December 3, 2010 - Auction Central News

Reyne Gauge: Antiques take on Times Square

The antiques and collecting world seems finally to be gaining traction with the television world. More and more television shows are popping up that pertain to collecting, and personally, I love it!

The popularity of new shows like Pawn Stars and American Pickers has spawned an interest in collecting like never before. People are digging through old boxes, their attics and basements (and those of friends and family) hoping to find hidden treasures that have been tucked away or long forgotten about.

The other day I received a press release from the HISTORY Channel about a new and exciting concept they are launching Dec. 6, just in time for the holiday shopping season. It’s a pop-up store in Times Square for fans of Pawn Stars and American Pickers.

Apparently the store is going to be erected at 1501 Broadway, New York City. On hand for the opening ceremony will be Rick Harrison from Pawn Stars, and Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz from American Pickers. All three HISTORY Channel stars will be on hand to meet their fans and sign autographs.

The Pop Store will offer show-theme merchandise, and there will be an interactive element for guests. The on-site games will allow you to guess the value of items from the shows on a screen, and to determine if a good deal was made.

The store will also have daily giveaways and a grand prize. I have no idea what the daily giveaways are, but wouldn’t it be great if they gave away a few of the finds the guys have discovered over the past few seasons?

If you happen to be in the New York area, make sure to visit the shop from Dec. 6-19, anytime from noon until 8 p.m., Monday to Friday, or on weekends from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Extended hours are planned the closer we get to Christmas, so guys – keep in mind the brownie points you’d score if you remembered to bring home a gift to place under the tree without waiting till the last minute.

Congrats, HISTORY Channel, for bringing these two shows to light and good luck with the Pop Shop!

P.S. – Just as I was about to upload this I heard back from the HISTORY Channel publicist who informed me that the Pop Shop WILL be selling items from past and future episodes of both shows. She told me what some of the items are that will be for sale, and I’d tell ya what they are, but that just takes all the fun out of it, doesn’t it now?

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Queen Kapiolani sculpture gets makeover

Esther Julia Kapi'olani Napelakapuokaka'e (1834-1899), Queen consort of King Kalakaua, who reigned over the Kingdom of Hawaii from 1874 to 1891. Photo attributed to photographer A.A. Montano.

HONOLULU (AP) – The Queen Kapiolani statue at Honolulu’s Kapiolani Park is getting a makeover.

Technicians from the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts are scheduled to conduct regular maintenance work on the nine-year-old bronze sculpture on Friday.

The statue is 6 feet 6 inches tall and is mounted on a black granite pedestal. The entire display is about 8 feet.

It shows Queen Kapiolani in “street costume” at about the age of 40. Her face has a warm, subtle smile and one of her arms is slightly extended, palm open, as if to welcome someone into her home.

The sculpture by artist Holly Young was dedicated on the queen’s birthday – Dec. 31 – in 2001.

AP-WS-12-02-10 1409EST

NYC’s King Tut exhibit extended

Tuthankamen's famous burial mask, on display in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. Dec. 7, 2003 photo by Bjorn Christian Torrissen, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

NEW YORK (AP) – The “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” exhibition in Times Square has been extended by two weeks.

Organizers also say 19 new artifacts from the boy-king’s tomb were added this week. They include a miniature bronze dog and sphinx-shaped bracelet ornament. They say the Discovery Times Square Exposition show will now close Jan. 17, 2011.

The additional items come from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Last month, the Met and Egypt’s antiquities authority said the objects will be returned to Egypt and become part of the permanent King Tutankhamun collection at the Grand Egyptian Museum slated to open in 2012.

New York’s exhibition opened in April. It sheds new information about the life and death of Tutankhamun and his ancestors, based on discoveries made through DNA and CT scans.

Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

AP-ES-12-02-10 1227EST

Let there be light! Morphy’s to auction Tiffany church window Dec. 10

Tiffany Studios stained-glass window authenticated by Dr. Egon Neustadt, 72 inches by 43 inches, to be auctioned Dec. 10 at Morphy Auctions. Estimate $150,000-$250,000. Morphy Auctions image.

DENVER, Pa. – A spectacular Tiffany Studios stained-glass window created around the turn of the 20th century for a church in Duluth, Minn., has drawn a legion of admirers since being placed on display at Morphy Auctions’ Pennsylvania gallery.

It’s the star attraction among some 20 stained-glass windows, Tiffany lamps and other premier examples of art glass to be auctioned Dec. 10 – with Internet live bidding through LiveAuctioneers.com – at the company’s 730-lot sale of fine and decorative art.

The rainbow-hued window measuring 72 inches by 43 inches features as its central element a cedar tree with a double-plated trunk and lower branches. Its deep-green leaves are accented by blue mottles and few streaks of blue glass. The lush garden scene includes several other trees, as well as ivy, vines and eight luxuriant red roses in full bloom around the base and up the sides of two massive columns. A stone path meanders toward an urn-topped wall, rendering depth and dimension to the eye-filling landscape.

“This window has been in the consignor’s private collection for more than 40 years, so it’s fresh to the market and will surprise many of today’s collectors of Tiffany art glass,” said Morphy Auctions’ CEO, Dan Morphy. “Needless to say, my team took every possible precaution in transporting the window to our gallery. It can be nerve-wracking when you’re entrusted with something as unique and valuable as this Tiffany window, which is unquestionably a masterpiece. It’s well documented that Tiffany considered his stained-glass windows, both ecclesiastical and landscape, to be his most important works.”

While unsigned, the window is undeniably the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany (1848-1933). In the 1980s, after 20 years of painstaking research, Dr. Egon Neustadt – the world’s foremost authority on Tiffany – confirmed its authenticity. The late Dr. Neustadt’s letter of authenticity accompanies the window, which is estimated at $150,000-$250,000.

In addition to the selection of stained-glass windows, more than 30 Tiffany and other art-glass lamps, fine paintings, pottery, furniture and objets d’art are slated to go under the hammer at Morphy’s Dec. 10 event.

For additional information on any item in the sale, call 717-335-3435 or e-mail dan@morphyauctions.com.

View the fully illustrated catalog and sign up to bid absentee or live via the Internet at www.LiveAuctioneers.com.

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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 IMAGE OF NOTE

UK’s National Portrait Gallery invites entries for BP Portrait Award 2011

Inside the National Portrait Gallery, London. Oct. 24, 2008 photo taken by Herry Lawford. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

LONDON – The National Portrait Gallery in London has announced its call for entries for the BP Portrait Award 2011, one of the world’s most prestigious open competitions for portrait painting. The closing date for entries is Friday, Feb. 11, 2011.

The Portrait Award, now in its 32nd year at the National Portrait Gallery and 22nd year of sponsorship by BP, is an annual event aimed at encouraging artists to focus upon and develop portraiture in their work.

The BP Portrait Award 2011 exhibition will run at the National Portrait Gallery from June 16 through Sept. 18, 2011, prior to a national tour.

The BP Portrait Award is open to all artists over the age of 18, and provides an important platform for portrait painters. In 2010, more than 2,000 artists submitted their work, and the exhibition, which featured 58 paintings, was seen by more than 280,000 people at the National Portrait Gallery.

A cash award of £25,000/$39,300 will go to the first prize winner and, at the judges’ discretion, the winner will also receive a commission worth £4,000/$6,300 (to be agreed between the National Portrait Gallery and the artist).

Recent National Portrait Gallery commissions by BP Portrait Award first-prize-winning artists include novelist V S Naipaul by Paul Emsley (BP Portrait Award 2007 winner), and Kids Company founder Camila Batmanghelidjh by Dean Marsh (BP Portrait Award 2005 winner). Many artists who have had their work exhibited have gained commissions as a result of the considerable interest in the BP Portrait Award and the resulting exhibition.

The prize winners and exhibition will be selected by a judging panel chaired by Sandy Nairne, Director of the National Portrait Gallery. The winners and selected entries will be exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, London and subsequently will tour to two further venues. The exhibition tour is organized by the National Portrait Gallery.

All 2011 exhibitors will be eligible to submit a proposal for the BP Travel Award. The aim of the Award is to provide the opportunity for an artist to experience working in a different environment, in Britain or abroad, on a project related to portraiture that will then be shown as part of the BP Portrait Award 2012 exhibition and tour in 2012-13.

Sandy Nairne, Director, National Portrait Gallery, London, said: “Two-thousand-ten was another outstanding year for the quality of the entries and the range of styles. I look forward to the BP Portrait Award 2011, and thank BP for their continuing support.”

Des Violaris, Director, UK Arts and Culture, BP, said: “This will be the 22nd year that BP has supported this vibrant competition, and we were enthused by the invention and quality of the 2010 entries yet again.”

Competition Rules:

This international competition is open to everyone aged 18 and over in recognition of the outstanding and innovative work currently being produced by artists of all ages working in portraiture. The competition is judged, on an equal and anonymous basis, from original paintings. An exhibition is then created from a selection of the entries.

The preferred method of registering an entry for the BP Portrait Award 2011 is online at www.npg.org.uk/bp.

To request a postal entry form call 011 44 20 7312 6699 or write to:

BP Portrait Award

National Portrait Gallery

St. Martin’s Place

London WC2H 0HE

U.K.

The postal entry form can also be downloaded from the website.

All entrants aged between 18 and 30 will automatically be considered for both the BP Young Artist Award and the BP Portrait Award, but an individual cannot win both.

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Colorado artist to paint Obama for state’s Capitol

The Colorado State Capitol in Denver. May 14, 2007 photo by Druffeler. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) – On the walls of the third-floor rotunda at the Colorado State Capitol hang portraits of all 43 U.S. presidents, and in just a few months, Colorado Springs artist Sarah Boardman will have completed the 44th.

Boardman said she’s thrilled that she’ll paint President Barack Obama’s portrait for the state Capitol.

“It’s quite an honor to do this,” said Boardman.

Boardman, 63, beat out 83 other painters in January for the portrait commission, but it took a state committee nine months to raise her $10,000 fee, which comes from private donations. Boardman signed a contract Nov. 5, and started work three days later.

Jil Rosentrater, a spokeswoman for the committee that chose Boardman, said Boardman’s experience and style were important factors in the decision, but that her Colorado residency helped seal the deal.

“She’s a Colorado artist, and that meant a lot to the committee,” Rosentrater said. Boardman’s first step is to create a simple drawing of Obama, based on a handful of photos of the president. The committee will have to approve the sketch, and then she’ll begin painting. She plans to submit the drawing to the committee next week.

“A very important part of this project is to blend this in with the other portraits, to make it work with the others as a series,” Boardman explained. “I need to prove to them that this will work.”

Boardman, a British national, moved to Colorado Springs in 1993 when her husband, then a master warrant officer in the Army, was transferred back to the U.S. They met in Germany in 1982, where both were working for the Army. When they married a year later, Boardman pursued her artistic ambitions.

For four years, she studied classical realism in Germany, and has since painted in countries across the globe, including New Zealand, Australia, Italy, France, Spain, Iran, and more.

Boardman’s works have been displayed in more than a dozen galleries, including Air Force Academy Frame and Gallery. Most recently, she showed her work in Gallery 210, a downtown art dealership. She maintains a private studio where she works and teaches.

The Obama portrait is expected to be finished by April.

AP-WS-12-01-10 2003EST

Spanish thieves steal van containing 20 artworks, including Picassos

MADRID (AP) – Three hooded thieves stole a truck containing 28 pieces of art including works by Picasso, Colombian artist Fernando Botero and Spanish sculptor Eduardo Chillida, Spanish police said Thursday.

A police statement said the truck was taken from a warehouse near the town of Getafe on Madrid’s southern outskirts last Saturday. Officers went to the warehouse after an alarm sounded and found the door of the building had been forced open. On arrival, the owner told police that the truck was missing.

A police official said security camera recordings showed the robbery was carried out by three hooded persons and that the keys had been left inside the truck. He said the truck was not armored.

The official spoke condition of anonymity in line with department rules.

Police found the vehicle empty Tuesday in the nearby area of Alcorcon, southwest of the capital.

The police statement said the stolen work included pieces by Picasso, Botero, Chillida, as well as by Spanish artists Gonzalo Gonzalez, Julio Gonzalez and Antonio Saura and Slovenia’s Cveto Marsic.

Police provided no details of the works but El Mundo daily and other media said it included a Picasso drawing, and paintings, lithographs and sculptures from the other artists.

Police estimated the value of the work to be euro2.7 million. Spanish news reports placed the value at euro5 million ($6.6 million), adding that several of the pieces were not insured.

The works belonged to six galleries in Madrid, Barcelona and Cologne, Germany. They had just come back from being exhibited in Germany.

Crisostomo, the Spanish transport company responsible for the vehicle, declined to comment on the theft.

David Fernandez director of the Juan Gris gallery in Madrid said they had a sculpture and a collage by Chillida stolen in the theft.

“It gave us a big fright because nothing like this has ever happened to us,” he told Spanish National Radio. “We’re upset because they are important pieces and irreplaceable.”

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