At Christie's Post-War and Contemporary Evening sale last night, David Hockney’s 1972 Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures) became the most expensive painting ever sold by a living artist. Selling for $90,312,500, the Hockney work far exceeded the previous record, set by Jeff Koons’ Balloon Dog (Orange) in 2013, when it sold at Christie's for $58,405,000.
Art News
In this episode of Masterworks: Expert Voices, join famed dealer, collector, and Sotheby’s Senior Vice President Otto Naumann in an introduction to Rembrandt’s Study of the Head and Clasped Hands of A Young Man As Christ in Prayer. With swift brushstrokes, Rembrandt broke from the byzantine portrayal of Christ as Redeemer or Pantocrator in favor of a more human depiction. This personal, expressive representation of an individual in pensive prayer serves as his reminder that Christ was man as well as God.
This week in Geneva, Sotheby’s auction of the Bourbon Parma family collection of royal jewels made auction history. Containing one hundred pieces, the auction realized $53.1 million, over seven times the pre-sale high estimate of $7 million. Among the collection were pieces that belonged to Queen Marie Antoinette. This auction of historic jewels broke the $50.3 million record established by the 1987 sale of jewels of the Duchess of Windsor.
Old Dominion University’s Barry Art Museum opened to the public on Wednesday, November 14.
Located on the corner of Hampton Boulevard and 43rd Street in Norfolk, Va., the 24,000-square-foot museum was made possible by a gift of funds and art valued at more than $37 million from Richard and Carolyn Barry-the largest in the Old Dominion’s history.
Around the world museums are upping the ante by offering a full experience to their visitors—one that includes a dining experience that is as carefully curated as its collections. Click through these ten opportunities to indulge all your senses at great museums.
Shown at work in his Brooklyn studio, Marcel Dzama discusses the evolution of his drawings, from his time growing up in his native Winnipeg, to his move to New York in 2004, to his more recent responses to U.S. politics and media.
Davis discusses what it took to write her first art-historical fiction novel and the fascinating inspiration for the story.
NEW YORK – August Uribe, Head of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department in New York, commented: “Tonight we witnessed a healthy and intelligent market responding with enthusiasm to a sale unlike any we have assembled in recent memory. The offering was characterized by originality as well as rarity, bringing together the best examples remaining in private hands by artists not typically seen at auction, alongside important works by the leading Modernists.
In her Brooklyn studio, Dana Schutz imagines the moment when a painting becomes “more than just material, and more than just a picture.” She describes how her paintings begin as absurd moments and evolve as bodies with their own logic.
The exceptionally surprising and thought-provoking exhibition Painting Is My Everything—Art from India’s Mithila Region is on view at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco until December 30, 2018. Thirty large-scale works from various artists, predominantly women, transport the visitors into a colorful and deeply meaningful world.
