Auction News Network

Miro’s “Farmer & His Wife” Come To Market

In the early 1920’s Joan Miro painted the iconic ,“The Farm.” Even as an impoverished writer, Ernest Hemingway fell so in love with it he bought it on an installment plan. Nearly 15-years later Miro painted, “The Farmer and His Wife” done in his more recognizable bright primary colors and impressionist figures. Sotheby’s is selling it next month in London. High estimate is $12m.

Magritte Apple Picked For $6.6m

Rene Magritte loved to paint apples. By the time he’d put down his brush, his apples didn’t look like anyone else’s, which is why “La Grande Table” sold yesterday at Sotheby’s Paris auction for $6.6m, Another painting, “La Parure de l’Orage,” went for $1.9m, and will hang in the Museum of Modern Art next year.

Munch’s “The Scream” Sets World Record

“The Scream” had them applauding at Sotheby’s last night as the bidding soared past the high estimate of $80m and kept climbing as two phone bidders got into it. The Munch piece  finally went for just under $120m, setting a record for a work of art at auction.  Last year a Picasso oil went for $106.5m. This 1895 version, one of four  the Norwegian produced over a period of years, was done in pastel on a board.

Dali to Test Surrealism Prices At Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s is staging a major modern and impressionist auction that will test the surging market in late 20^th Century artists such as surrealist Salvador Dali whose painting, “Printemps Necrophilique,” comes with a $12m estimate at the May 2 sale in New York.

Warhol’s Silkscreen of Bardot Could Fetch $5m

Gunter Sachs amassed a huge, eclectic art collection that will take Sotheby’s two days in May to sell, including a Warhol portrait of the German playboy’s second wife, Brigitte Bardot, commissioned after his divorce. Although it is one of 35 Bardot silkscreens, it’s still expected to sell in the $5m range at the London auction.

Update: The Warhol silkscreen of Bardot sold for $4.7m, which experts called the bargain of the night. All told, the auction brought in $55.8m, almost double the low estimate.

Miro & Klimt Lead Sotheby’s Sale

“Peinture,” a modernist work that Joan Miro painted in the single day of April 29, 1933 during a period of exceptional creative ferment, is expected to fetch $11m-$15.7m when it comes up for auction at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale in London on February 8^th. Anticipated to be a bit less valuable is a recently rediscovered landscape from 1901 by Gustav Klimt, “Seeufer Mit Birken (Lakeshore With Birches.’ In one family’s possession for a century and not seen publicly since 1902, it carries an estimate of $9.4m-$12.6m.

Update: Miro’s “Peinture” failed to find a buyer at the auction, in which Klimt’s “Seeufer Mit Birken” realized $8.8m, below estimates. In all, the evening sale brought in $125.5m.

Miro’s “Poem-Painting” Leads Surrealism Sale

Considered one of Joan Miro’s most important works, the “Poem-Painting” known as “le corps de ma brune…” has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (N.Y.), the Tate (London), the Guggenheim (N.Y.), and the Pompidou (Paris), to name just a few. When it comes up for sale at Christie’s Surrealism sale on February 7^th, the anticipated price of the influential 1925 painting is expected to match its distinguished provenance. Its estimate is $9.4m-$14.1m.

A $37 Million Francis Bacon

More than 10 bidders from 4 continents vied to claim Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies for a portrait of Lucien Freud” at Sotheby’s “Looking Closely” sale in London earlier today. In the end, an anonymous buyer won it for $37 million, more than double its high estimate.

Surrealist Art At Christie’s

As the Nazis occupied Belgium, Rene Magritte reacted by turning away from what he called “the disturbing poetry” of earlier years and toward sunnier and simpler themes. “L’Aiment” (the Magnet), a 1941 nude that exemplifies this shift will be the most highly estimated lot at Christie’s Art of the Surreal sale tomorrow in London, where it’s expected to bring in $5.7-$8.9 million.

Update: Magritte’s “L’Aiment” sold for $7.65 million. The next highest estimated lot was Salvador Dali’s “Las Llamas, liaman,” which failed to find a buyer.  Another work by Dali’, however,  “Etude pour “le miel est plus doux que le sang,” brought in $6.6 million