Sotheby’s Yellow Ball Auction, presenting the extraordinary art collection of Frank and Lorna Dunphy, realized $13.3 million today, with 92% of lots sold, and participants from 43 countries. Known for managing Damien Hirst, Frank and his wife, Lorna, collected an impressive array of art.
Art News
Sotheby’s announced today the special sale of XUZHEN SUPERMARKET at their Contemporary Art Evening Sale in Hong Kong September 30. Though it may sound straightforward, the auction house isn’t selling a family grocery store—they’re selling the idea behind and future execution of an art installation.
This weekend Heritage Auctions’ Americana and Political Auction saw the sale of a rare piece of American history. Celebrating the recent civil disobedience of the Sons of Liberty protesting the Tea Act, "Liberty Triumphant: Or the Downfall of Oppression," is a rare engraving attributed to the Philadelphia and New York engraver Henry Dawkins, published in late 1773 or early 1774.
Known for his satirical watercolors with biting social commentary, Thomas Rowlandson’s popular works were widely circulated as prints in the Edwardian Era. The setting for the Rowlandson watercolor offered at auction by Bonhams of London on July 4, is Bath.
At their August 17th World and Ancient Coins Platinum Night, Heritage Auctions offered the legendary “First Dollar of the New World.” According to mint records, the coin is one of eight reales struck by assayer Francisco del Rincón for the Spanish in 1538. Of the eight recorded, only three known examples of the coin exist today. Minted in Mexico City, the coin sunk aboard the shipwreck of the "Golden Fleece" in 1550.
Patriarchs of the Grove by William Wendt (1865-1946), leads Bonhams' California and Western Painting Auction, August 7th, in Los Angeles. Estimated at $250,000-350,000, Patriarchs of the Grove is one of Wendt’s most coveted canvases.
Bonhams offered a number of high-quality furnishings, accessories, and art for their Home and Interiors Auction this morning. The total sale was £747,950, or $983,239 USD. Sets of silver candelabra from the Painted Hall in Greenwich were a highlight of the Auction. Commissioned in 1939, bearing the monogram of reigning monarch George VI, the meticulously cleaned and restored candelabra add elegance and grandeur to their surroundings.
Phillips Auction House has a new exhibition this summer that brings together fashion, art, culture, and charity. Curated by Elizabeth Semmelhack, Senior Curator at the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Tongue + Chic features shoes designed by some of today’s most important artists, including KAWS, Kehinde Wiley, Jenny Holzer, Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami. Borrowed from private collections and museums, the objects on display show that shoes are a blank canvas with unlimited potential for expression.
At their auction of English Literature, History, Science, Children’s Books and Illustrations yesterday, Sotheby’s broke auction records with the sale of the Original Map of the Hundred Acre Wood. A testament to the timeless of the Winnie-the-Pooh books, and the lasting impact of the work of illustrator E.H.
The upcoming sale of Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art at Sotheby’s offers an array of paintings and drawings by Simeon Solomon. An inventive artist of the British Aesthetic Movement, Solomon upheld the creed of “art for art’s sake,” creating dreamy, sensual paintings even in the midst of personal tragedy.
