Bidding Up for Days & Nights of Art

The spring auction season builds to a crescendo in early May, when collectors from around the world descend on New York to bid on Impressionist, Modern, and Contemporary masterworks. Up to $800 million worth of art can change hands in two frantic weeks. Before and after are substantial sales of Asian art, Old Master pictures, photography, Latin American art, and contemporary design.MARCH 24 Phillips, de Pury & Company features a “selling exhibition” of ceramics and furniture by Italian designer and Memphis collective founder Ettore Sottsass. The presentation was created in collaboration with Barry Friedman Gallery, with Phillips acting as a larger showroom for the gallery.MARCH 28-31 Welcome to Asia Week, when an entire continent’s worth of culture arrives in New York. The two major houses end the week with contemporary sales of Chinese and Indian art.Sotheby’s has four sales estimated to bring in at least $30.8 million. The sales start with the Jucker Collection of Himalayan paintings, on March 28, that contains an early Tibetan religious painting, from c. 1200, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000. The following days bring Indian and Southeast Asian pieces, including contemporary Indian art. One highlight will be Tyeb Mehta’s “Falling Figure With Bird” (1988), estimated to bring in $800,000 to $1 million on March 29. The last two days are devoted to Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art on March 30, and “Contemporary Art Asia: China Japan Korea” on March 31. Brooklyn-based Chinese artist Xu Bing’s “The Living Word” (2001) is estimated at $250,000 to $350,000.At Christie’s, five sales are expected to bring in excess of $30 million. They launch on March 28 with Japanese art (including property from the Metropolitan Museum) and Korean art. The next day is all about China, starting with a sale of snuff bottles from the J &J Collection. Also on March 29, Evelyn Annenberg Hall’s collection of Chinese ceramics and art is on sale, and the day ends with a multiple-owner sale of Chinese ceramics and art. A 14th-century Yuan dynasty blue-and-white double-gourd vase is estimated at $1 million to $1.5 million. Indian and Southeast Asian art and Modern and Contemporary art go up for sale on March 30, with another Mehta painting, “Blue Torso” (1973), estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.MARCH 27-APRIL 1 Bonham’s will present highlights from its June auctions in London and San Francisco. The focus will be on ancient and con temporary Asian art, including 36-year-old artist Qiu Zhijie’s photograph, “Tatoo II,” estimated to bring $25,000 to $35,000 in London on June 20.APRIL 3-30 Scots can enjoy some high culture during Tartan Week. Christie’s uptown gallery (21 E. 67th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, 212-772-2266) will host works from the National Gallery of Scotland. Paintings by 18thcentury Scottish artists David Allan, Gavin Hamilton, and Allan Ramsay will be on exhibit. Admission is free and open to the public.APRIL 6 Earlier this year, Christie’s took a gamble by switching its traditional sale of Old Masters to April from January. But the house expects to sell $50 million worth of 16th through 19th century paintings and terra-cotta sculptures, a substantial sum for the category. The main attraction is Turner’s Venetian scene “Giudecca, La Donna della Salute and San Giorgio” (1841), expected to go for $20 million or more, which is more than double the previous record for Turner, set in 1984.APRIL 11 Your long-simmering hankering to steal the femur of a dinosaur from the Museum of Natural History can finally be satisfied legitimately at Bonham’s Natural History auction. A matched pair of Tyrannosaurus rex jawbones, with nine intact teeth, is estimated to go for $125,000 to $150,000. Minerals and jewels also will be on offer.MAY 2 The auction season proper gets under way with Christie’s Impressionist and Modern art evening sale. May’s massive art sales are expected to continue to set records for artists living and long gone. The highlight of the evening will be van Gogh’s “L’Arlesienne, Madame Ginoux” (1890), a portrait of a moody, literate cafe proprietress (who leans on the French editions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” and Dickens’s “Christmas Story”). It is estimated to attract more than $40 million. The evening sales are followed the next day by auctions of emerging artists – or inferior works by major artists – all of which are easier on the checkbook.Also on May 2, Sotheby’s is offering 19 watercolors by William Blake estimated to bring in $12 million to $17.5 million.MAY 3 Sotheby’s answer to the former world auction leader van Gogh ($82.5 million for a painting) is a sale of the current world auction leader, Picasso ($104 million) at its Impressionist and Modern art evening sale. The large, three-quarters-length Cubist portrait of Picasso’s mistress, “Dora Maar au chat” (1941), carries a low estimate of $50 million.MAY 9 Christie’s has led the Contemporary art evening sales for the past three of four seasons, with sales heavy on postwar masterpieces. For those three sales, totals crested $100 million. Thirty-five sculptures by Donald Judd auctioned on behalf of the Donald Judd Foundation may help push the sale over nine figures again.MAY 10 Sotheby’s Contemporary art evening sale also hit the $100 million mark last season, indicating just how robust the market is for art made in the past 60 years. There’s no sign of a slowdown this season – yet. Art fairs between November and May have had heavy traffic, and Wall Street treated itself to record bonuses at the new year. Roy Lichtenstein’s landscape “Sinking Sun” may go for $20 million; his “In the Car” made $16.3 million last season at Christie’s.MAY 11 Phillips, de Pury & Company’s Contemporary art auction is usually a relatively free-wheeling affair. Records are broken – or freshly made -for artists whose work is still acclimating to the tenderizing effects of the auction block.MAY 23-24 The Latin American sales at Christie’s and Sotheby’s mix Colonial art with Contemporary and have been rising with the overall art market. Sotheby’s comes off a strong year for Latin American art, in which the house brought in $28 million from sales in the category, a high point for the genre. Its May 24 sale of Latin American art is anchored by Frida Kahlo’s “Roots” (1943), estimated at $5 million to $7 million, which, at the high end, would be a record for a work of Latin American art. Christie’s is offering Rufino Tamayo’s “Still Life With Dominos” (1931) with an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000.JUNE 8 Phillips offers its 20th and 21st Century Design Art sale.JUNE 13 Christie’s hosts its 20th Century Decorative Arts sale.JUNE 14 For its 20th-century design sale, Sotheby’s has secured an Isamu Noguchi table, c. 1947. The table, called “Model IN-62” and estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, was produced as one of only a few prototypes.Christie’s, 20 Rockefeller Plaza, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, 212-636-2000.Sotheby’s, 1334 York Avenue, between 71st and 72nd Streets, 212-606-7000.Phillips, de Pury & Company, 450 W. 15th Street, between Ninth and Tenth Avenues, 212-940-1200.Bonham’s, 595 Madison Avenue at 57th Street, sixth floor, 212-644-9001.(Most auctions have public viewings for several days prior to the sale.)

Bidding Up for Days & Nights of Art

Bidding Up for Days & Nights of Art

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