage
Sotheby’s Homepage
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale – Tuesday, November 3, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Christie’s Impressionist/Modern Day Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009 – E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale – Wednesday, November 4, 2009- E-Catalogue
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale -Thursday, November 5, 2009 – E-Catalogue
On The Block: Traditional Offerings, Bargain Prices [NYTimes]
New House, Taschen Risking Low Prices for Art at Fall Auctions [Bloomberg]
New York Sales Preview [ArtInfo]
Up For Auction [NYTimes]
The Art World Goes Local [WallStreetJournal]
Art World Watching Sales Starting Next Week for Hints of Market Recovery [Financial Post]
As Art Auctions Shrink, Big Houses Look to the Future [Reuters]
The Art Market: Distress Sales, Iron Curtain Art and France’s Turner Prize [Financial Times]

Head of a Muse, Raphael via Guardian UK

-Offered for the first time at public auction as part of Christie’s Old Masters sale, Raphael’s drawing “Head of a Muse”- a study for a figure in one of his Vatican frescoes, if it achieves its estimate £12-16million, will break the auction record for an old master drawing currently held by Michelangelo’s and Leonardo da Vinci’s works [Guardian UK]

-As art collectors become more cautious with their purchases, dealers at Frieze and FIAC fairs put works on reserve, among them $40 million Mondrian allegedly put on hold for Bernard Arnault [Bloomberg]

-Ms. Temkin, the chief curator of painting and sculpture at The Museum of Modern Art in New York, introduces unexpected changes, unframing certain paintings and subjecting the almost sacralized permanent collection to frequent renewal [The New York Times]

“Your Mercury Ocean” Skateboard by Olafur Eliasson via aarting

-Another collaboration between Mekanism and Olafur Eliasson results in a 13-ply deck 3d patterned skateboard with a mirror coating [aarting]
-In related, Olafur Eliasson commissions by the mayor of Copenhagen to design a bridge for the Danish capital; the artist shares his plans for a transparent bridge in a close vicinity to the water [The Art Newspaper]

– The survey carried out by the Art Fund, the UK’s independent art charity, shows that despite the substantial drop in public funding and investment income, a figure that proves to grow in the context of economic fall is the number of visits to museums [Art Knowledge News]

-In the midst of economic uncertainty, gallery Matthew Marks, which represents artists such as Jasper Johns, and Peter Fischli and David Weiss, plans on expansion with a new space on the West Coast [The New York Times]

To stay apprised of most of the relevant art news for this past week… (more…)

Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain, Paris via fiac.com

The action at France’s biggest art fair, Foire Internationale d’Art Contemporain (FIAC) in Paris came to a stand still on Saturday, October 24. The aftermath of FIAC, much like Frieze before it, is buzzing with discussion surrounding sales – big and small. On Saturday Bloomberg News reported that Piet Mondrian’s abstract Composition With Blue, Red and Yellow, valued between $30 and $40 million, was put on hold while a wealthy buyer made up their mind. Similarly, it seems the Pablo Picasso painting, Femme Ecrivant, was reserved by a potential buyer during the first few hours of FIAC’s VIP preview on October 21.

Galerie Suzanne Tarasieve – photo by Art Observed

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Picasso’s ‘La Fille de l’Artiste a Deux Ans et Demi Avec un Bateau’ via AP. Failed to reach its reserve, attracting one bid at $12.25 million, falling short of the $16-24 million estimate.

Hours after Standard and Poor’s downgraded Sotheby’s credit rating to junk status, citing the depressed art market, the auction house’s spring Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale got underway last night in New York, yielding mixed results. The auction brought in $61,370,500 against estimates of $81.5/1-8.8 million, and was 80.6% sold by lot. This year’s figure represents slightly more than a quarter of last year’s sale, which realized $208.63 million. The auction’s highest priced lots, Picasso’s ‘La Fille de l’Artiste a Deux Ans et Demi Avec un Bateau,’ put up by a victim of the Madoff Ponzi scheme, and a rare Giacometti sculpture, ‘Le Chat,’ both failed to sell.  For both pieces, the $16-24 million reserve was cited as overreaching in an uncertain market.

However, the auction did have its highlights.  A 1934 painting by Piet Mondrian, ‘Composition in Black and White, with Double Lines,’ nearly doubled its high estimate of $5 million, selling to an anonymous caller for $9,266,500 after extensive bidding.  Four paintings by Polish Art Deco artist Tamara de Lempicka, from the collection of German fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, sold for a total of $13.8 million. ‘Portrait de Marjorie Ferry’ sold for $4.9 million, a new record for the artist.

Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art Totals $61,370,500, Picasso and Giacometti Go Unsold [Artdaily]
Modern Masters Suffer at Auction [NYtimes]
Sotheby’s $61.3 Million Sale Disappoints; Picasso Goes Unsold [Wall Street Journal]
Top Lots Flop at Sotheby’s Imp/Mod Sale [Artinfo]
Sotheby’s Impressionist Sale Hits 7-Year Low as Picasso Flops [Bloomberg]
$80 Million? Try a Tenth of That. Art’s New Numbers. [NY Times]
What a Difference a Year Makes [Artinfo]

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Composition avec bleu, rouge, jaune et noir (1922) by Piet Mondrian, part of the Yves Saint Laurent – Pierre Berge collection; sold for â‚¬21.6 million, beating its estimate range of â‚¬7 million to â‚¬10 million and setting an at-auction record for the artist. Image via Christie’s.

Following three days of viewing by the public in the majestic setting of the Grand Palais in Paris, Christie’s kicked off its marathon three day, six session auction of the vast Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berger collection–700 pieces collected over five decades.  A moribund art market and legal manoeuvrings by the Chinese government were not enough to put a dent on the first day of auctions, as Christie’s realized $264 million including commissions, setting a record for the sale of a personal collection, beating out a 1997 auction of Victor and Sally Ganz’ extensive private collection which sold for $206.5 million. This first auction focused on Impressionist and modern art, with 61 lots on sale.

While Picasso’s Instruments de musique sur un gueridon, a synthetic cubist piece from 1912 estimated at €25 million to â‚¬30 million, failed to sell, records were broken for Matisse, Brancusi and Mondrian. Other high priced lots by blue chip names sold very well to a field of over 1,200 participants, with another 100 partaking in the sale via phone. The Grand Palais served as a giant showroom, conceived as a recreation of sorts of St Laurent’s and Berge’s apartment in Paris’ 7th arrondissement. Over 30,000 thousand people are expected to visit the Palais during the course of the public exhibition and the auction.

“This is a very important auction,” said Souren Melikian, the longtime art editor of The International Herald Tribune. “There are a large number of high-quality objects, not necessarily as stunning as billed, but high quality bought over a large number of years. And they come to auction at a time when the market is winding down, when there is less available than 20 years ago.” [Via the New York Times]

Auction page: Christie’s
Fondation Yves Saint Laurent – Pierre Berger
Art World’s Stimulus Package: Matisse, Mondrian, Not Picasso [WSJ]
Christie’s Laurent Sale Fetches Record $262 Million [Bloomberg]
Yves Saint Laurent sale proves art is in fashion [Times UK]
Yves Saint Laurent Art Sale’s 1st Night Brings In $264 Million [NYT]
Saint Laurent and His Art Still Make a Sensation [NYT]
Treasures, after a fashion [FT]
YSL art auction sets new record [Guardian UK]
Record for Matisse and Others at Christie’s Sale of Yves Saint Laurent Collection [ArtDaily]
Saint Laurent art sale raises $264 million in first night [ArtForum]
Record bids for YSL private art [BBC]
Obituary: Yves Saint Laurent [BBC]
China tries to stop Paris auction [BBC]

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Image via Daily Telegraph

The three day auction of hundreds of art and furniture collected by the late legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his longtime partner Pierre Bergé kicked off today at 1PM EST. The auction which many have called the “Sale of the Century” is being held at the Grand Palais in Paris under the guidance of Christie’s auction house. The auction includes six separate sales over three days and contains masterpieces by Picasso, Mondrian, Matisse along with several other Art Deco pieces, bronzes, enamels and antiques. The first item sold was a small Italian landscape by Degas for which Berges had said he had a “special affection” for. It was bought for 380,000 euros (485,000 dollars). Proceeds from the sale will go to two charitable foundations set up by Saint Laurent and Bergé. Another early highlighted item sold was a wooden sculpture by Constantin Brancusi which sold for 29.2 million euros (37.2 million dollars) which was a a record for the artist’s work at auction. For up to date results from the auction, visit Christie’s results as they happen.

Christie’s Fine Art Auctions
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Pierre Bergé on Yves Saint Laurent, his auction house and the sale of the century [Art Info]
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Brancusi Sculpture Fetches Record 29.2 Million Euros [Bloomberg]
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Saint-Laurent Collection Livens Up A Sluggish Auction Market [Arts Journal]
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Treasury of Style [ArtNet]
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Inside Yves Saint Laurent’s Art Collection [Forbes]
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Treasures, after a fashion [Financial Times]
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The Last Collection [New York Times]
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The Art World’s Last Hurrah? [Wall Street Journal]
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