As Bacon’s self portraits are widely regarded as some of his most important works and have been called ‘amongst the greatest self-portraits in the history of art’, I’m sure this artwork will help lead the art market out of its current slump.

CBC News reported:

“Christie’s sued over $40M guarantee for Francis Bacon painting

A Florida art collector is suing auction house Christie’s International in New York City, for reneging on a deal to give him the minimum price guarantee of $40 million US for a self-portrait by Irish painter Francis Bacon.

George Weiss filed a lawsuit Friday in a Manhattan federal court for breach of contract and is seeking damages to be determined at trial.

Weiss says Christie’s owes him at least $40 million for his 1964 Study For a Self Portrait by Bacon, which had failed to sell at the November 2008 auction. The bidding topped off at about $27 million.

“For years, the major auction houses, including Christie’s and Sotheby’s, have offered guaranteed price arrangements for select works in order to bring major pieces to market,” Weiss said in the complaint.

“Christie’s reneged upon the minimum price guarantee.”

Documents indicate Weiss was courted last summer by Christie’s and its rival Sotheby’s. In September, Weiss chose Christie’s.

In the same month, the auction house told Weiss it couldn’t fulfil the minimum-bid guarantee, citing “the changed climate of the art market.”

Prices for works of art have tumbled in light of the world economic crisis.

Market for Art by Francis Bacon

Prior to that, the market for Bacon’s works was hot. A 1978 Bacon self-portrait sold for more than $42 million US in London in June 2007, while a 1976 triptych was sold for $86 million in May 2008.

Bacon died in Madrid in 1992.”

Francis Bacon – What’s Next

A complete biography of Francis Bacon will be published soon at eArtfair.com/blog.

Contemporary Art :: Fine Art :: Top Artists :: Art Reviews, Art Fairs & Exhibitions. Copyright , e ART FAIR .com, All Rights Reserved.

‘Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans’ is one of the most ambitious and iconic of Degas’s works and a groundbreaking sculpture from the Impressionist period.

The bronze cast to be offered at Sotheby’s is one of only a handful of casts remaining in private hands. This sale therefore represents a rare opportunity to acquire an icon of Impressionist art.

Melanie Clore, Sotheby’s Co-chairman, Impressionist & Modern Art, comments:

“Petite danseuse de quatorze ans is the most important and iconic sculpture by Edgar Degas. We are thrilled to be offering this remarkable work which is so celebrated for the revolutionary nature of its modern sculptural form.”

Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans

Petite danseuse de quatorze ans is a striking work which shows a young ballet dancer assuming a delicate and subtle pose; the viewer is at once struck by the extraordinarily realistic depiction of the 14-year-old girl.

Created in wax circa 1879-81, Petite danseuse de quatorze ans was the only sculpture to have been exhibited during the artist’s lifetime. Using a wire armature for the body and hemp for the arms and hands, Degas worked in modelling wax, dressing the figure in real silk, tulle and gauze. The wig came from Madame Cusset, supplier of ‘hair for puppets and dolls’. The wax sculpture was found in Degas’s studio following his death in 1917 and cast in bronze in from 1922.

His model was Marie van Goethem, the daughter of a Belgian tailor and laundress, who was a ballet student at the Opéra and among the dancers of the Opéra who were of particular interest to Degas at this time. Degas used these dancers as the source of his inspiration for many of his most important works in various different media, including Danseuse au repos, an exquisite pastel and gouache created in the same period, which sold for a new world record price for the artist of $37,042,500 at Sotheby’s New York on the 3rd November 2008.

The consignor is Sir John Madejski, one of Britain’s leading arts philanthropists whose generosity has helped to transform many cultural institutions in the UK, including The Royal Academy’s John Madejski Fine Rooms opened at Burlington House in 2004 and the John Madejski Garden at the V&A in 2005 — the garden at the centre of the Museum. Discussing the sale John Madejski said:

“I was delighted to share this wonderful sculpture with visitors to the Royal Academy in London where it has
been on view since 2004. My collection is constantly evolving and developing into new areas.”

Reviewing the exhibition of Petite danseuse de quatorze ans in Paris in 1881 for the first time in the Sixth Impressionist Exhibition of 1881, the critic J.K. Huysmans remarked:

“ . . . M. Degas has knocked over the traditions of sculpture, just as he has for a long time been shaking up the conventions of painting . . . At once refined and barbaric . . . this statuette is the only truly modern attempt I know in sculpture.”

Jules Claretie, writing in La Vie à Paris in 1881, was charmed by the dancer’s carefree spirit, referring to her

“strangely attractive, disturbing and unique naturalism, which recalls with a very Parisian and polished note the Realism of Spanish polychrome sculpture.”

The majority of other casts are in major international museum collections, including Tate Gallery, the
Metropolitan Museum of Art New York, Philadelphia Museum of Art and Museé d’Orsay in Paris.

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Art glass usually refers to the modern art glass movement in which individual artists work alone or with colleagues, creating works from molten glass in relatively small furnaces of a few hundred pounds of glass.

Dale Chihuly

It began in the early 1960s and showed an incremental growth through the end of the century. The glass objects created are not primarily utilitarian. From a creative perspective, they have to make an artistic statement. Their market value depends on the work and the artist involved, and prices range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of dollars. The best known of the modern glass artists is Dale Chihuly. In 1971, he began the Pilchuck School of Glass near Stanwood, Washington, which is a source of a great deal of the current American Studio Glass movement.

In an art glass studio, “production work” (goblets, vases, pitchers, art marbles etc.) show more hand worked variation than was allowed in a pure factory work environment, and each piece shows some of the lead glass worker’s creativity. In addition to smaller production pieces, the studio glass workers also try to turn out larger individual pieces, which might be the equivalent of a work of genius in the journeyman system of guild and factory work.

Glass Blowing might be an ancient art but there has been a resurgence in the relatively recent “studio glass movement” which began in 1962. Harvey Littleton, a ceramics professor, and Dominick Labino, a chemist and engineer, held two workshops at the Toledo Museum of Art, during which they began experimenting with melting glass in a small furnace and creating blown glass art. Littleton and Labino were the first to make molten glass available to artists working in private studios. This approach to glass blowing blossomed into a worldwide movement, producing such flamboyant and prolific artists as Dale Chihuly and Dante Marioni. Lino Tagliapietraa was the first Murano-trained artist to leave and spread his knowledge in the United States.

Philip Johnson’s Glass House may be one of the least functional homes on the planet but on an architectural scale, it is one of the most beautiful. All the exterior walls are glass, with the surrounding vegetation as audience. Johnson did not see the house so much as a stage… but as a statement. The inspiration and basic concept for Johnson’s glass house came from Mies van der Rohe, who was designing the glass-and-steel Farnsworth House during this period. Also surrounded by a green landscape, the house stands utterly transparent with its glass-enclosed living space and porch. On a conceptual level, the house is the perfect expression of International Style. Both houses are simple in structure but it is the use of glass as the main material, which makes these houses highly significant in the world of architecture.

Fritography is the art of using crushed glass pieces (“frits”) and coloured glass powders to create fused glass artwork. Artists assemble the frits into patterns that can be highly detailed, and even photo-realistic, and then fuse the works in a kiln. Seattle artist, Michael Dupille, pioneered the process. This glass artist works in Seattle, Washington. While he has worked in numerous media, he is widely regarded as a pioneer in the technique of fritography, or kiln-fused glasswork. His public work is on display throughout the United States, including a major installation in New York City’s Wall Street Park.

Through the centuries, glass has changed its function and form. A company that has consistently stayed on the cutting edge of glassmaking is Pilkington glass. Their pioneer product, Pilkington Activ™ is the world’s first self-cleaning glass. This is a dream come true; no more long hours spent cleaning windows – natural light and rainwater keep windows clearer and squeaky-clean.

Continuation of part 1 of the article by Gerard Van Weyenbergh:

My investor, is in love with the painting, but still wants to have Sotheby’s and Christie’s opinion about the value of this painting. The response came rapidly: they will not accept this painting for their auctions, because it is not in the Ceroni archives as a first response, and as a second response when they find out that the painting is repertoried in the archives, because it is not illustrated in the Ceroni catalogue!. Other ways they are saying that the painting is maybe a fake? They didn’t say this but what must the investor think?

The painting is under suspicion! Because the staff from Sotheby’s and Christie’s in charge of the Modern and Impressionist art have cold feet or they don’t have enough experience or are they just trying to have the investor buy their own products, where, of course, at this rate they will make a profit of $ 1.6 million if my investor buys from them a similar value painting? This will stay without response.

What is evident: is the fact that this painting exhibited in so many museums, repertoried everywhere, seen by millions of people , a painting that was chosen by eminent curators as a jewel of Modigliani’s art to be part of their so difficult to assemble paintings exhibitions.

It is evident that Sotheby’s and Christie’s are killing an artwork of major importance , and gave it a “ suspicious “ label for their own reason, that I will qualify as financial interests reasons. My investor didn’t buy the painting and it went back to Europe..I didn’t make any commission for a very difficult work that took me several months and cost me a serious amount of $ in insurance to ship the painting to the USA.

I conclude that if you have some very important art, with all the certificates you want, with the best provenance possible, you may be highly disillusioned if you want to sell that major art work you thought has so much value only because of Sotheby’s and Christie’s may decide it so!

For me this is manifestly a conflict of interests in the art business. An auction house is where you sell your art at the highest bidder, the managers should not interfere in the authentication process by taking a position as negative as they did in this case. I mentioned each time Sotheby’s and Christie’s at the same time, even if my investor was working with one of them, but through personal verification I find out that they are working under a same umbrella, so they did in the past so commented here in articles I find on the web:

The Art of the Steal: Inside the Sotheby’s-Christie’s Auction House Scandal
http://www.karisable.com/crwc.htm/

2000: Sotheby’s and Al Taubman. The world’s elite were ripped off by years of price-fixing on the part of those supposed bitter competitors, auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Sotheby’s chairman, Taubman, was found guilty of conspiracy last year. He is yet to be sentenced
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm

US charges NYC Gallery owner in multi-million $ global scheme to sell real masterworks and forged copies, this is a US Gov. website.
(Prior source article: www.fbi.gov/dojpressrel/pressrel04/art031004.htm is now archived)

Top auction houses sell looted art, claims Howells Kim howells, the culture minister, is accusing Britain’s leading auction houses of trading in looted antiquities and demanding that they do more to ensure the provenance of objects they sell. Mr Howells, who caused uproar last week when he accused American film stars of being too “terrified” to fly to Europe, has now infuriated British auctioneers and art dealers with a suggestion that they could be supporting the trade in stolen goods.
museum-security.org/03/088.html

The Great $50 Million Art Swindle Another evidence of conflict of interests: Auction house loans money to art dealer!

http://www.forbes.com/2001/02/06/0206artfraud.html

From Library Journal
The sometimes shady world of the international art market has become a popular subject for writers and television reporters. Stolen treasures, smuggled antiquities, and the seemingly endless cultural atrocities of World War II have been covered in a spate of recent works. Watson, a journalist and author of the art-crime work The Caravaggio Conspiracy (LJ 2/1/84), here turns the harsh light of publicity on the elite auction rooms of Sotheby’s. Using information from a former Sotheby’s employee and the familiar, if sometimes distasteful tactics of investigative reporting, Watson builds a case that the auction house has systemically abetted the transportation of
antiquities and Old Masters in contravention of various national and international laws.

Sotheby’s:: The Inside Story

Be on Your Avant-Garde! A complete collection sold is fake?
(Prior source article: www.maineantiquedigest.com/articles/avan0498.htm is now archived)

Former leaders of Christie’s and Sotheby’s were indicted
for auction price-fixing

http://www.skeptictank.org/slatkin/rslat008.htm

A Fraud! Auction ‘Rivals’By Devin Leonard
Christie’s and Sotheby’s have always acted like mortal enemies whose well-bred staffs jockey for the next vault of impressionist oil paintings. Their top executives fuel that perception by trading polite insults as exquisitely wrought as a Cezanne still life. It turns out, however, that for the past eight years, the “grand old rivalry” between Christie’s and Sotheby’s has been a bit of a forgery. Only now is it igniting for real.
(Prior source article: fortune.com/fortune/articles/0,15114,371429,00.html is now archived)

More Woes for Sotheby’s; LO80 identified; LVMH Buys Tajan Auction House; State & Fed Crackdown on Internet Auction Fraud

http://www.iphotocentral.com/news/issue_view.php/11/12

Alfred Taubman Sentenced
(Prior source article: www.artcult.com/na289.html is now archived)

Van Gogh Sunflowers fake sold by Christie’s ?
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=160896

http://www.vggallery.com/misc/fakes/fakes5c.htm

Many other auctioneers, including Christie’s and Sotheby’s have sold such fakes on the market and though they cannot be suspected of having lent a hand to the fraud the competencies of their experts might at least be seriously challenged.
(Prior source article: www.artcult.com/forger2.htm is now archived)

My conclusion is very simple, Sotheby’s and Christie’s are manifestly in conflict of interests when they sell art work for their clients or when then analyze an artwork. Of course it is their freedom to accept or not to accept a Modigliani in their auctions. But my question will be : the paintings repertoried in the Ceroni are almost all sold, what will they do in the future?

No more selling Modigliani paintings? I doubt it. They will very rapidly find a solution to this and accept the many other authentic paintings by Modigliani hanging at this time in Museums or in vaults or on the walls of collectors and not repertoried in Mr. Ceroni’s catalogue raisonne.

The art world needs an “independent source of estimation “ like the auction house was supposed to be years ago.

Thank you to all the writers of these so interesting web pages mentioned in my links.”

By Gerard van Weyenbergh, who has spent the last 25 years working as an independent broker dealing with galleries throughout Europe. Working together with his son Arry Van Weyenbergh the two have been traveling extensively throughout the world, appraising and researching contemporary and old masters. Gerard is a recognized expert in 17th – 20th century European paintings , while Arry’s expertise: modern and international contemporary painters. Together their education includes art history degrees from- Ecole du Louvre, University of Montpellier and Ecole Saint Luc. With an extensive background in architecture Gerard’s vision in art incorporates the total aesthetics of art placement and environment for his client’s collections.

By Gerard Van Weyenbergh

“Are Sotheby’s and Christie’s or all major auctions houses still the reference to establish the value of your art works?

It is not my intention to have them sue me for my thoughts in this letter. Nonetheless there are so many events these last months that I want to bring in daylight some evidence that these major auction houses are interfering in the daily merchants business of antiquities dealers, fine art galleries from all over the world.

Take the time to read what happened to me recently, it is juicy.

One of my clients has a fantastic Modigliani painting from 1918, representing a lady, one of most beautiful paintings by Modigliani if you ask me. This painting comes with a provenance history since the day it was created. First it was bought by Leopold Zwoborowski , Modigliani’s merchant, after a while the famous Katia Granoff bought it in the 1940’s, and stayed in this family until the 1990’s.

In the mean time our painting was exhibited in more than 30 museums or major galleries for Modigliani’s retrospectives : so Galerie Granoff, Galerie Charpentier etc etc., we have of course most of these exhibition catalogs where the painting was represented and even was on the front page of these catalogs. The painting went on world tours, in Italy, Spain, USA, Japan. In Tokyo in the late 90’s our painting was even the poster you could see in the streets of Tokyo, of course we have this poster also.

The painting comes evidently with several certificates: Lantheman, Andre Schoeller from 1954, Mrs L. Zwoborowski, and the famous Mr.Christian Parisot expertise, which is the administrator of legal archives of Modigliani. Of course our painting is repertoried in several catalogue raisonne so the Lantheman etc. Not illustrated in the Ceroni catalogue raisonne but we have the hand written letter of Mrs. Ceroni stating that the painting is repertoried in her late husband’s archives as an authentic Modigliani painting. (Of course, she can prove this we assume).

Click here for part 2 of the article