Fine Art

THE latest sales of Contemporary art in New York produced some solid results, but buyers were selective and not all the projected highlights fulfilled vendors’ expectations.

IN a series of high-profile auctions in New York that saw an underperforming run of Impressionist and Modern art sales, the eye-catching price of the week by some distance came for a 19th century historical genre painting.

DESPITE the ever-increasing international attendance and breadth of disciplines at the fair, Dutch Old Masters still remain at the very core of TEFAF Maastricht.

ONE of Germany’s official war artists, Roman Zenzinger, who has long remained in the shadows because of his apparent hatred of the Nazis, is now having his works bought to light.

A PICTURE discovered in a Suffolk village has sold for Aus$132,000 (£85,715) in Bonhams' saleroom in Sydney, Australia.

THIS marble portrait bust of Ann Borrett by the 18th century sculptor Henry Cheere was stolen from the Church of St Peter and St Paul in Shoreham, Kent at the end of January.

BONHAMS have appointed Anthony McNerney as head of Contemporary art.

LONDON’S latest series of Contemporary art sales put in a robust performance. Auctioneers posted high selling rates and saw the greatest depth of bidding since the art market downturn two years ago.

WORKS by some of biggest names in the Modern and Contemporary art market drew serious levels of international competition in London last week.

CHRISTIE’S have decided to re-introduce dedicated 19th century European art sales, with the first taking place in London on June 15.

THE ten Parisian dealers hoping to push Old Masters into the limelight in the French capital have confirmed their decision to hold a fair dedicated to the genre this autumn with dates and details.

A SALE at the Hotel Drouot in Paris devoted to minor works by Picasso was called off at the last minute because of controversy over provenance.

LIMITED interest on the two star lots meant the best contests at this month’s Old Master series in London came for more attractively pitched works by less familiar names.

TEN leading Parisian Old Master galleries have announced plans to launch a select new fair in the French capital next year.

THE price of $56.5m (£36.9m) seen for Andy Warhol's The Men in Her Life at Phillips de Pury's evening sale, meant that for the first time in a New York Contemporary art auction series the top lot did not come from Sotheby's or Christie's.

YOU’D have thought he’d be glad to see the back of it. But duped art dealer David Smith of Neptune Fine Art has bought back the fake Lowry picture he originally purchased for £330,000.

ALONGSIDE the $65.5m (£42.8m) Modigliani (see story here), the price of the week in New York was the phenomenal $32m (£20.9m) seen for The Finding of Moses by Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

RECORD prices for three European artists helped lift the latest round of Impressionist and Modern art sales in New York. With the market much more selective since the downturn two years ago and most of the competition focusing on the biggest trophy lots, the new saleroom highs for Henri Matisse, Juan Gris and Amedeo Modigliani provided further evidence of recovery at the top end.

GENERATING a 25-minute bidding battle at Halls' sale in Shrewsbury on October 20, The Earl of Oxford's Roan or Bloody shouldered Arabian by John Wootton (c.1682-1764) set a new house record when it was finally knocked down to an anonymous UK buyer for £326,000.

THREE people have been arrested in Germany in connection with a multi-million pound art fraud involving a number of apparently major 20th century oils sold on the international market in recent years.