Andy Warhol’s ‘Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster)’ sold for £3.7 million against estimates of £3.5-4.5 million, via Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in London yesterday realized £25.5 million, near the top of its estimates of £19.8-27.4, with one of the highest ever sell-through rates as only 3 of the 40 lots went unsold. The pared down sale is only a quarter of the value of last June’s sale, but along with solid results at Christie’s and Sotheby’s Impressionist sales earlier this week and brisk sales at Art Basel two weeks ago, the art market appears to have hit its bottom and has started to stabilize.  However, the highest selling lot was Andy Warhol’s ‘Mrs. McCarthy and Mrs. Brown (Tunafish Disaster),’ selling for just £3.7 million, at the low end of estimates of £3.5-4.5 million, nowhere near the blockbuster prices of a year ago.

Contemporary Evening Sale [Sotheby’s]
Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Auction Realised $41.9 Million in London [Artdaily]
Buyers for Warhol and Calder [NY Times]
Warhol Sales Make $10.5 Million as Sotheby’s Turns to Big Names [Bloomberg]
Slim and Conservative, Sotheby’s Sale Proves a Winner [Artinfo]
The London Art Scene Feels a Chill [Wall Street Journal]

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Pablo Picasso’s ‘Homme à l’épée’ estimated to sell between £5-7 million via Christie’s

The summer auction season starts next week with the Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sales in London at Christie’s on Tuesday, June 23, and at Sotheby’s the following evening.  Both sales feature a late Picasso painting,part of his Muskateers series, painted by the artist on successive days and both titled ‘Man with a sword.’  The Sotheby’s Picasso is estimated to sell between £6-8 million and the Christie’s Picasso is estimated between £5-7 million. Both auction houses each offered a Muskateer painting in the spring auctions, with one failing to meet its reserve and the other selling for $14.6 million. This era of Picasso’s works has been enjoying a wave of popularity after Gagosian Gallery’s ‘Mosqueteros’ exhibition (as covered by AO here) earlier this spring gaining record attendance, as well as two major museum shows in Paris and London focusing on the artist’s late career. The Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sales take place on Thursday, June 25 at Sotheby’s, Monday, June 29 at Phillips de Pury, and Tuesday, June 30 at Christie’s.  Though healthy sales at Art Basel last weekend have boosted confidence in the market, this season’s estimates are down over 70% from last year.

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale, Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Phillips de Pury Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Monday, June 29, 2009
Sotheby’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, Thursday, June 30, 2009
Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale with Specialists Helena Newman and Alexander Platon [Video; Sotheby’s]
Contemporary Art Evening Sale with Specialists Oliver Barker, Cheyenne Westphal and Alexander Branczik [Video; Sotheby’s]
En garde! Rival houses offer Picasso musketeers [Reuters]
Can Buying Impressionist Art Make You Happy? [Wall Street Journal]
Christie’s Resumes Cutting Jobs After May N.Y. Auctions Decline [Bloomberg]
Battle of the Picasso paintings [TelegraphUK]
London Sales Estimates Down 70 Percent From Last Year [Artinfo]
Warhol, Prince Works Fail to Save Art Sales From 70% Decline [Bloomberg]
After Basel, Dealers Have High Hopes for London Sales [Wall Street Journal]
Artworks by Goya, Fragonard, David and Turner for Sotheby’s July Old Master Paintings Auction [Art Auction Publicity]
Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Auction Expected to Take £20 million [Art Auction Publicity]
Doig painting of Canadian childhood could fetch $3 M [Montreal Gazette via Art Market Monitor]
Duchamp, Miró, Marc, Monet and Picasso Highlight Christie’s Auction of Impressionist and Modern Art [Artdaily]
London Contemporary Art Auctions [The Art Collectors]
Phillips de Pury & Company Announce Highlights of the Forthcoming London Contemporary Art Sales [Artdaily]
Picasso, Monet and Giacometti, for Sotheby’s Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art [Art Auction Publicity]
Sotheby’s London Contemporary Art Evening Sale to Present Three Rare Andy Warhol Paintings [Artdaily]
The art market: Picasso endures [Financial Times]
Art Market Watch [Artnet]
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Willem de Kooning’s ‘Woman’ via Christie’s sold for $3.7 million, more than doubling its high estimate of $1.8 million.

Again, Christie’s bested Sotheby’s in this week’s Post-War and Contemporary Art auctions after Sotheby’s failed to meet its low estimate, covered here by AO.  Last night’s sale in New York resulted in a total of $93.7 million, falling within the higher end of the pre-sale estimates of $71-104 million. Only 5 of the 54 lots went unsold, with 30 selling for more than $1 million.  After a night of lively bidding, Christie’s co-head of post-war and contemporary art, Amy Cappellazzo joked that, “It felt like a year ago.” Last year’s sale brought in $348.2 million, with a number of works selling in the double digits. This year, estimates were far more conservative for the chastened market, with the highest-selling lot, David Hockney’s ‘Beverly Hills Housewife,’ going for $7.9 million, setting a new record for the artist. The portrait of the late Betty Freeman was one of 20 in the sale coming out of the Betty Freeman Collection, another factor contributing to last night’s success.

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David Hockney’s ‘Beverly Hills Housewife’ via Christie’s sold for $7.9 million, falling within estimates of $6-10 million and setting a new record at auction for the artist.

New World Auction Records set for Hockney, Oldenburg, Wheeler, and Smith at Christie’s [Artdaily]
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At an Upbeat Christie’s Auction, Some Record Prices [NY Times]
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NY auctions end with solid contemporary art result [Reuters]
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Christie’s Auction Beats Estimate, Boosts Confidence [Bloomberg]
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Betty Freeman Portrait Fetches $7.9 Million in N.Y. Auction [Bloomberg]
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Christie’s Contemporary “Gets It Right” [Artinfo]
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Christie’s Auction Rekindles Art Optimism [WSJ]

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Opening night for New Paintings by Peter Doig at Gavin Brown’s Enterprise photos by Art Observed

New Paintings by Peter Doig, opened at Gavin Brown’s enterprise and Michael Werner Gallery on January 17th. Doig, a Scottish artist who grew up in Canada and Trinidad, where he currently lives, has not had a solo show in New York since 2002, when Michael Werner Gallery exhibited a survey of his works on paper. ‘New Paintings’ feature several works painted by Doig over the last two years in his studio in the Caribbean.

Man dressed as a bat (2008) by Peter Doig, via Gavin Brown’s enterprise

NEW PAINTINGS
January 17th to February 21st, 2009
Gavin Brown’s enterprise
620 Greenwich St
New York, NY
Open Tues – Sat, 10am to 6pm.

Exhibition page: New Paintings
Profile: Peter Doig at Saatchi Gallery

My life in art: How Peter Doig taught me to pay attention [Guardian UK]

Previously on ArtObserved:
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Tate Britain
Go See: Peter Doig Retrospective at the Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt

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Hitch Hiker, a 1989-90 painting by Peter Doig on display now at the Schirn Kunsthalle via Tate Modern.

A Peter Doig retrospective is currently on display at at Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. The exhibition spans the past two decades of the Scottish artist’s work and follows two major retrospectives held earlier this year, one at the Tate Modern, London (as reported by Art Observed in February here) and the other at the Paris Museum of Modern Art. On display are 50 paintings, 130 painted posters, and a group of works on paper. The showcased works include some of Doig’s most famed landscapes and primarily reflect his childhood spent in Trinidad and Canada, and the cityscapes of London where he spent the greater part of his adult life. Although Doig often uses photographs as a reference his paintings are not of specific places and are equally influenced by past memories creating a signature style that has both photo-realist and abstract qualities. In addition to the exhibition Doig has also set up a special series of film screenings of his selection entitled STUDIOFILMCLUB in Frankfurt.

Peter Doig Retrospective at Schirn Kunsthalle / Frankfurt a. Main [VernissageTV]
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt: Peter Doig [E-flux]
Peter Doig Retrospective [Schirn Kunsthalle]
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Peter Doig, Ski Jacket 1994 via Tate Britain

The Peter Doig retrospective opens today at the Tate Britain in London. This comprehensive survey chronicles the artist who in 2007 became one of Europe’s most expensive living painters when his work White Canoe sold for £5.7 million at Sotheby’s. His canvases blur the line between abstraction and figuration as he creates images drawn from photographs, newspapers or snapshots.

Peter Doig [Tate Britain]
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Record Painter [The Guardian]
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Peter Doig’s success [ ArtInfo]
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Peter Doig’s exhibition at Tate Britain [The Economist]

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Former Dia Building via The Observer

Former Chelsea Dia Art Foundation building slated for apartment rentals and gallery space [The Observer]
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How to preserve Paul McCarthy’s chocolate Santa [C-Monster]
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Hudson Morgan covers Gagosian’s gallery festivities in Rome [Men’s Vogue]
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Parisian home of Pierre-Auguste Renoir is for sale [The Wall Street Journal]
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The Times UK arts critic interviews Zhang Xiaogang [Times UK Online]
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Guardian Unlimited UK interviews Peter Doig [Guardian Unlimited]
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Suspect reports Saudi collector possibly behind Sao Paulo Picasso Theft [Art Forum]