Crucifixion (1933) by Francis Bacon, via the Tate Britain

In celebration of the centenary of the artist’s birth, the Tate Britain has put together a Francis Bacon retrospective encompassing 71 paintings covering the most important creative periods of the noted 20th century artist. The retrospective is the first in Britain since 1985, before the artist passed away in 1992. Bacon’s work forces the viewer to confront very disturbing, hyperfigurative images of mortality, lust, fear and violence, often incorporated gory, mangled or otherwise distorted depictions of human and animal anatomy. Bacon’s ‘Triptych’ (1976) recently set a record this May when Roman Abramovich (Russian billionaire and owner of Chelsea FC) bought it for $86.2 million at a Sotheby’s auction in New York, earning him the distinction of being the most expensive postwar artist.

Major Celebration Heralding Francis Bacon’s Centenary Opens at Tate Gallery in London [ArtDaily]
Francis Bacon: ‘The man’s a bloody genius’ [Guardian]
Video Commentary from Chris Stephens, co-curator of the exhibition [Tate Britain]
Francis Bacon at the Tate Britain [Times Online]
Bacon’s Darkness in a New Light [Wall Street Journal]
Reviews roundup: Francis Bacon at Tate Britain [Guardian]
London set for Bacon centenary exhibition [AFP]
Bacon Show Has $6 Billion Art, Horror, Corpses [Bloomberg]
Francis Bacon claims his place at the top of the market [Art Newspaper]
Francis Bacon: touching the void, video review of the exhibit [Times Online]

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Lucian Freud’s rarely-seen, unfinished Portrait of Francis Bacon via Artdaily

Lucian Freud’s unfinished Francis Bacon portrait to be auctioned by Christie’s London in October [Art Daily]
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MoMA purchases Chinese contemporary art from private collection [Art Newspaper]
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Osaka museum pulls three Chagall’s after authenticity is questioned [Art Info]
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Jeff Koons “Man of Trust documentary” sold in €2,500 limited edition kangaroo mirror boxes at Colette [World’s Best Ever]
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On the vulnerability of the global art market “which has risen so very high on little more than PR and salesmanship” [Financial Times]

German artist Jonathan Meese via TheMoment

Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, and Javier Peres as players in the Berlin art scene [NY Times- The Moment]
more Jonathan Meese, headlining Friday at the Journal Gallery, Brooklyn [The World’s Best Ever]
Valuable, yet difficult to execute and display “extreme” art [ArtInfo]
Rothko, Bacon highlight a very British-painter-based fall exhibit lineup in London [Bloomberg]
On “democracy” as a trend in British contemporary art, and how pricing can suffer from it [Guardian]
Deborah Harris is the new managing director of the Armory Show [ArtForum]
Director Sir Nicholas Serota sets 1 year deadline for funds for Transforming Tate Modern project [London SE1]
In more Tate news: 2007/8 acquisition year for the Tate Collection brought a record $111 million – 494 work harvest [Art Daily]

the sculptor Anish Kappor via the Boston Globe

Sculptor Anish Kapoor set designs for an upcoming Akram Khan play featuring Juliette Binoche [National Theatre, London]
Are Olafur Eliasson’s waterfalls damaging the local natural environment? [ArtInfo]
Relating a past run-in with Francis Bacon and reflecting on his work before his retrospective at the Tate [The Independent]
Author Michael Gross’s ‘Rogues’ Gallery’ exposes the inner circles of the Metropolitan Museum of Art [ArtInfo] Aug 29
Gustav Klimt at the Tate Liverpool brings record attendance [BBC News] while the British National Gallery’s strategy of exhibiting newer artists leads to a sharp drop in paying visitors [Times Online] Aug. 31

Triptych, 1976 via Sotheby’s.

Beginning September 11th, Tate Britain will be hosting an exhibition of the work of Francis Bacon (1909-1992) in anticipation of the artist’s upcoming centenary in 2009.  World-renowned for his figure paintings and studies of the human body, the exhibition will contain works of this nature as well as Bacon’s signature landscapes and animal representations. The Tate display will contain about 60 works which will reflect the development and output of Bacon’s career, which began in 1928 after a brief stint as an interior decorator. Although little of his work survived his proclivity to destroy it prior to his notable achievement of the Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion in 1945, he was fittingly recognized as one of the most significant artists of his generation. Today, he is widely acknowledged as one of the most prominent artists of 20th-century art, with works such as his Triptych, 1976 selling for $86 million at auction, which is a record-breaking figure for a post-war work of art.

Tate: Press Release [Tate]
Francis Bacon: behind the myth [Telegraph]
Francis Bacon at Tate Britain: a hidden interest in women [Telegraph]
The power and the passion [Guardian]
Francis Bacon comes to Tate Britain [DigitalArts]

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Panel from Francis Bacon’s triptych “Three Studies for Self-Portrait,” which Christie’s sold for £17.28M via IHT

Below is just a roundup of some post-auction articles that give a good summary of all that generally occurred in last week’s London auctions from all the major houses. These articles were published after AO completed its summaries of those auctions.

Auction Houses Test Market With Record Contemporary-Art Sales [Bloomberg]
AUCTIONS: Prices continue to soar as a Bacon earns £17.28 million at Christie’s sales [TheArtsNewspaper]
Prices Continue to Soar [International Herald Tribune]
Contemporary Art Defies Doomsayers [Financial Times]
Investors Turn to Art; Sales Make Record $1.1 Billion [Bloomberg]
AO Auction Results: Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art, London, June 30 [AO]
AO Auction Results: Phillip’s London Contemporary Art Auctions, June 30 [AO]
AO Auction Results: Sotheby’s Masterpieces of Contemporary Art, July 1, London [AO]

Naked Portrait with Reflection, Lucian Freud (1980) via Artinfo

Christie’s held its Postwar and Contemporary Evening sale on Monday, June 30th, setting new records and selling 83% of the lots. The four largest sales came from Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Andy Warhol. Other artists who were featured in the finely curated sale were Mark Rothko, Gerhard Richter, and Gilbert and George just to name a few. Out of the 48 lots that sold, 30 of them made over $1 million, and the total sale raised $172 million. This is Christie’s best result for a post-war and contemporary art sale in Europe.
Bacon Self-Portraits Fetch $34.5 Million at London Art Auction [Bloomberg]
Koons sculpture highlights record-breaking art sale [APF]
Koons record as London art sales draw to close [Reuters]
Christie’s London Bests Own Contemporary Record [Artinfo]
Record price for Koons sculpture [BBC]
Christie’s Post War and Contemporary Art Sale [Christie’s]
Bacon Triptych Sells for $34.4 Million in London [NYTimes]
Dead Artists Breathe Life Into Auctions [Wall Street Journal]
Koons’s ‘Balloon Flower’ sits in St. James Square before sale at Christie’s June 30th [Art Observed]

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Study for Head of George Dyer, Francis Bacon (1967) via NYTimes

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Sale in London took place yesterday on July 1st and brought in an encouraging total of $188.8 million.  Francis Bacon’s painting of the profile of his lover and companion, George Dyer, was a highlight of the auction. This intimate portrait based on a photograph by John Deakin, was originally predicted to collect $15.5 million, but sold at a much higher $27.4 million to an anonymous collector. Although the sellers of the Bacon painting were kept anonymous, the New York Tims reported that experts speculate that it was sold by Ian and Mercedes Stouker, London Philanthropists.  Other impressive results of the sale achieved records for 11 different artists, and included the high profile sale of a Basquiat painting from seller U2, and an Andy Warhol from seller John McEnroe. The sold-out collection from the German industrialist, Walther Lauffs, which included work from Yves Klein, was another highlight of the show.

Sotheby’s July 2008 Contemporary Art Evening Sale Triumphs [Artdaily]
U2’s Jean-Michel Basquiat work on Sotheby’s block for $17.7M [Art Observed]
Bacon Stars, 10 Records Set at Sotheby’s; U2 Sell Art [Bloomberg]
Anish Kapoor sculpture attracts $3.87 mn at Sotheby’s sale [Economic Times]
Ten Works Set Records at Sotheby’s Contemporary Auctions [NYSun]
Sotheby’s contemporary art sale reaches £94.7 million [International Herald Tribune]
Contemporary Art Evening Auction Results [Sotheby’s]
Bacon Is Again a Top Draw at Auction [NYTimes]

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Chant 2, Bridget Riley (1967) via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is holding its Contemporary Art Evening Auction on Tuesday, July 1st at its New Bond St. location in London. The sale’s highlights include works from Francis Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst, Anish Kapoor, Jeff Koons, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Gerhard Richter, Bridget Riley, Andy Warhol and a number of other notable contemporary artists. The complete body of works for this sale will be on view at Sotheby’s New Bond St. galleries Monday, June 30 from 9am-7pm and Tuesday, July 1 from 9am-12noon.

Bridget Riley’s piece, Chant 2, a unique color painting which will be in the sale, was part of a show which won the artist the esteemed International Prize for Painting at the 34th Venice Biennale in 1968 .

Estimate: $4,000,000 – $6,000,000 (Pictured above)

London Contemporary Art Evening Auction [Sotheby’s]

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Marlene Dumas fromThe New York Times

Marlene Dumas, most expensive living woman artist at auction (until recently exceeded by Bourgeois) coming to MOMA in December [NYTimes Mag]
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How the proliferation of private museums affects the buyer/dealer system [The Independent]
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A reduced-size Antony Gormley ‘Angel of the North’ a Bacon, a Basquiat, a Richter coming on the block at Sotheby’s [Artinfo]
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Profile of Lauren Cornell, director of New Museum website: Rhizome [TimeoutNY]
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Herzog & de Meuron to design new museum of modern art in Calcutta [The Arts Newspaper]
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The art works Jeff Koons collects [NYTimes]
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Update: New York Mag covers the Shafrazi show,[NYMag] covered by AO here [AO]
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FT’s Jackie Wullschlager reviews Royal Academy Exhibition in London [Financial Times]

Dasha Zhukova via daylife

26-year old “Dasha” Zhukova building Moscow contemporary space backed by billionaire Roman Abramovich (recent global record buyer of Freud and Bacon) [artinfo]
More on David Byrne ‘playing the building’ in New York [NY mag]
Turner Prize-winner Mark Wallinger may build 164 ft horse in Kent, UK for ‘Angel of the South’ project [Guardian.co.uk]
Christie’s Paris sells Louise Bourgeois spider for record $4.5M [Bloomberg]
A revisit of the Young British Artist Freeze show after 20 years [Guardian.co.uk]

Rob Pruitt, Viagra Falls (2008) via Tony Shafrazi Gallery

“Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” runs from May 9 – July 12 at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York. Gavin Brown and Swiss artist Urs Fischer organized this show, which has been garnering a strong amount of publicity. Be sure to click on Art Observed’s exclusive covering of the opening. The exhibition celebrates juxtapositions throughout art and pays homage to Shafrazi’s legendary defacing of Picasso in the seventies by irreverent displays of art work out of context with traditional presentation. Different mediums, spaces, and uses of objects are shown. There are works from a wide range of artists, including,  Jeff Koons, Francis Bacon, Keith Haring, Cindy Sherman, to Rirkrit Tiravanija.

Tony Shafrazi Gallery
When Artworks Collide [NY Times]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NY Magazine]
Picks: Who’s Afraid of Jasper Johns?” [ArtForum]
Tony Shafrazi Defaces ‘Guernica’ Again [NYMag]
AO on site: Fischer & Brown at Tony Shafrazi Gallery [ArtObserved]

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Lucian Freud, Naked Portrait with Reflection, (1980) via Evening Standard

Following the success of Post-war and Contemporary art sales in New York, Christies has announced they will offer a rare Francis Bacon painting and a Lucian Freud masterpiece for his London auction. These two pieces are considered the most valuable and important works to come up for auction.

Boom for Bacon and Freud [Evening Standard]
Freud Masterpiece and Bacon Triptych Highlight Christie’s London Auction [ArtDaily]

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Russian Billionaire Roman Abramovich via impactlab

Last week’s contemporary auctions in New York were anchored by two record-setting painting sales.  Lucian Freud’s Benefits Supervisor Sleeping sold at Christie’s for $33.6 million and Francis Bacon’s Triptych sold at Sotheby’s for $86 million.  It has just been reported that billionaire Roman Abramovich was the buyer behind both deals.

Roman Abramovich [Forbes]
Abramovich Brings Home the Bacon (and Freud) [Art Newspaper]
Abramovich Sets Record Art Transfer [Times UK]
Abramovich spends $120 Million [Bloomberg]
Dasha Zhukova to open Russian Gallery [Art Newspaper]
Abramovich Revealed as Freud and Bacon Buyer [Telegraph]
Bacon Tops Biggest Sales at Sotheby’s [ArtObserved]
Freud Sets Records at Christie’s [ArtObserved]
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image via Bloomberg

Francis Bacon’s Triptych, 1976, sold for an impressive $86 million dollars last night, crushing the contemporary art auction record and posing a serious counter-arguement to those who believe the recession has worked itself into the art market. The image depicts a headless Promethean being devoured by vultures; a reflection of Greek Mythology. Bacon’s painting was offered by the Moeuix family, producers of Château Petrus wines. The $86 million sale contributed to Sotheby’s triumph over Christie’s total this year. Last night, the Triptych became the most expensive piece of contemporary art ever auctioned.

Bacon’s Headless Corpse Tops Sales at Sotheby’s [Bloomberg]
Record Sale, $86 Million [NYT]
Bacon Sets New Record [BBC]
Triptych Leads Record Sales at Sotheby’s [International Herald Tribune]
Bidding Strong at Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary Art Sale [NYT]   

The Scene at Christie’s via WSJ

Last night’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale at Christie’s brought in a total of $348.3 million, close to the top of their pre-sale range. “The very important went very high,” said fashion designer and collector Valentino Garavani.  Only 3 of the 57 lots in the auction did not sell and more than a third exceeded their estimated sale prices.

Freud’s Fat Sue Sells for $33.6 Million in New York [Bloomberg]
U.S. Buyers Drive Christie’s $350 Million Modern Art Sale [NYTimes]
Friends Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud on top of world art market [Times Online]
Eight Records at Christie’s [NYSun]
Last Night’s Sale Brings in $348 million [Conde Nast Portfolio]
Bidding Strong at Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary Art Sale [NYTimes] 
Impressionist, postwar and contemporary artworks auctions could reach $1.8bn [Financial Times] 
Record Sale for Piece by Living Artist Shattered by Freud [National] 
 

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Image via Bloomberg

On May 4^th, The Art Newspaper revealed the buyers of five of last year’s highest priced artworks at auction. The Al-Thani ruling family of Qatar was one of the previously anonymous buyers of three of these through Sotheby’s in May and June of 2007.

Revealed: $72.8m Rockefeller Rothko has gone to Qatar [The Art Newspaper]
Qatari Ruling Family Revealed as $72.8 Million Rothko Buyers [ArtInfo]
Qatar rulers pay £26m for Bacon [Times Online]
Revealed: Record-Breaking Rothko In Qatar [Art Forum] (more…)

Zaha Hadid and Karl Lagerfeld, image via Vanity Fair

Karl Lagerfeld and Zaha Hadid’s roving Chanel art space [Vanity Fair]
Art as an opaque, high risk/return asset class [FTimes]
Sotheby’s posts quarterly loss on lower commission margins [WSJ]
DiCaprio, his bike and his mom show up at Bonham’s NY debut [NYPost]
Alanna Heiss is PS1 [NY Mag]
A 5-part video series on Francis Bacon [Ubuweb via C-Monster]

Triptych by Bacon via Bloomberg

In May Sotheby’s New York will auction a Francis Bacon painting which could fetch a record of $70 million. The triptych and was painted in 1976 when the Bacon lived in Paris, comprised of oil and pastel on canvas in three parts.

Record for Bacon’s painting [Bloomberg]
Bacon’s most important work in sale [Guardian.co.uk]
Sotheby’s sets record with Bacon nude [ArtObserved]

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Francis Bacon portrait being auctioned via Sotheby’s via sgallery.net

The evening sales at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Co. this February raised the most money ever for a series of contemporary sales. However, a report issued by an art market firm on Thursday indicated that the majority of items sold at the low end of their estimates, meaning that the enormous sales numbers may be masking a more disappointing trend.

Sotheby’s sets auction record with sale of Bacon nude [ArtObserved]
Sotheby’s stock down 7% after report is issued [Bloomberg]
Art Report say 60% of February sales lots missed estimate [Bloomberg]
February auction activity roundup [ArtObserved]
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“Study of a Nude with Figure in a Mirror,” Francis Bacon via Bloomberg

A Francis Bacon painting of a female nude was sold last night in London, for £20 million ($39.7 million).

Auctions record at Sothby’s [BBC News]
Bacon’s painting sold for £20 million [Bloomberg]
Sotheby’s triumph in London last night [Guardian.co.uk]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction [the Economist]

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Zhang Xiaogang “Big Family” via Artprice

Sotheby’s gears up this year for its February 27th contemporary auction with flag-ship pieces such as Warhol’s 1986 `Three Self- Portraits’ and Bacon’s 1969 painting`Study of Nude With Figure in a Mirror’ as well as a more trendy selection of Chinese contemporary art.

Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s to Offer Three Self Portraits by Andy Warhol [Arts Gallery]
Bacon Nude, Warhol Self-Portraits Star in U.K. Sales [Bloomberg]
London’s Grand Finale [The New York Sun]
Sotheby’s Offers $19 Million of Chinese Contemporary Art [Bloomberg]

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Video Still of Sotheby’s Francis Outred introducing auction items via Sotheby’s (Click to View)
Sotheby’s director, Francis Outred, gives a walkthrough of various contemporary pieces available in their upcoming auction in London. He details works from Lucio Fontana, Francis Bacon, Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter, and Andreas Gursky. The auction will take place February 27th at 7:00pm.

Sotheby’s Private View [Sotheby’s]

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“Triptych 1974-77” via The New York Times

Last night Francis Bacon’s “Triptych 1974-77,” post war impressionist painting, was sold for £26.3 million at Christie’s International’s London Auction House. Christie’s sold the Triptych at their Post War Art Evening Sale, which did not do as well as Sotheby’s Modern and Impressionist Art Sale the previous night. The sale was the equivalent of $46.1 million dollars, after fees, and fell just under the presale estimate of $50 million to $70 million.

Bacon Fetches $51.1 Million; Demand Weakens in Christie’s Sale [Bloomberg]
Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale [Christie’s]
Bacon’s homage to dead lover sells for £26m [The Independant]
Triptych by Francis Bacon Is Sold for $46.1 Million [The New York Times]

details of auction after the jump

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