February 21, 2013 - Auction Central News

Royal cover-up to be revealed at Sworders auction Feb. 26

Dent marine chronometer, 19th century, No.1932, the 3½in silvered dial inscribed 'Dent London Chronometer Maker to the Queen no.1932.' Estimate: £2,000-£3,000. Sworders image.

STANSTED MOUNTFITCHET, England – Evidence of a royal scandal, hushed up for more than 100 years, has been uncovered by a leading auctioneer. Photographs and letters about a shooting incident involving the Prince of Wales in 1896 have been discovered and will be offered for sale by Sworders Fine Art Auctioneers on Tuesday, Feb. 26. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

A leather album titled The Wynyard Park Owl and HRH The Prince of Wales, 23 October 1896 records the visit of Edward, Prince to Wales to Wynyard Park in County Durham. He was part of a shooting party and during the visit it is claimed the Prince shot an owl. The photographer at the event had the bird stuffed, but it’s thought the future King was so horrified by the potential disgrace of having shot an owl that the whole story was covered up.

Sworders’ managing director, Guy Schooling said, “At the time shooting an owl would have been looked upon very badly and the letters contained in the album clearly show that the Prince of Wales was very keen to distance himself from this incident. In fact, if you look online even today there’s no record of this event or the shooting taking place at all – the only evidence is this album.

“The letters show that the photographer sent a picture of the stuffed owl to Sandringham, but he had a very brusque reply from the Prince’s Private Secretary. I can only imagine how horrified he would have been to have offended the future King so much.

“The album … includes all the photographs and letters about the incident. There is a picture of the stuffed owl, but there’s no evidence that it still exists; perhaps it was destroyed to save the Prince’s reputation.”

The leather-bound album of photographs and the original letters will be sold at Sworders’ Country House sale in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex on Tuesday 26th February. It is a unique record of a royal scandal and the auctioneers have suggested a guide price of £400 to £600.

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

Black Forest bear, late 19th century, carved four-square looking to the left, open mouth and painted red and orange details, 49cm. Estimate: £400-£600. Sworders image.

Pair of German porcelain twin-handled vases, possibly Gotha, circa 1820-30, hand-painted veduta to each side depicting the Schloss Wilhelmshöhe and Löwenburg Castle in Kassel. Sworders image.

Lewis & Maese to auction corporate art collection Feb. 27

Philip Renteria's ‘Untitled.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image.

HOUSTON – More than 150 paintings from a collection featuring 20th century contemporary paintings, sculpture, photography and works on paper will be featured in a Lewis & Maese auction Wednesday, Feb. 27, beginning at 6:30 p.m. CST. LiveAuctioneers.com will provide Internet live bidding.

Included will be the collection of Houston’s Wilson Industries. Much of the art in the collection is abstract. Abstract art is an important school of art with roots in the early 20th century as a result of the work of post impressionists Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh and Cezanne.

Two pieces by Dan Rizzie, American/Texan, 1951, will be on the block, including Alaine and Trait. Also represented in the auction is English painter, etcher and designer Graham Sutherland, (1903-1980), who was considered an abstract artist, as well as a surrealist.

Four pieces from the Ring Cycle Series of Houston abstract painter and sculptor Richard Stout, including Das Rheingold, Die Walkure, Gotterdammerung and Sigfried, as well as an untitled work, will be sold. Herbert Richard Mears, American, 1951, Down the Block – Around the Corner is also on the block.

Examples of other artists’ work to be auctioned include: Philip Renteria (Untitled); Daniel Kiacz (Texas Wildlife S.M.); Wayne Kimball (Portrait of Its Maker) David Hickman (Deep in the Night Garden), Richard Johnson (Thursday the First); Dick Wray sculptures and shadow boxes and Mary McCleary sculpture (Constellation, Cross X, Atrium).

Also, Earl Staley (Leaving the Canyon, Big Bend, Texas; Rio Grande at Lajitas, Texas); Danny Williams (Encounter); Mary Cranfill Curtis (Mission Arcade, Courtyard, The Way Out, Mission Door); Roger Winter (several titles) Sandra Hu (Voyages, Shoku III); Don Shaw (Beach House series); Ida Kohlmeyer (shapescape ap1); Charles Rumph (Mexican Staircase Suite) and Sam Gummelt (several titles).

For more information, call 713-869-1335.

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

Dan Rizzie's ‘Alaine.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image. — Dan Rizzie’s ‘Alaine.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image.

David Hickman's ‘Deep in the Night Garden.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image. — David Hickman’s ‘Deep in the Night Garden.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image.

Richard Johnson's ‘Thursday the First.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image. — Richard Johnson’s ‘Thursday the First.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image.

Earl Staley's ‘Leaving the Canyon, Big Bend, Texas.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image. — Earl Staley’s ‘Leaving the Canyon, Big Bend, Texas.’ Lewis & Maese Auction Co. image.

Winterthur acquires renowned ephemera collection

The cover art on a set of early 1900s children's picture blocks. Winterthur image.

WINTERTHUR, Del. – Winterthur has made the largest single gift purchase in its history with the addition of the John and Carolyn Grossman Collection, one of the most comprehensive archives of period graphic ephemera ever to have been assembled.

On loan to Winterthur since 2008, the Grossman Collection represents approximately 250,000 vividly colored, printed items portraying life in America from 1820 to 1920. Ephemera represents a host of materials designed to circulate in society for only a brief time, including greeting cards, product labels, baseball cards, postcards, scrapbooks, calendars, paper dolls, sheet music, event tickets and more.

“Since printed ephemera typically lasts for such a short time, the Grossmans have performed a heroic task in saving so much of it and making it available to the public through the Winterthur Library,” said E. Richard McKinstry, Winterthur library director and Andrew W. Mellon senior librarian. “Images portrayed on ephemera are sometimes the only ones to have survived that document life in America and other countries a century and more ago.”

The collection documents the methods of lithography and chromolithography and all they represented visually from the early 19th through the early 20th centuries. Images portray the customs, attitudes and ideals of Victorian and Edwardian life: innocent children, garden-fresh flowers, romantic couples, holiday traditions, fashionable women, anthropomorphic animals and cigar-smoking gentlemen.

Among the collection’s treasures is the first commercially produced Christmas card, printed in 1843 in England, along with its printer’s proof. The Grossmans also saved the extraordinary archive of the George Schlegel Lithographic Co., a 19th-and 20th-century business in New York City that specialized in printing cigar box labels.

Winterthur has showcased the collection in its library exhibitions and in the museum’s Yuletide displays. It has been a magnet for students and researchers, especially those interested in Winterthur’s Research Fellowship Program. The graphic materials also have been used successfully in Winterthur’s licensing and marketing efforts.

McKinstry said that having the Grossman Collection permanently housed at Winterthur further solidifies the library’s status as a center for advanced research.

“Winterthur is deeply grateful to John and Carolyn Grossman for making this remarkable collection available not only to scholars, Winterthur staff and our visitors, but also to thousands of researchers, who can now access these materials through the Winterthur Library online,” McKinstry said.

Dr. Katherine C. Grier, a University of Delaware history professor, said the collection enhances Winterthur’s holdings enough to seal its reputation as having “the No. 1 research library in the country for the study of visual culture in America between the 1860s and 1920s.” Grier, a former member of Winterthur’s Academic Programs Department, said the collection gives Winterthur sufficient depth to serve as an unparalleled resource on topics such as the history of printing technology, the history of graphic design, and the history of advertising and marketing.

In relation to social and cultural history, the collection can be mined for information on such topics as: evolving ideals of domestic life, the construction of race and ethnicity, the changing nature of gender identity, the history of sexuality, the history of leisure and sport, the history of childhood, and such topics as foodways, popular medicine and dress.

To learn more about Winterthur’s Grossman Collection, visit winterthur.org.

ADDITIONAL IMAGES OF NOTE

Carolyn and John Grossman assembled the landmark ephemera collection. Winterthur image.

After death threats, artist to paint Mohammed again

Swedish artist Lars Vilks. Image by OlofE. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license.

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – A Swedish artist who received death threats after depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a dog said Wednesday he would display new paintings of the prophet at an exhibition in the immigrant-heavy city of Malmoe later this year.

“It’s important to continue because if you yield to the threats and back away, you have abandoned the democratic principle,” Lars Vilks said.

The artist has faced numerous death threats since his drawing of the Muslim prophet with the body of a dog was first published by Swedish regional daily Nerikes Allehanda in 2007, illustrating an editorial on the importance of freedom of expression.

The new paintings of Mohammed would show the prophet – still with a dog’s body – in famous works by artists including Claude Monet, Peter Paul Rubens and Anders Zorn, Vilks said.

It was “hard to tell” whether the July exhibition at a gallery in Sweden’s third largest city, Malmoe, would prompt more protests and threats, he said.

“At some point this has to be over and done with,” he said.

With one in three of its residents born outside Sweden, Malmoe has been at the center of a polarizing Swedish debate on immigration. The city’s Islamic Center estimates there are 100,000 people with “a Muslim background” in the area.

In 2009, Colleen LaRose, an American woman calling herself “Jihad Jane,” was arrested in the U.S. with seven others for plotting to kill Vilks. She has pleaded guilty to terror charges and faces life behind bars.

Three men accused of plotting to murder him at an art fair were acquitted by Swedish court in January, but were fined for weapons possession.

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Barry Bergdoll to present architecture lecture series at Nat’l Gallery of Art

Barry Bergdoll's lectures will be presented in the East Building auditorium of the National Gallery of Art. Image by Gryffindor, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

WASHINGTON – Barry Bergdoll, chief curator of architecture and design at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and professor of modern architectural history at Columbia University, will present the 62nd A.W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts series, titled “Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture,” this spring at the National Gallery of Art.

The series will include the following lectures:

April 7 – “Framed and Hung: Architecture in Public from the Salon to the French Revolution.”

April 14 – “In and Out of Time: Curating Architecture’s History.”

April 21 – “Not at Home: Architecture on Display from World’s Fairs to Williamsburg.”

April 28 – “Better Futures: Exhibitions between Reform and Avant-Garde.”

May 5 – “Conflicting Visions: Commerce, Diplomacy and Persuasion.”

May 12 – “Architecture and the Rise of the Event Economy.”

All lectures take place Sundays at 2 p.m. in the East Building Auditorium. The programs are free and open to the public, and seating is first come, first served.

For more details and to order publicity images, visit http://www.nga.gov/press/2013/mellon_lecture_2013.shtm .

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Smithsonian plans to overhaul Renwick Gallery

The Renwick Gallery, a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Image by AgnosticPreachersKid. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

WASHINGTON (AP) – The Smithsonian American Art Museum plans to close its Renwick Gallery near the White House next year for its first major renovation in 40 years.

The museum announced Tuesday that the historic building would reopen in 2016. The Smithsonian says it plans to replace the National Historic Landmark’s infrastructure and enhance its historic features with modern upgrades.

Museum Director Elizabeth Broun says the Renwick was Washington’s first structure built as a museum. It was designed in 1859, originally as a public museum for William Corcoran’s private art collection. It was called the “American Louvre” when it opened, symbolizing the nation’s aspirations.

Congress proposed razing the building in 1956, but first lady Jacqueline Kennedy led a campaign to save it. The Renwick housed the Smithsonian’s craft and decorative arts since 1972.

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ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

Greek man pleads not guilty to stealing Dali painting

A surveillance camera captured these images of the thief in the gallery. Image used with expressed permission of Venus Over Manhattan gallery.

A surveillance camera captured these images of the suspect in the gallery. Image used with expressed permission of Venus Over Manhattan gallery.

NEW YORK (AP) – A Greek man proved inept at the art of thievery by swiping a Salvador Dali painting from a New York City gallery as security cameras rolled and, in a panic, later trying to send it back anonymously, authorities said Tuesday.

Phivos Istavrioglou also left fingerprints that helped detectives track him down – another misstep in a botched fine art caper that even he found foolish, according to an account of a confession contained in court papers.

The second Istavrioglou walked out of the Upper East Side gallery last summer with the Dali watercolor and onto Fifth Avenue, he “was scared and couldn’t believe what a stupid thing he did,” the papers say.

Istavrioglou, 29, of Athens, pleaded not guilty Tuesday to grand larceny during a brief court appearance in Manhattan where a judge set bail at $100,000. His attorney had no immediate comment.

Prosecutors accused Istavrioglou of stealing Cartel de Don Juan Tenorio in broad daylight while visiting New York in June. After pulling it off the wall, he stashed it in a shopping bag and flew with it back to Athens, authorities said.

“It was almost surreal how this theft was committed – a thief is accused of putting a valuable Salvador Dali drawing into a shopping bag in the middle of the afternoon, in full view of surveillance cameras,” District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. said.

Shortly learning authorities had distributed security photos of him that were seen around the world, Istavrioglou took the $150,000 work out of its frame. He then rolled it up in a cardboard tube – “in a manner befitting a college dorm poster” – and mailed it back to New York without a return address, prosecutor Jordan Arnold said.

New York Police Department detectives lifted fingerprints from the shipment that matched one from a juice bottle that they say Istavrioglou shoplifted last year from a Whole Foods market, giving them a name, said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. An investigator posing as an art gallery owner later tricked Istavrioglou into returning to New York by offering him a possible position as a consultant.

Federal agents intercepted Istavrioglou at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday. While speaking to detectives that afternoon, court papers say, he “indicated he knew the theft would catch up to him and wants to make (the) situation right.”

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