June 17, 2010 - Auction Central News

Euro elegance, Latin art headline Morton Kuehnert sales June 24, 26

‘Study of a Lady Seated’ by Eugen Klimsch, lot 49, estimate; $5,000-$7,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

HOUSTON – Antiques and decorative objects representing the finest artisans of 19th- and early 20th-century Europe will be sold at Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers’ catalog auction on Thursday, June 24. LiveAuctioneers will provide Internet live bidding for the 7 p.m. Central auction.

More than two dozen antique or new rugs will be auctioned, including Persian Qum, Kashan Davir, Heriz, Tabriz, Baktiari, Bidjar, Nain, Esfahan, and Kerman. The sale also includes a Kazak East Caucasus, a needlepoint Bessarabian from China and a Pakistani Oushak.

Artists represented include George W. Chambers, American; William Etty, British; Eugen Klimsch, German; Eugene Benjamin Fichel, American; T. Moser; Alexander Rosell, British; Keith Shackleton, British; as well as a collection of nine pieces by American artist Bernard D’Andrea.

A sampling of 19th- and 20th-century decorative items includes a three-piece cobalt blue, white and gold Meissen tea service; a cobalt blue and gold Meissen bowl; and a Meissen pedestal bowl. Also, Waterford crystal, a five-piece Magic Flute Rosenthal tea set, a pair of European cut crystal and gilded bronze candelabra, a German porcelain table lamp, a pair of French bronze doré lamps and a marble and bronze Doré clock are highlights of the decorative items. One lot with four vases includes French Sevres, French enamel, Asian cloisonné and Rookwood pottery vase. There is also a Lalique Tokio smoke set.

Outstanding European furniture includes an English George IV Carlton House desk and a George III painted armchair, circa 1790. Also, available is a Régence-style Sun King commode with heavy bronze ormolu and serpentine sides and beveled marble top.

On Saturday, June 26, Morton Kuehnert will present 75 items of Spanish Colonial and Latin American art, antiques and decorative items from a private collection in Mexico. The live auction at the Morton Kuehnert auction house at 4901 Richmond Ave. near the Houston Galleria Shopping Mall. LiveAuctioneers will again provide Internet live bidding.

A reception and presentation on Latin American art by guest speaker Armando Palacios, founder of Houston’s New World Museum, will precede the auction at 5:30 p.m. in the auction showroom. The public is invited to attend all the evening’s activities.

Crossing the auction block will be paintings and illustrations from noted 19th-century and 20th-century Mexican artists including Rufino Tamayo, José Luis Cuevas, Ramon Sosamontes, Angel Bracho, Casimiro Castro, Jésus Alvarez Amaya, Manuel Benet, Rodolfo Morales, Lucia Maya, Alfredo Meireles, R. Vinci Kinard and Francisco Toledo. Also included are a pair of paintings on board by Argentine artist Octavio Rojo, born 1951, and an album of 63 silver print photographs by Charles B. Waite, the renowned late 19th- and early 20th-century North American photographer of Mexican landscapes.

Other auction items include: highly collectible Spanish Colonial wood-carved santos (saint figurals) and retablo folk art (religious oil paintings on tin, copper, wood, zinc), as well as beautifully carved and inlaid coffers, tables, silver objects and Talevero ceramics. Morton Kuehnert will also auction some of the collector’s European, Asian and Russian decorative and religious items.

Previews will begin Monday, June 21.

John Dabney, Morton Kuehnert’s fine art specialist will answer questions; e-mail him at jdabney@mortonkuehnert.com; questions on rugs should be directed to Luis Arcé, rug specialist at larce@mortonkuehnert.com and questions on decorative items and furnishings to Patricia Kuehnert Gillespy, managing director, to pkg@mortonkuehnert.com.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

Gilded bronze hinged rectangular chest; lot 29, estimate: $2,500-$2,750. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Tabriz rug, northwest Persia, lot 58; estimate: $3,000-$4,000. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

‘Candomble Dancing’ by Octavio Rojo, lot 16, estimate: $400-$500. Image courtesy of Morton Kuehnert Auctioneers & Appraisers.

Frick Museum’s 75th birthday party includes a ‘sketchy’ bonus

Henry C. Frick House containing the Frick Collection,located at 1 E. 70th Street in New York City. 2010 image by Gryffindor, licensed under Crative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

NEW YORK (AP) – New York’s incomparable Frick Collection is throwing itself a birthday party this year to mark the 75 years since the museum opened its doors to the public.

As might be expected from an institution established by steel magnate Henry Clay Frick as a “public gallery of art to which the entire public shall forever have access,” the public will reap the benefits.

Curators have mounted a small show, complete with architectural drawings, that explores the transformation of the mansion into a museum and library.

Earlier this year, the Frick launched a new series of docent-led talks in the galleries. A new film about the collection and its founder, which includes recently restored archival footage, airs three times an hour.

As an added bonus, on select Sundays this summer, visitors will be permitted to sketch inside the museum. And the various anniversary celebrations conclude Dec. 16, when the Frick will not charge admission. That is the day in 1935 when New Yorkers first glimpsed one of the world’s finest private collections of art.

Frick, who died in 1919, stipulated in his will that his mansion on Fifth Avenue, and all the treasures inside it, be opened as a museum following the death of his wife, Adelaide.

When his wife died in 1931, the original Beaux Arts home, designed in 1913 by Thomas Hastings of the famed firm Carrere and Hastings, was significantly expanded by the great architect John Russell Pope.

Pope, best known for designing the National Archives, West Building of the National Gallery of Art and Jefferson Memorial in Washington, conceived the idea of enclosing the mansion’s former exterior courtyard under glass to create the Garden Court, now one of the most beloved spaces in the museum.

When the museum finally opened after four years of renovation, it was front-page news. The New York Herald Tribune published the names of 700 guests invited to the private reception, a list that included Rockefellers, Melons and other wealthy and influential citizens. Art critics, for the most part, swooned, with the notable exception of New Yorker critic Lewis Mumford, who bemoaned the display of “carved chests” and “sculptural bric-a-brac.” He felt such decorative arts distracted attention from the masterpieces on the walls.

“The best background for the paintings and sculpture of the past is no background at all _ the bare walls of a modern building,” he fumed.

The Frick’s 300,000 annual visitors most likely couldn’t disagree more. Part of the Frick’s charm is its residential character, with visitors trying to imagine what it could have been like to live there, as Frick did with his wife, his daughter Helen and 27 servants.

In the evening, he might retire to the grand, sky-lit West Gallery, where visitors today can see Turners, a Vermeer and dozens of other masterworks set against dark green walls, some hanging over those Italian wedding chests that so irritated Mumford.

Some great art collectors embrace the new; Frick’s aesthetic was to honor the past. He started out collecting works by the Barbizon school, a group of 19th-century French painters whose realistic landscapes were popular at the time. Over the years, Frick refined his taste, eventually acquiring great works by Titian, Rembrandt, Velazquez, El Greco, Goya and Fragonard, to name just a few.

He gravitated toward landscapes and portraits, many of them of beautiful women. Toward the end of his life, he bought parts of J. Pierpont Morgan’s estate – including Limoges enamels, Sevres porcelain and 18th-century French furniture to display in intimate settings with paintings and sculpture.

He never intended the Frick to compete against institutions with encyclopedic collections; it was always meant to remain a home, albeit a grand one for someone with extraordinary wealth and taste to match.

“You drift though,” says Rika Burnham, head of education at the Frick, “inhaling the Gilded Age.”

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Online: http://www.frick.org/

AP-ES-06-16-10 1155EDT

Pennsylvania’s Michener Museum plans $5M expansion

2010 photo of the James A. Michener Art Museum in Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1988 and named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, the museum is known for its collection of Pennsylvania Impressionists and also houses Michener mementos, including his typewriter, books and other items.

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. (AP) – The Michener Museum in Doylestown says it will add a 2,700-square-foot event center to the museum for concerts, exhibit openings and parties.

Museum director Bruce Katsiff said Wednesday the $5 million expansion could generate $150,000 to $250,000 in revenue annually through occasion rentals.

The center will have an entrance within the museum and a separate entrance behind the museum.

It will have glass walls, with sliding doors on its east and west sides so that larger programs and parties can go outside. The structure will have a “green” roof.

Doylestown officials are currently reviewing the plans.

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Information from: The Intelligencer, http://www.phillyburbs.com

AP-ES-06-16-10 0850EDT

W.Va. seeks art for state, Civil War anniversaries

Official Seal of the State of West Virginia.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) – Division of Culture and History Commissioner Randall Reid-Smith hopes history doesn’t repeat itself when the agency holds the first state-sponsored art exhibition in nearly 50 years.

Four juried exhibits are planned over the next two years to commemorate the 150th anniversaries of the Civil War and the state’s birth. Each has a different theme depicting the Mountain State.

A similar exhibition in 1963 to commemorate the state’s 100th anniversary created an uproar when a piece called “West Virginia Moon” was named best of show. The piece was a compilation of broken wooden boards and part of a screen door.

Reid-Smith says his agency plans to buy some of the new pieces. He says they will boost the state’s permanent art collection.

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Information from: Charleston Daily Mail, http://www.dailymail.com

AP-ES-06-16-10 0753EDT

Early Mondrian painting stolen in Netherlands

AMSTERDAM (AP) – Police say a portrait painted by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian early in his career has been stolen from a museum in the Netherlands.

Thieves apparently forced the doors at the Freriks Museum in the eastern town of Winterswijk in the early hours of Tuesday morning and took the painting, police say in a statement. The piece, Portrait of Arda Boogers, is dated to around 1908.

It is a naturalistic portrait of a young woman, far different in style from the abstract minimalist paintings for which Mondrian is best known.

Police called for witnesses or people with tips to come forward Tuesday. The painting was insured for euro23,000 ($28,000).

AP-WS-06-15-10 1539EDT

Flashy book dealer on trial for theft of rare Shakespeare folio

LONDON – A flashy British book dealer accused of stealing a rare first edition of Shakespeare’s plays appeared for trial Wednesday in a silver limousine, sporting a Panama hat and flashing victory signs at reporters.

Raymond Scott is accused of having stolen the 1623 folio from England’s Durham University in 1998. The 53-year-old was arrested after a man took the volume to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, claiming he found it in Cuba and asking for verification that it was genuine.

Experts at the library suspected the book was stolen and called in police.

Scholars consider the folio one of the most important printed works in the English language.

Scott was also charged with theft and handling stolen goods in cases unrelated to the folio. He denied all the charges.

He arrived Wednesday at northeastern England’s Newcastle Crown Court in a silver Chrysler 300.

For an earlier court appearance, he wore a kilt and came in a horse-drawn carriage led by a Scots piper.

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Phillips de Pury’s artful Film auction June 24 awaits stellar reviews

Dramatic black and silver cover for Phillips de Pury's large-format catalog, June 24, 2010 Film Auction.

NEW YORK – Following the success of the previous theme sales, Phillips de Pury & Co. anticipates glowing reviews for its forthcoming Film auction, which premieres Thursday, June 24. The sale will be conducted at Phillips de Pury & Co.’s gallery, 450 W. 15th St. in Manhattan.

LiveAuctioneers will facilitate Internet live bidding.

Highlights of the Film auction include:

Silvano Campeggi’s depiction of Marlon Brando in The Wild One, 1945, estimated at $10,000-$15,000.

Silvano “Nano” Campeggi is often referred to as Florence’s greatest living artist. Campeggi produced more than 3,000 posters and graphic illustrations for such major filmmakers as MGM Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Columbia Pictures, United Artists, RKO and Fox. Many of the films whose posters he illustrated won Oscars, including Casablanca, Ben Hur, Singing in the Rain, An American in Paris, West Side Story, Exodus, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and Gigi. In the 1950s and 1960s, Campeggi became known as The Artist to the Stars. Today, his larger-than-life images of Hollywood’s greatest actresses are instantly recognizable cultural icons: the regal bearing of Grace Kelly; the smoky essence of Elizabeth Taylor; a green-eyed Lauren Bacall, sly and sultry in beret and cape; a perfectly coiffed Ava Gardner radiating power and control; a towering Rita Hayworth as the unobtainable, unconquerable redhead; a radiant Sophia Loren displaying as much worldly, earth-mother warmth and wisdom as she does sheer beauty. Hollywood’s male stars also fell captive to Nano’s discerning eye: Marlon Brando cockily astride his Harley as The Wild One; James Dean, bare-chested, exuding rawness, arrogance and testosterone; a dusty, trail-weary John Wayne sporting his signature neck kerchief and broad-rimmed cowboy hat; and Humphrey Bogart in his trademark white dinner jacket – a masterpiece of dramatic shadow and attitude.

Frank Worth’s Luxury Collectors Portfolio, 1939-1958, estimated at $12,000-$18,000.

Subjects in the photograph include all-time icons and legends who have come to symbolize timeless Hollywood glamour, such as Jane Russell, Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, James Dean, Wiliiam Holden, Cary Grant, Dean Martin, Jerry Lewis, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Dennis Hopper and Jane Wyman, among others.

Herman Makkink’s Rocking Machine kinetic sculpture, 1969, estimated at $20,000-$25,000.

Featured in Stanley Kubrick’s film A Clockwork Orange, the Rocking Machine was not designed especially for the film. Rather, it formed part of Makkink’s studio work at the time, and, after seeing them, Kubrick decided to use them for the film for their futuristic look. Movements of the late ’60s and early ’70s, including Pop Art and the sexual revolution, had influenced Makkink’s designs.

Mounir Fatmi’s Ecran Noir N°1, 2005, estimated at $30,000-$40,000.

A vast mural composition, Ecran Noir at first glance appears to be a large-scale painting, but in fact is conceived from hundreds of VHS cassettes. These cassettes, in a departure from their characteristic usage, are transformed into decorative elements, creating a work that rings back to the geometric compositions of concrete or minimalist art. In accordance with these principals, the elements of motif repetition and the economy of means are prevalent throughout the work. However, what makes both the artist and the work so strong is the direct challenge Ecrans noirs brings to the basis of concrete art, namely that art should not symbolize or represent anything further than what we see. The work comments on the power of images, from ones we have seen to ones we only think we have seen, from images we are shown to those that we interpret. The semiotic value of this wall of objects – and hidden images – is compounded by the fact that media images can often be visual decoys. This powerful work serves to reinforce the artist’s inquiry into the degree of reality and the level of truth found in each individual image.

Following the success of a selection of works by Dennis Hopper offered in Philips’ May Contemporary Art sales from the collection of Halsey Minor, and in anticipation of the upcoming Dennis Hopper retrospective to be held at Los Angeles MOCA this summer, the auction house will offer six representative works by the late actor and artist, including Willie Thomas, 1965, and News is Daily Again, 1963, each estimated at $7,000-$9,000.

Other notable works that will feature in the sale include Youssef Nabil’s Rossy De Palma, Madrid, 2002, estimated at $18,000-$22,000; Ron English’s Large Marilyn Red Peach, estimated at $10,000-$15,000; Gregory Crewdson’s Untitled (Dead cow discovery) from Twilight, 1998, estimated at $10,000-$15,000; Jonathan Horowitz’s Best Actress (24 works), 2001, estimated at $15,000-$20,000; Alan Aldridge’s Andy Warhol’s Chelsea Girls, 1971, estimated at $15,000-$20,000, and Firooz Zahedi’s Uma Thurman/ Pulp Fiction, 1994, estimated at $6,000-$8,000.

The auction catalog, whose innovative format could be described as a cross between Interview magazine and an artistically designed auction catalog, includes an editorial feature on Isabella Rosselini’s creative passions and exploration of her latest work titled Seduce Me, the late Dennis Hopper revealed, and other interviews with avant garde artists Francesco Vezzoli, Kutlug Ataman and Cao Fei.

Previews will begin June 19 and continue through June 24. The auction will begin June 24 at 2 p.m. Eastern.

View the fully illustrated catalog and register to bid absentee or live via the Internet as the sale is taking place by logging on to www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

ADDITIONAL LOTS OF NOTE

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