Homme a l'epee Sells for 7 Million and Leads Sotheby's Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art artlover776688888888898 Pablo Picasso’s Homme à l’épée selling at Sotheby’s this evening

Claude Monet, Route de Giverny en hiver, 1885. Estimate: £3-4 million, sold for: £3,849,250. Photo: Sotheby's.

LONDON.- Sotheby’s Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art tonight brought a total of £33,531,150/ US$55,323,044/ €39,479,519* – a figure comfortably within the pre-sale expectations of £26,750,000-37,270,000 – and saw 23 of the 27 lots offered find buyers. The sale achieved the best sellthrough rates since last June for an Evening Sale in this category at Sotheby’s - a sold-by-lot rate of 85.2% and a sold-by-value rate of 90.8%. Furthermore, eight works sold for prices in excess of £1 million, with an average lot value of £1,457,876. The auction saw active bidding within the room and on telephones from international collectors. Pablo Picasso’s Homme à l’épée (lot 8) was the top-selling lot of the evening when it realised £6,985,250/US$11,524,964/ €8,224,421, comfortably within its estimate of £6-8 million, and this represents the highest price of the Impressionist & Modern Art sales series in London this summer. Commenting on tonight’s results, Melanie Clore, Co-Chairman of Impressionist & Modern Art, Sotheby’s Worldwide, said: “Tonight’s auction saw strong prices achieved across the board and this is a very positive message for the market. We were particularly delighted with the £7 million realised for Picasso’s Homme à l’épée - the highest price of the season. The sell-through rate of 85.2% was the highest that we have seen in an Evening Sale in this field at Sotheby’s since last summer. This impressive performance is testament to our discriminating selection process when assembling the sale to respond to current market conditions. This evening, we’ve seen once again that there is still a very healthy ongoing market for great Impressionist and Modern works of art.” The top prices of the evening were: Pablo Picasso’s Homme à l’épée from July 1969 (lot 8), which sold to a private collector for £6,985,250/US$11,524,964/ €8,224,421 against an estimate of £6-8 million. The richly coloured and monumental depiction of a musketeer from the artist’s late oeuvre is one of his most important and iconic subjects of this period. Throughout his career Picasso projected the different sides of his own identity in a number of ways and the musketeer was one of the most celebrated subjects and guises of his latter years. The painting starred in the seminal exhibition of Picasso’s work at the Palais des Papes in Avignon in 1970 and was selected for the poster advertising the exhibition. Discussing the price achieved for Picasso’s Homme à l’épée tonight, Helena Newman, Director of the Evening Sale and Vice-Chairman of the Impressionist & Modern Art department, Sotheby’s Worldwide, said: “This striking painting from 1969, which had never been at auction before this evening, came to the market at a time when the interest in and assessment of Picasso’s late oeuvre has never been stronger. It was extremely satisfying to see the painting so admired during its pre-sale exhibition. The price it achieved tonight is indicative of its rarity, quality and iconic nature, having been selected for the poster advertising the seminal exhibition of the artist’s work at the Palais des Papes in Avignon in 1970.” A second work by Picasso - a larger-than-life nude entitled Nu debout from 1968 (lot 17) - also performed strongly tonight, selling for £4,297,250/ US$7,090,033/€5,059,575, in excess of the estimate of £3-4 million; it was the second highest lot of the sale. The painting, which belongs to a series of major works that Picasso undertook on the theme of the female nude in the late-1960s, had been in the same private collection for more than 35 years. Executed when Picasso was a man in his late-80s, it is a striking example of the breathtaking flood of invention and fantastic vitality that characterised Picasso's late years. Claude Monet was represented in the sale by a quintessential winter landscape entitled Route de Giverny en hiver (lot 11), which sold to an Asian private collector for £3,849,250/ US$6,350,878/ €4,532,100, near its high estimate of £4 million. The classic Impressionist scene from 1885 depicts the snow-covered road leading to the town of Giverny, where the artist lived at the time and where he painted some of his most celebrated works. The sale was also distinguished by strong prices for sculpture. In particular, three works by Alberto Giacometti from a private European collection (lots 5, 6 and 7) were highly sought-after and sold for a total of £7,403,750/ US$12,215,447/ €8,717,162, above the combined estimate of £4.2-6.3 million. Diego (Tête au col roulé) was the subject of the lengthiest bidding-battle and soared above its estimate of £1-1.5 million to sell for £2,729,250/ US$4,502,990/ €3,213,414. Dating from the early-1950s, the plaster sculpture merges Giacometti’s talents as both a painter and a sculptor. Prominent British artist Barbara Hepworth’s unique largescale stone carving Three Standing Forms - inspired by her triplets - ranked among the most important works by the artist ever to appear at auction and it sold for £780,450/ US$1,287,664/ €918,900, against an estimate of £700,000-1,000,000. The eye-catching vista of Istanbul by Paul Signac entitled La Corne d’or. La Suleimanie (lot 15) attracted interest from a number of prospective buyers and sold to a private collector for £1,385,250/ US$2,285,524/ €1,630,991, against an estimate of £1.2-1.8 million.

Colombian Museum Hosts Largest Exhibition Ever in Latin America of Andy Warhol's Works artlover888833338888888

Several people observe "Mao" made by Andy Warhol in 1972 at the exhibition "Mister América" which opened in Colombia. Photo: EFE/Leonardo Muñoz

BOGOTA.- The exhibition, organized by Museo de Arte del Banco de la República in conjunction with the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh and curated by Philip Larratt-Smith, offers a complete panorama of the work of this fertile artist and it is the largest exhibition ever organized in a Latin American museum. The list of works of art comprises 26 paintings, 57 silk screens, 39 photographs and 2 installations (‘Silver Clouds’ and ‘Cow wallpaper’). Fourteen of his films will also be screened at the Fundación Gilberto Alzate Avendaño. Andy Warhol, Mr. America explores all aspects and periods from this multi-facetic production from this artist, with a particular emphasis in the period between 1961 and 1968. It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell's Soup Cans from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians, and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method. His work became popular and controversial. Among the imagery tackled by Warhol were dollar bills, celebrities and brand name products. He also used as imagery for his paintings newspaper headlines of photographs of mushroom clouds, electric chairs, and police dogs attacking civil rights protesters. Warhol also used Coca Cola bottles as subject matter for paintings. New York's Museum of Modern Art hosted a Symposium on pop art in December 1962 during which artists like Warhol were attacked for "capitulating" to consumerism. Critics were scandalized by Warhol's open embrace of market culture. This symposium set the tone for Warhol's reception. Throughout the decade it became more and more clear that there had been a profound change in the culture of the art world, and that Warhol was at the center of that shift. A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini's Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc. were created by six prominent pop artists of the time including the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol's painting of a can of Campbell's soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what is art. As an advertisement illustrator in the 1950s, Warhol used assistants to increase his productivity. Collaboration would remain a defining (and controversial) aspect of his working methods throughout his career; in the 1960s, however, this was particularly true. One of the most important collaborators during this period was Gerard Malanga. Malanga assisted the artist with producing silkscreens, films, sculpture, and other works at "The Factory", Warhol's aluminum foil-and-silver-paint-lined studio on 47th Street (later moved to Broadway). Other members of Warhol's Factory crowd included Freddie Herko, Ondine, Ronald Tavel, Mary Woronov, Billy Name, and Brigid Berlin (from whom he apparently got the idea to tape record his phone conversations). During the 60s, Warhol also groomed a retinue of bohemian eccentrics upon whom he bestowed the designation "Superstars", including Edie Sedgwick, Viva, and Ultra Violet. These people all participated in the Factory films, and some, like Berlin, remained friends with Warhol until his death. Important figures in the New York underground art/cinema world, such as writer John Giorno and film-maker Jack Smith, also appear in Warhol films of the 1960s, revealing Warhol's connections to a diverse range of artistic scenes during this period.

Tamara de Lempicka's Art Deco Paintings on View for the First Time in Mexico City

Tamara de Lempicka's Art Deco Paintings on View for the First Time in Mexico City artlover3344444777888888

A man stands beside the painting "M. Tadeusz Lempicki" during the exhibition of works of art made by Tamara de Lempicka which opened at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City. Photo: EFE/Mario Guzmán.

MEXICO CITY.- President Felipe Calderón inaugurated the Tamara de Lempicka Exhibition at the Palace of Fine Arts, adding that during his government, an enormous effort has been made to enable Mexicans to discover and enjoy great national and international exhibitions, some of which have been unparalleled. He said that Tamara de Lempicka belongs to the great 20th Century women painters who were attracted to Mexico and found refuge and a source of inspiration here, such as Remedios Varo, Leonora Carrington and Alice Rahon. Of Tamara de Lempicka, the President said that her fascinating, avant-garde plastic discourse made her one of the main exponents of Art Déco. “Although Tamara was a citizen of the world, at the end of her life, she found a refuge for her last years in Mexico. As historian Fabienne Bradu noted, She fled her entire life, from exile to exile, eventually choosing Mexico as the last stage of her journey and life," she said. The exhibition gathers 48 paintings, 15 works on paper and 21 photographs, that come from private collections in France, Belgium, Germany, Spain, United States and Mexico. It is important to mention that Jack Nicholson’s collection has been included in the show. International museums who loaned works of art include: Centre National d´Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou en París, Musée d´Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, Métropole Musée d´Art et d´Historie de Saint-Denis, Musée d´Art et d´Industrie André Diligent in Roubaix, Musée Departémental de l´Oise in Beauvais, Musée des Années 30 in Boulogne-Billancourt, Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes, Musée Malraux in Le Havre, Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie in Warsaw. For her first major show, in Milan, Italy in 1925, under the sponsorship of Count Emmanuele Castelbarco, de Lempicka painted 28 new works in six months. She was soon the most fashionable portrait painter of her generation among the haute bourgeoisie and aristocracy, painting duchesses and grand dukes and socialites. Through her network of friends, she was able to display her paintings in the most elite salons of the era. De Lempicka was criticized and admired for her 'perverse Ingrism', referring to her modern restatement of the master Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, as displayed in her work Group of Four Nudes, 1925. A portrait might take three weeks of work, allowing for the nuisance of dealing with a cranky sitter; by 1927-8 de Lempicka could charge 50,000 French francs per portrait (a sum equal to about US $2,000 then—perhaps ten times as much today). Through Castelbarco she was introduced to Italy's great man of letters and notorious lover, Gabriele d'Annunzio. She visited the poet twice at his Lake Garda villa, seeking to paint his portrait; he in turn was set on seduction. After these attempts to secure the commission, she left angered while both she and d'Annunzio remained unsatisfied. In 1929, she painted her iconic work Auto-Portrait (Tamara in the Green Bugatti) for the cover of the German fashion magazine Die Dame. As summed up by the magazine Auto-Journal in 1974, "the self-portrait of Tamara de Lempicka is a real image of the independent woman who asserts herself. Her hands are gloved, she is helmeted, and inaccessible; a cold and disturbing beauty [through which] pierces a formidable being—this woman is free!" De Lempicka won her first major award in 1927, first prize at the Exposition Internationale de Beaux Arts in Bordeaux, France for her portrait of Kizette on the Balcony. During the Roaring 20s Paris, Tamara de Lempicka was part of the bohemian life: she knew Pablo Picasso, Jean Cocteau, and André Gide. Famous for her libido, she was bisexual, and her affairs with both men and women were carried out in ways that were scandalous at the time. She often used formal and narrative elements in her portraits and nude studies to produce overpowering effects of desire and seduction. In the 1920s she became closely associated with lesbian and bisexual women in writing and artistic circles, such as Violet Trefusis, Vita Sackville-West, and Colette. She also became involved with Suzy Solidor, a night club singer at Boîte de Nuit, whom she later painted. Her husband eventually tired of their arrangement; he abandoned her in 1927, and they were divorced in 1928. Obsessed with her work and her social life, de Lempicka neglected more than her husband; she rarely saw her daughter. When Kizette was not away at boarding school (France or England), the girl was often with her grandmother Malvina. When de Lempicka informed her mother and daughter that she would not be returning from America for Christmas in 1929, Malvina was so angry that she burned de Lempicka's enormous collection of designer hats; Kizette watched them burn, one by one. Kizette was neglected, but also immortalized. De Lempicka painted her only child repeatedly, leaving a striking portrait series: Kizette in Pink, 1926; Kizette on the Balcony, 1927; Kizette Sleeping, 1934; Portrait of Baroness Kizette, 1954-5, etc. In other paintings, the women depicted tend to resemble Kizette. In 1928, her long time patron the Baron Raoul Kuffner visited her studio and commissioned her to paint his mistress. De Lempicka finished the portrait, then took the mistress' place in the Baron's life. She travelled to the United States for the first time in 1929, to paint a commissioned portrait for Rufus Bush and to arrange a show of her work at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. The show went well but the money she earned was lost when the bank she used collapsed following the Stock Market Crash of 1929. De Lempicka continued both her heavy workload and her frenetic social life through the next decade. The Great Depression had little effect on her; in the early 1930s she was painting King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Queen Elizabeth of Greece. Museums began to collect her works. In 1933 she traveled to Chicago where she worked with Georgia O'Keeffe, Santiago Martínez Delgado and Willem de Kooning. Her social position was cemented when she married her lover, Baron Kuffner, in 1933 (his wife had died the year before). The Baron took her out of her quasi-bohemian life and finally secured her place in high society again, with a title to boot. She repaid him by convincing him to sell many of his estates in Eastern Europe and move his money to Switzerland. She saw the coming of World War II from a long way off, much sooner than most of her contemporaries. She did make a few concessions to the changing times as the decade passed; her art featured a few refugees and common people, and even a Christian saint or two, as well as the usual aristocrats and cold nudes. In the winter of 1939, Tamara and the Baron started an "extended vacation" in the United States. She immediately arranged for a show of her work in New York, though the Baron and Baroness chose to settle in Beverly Hills, California, living in the former residence of Hollywood director King Vidor. She became 'the baroness with a brush' and a favorite artist of Hollywood stars. She cultivated a Garboesque manner. The Baroness would visit the Hollywood stars on their studio sets, such as Tyrone Power, Walter Pidgeon, and George Sanders and they would come to her studio to see her at work. She did war relief work, like many others at the time; and she managed to get Kizette out of Nazi-occupied Paris, via Lisbon, in 1941. Some of her paintings of this time had a Salvador Dalí quality, as displayed in Key and Hand, 1941. In 1943, the couple relocated to New York City. Even though she continued to live in style, socializing continuously, her popularity as a society painter had diminished greatly. They traveled to Europe frequently to visit fashionable spas and so that the Baron could attend to Hungarian refugee work. For a while, she continued to paint in her trademark style, although her range of subject matter expanded to include still lifes, and even some abstracts. Yet eventually she adopted a new style, using palette knife instead of brushes. Her new work was not well-received when she exhibited in 1962 at the Iolas Gallery. De Lempicka determined never to show her work again, and retired from active life as a professional artist. Insofar as she still painted at all, De Lempicka sometimes reworked earlier pieces in her new style. The crisp and direct Amethyste (1946), for example, became the pink and fuzzy Girl with Guitar (1963). After Baron Kuffner's death from a heart attack in 1962, she sold most of her possessions and made three around-the-world trips by ship. Finally De Lempicka moved to Houston, Texas to be with Kizette and her family. (Kizette had married a man named Harold Foxhall, who was then chief geologist for the Dow Chemical Company; they had two daughters.) There she began her difficult and disagreeable later years. Kizette served as Tamara's business manager, social secretary, and factotum, and suffered under her mother's controlling domination and petulant behavior. Tamara complained that not only were the paints and other artists' materials now inferior to the "old days" but that people in the 1970s lacked the special qualities and "breeding" that inspired her art. The artistry and craftsmanship of her glory days were unrecoverable. In 1978 Tamara moved to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to live among an aging international set and some of the younger aristocrats. After Kizette's husband died of cancer, she attended her mother for three months until Tamara died in her sleep on March 19, 1980. Her ashes were scattered over the volcano Popocatepetl by Count Giovanni Agusta. De Lempicka lived long enough, however, for the wheel of fashion to turn a full circle: before she died a new generation discovered her art and greeted it with enthusiasm. A 1973 retrospective drew positive responses. At the time of her death, her early Art Deco paintings were being shown and purchased once again. A stage play inspired in part by her life ("Tamara") ran first in Toronto, then for two years in Los Angeles (1984-1986) and subsequently at the Seventh Regiment Armory in New York City

Metropolitan Museum of Art Announces it will Show Vermeer's Masterpiece The Milkmaid artlover223344888888888

Johannes Vermeer (Dutch, 1632-1675), The Milkmaid, ca. 1658. Oil on canvas, 45.5 x 41 cm. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam SK-A-2344

NEW YORK, NY.- On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s historic voyage from Amsterdam to New York, the Rijksmuseum is sending The Milkmaid, perhaps the most admired painting by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632—1675), to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. To celebrate this extraordinary loan, the Metropolitan Museum will present Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid, a special exhibition beginning on September 9, which will bring together all five paintings by Vermeer from its collection, along with a select group of works by other Delft artists, placing Vermeer’s superb picture in its historical context. Along with Rembrandt and Frans Hals, Vermeer is now counted as one of the greatest Dutch artists of the Golden Age. Until a century ago, however, his rare paintings – only 36 survive today – were little known and often misattributed. During his brief career, Vermeer sold his exquisite works to a small circle of discerning collectors in his native Delft, and in the neighboring court city of The Hague. The Milkmaid, dating from about 1657-58, was one of the first paintings by Vermeer to be purchased by the Delft collector Pieter van Ruijven, who by 1670 owned 21 of the artist’s works. Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid will mark the first time that the painting has traveled to the United States since it was exhibited at the 1939 World’s Fair 70 years ago. In addition to the Metropolitan Museum’s five Vermeer paintings – among them Young Woman with a Water Pitcher (ca. 1662), A Maid Asleep (1656–57), and Study of a Young Woman (probably ca. 1665–67) – this focused presentation will include important works by Pieter de Hooch, Gabriël Metsu, Nicolaes Maes, Emanuel de Witte, Hendrick van Vliet, and Hendrick Sorgh, all masters who, like Vermeer, were active during the remarkable period of exploration, trade, and artistic flowering that occurred during the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century. Vermeer’s Masterpiece The Milkmaid will also feature several works on paper that illuminate the artist’s theme, including engravings by Lucas van Leyden (The Milkmaid, 1510) and Jacques de Gheyn II (The Archer and the Milkmaid, ca. 1610), both from the Metropolitan Museum’s collection, and Jacob Backer’s beautiful drawing A Woman with a Jug (ca. 1645), on loan from the Maida and George Abrams Collection.