Fine Art

CONTEMPORARY art has helped the Fine Art Society triple its turnover in the past four years, according to results just released.

“A MOMENT of European importance” is how architects acknowledge Tyringham Hall in Buckinghamshire. It is one of the greatest country houses designed by Sir John Soane (1753-1837), the leading architect of his generation.

£57m Indian summer for auction rooms

Renowned Bristol-born graffiti artist Robert Banks, better known as Banksy (b.1975), has made himself into a globally-recognised phenomenon by planting his subversive guerrilla artwork in the world’s best galleries, museums, and amusement parks.

IT would have been the most expensive picture ever sold. At $139m, the private deal between two American billionaire buddies would have upped the record high for any painting by $4m. But the deal is now off.

NEW guidelines limiting the types of print that can attract the Artist’s Resale Right have come into force. They restrict qualifying works to those where the artist has been directly involved in preparing the matrix – the inked surface used in printing.

CHRISTIE’S are hoping to generate up to $140m for the four remaining works by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that were part of the high-profile Bloch-Bauer restitution case.

Christie’s are to merge their British and Old Master pictures departments in London.

Weighing 1.5 tonnes, Eduardo Paolozzi’s (1924-2005) Master of the Universe is winched into position outside the Edinburgh saleroom of Lyon and Turnbull. The sculpture, one of an edition of four, provided the highlight of the auctioneer’s first Contemporary Art Sale on September 1, selling to Edinburgh gallery Bourne Fine Art on behalf of a client at an artist’s record of £120,000 (plus buyer’s premium).

THE Edvard Munch paintings The Scream and the Madonna have been recovered by Norwegian police. They were stolen from an Oslo museum two years ago.

Phillips de Pury & Company will raise the curtain on their new London headquarters with a Contemporary Art and Design Art sale on October 14.

CHRISTIE’s have announced that they are to sell the four remaining works by Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) that were part of the high profile Bloch-Bauer restitution case.

Thieves broke into Goldsworth Books & Prints some time between 5pm on Saturday and 9am on Sunday July 29-30, stealing books, maps and prints to the value of over £30,000.

This recently discovered oil landscape by Joseph Wright of Derby (1734–97) will be offered for sale by Richard Winterton at Hilliards Cross, Lichfield on August 31.

Four Beatrix Potter watercolour Christmas cards, recently discovered in a Wiltshire attic, will be sold by Highworth, Swindon auctioneers Kidson-Trigg on September 20. The cards have been consigned by descendants of the original recipients, Elizabeth (1888-1977) and Elinor (1886-1979) Lupton.

Enigmatic, elusive, rarely seen, and classified as mad – but that’s our Dadd!

Record turnover at London flagship sales but the buzz of the 1980s has gone

Bogus Angus McBean photographs have started to circulate this year. The fakes are clearly designed to cash in on a series of exhibitions about the famous surreal and theatrical photographer scheduled for July.

Italy has witnessed a sudden, perhaps unexpected, surge in its auction scene with a series of record-breaking sales at Sotheby’s, the most remarkable of which has been the Milan sale of a cycle of Tiepolo canvases on May 30.

Auction house acquire leading Old Master dealer with debts of $26m