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An 18th-century Chinese green jade seal associated with the Qianlong Emperor sold this week at an auction in London for 3.4 million pounds ($5.4 million).
Art collectors of ArtKabinett social network have witnessed skyrocketing prices in Asian antiquities.
Of double-gourd form carved with three dragons, the seal had been housed in the Hall of the Three Rarities (San Xi Tang) at the Forbidden City, Beijing, auction house Bonham's said. It had been offered by a private European collector with an estimate of 1 million pounds to 1.5 million pounds.
The buyer, making telephone bids, was underbid in the room by Taiwan-based dealer Arts of Chen.
Bonham’s 402-lot auction of Chinese works of art and ceramics, was estimated to raise between 8.5 million pounds and 12.7 million pounds.
Taller than the Statue of Liberty and Big Ben, twice as high as Nelson’s column in London’s Trafalgar Square, the Orbit has cost 22.7 million pounds ($36.5 million), of which ArcelorMittal funded as much as 19.6 million pounds.
Like many other structures before it which suddenly altered an historic skyline, it is now a source of controversy. Savvy collectors of ArtKabinett network are already blogging their first impressions.
Elevators take reporters to a circular viewing platform at the top. The structure has drawn mixed reviews for its twisted contours and steel material. It is a third of the size of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
London - There are gruesome images of the human body as meat, animals sliced to display inner organs, and a morbid obsession with skulls.
It all sounds like a Damien Hirst extravaganza. In fact, it is “Leonardo da Vinci: Anatomist” at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, through Oct. 7. Here is a wonderful opportunity for art collectors of Art Kabinett social network to view the drawing skill of a venerable master
Leonardo relied on imagination and medieval medical theory for this drawing; as a result many details are wrong. Source: Royal Collection via Bloomberg
The Eykyn Maclean gallery offers 11 pieces by Cy Twombly from the Sonnabend collection. This exhibition is worth a visit by art collectors of ArtKabinett social network.
Created between 1956 and 1975, many of the works haven’t been displayed publicly before and will return to storage after the show, according to the gallery.
One of the first in Europe to acquire Twombly’s works, Ileana Sonnabend “had the eye,” the artist once said. He died last year.
For the rectangular 1956 “Untitled (New York City),” the earliest piece on view, Twombly scribbled on the white-oil-paint background at different levels, before the tint dried, and then with wax crayon and pencil.
In “Untitled” (1975, shown above), he used a vivid green for part of his scrawls, along with gray and black.
A 22.7 million pound ($36.6 million) red tower designed by sculptor Anish Kapoor and sponsored by ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steelmaker, was inaugurated late last week in the 2012 London Olympics park. Art collectors of ArtKabinett network are already lining to tour this immense sculptural installation.
The ArcelorMittal Orbit is taller than Big Ben and the Statue of Liberty and twice as high as Nelson’s column in London’s Trafalgar Square. Like an oil rig twisting around itself, it is a spiraling 114.5-meter (377 foot) lattice of tubular steel.
Mayor of London Boris Johnson persuaded ArcelorMittal to contribute as much as 19.6 million pounds toward the cost of the tower, which before the 2012 London Olympic Games, which run from July 27 to Aug. 12.
Jean-Michel Basquiat’s 1981 painting of a skeletal, Christ-like figure sold for $16.3 million at Phillips de Pury’s contemporary-art auction this week, setting a record for the late Neo-expressionist painter.
Independent collectors of ArtKabinett social network cannot keep up with these dizzying prices!
The auction house estimated a price between $8 million and $12 million for the 6-by-4-foot canvas, which was consigned by collector Robert Lehrman. It attracted three telephone bidders but no one in the midtown Manhattan sales room where seats were empty.
The painting, one of 11 in the sale guaranteed to sell, was the top lot of an auction that totaled $86.9 million, within the expected range of $75.9 million to $110.7 million.
Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in New York last night saw massive sales of works by Andy Warhol, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, and Ai Weiwei, with the latter two making record-breaking sums. Art collectors of ArtKabinett social network have been dazzled by the sums achieved just over the past two weeks.
Andy Warhol’s ‘Double Elvis’ silkscreen, shown here, sold for a massive $37m (£23m), Roy Lichtenstein's Sleeping Girl made $44.9m, while Ai Weiwei's handmade porcelain Sunflower Seeds ratcheted up to $782,500. Francis Bacon's ‘Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror’ sold for $44,882,500.
Before this week, the price of $86.3 million, paid for Francis Bacon's 'Triptych', 1976, in 2008 was the most expensive post-war artwork ever sold at auction. But now Mark Rothko's Orange, Red, Yellow has been sold for $86.9 million (£53.8m).
Art collectors of Art Kabinett social network are amazed at the stratospheric prices now playing out in the auction world.
The painting was executed in 1961, and was sold at Christie's in New York. The monumental sale contributed to the auction house’s total takings of $388.5m (£240.5m), breaking their personal contemporary art record set in 2007.
Last night’s sale was also a personal best for Mark Rothko, with the most being paid for one of his works at auction previously being $72.84m (£45m). Another £10m: not bad.
HONG KONG — Over the past two years Wang Wei and her husband Liu Yiqian dropped a reported $317 million on their hobby. Now they need somewhere to display the collection they've amassed. The solution: a private art museum that Wang hopes will impart some class to China's flashy nouveau riche.
Savvy art collectors of ArtKabinett are always available for a private invitation from our fellow Asian enthusiasts.
Wang and billionaire investor Liu are part of a new generation of wealthy Asians that is better known for splashing out on extravagant toys such as private jets, mega-sized yachts and supercars. Some, instead, have built big art collections and now aspire to showcase their refined sensibility to a wider audience.
Art Basel have announced plans for a Hong Kong edition of the fair that will take place at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre in May 2013. This will be a top destination for independent art collectors if ArtKabinett social network.
Annette Schönholzer, Co-Director of Art Basel, spoke of how, having been ‘observing the phenomenal growth in the art scene in Asia for years’, she is ‘delighted to be launching a new Art Basel show in Asia’: ‘This new show aspires to play a central role in creating new bridges between the Western art scene and the rapidly emerging contemporary art scene throughout Asia’, she added.
Great art fairs -- by definition transitory events -- should have great exhibition tents to display the treasures within. This past weekend's Frieze Fair, situated on Randall's Island, satisfied savvy visitors with a space-age exhibition space designed by Brooklyn-based SO-IL design firm.
Art collectors of ArtKabinett network thoroughly enjoyed the constructed environment as much as the art.
Solid Objectives – Idenburg Liu (SO – IL) is an idea driven design office founded by Florian Idenburg and Jing Liu in 2008.
Frieze is just what the doctor ordered to reinvent the lackluster New York fair scene, which has spent many years in the doldrums. New York has needed a fair of this scale and calibre in order to reclaim its rightful place as market leaders. Art collectors of ArtKabinett network were in full attendance.
In an ever expanding market that has seen China overtake the US as the art market leader, for art sales, it has been a reality check for the New York art scene.
Frieze has now succeeded in pushing the ranks up a notch. But we will only know when the sales figures are in later this week. One thing is for sure. Everyone enjoyed the billowing white exhibition tent designed by Brooklyn architectural firm, SO-IL.
I walked along the road with two friends,” wrote Edvard Munch. “Suddenly the sky became blood … I heard a huge extraordinary scream pass through nature.”
Art collectors of Art Kabinett social network spent much time this week crowing about Sotheby's auction which garnered the most amount ever for a painting.
“The Scream” has been parodied and appropriated in a multiplicity of ways, including an Andy Warhol silkscreen, a Gary Larson cartoon featuring a shrieking dachshund and an advertisement for chocolates. Of these, perhaps Homer Simpson’s Scream is the most preposterously memorable. Munch himself produced it in five different forms: two paintings, two pastels (one of which was the work auctioned this week for $120 million) and a lithograph.
Lucy Sparrrow has lovingly embroidered a giant map of the London Underground. It took the 23-year-old 42 days to create the 9sq m tapestry which is made up of 2,400m (2,625 yards) of thread and 142 buttons.
Independent art collectors of ArtKabinett social network can rely upon this artwork when visiting all the Olympic activities this summer.
‘One of the hardest parts was getting the scale right,’ said Miss Sparrow. ‘It was tough fitting all the station names in.’
Paris - Since 1977 the Pompidou Centre has been a loud contemporary statement in the midst of tranquil, historic Paris. Richard Rogers and Renzo Piano’s colorful high-tech design has become a landmark in Western Europe, but now the president, Alain Seban, wants to expand further abroad.
Art collectors of Art Kabinett network have visited the new facility in Metz, and are looking forward to the upcoming opening in Abu Dhabi.
There are not any more fixed projects currently lined up, but Seban has mentioned countries such as China, India, Brazil, and Russia as possible places to explore. These countries have a rich cultural heritage and recently have become significant players in the art world, but without landmark institutions to promote them.
NEW YORK — One of the art world’s most recognizable images — Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” — sold yesterday for a record $119,922,500 at auction in New York City. Art collectors of ArtKabinett network expected this auctioned artwork to be the world's costliest, and we were right.
The 1895 artwork — a modern symbol of human anxiety — was sold at Sotheby’s. The buyer’s name was not released.
The previous record for an artwork sold at auction was $106.5 million for Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust,” sold by Christie’s in 2010.
Munch’s image of a man holding his head and screaming under a streaked, blood-red sky is one of four versions by the Norwegian expressionist painter. The auctioned piece at Sotheby’s is the only one left in private hands.
An iconic work by street artist Banksy has found a new home in a former Detroit jail – now the gallery known as 555 Gallery. This will inspire many art collectors of ArtKabinett network as they seek edgy venues to display their independent pieces.
The artwork was originally created on the wall of an old car factory, and was salvaged when the building was demolished. It depicts a young boy holding a paintbrush next to the ‘freshly painted’ words “I remember when all this was trees”.
The piece was salvaged by artists from the 555 Gallery apparently motivated by a desire to preserve the work. But the property owner consequently sued the gallery for ‘removing the artwork without permission’.
New York - Art + Auction magazine was blamed in a lawsuit for shattering a 2,630-year-old Nigerian terracotta sculpture beyond repair during a photo shoot last May at a Manhattan collector’s residence. Independent collectors of Art Kabinett social network know that it is often best to let fragile sculptures stay put in the home.
The shoot was in the Tribeca home of Corice Arman, the widow of the French-born artist Arman, who died in 2005.
“They were setting up the shoot and I heard this enormous crash,” Arman said in a telephone interview.
Charles Rosenzweig, her lawyer, said the piece, described in the complaint as a Nok figure, had been appraised after the accident at $300,000.
This week, Frieze Art Fair – perhaps the bells-and-whistles event of the London Art calendar – is set to make its New York debut.
This inaugural event will take place between the 4–7 May 2012 on Randall's Island, Manhattan, and promises ‘the most forward-thinking galleries from around the globe’, peddling work ‘by over 1,000 of the world’s leading artists’. Independent collectors of ArtKabinett social network will of course be on the scene!
This weekend's Baltimore Print Fair provides a busy activity for several art collectors of Artkabinett social network. In addition to all the wonderful artworks, a visit to the museum's Cone collection is always an amazing experience.
Etta and Claribel Cone were two sisters, who over a period of 30 years, amassed one of the world’s most acclaimed collections of early 20th century French art.
This “Cone Collection,” with its incomparable holdings of work by Henri Matisse and major examples of Picasso, Cezanne, van Gogh, and Renoir, was donated to The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) along with most of the sisters’ possessions and furniture in 1950.
London - Russian oilman and art collector Viktor Vekselberg is demanding a £1.7 million refund from auction house Christies. Vekselberg – worth over £7billion and the 64th richest person in the world – believes that he was sold a fake painting and is taking the case to the High Court. Independent art collectors of ArtKabinett network know that auction houses typically provide a 5-year guarantee of authenticity from date of sale.
The painting in question is entitled as Odalisque, and was billed as a work by major Russian artist Boris Kustodiev.
But, after buying the work, Vekselberg, pictured here, now believes that the work dates decades after the artist’s death.
The case rests on the analysis of the miniature signature purporting to be that of Kustodiev.
Two paintings by Mykola Hlushchenko, which were given to the Ukrainian government to hang in the Cabinet building, shown here, in 2001, are missing and were replaced by forgeries, the National Art Museum said. Art collectors of ArtKabinett social network have observed several high profile museum thefts over the past several months.
The Kiev, Ukraine-based institute, which had lent the paintings to the government of former President Leonid Kuchma, urged authorities to open a criminal probe after it turned out the art works hanging on display were copies, it said in a statement on its website today.
The disappearance was first made public by museum officials on March 29, prompting tests to verify the claim. The paintings together are worth an estimated $150,000.
Thomas P. Campbell, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was paid $1.04 million in salary and benefits in 2010, when attendance at New York’s most-visited museum rose to its highest level in four decades. Savvy art collectors of Art Kabinett social network know that a museum's value depends upon the talents of its curatorial staff.
His total compensation increased 12 percent, according to the Met’s 2010-2011 tax return, just recently filed with the IRS. This is just over $1 million in 2010, his second year running the Met.
The biggest Bauhaus exhibition in the UK in over 40 years presents the modern world’s most famous art school. Savvy art collectors of Art Kabinett social network are already lining up for this one!
From expressionist beginnings to a pioneering model uniting art and technology the Bauhaus’ utopian vision sought to change society in the aftermath of the First World War. Bauhaus: Art as Life explores the diverse artistic production that made up its turbulent fourteen-year history and delves into the subjects at the heart of the school: art, culture, life, politics and society, and the changing technology of the age.
Bauhaus: Art as Life will feature a rich array of painting, sculpture, design, architecture, film, photography, textiles, ceramics, theatre and installation.
“Beaute Animale,” a new exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris, features 120 paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs of animals. This exhibition will attract any animal loving art collector of ArtKabinett network
There are many masterpieces in the show -- Goya’s fighting cats, Guericault’s melancholy horses, Audubon’s U.S. birds and Courbet’s dying trout, a self-portrait of the despondent painter who was doing time because of his key role in the Commune revolt and the demolition of the column on Place Vendome.
Durer’s famous hare hasn’t budged from its wall in Vienna’s Albertina. Instead, there’s his no less famous rhino, a gift from an Indian prince to King Manuel I of Portugal.
Prints are now the new paintings in terms of popularity and price, as we have just seen at this weekend's London print fair. Savvy art collectors of Art Kabinett social network were in brisk acquisition mode at this event.
The 27th London Original Print Fair opened its doors yesterday with over fifty exhibitors showing works with prices ranging from £100 to £100,000.
All the most reputable dealers were in evidence such as Austin Desmond, Alan Cristea, The Fine Art Society, Flowers (Editions), Marlborough Graphics, The Redfern Gallery and the household names being exhibited were endless.
PARIS.- For this exhibition, seventy works on paper by some fifty artists active between the fifteenth century and the present day have been selected from the print and drawing collections of three museums in Paris—the Musée du Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, and the Centre Pompidou—as well as from a number of other French collections.
This important exhibition is a wonderful destination for savvy art collectors of ArtKabinett network.
The artists represented use a variety of techniques and tools on all kinds of paper: white or colored, transparent or not, and either found, reused or carefully chosen.
Stephen Jones – one of British Fashion’s best loved characters, whose client list boasts style icons such as French First Lady Carla Bruni alongside pop divas Madonna and Kylie Minogue – is exhibiting a selection of his stunning creations at The Bowes Museum this summer; ‘From Georgiana to Boy George’.
These creations may tempt even the savvy art collector of Art Kabinett social network.
Milliner Stephen Jones, whom Italian Vogue’s Anna Piaggi describes as ‘the maker of the most beautiful hats in the world’, has worked with some of the world’s most prominent fashion houses and designers during his illustrious career, including Jean Paul Gaultier, Vivienne Westwood, Christian Dior, John Galliano and Giles Deacon.
NEW HAVEN, CT - It remains the largest art heist in history, a brazen robbery in which two thieves disguised as police officers walked into Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, disabled two guards and stole masterworks worth more than half a billion dollars.
Art collectors of Art Kabinett social network have seen other high profile art heists solved -- so why not this one?
The 1990 robbery and the recovery of the paintings have puzzled investigators for more than two decades. Now federal authorities appear to be pinning some hope of solving the mystery on a 75-year-old reputed mobster from Connecticut, Robert Gentile, who is jailed in a drug case.
NEW YORK, NY.- This April, Cartier is presenting an exhibition titled Cartier & Aldo Cipullo, New York City in the 70s. Curated and designed by Cartier in collaboration with Stefan Beckman, the exhibition will take place at the Cartier Mansion from April 13 through May 8.
Art collectors of ArtKabinett network will certainly enjoy this important retrospective exhibition. The show will include approximately 40 jewels from the era as well as archival drawings, articles and scrapbooks.
Videos and a touch screen wall where guests can interactively access various articles and images from the seventies will be part of the state-of-the-art display.
Two events in 1969 set the tone for the next decade at Cartier in New York.