Setting a new record for the category of world’s most expensive living female artist is a South African born artist Marlene Dumas. And this is made possible via her painting, popularly known as The Visitor, that generated sales of �3.1 million at a Sotheby’s auction. The painting was picked up by the New York private dealer Nancy Whyte during Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale scheduled on 1 July. The sales figure overshadowed Dumas’ preceding testimony of £1.8 million marked in February 2005.

The illustration is defined by Sotheby’s as an expressively demanding and noticeably beautiful. Spread over a canvas of 180cm x 300cm, the Visitor portrays a group of six-female sex-workers eyeing towards an illuminated door. The standing position of the women implies that they are contending for their deal while expecting the looming entrance of a punter. More than anything, Dumas work has invited criticism evoking issues like birth, death, sex, life, race, identity, motherhood and feminism.
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We have covered various paintings, antiques, statues at international auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s. And lately here comes a mandatory update to my list of paintings sold at Christie’s. A Gundam painting by Japanese artist Tenmyouya Hisashi lately fetched $600,000 (HK$4.8 million) at Hong Kong based Christie’s auction house. The painting “RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version” reflects a perfect blend of traditionalism with modernism.

Hisashi states: Japan is known for numerous “Gundam-Otaku’s,” and their admiration of Gundam is profound. Hence, he didn’t wish to alter the image of Gundam. By shifting Gundam’s “mobile suit” to tattoos, he has offered a custom-built model and its setting against the background of gold leaf from customary Japanese painting accentuates Gundam’s samurai genesis.

Via Kotaku / LikeCool

The first of Sotheby’s bi-annual sales of Scottish Pictures is scheduled for 1 May at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. Paying tribute to 20th century, the sale would feature the masterpieces and artwork from all periods and movements of Scottish Art during last century. The highlights of the exhibition would be from the Scottish Colourists, the Glasgow Boys, the Edinburgh Group and the New Glasgow Boys together with a worthy collection by Alexander Goudie. Year 2008 would witness the second year of the sales hosted at the Assembly Rooms. The eternal Colourist section of the sale will be organized by Samuel John Peploe’s (1871-1935) Cassis Harbour and John Duncan Fergusson’s (1874-1961) Bathers with Mirror.

Peploe’s French harbor scene is anticipated to fetch £80,000-120,000 while Bathers with Mirror (pictured above) is expected to generate sales of £150,000-200,000.

It portrays numerous signature elements and it is a splendid case of the latter period of his work, a phase subjugated by his high-spirited images of bathers and n****.

Via AuctionPublicity

An elite painting by 20th Century French artist Fernand Leger is all set to undergo a hammer for $45 million at New York based Sotheby’s impressionist sale scheduled for 7 May. “Etude pour La Femme en Bleu” (1912-13) is a brew of arithmetical shapes hued in blue and white with intonations of pale yellow, red and black. The canvas dates back to the family compilation of German collector Hermann Lange, who purchased it from Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf in Berlin in 1920s. If this painting happened to fall near the expected sale i.e. $35-$45 million, then it would top the lot of the evening sale that would in total count to be $284 million. Leger’s earlier record was set in 2003 when his 1914 painting fetched him $22.4 million at Christie’s International in New York.

Via Bloomberg

A 1932 oil painting, finished for the iconic cover of Tintin in America hammered the earlier world record for an unique comic book work. This was designed in March 2007 when a drawing by artist Enki Bilal called Bleu Sang (Blue Blood) generated €177,000. Touted as a “museum piece” in Artcurial’s auction booklet, the painting by comic artist, creator of Tintin, Herge got sold for €764,200 ($1.2 mn) inclusive of expenses on 29 March. Total earnings that this auction of 650 comic originals generated stood at €280,000.

Via News

Designed in 2005 with infusion of all levels of creativity, these seemingly paintings play a 10 minute 30 second color 61.2″ x 36.4″ high-definition video on a wall-mounted plasma display and is available as one of an edition of the counted 12 produced. News is the masterpiece of art reached the Haunch of Venison Gallery booth (#445) at TEFAF in Maastricht on 7 March and would stay there till 16 March, 2008.

With no price information available, I would advise you to carry enough moolahs with you as in the past similar pieces by Viola got sold for $125,000-$450,000. Rush Now!

Via BookOfJoe

Another auction at Christie but of a different nature! It invited all those folks who feel high on the very mention of approaching Valentine day. But strictly, you can’t label it as purely a valentine auction as the painting was just a part of a gamut of masterpieces.

This black-and-white painting of embracing lovers, “Zwei Liebespaare,” by Gerhard Richter lately got picked by a telephone shopper for a record sales of £7.3 million against its estimated amount of £6 million. This is one fortunate painting to have generated a bit more than its expected cost. In this way, the painting falls into the category of masterpiece which forms even less than 20% to have sold off above their upper estimates.

This painting portrays two couples frisking in the landscape, in fact blissful and merry scene. Though, the way the artist has tinted this scene, it delivers a photograph in oils, meticulously painting it with accurate shades of grey and then hazing the picture with coiffure brushstrokes, thereby producing a dissident quality. Richter’s real life was subjected to a range of opinionated philosophies; Nazism, Socialism and then Capitalism.

Via Christie’s

In the world of auction, here is the lately happened auction of Francis Bacon’s creation to which you should lend all your ears. Known as triptych, the artwork got sold for $51.5 million (inclusive of Christie’s fees). With this sale “Triptych 1974-77” penned down a record for postwar work of art auctioned in Europe. But unfortunately the masterpiece fell short of touching the $52.7 million and thereby missed the opportunity of beating Irish-born artist who generated $52.7 million for his 1962 “Study for Innocent X.” The artwork gold sold to an anonymous male bidder, footing on the periphery of the packed auction area and left within seconds of falling of hammer.

Via Bloomberg

The modern artwork by gamut of renowned artists’ viz. Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and others have united to contribute towards the AIDS relief in Africa via a unique auction in New York visualized by Hirst and rock star Bono in harmony with Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea. Scheduled on Valentine day, the sales generated through this Sotheby’s auction of contemporary work invited by world’s leading artists would be donated to assist HIV/AIDS relief programs in Africa.

Around 100 artworks, all enthused by the red shade are exhibited at the gallery and would catch eyeballs till 13 February before the scheduled auction on 14 Feb. The long list of contributory artists includes Hirst, Jeff Koons, Georg Baselitz, Jasper Johns, Matthew Barney, Cecily Brown and Douglas Gordon. It is been anticipated that it would generate more than $40 million that would be given to the United Nations Foundation to support HIV/AIDS relief programs, a fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Out of the lot of 83, a major count is being exhibited to be available for Valentine’s Day auction and have the red vibes attached to it, no matter as a thematic element.

Top pic: Take a look at the painting titled ‘Sunday Lunch’ by artist Subodh Gupta (L), a sculpture by Tim Noble and Sue Webster (C) ‘Metal Fucking Rats with Heart Shaped Tail’ and a painting called ‘All You Need is Love’ by artist Damien Hirst (R).

Also, a woman walking past the Jeff Koon’s ‘Balloon Rabbit Wall Relief’ (L) and Takashi Murakami’s ‘Red Flower Ball (3-D) are amongst the highlight of the auction.

Via IHT

Whilst earlier we introduced you to the Francis Bacon’s array of paintings’ including Bullfight painting, his self portrait and not to forget ‘Study from the human body man turning on the light’. Today it seems the list needs to be updated as Bacon’s latest creation of a three-part painting identified as ‘Triptych 1974-77’ is anticipated to generate 25 million pounds ($50 million) in a scheduled auction of contemporary art sale at Christie’s in London on 6 February. This masterpiece painting is one of a series of evocative works Bacon produced after the suicide of his beloved George Dyer in 1971. The three portraits reflect a warped figure on seashore, unnoticed by two mysterious, hazily gloomy figures. Bacon’s creation dubbed as ‘Study of a Nude with Figure in a Mirror’ would be available for auction at Sotheby’s.

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