Impressionist and Modern Art

The latest series of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary art auctions in London showed a dramatic improvement on the equivalent sales last year and the overall premium-inclusive total represented a record in terms of sterling.

An oil study by the Danish artist Peder Severin Kroyer for one of his best known and final masterworks has sold for €580,000 (£495,725) at Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen.

A shimmering floral landscape by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) was knocked down at £42.5m at Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist & Modern art in London on March 1.

This dramatic study for the last masterwork produced by the Danish artist Peder Severin Kroyer (1851-1909) will be one of the highlights of the paintings and drawings sale at Bruun Rasmussen in Copenhagen later this month.

Oprah Winfrey has been revealed as the buyer of Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II from Christie’s in 2006 after reports emerged that she sold the painting last year for a $63m profit.

The Van Gogh Museum has issued an extraordinary public rebuttal to the release of ‘Vincent van Gogh: The Lost Arles Sketchbook’, criticising the authors for their “excessively easy going attitude… towards questions of authenticity”.

A still life by Marc Chagall led Dorotheum in a record-breaking auction last week when the painting achieved a premium inclusive €1.02m (£872,269).

A still life by American painter Anne Estelle Rice (1877-1959) and a piece of early English furniture are among the top items on offer at Grand Auctions’ upcoming sale on December 12.

The flagship Modern and Contemporary art sales in New York in November are an important bellwether of the global art market. This year a total of $1.29bn (£1.03bn) changed hands, including the auctioneers’ premium. Here ATG picks 10 individual highlights from around the salerooms.

A ‘Grainstack’ painting by Claude Monet set a major auction record for the artist at Christie’s in New York last night.

Edvard Munch’s ‘Girls on the Bridge’ was knocked down at $50m (£40m) and led Sotheby’s evening sale of Impressionist & Modern in New York last night.

A sofa in the form of Mae West’s lips and a lobster telephone are among the surrealist lots from West Dean House to go to auction in December.

The sale of Leslie Waddington's art collection drew a lively crowd to Christie’s last night as friends and family of the late art dealer watched bidders competing for virtually every single lot on offer.

Swedish auction house Uppsala Auctionskammare are exhibiting a single-owner collection in London that includes half-a-dozen works by Picasso.

Chrisite’s New York hope match the record they set for Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) four years ago with a painting that comes to the market for the first time in 50 years.

A UK-based art collector has been banned from exporting a World War II era painting from Australia.

A painting by Irish artist Jack B Yeats owned by the late David Bowie will be offered at Sotheby’s in November.

Two Cubist works by Fernand Léger (1881-1955) lead a potentially lucrative line-up of pictures at Chicago saleroom Leslie Hindman’s auction next month.

Phillips have negotiated the private sale of ‘Baile en Tehuantepec’ by Diego Rivera (1886-1957) for $15.75m (£12m), a price which they claim is a record for any piece of Latin American art.

A Paris art dealer was placed under renewed investigation last week in the latest twist involving the alleged theft of three works from Pablo Picasso’s stepdaughter.