Observingarts: Sotheby’s presents a short film inspired by Henri Matisse’s La Leçon de Piano

Sotheby’s presents a short film inspired by Henri Matisse’s La Leçon de Piano – 
a highlight of Sotheby's Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 3 February in London.

Observingarts: 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective by Sotheby's

Mubin Orhon

1924-1981

TURKISH

UNTITLEDoil on canvas 130 by 97cm.; 51¼ by 38¼in.

Sotheby's.com

OA: After a solid portion of focus on overpriced art-icons, regular collectors have been left in limbo. 

The outbeating of classic art by modern and contemporary calls for action to serve other parts of the market in times ahead. The second and third layer of the market represent strong buyers and a large potential.  

That will include objects that carries both risk and potential in todays market. Sotheby's is providing some clues:  

"Sotheby’s 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective sale in London on 2 December will feature modern art from countries across Europe and around the Mediterranean by artists who have a strong regional following but are not yet part of the international mainstream. The sale will include a number of important Egyptian, Turkish, Arab and Iranian works as well as a good selection of contemporary and modern art from Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Highlights of the sale include works by Sandor Bortnyik, Mubin Orhon, Mikulas Medek and Sohrab Sepehri". 

Read more...............

Observingarts: Francis Bacon's "Head I" - the story.

Francis Bacon, Head I, 195860.5 by 50.5 cm.; 23¾ by 19⅞ in.
Photo: Soteby's.com

Francis Bacon’s Head I of 1958 was painted at a turning point in the artist’s career. The picture also captures the drama of Bacon’s personal life. Completed in the borrowed rooms he occupied in Overstrand Mansions in Battersea, the painting depicts Peter Lacy, More and nice detail of painting at Sotheby's.

Ander Zorn under the hammer at Sotheby's

Anders Zorn

A Portrait of the daughters of Ramon Subercaseaux,

Source: Sotheby's

Sotheby’s November 3rd auction of 19th Century European Art in New York include Anders Zorn’s masterpiece A Portrait of the daughters of Ramon Subercaseaux, as well as an important group of drawings by Jean François Millet, including a study for his most celebrated painting, The Gleaners. Major re-discoveries are also featured in the sale, such as Jean Leon Gérôme’s Prière dans la mosque, Jean Louis Ernest Meissonier’s Les Deux Amis, and William Bouguereau’s Young Girl with Grapes, alongside major paintings by John Frederick Herring Sr., Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Alfred Stevens, Julius Leblanc Stewart, Gustave Moreau and Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema. More at Sotheby's

Observingarts: Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World at Tate ends 25th of October

Barbara Hepworth: Sculpture for a Modern World

24 June – 25 October 2015

Major retrospective exhibition. Charting Hepworth’s progress from her earliest surviving carvings to the large-scale bronzes of the 1960s. Among the highlights are four large sculptures in sumptuous African hardwood – the high point of her post-war carving career – reunited in one room. More at Tate.

Barbara Hepworth in the Palais de la Danse studio, St Ives, 

at work on the wood carving Hollow Form with White Interior 1963
Photograph: Val Wilmer, © Bowness

For a walk along British sculptures,  take a look at:  

Sotheby's

Beyond Limits: The Landscape of British Sculpture 1950-2015

14 SEPTEMBER 2015 - 25 OCTOBER 2015 | DERBYSHIRE, UK

Observingarts: Edvard Munch's Rare Woodcut Leads Sotheby's Prints & Multiples Auction In London on 29 September 2015

The motif of Edvard Munch's The Girls on the Bridge has been widely recognised as one of the
artist's most celebrated, from its first unveiling in 1901. Munch went on to produce several versions of The Girls on the Bridge, creating between 1901 and 1935 a total of twelve known oil paintings and a number of variations in etching, lithograph and woodcut. A rare woodcut from 1918, the first documented impression using the colours dark blue, green and bright red-orange against teal-blue, leads Sotheby's biannual Prints & Multiples sale In London on 29 September 2015 with an estimate of £ 200 000 - 300 000. For more info: go to Sotheby's