Asian Art

The Spring 2010 Christie's sale in Hong Kong, of Southeast Asian Modern and Contemporary Art went well. It showed a 33% increase in sales on the previus year. Over 10 records were set for established and emerging artists from both contemporary and modern sets. Italian painter, Romualdo Locatelli's painting 'Young Balinese Girl with Hibiscus' broke all records selling for $773,000. Also a rare painting by Fernando Cueto Amorsolo, sold for $434,000. 13 lots recorded sale prices over expection, indicating an appreciation of modern masterworks from the Asian art market.

Artist Studio

The artist's studio is always a source of interest for collectors and people who appreciate art alike. Ever since since the Spanish painter Velazquez painted himself painting Las Meninas, in his studio. Painters, and sometimes photographers have often depicted themselves slaving over a canvas, at their easel, studying a model, or even entertaining collectors and dealers. Props and costumes, brushes and easels: all the accoutrements of the artist's livelihood might find their way into the finished canvas.

Today's modern art museums are using the Internet to allow visitors to watch the artist live in their world. With one click, the artist's interior world is available. Even the nature of the studio visit has changed enormously in the online era. "Basically, you sit down with the artist, and out comes the laptop," notes Harry Philbrick, director of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Diego Rivera

Detail of Leon Trotsky in Controller of the Universe Mural (1934, Palacio de Bella Artes, Mexico City)

Georges Rouault
The Old King (1937)

Hugo van der Goes (1440–1483)
-Portinari Altarpiece, detail (c.1475, Uffizi, Florence)
-Death of the Virgin (1480, Groeninge Museum, Bruges)

Paul Signac
The Papal Palace, Avignon (1900, Musee d'Orsay, Paris)

Chaim Soutine
Portrait of a Man with Red Scarf (1921, private collection)

Rona Pondick Sculptor

Female artist and sculptor Rona Pondick mixes animal body parts with her own to create hybrid sculptures which unite the emotional and the intellectual, the sublime and the grotesque. On first viewing, you find it disgusting, but then you can't get enough of it. Pondick has been unnerving audiences since the 1980s with her eccentric, unnerving sculpture. She explored figurative work when abstraction was de rigueur, she used dirt and found objects when minimalism was popular.

The New York born artist emerged, in 1977, from the Yale School of Art, where she studied sculpture with Richard Serra, among others. She distinguished herself early on with an unusual array of anatomical parts and body-related objects that had some of Louise Bourgeois's oddity and near-surrealism and Philip Guston's ambiguous symbolism.

Metropolitian painting may be a Michelangelo

The painting Saint John the Baptist Bearing Witness (c.1510, Metropolitan museum of Art) has long been attributed to the workshop of Italian artist Francesco Granacci. But Everett Fahy, former head of the museum's European paintings department, now believe the painting may have been created by Michelangelo. Fahy says he is aware the critics will throw 'brickbats' at him, but is adamant in his view stating 'I am confident that the only artist capable of making this splendid painting was Michelangelo.' Granacci and Michelangelo were good friends in their time. The Met bought the painting in the 1970s for $150,000.

'The second panel is so superior to the companion panel,' Fahy says. 'I believe Michelangelo painted it in 1506, two years before he started on the Sistine ceiling. It was already in my brain in 1971, the year after it was bought. When the Metropolitan showed it in 1971, I wrote for an exhibition called 'Masterpieces of Fifty Centuries' that the second panel recalled the figures in the Sistine Chapel. As years went by, it firmed up. I had long believed it to be by Michelangelo, but exactly when I don't know. There wasn't a moment when I suddenly said, 'This is absolutely by Michelangelo.' It was a gradual recognition.'

Olafur Eliasson: The Weather Project (2003)

The Weather Project, the 4th of the Unilever Series of commissions for the Turbine Hall, Tate Gallery. An installation by Olafur Eliasson which takes the subject of weather as the basis for exploring ideas about experience, mediation and representation. He installed a gigantic wintery sun at the far endof the hall, and visitors were able to bask in it's warm orange glow. "I was incredibly happy with people's reactions – they were so diverse," Eliasson said after the project.

Artist Career

The basic elements of the weather, water, temperature, light, pressure, are the materials that Eliasson has used throughout his career. His installations more often than not feature elements derived from nature – billowing steam, glistening rainbows or fog-filled rooms. By introducing ‘natural’ phenomena, such as water, mist or light, into an un-natural setting, be it a city street or an art gallery, the artist encourages the viewer to reflect upon their understanding and perception of the physical world that surrounds them.

Alexei Jawlensky

Head (1910, Museum of Modern Art, New York)

Russian painter and printmaker, who was active in Germany during the first part of the 20th century. He became interested in painting at the age of 16, when he visited the Moscow World Exposition, which had a profound influence on him. He subsequently spent all of his leisure time at the Tret’yakov State Gallery, Moscow.

Between 1908 and 1910 Jawlensky and the artist Werefkin spent summers in the Bavarian Alps with Kandinsky and his companion Gabriele Munter. Here, through painting landscapes of their mountainous surroundings (e.g. Jawlensky’s Summer Evening in Murnau, 1909, Munich, Lenbachhaus), they experimented with one another’s techniques and discussed the theoretical bases of their art. In 1909 they helped to found the Neue kuenstlervereinigung muenchen (NKVM). After a break-away group formed the Blue Rider in 1911, Jawlensky remained in the NKVM until 1912, when works by him were shown at the Blue Rider exhibitions. During this period he made a vital contribution to the development of Expressionism.

For a full list of Famous Painters, see the website underlined.

Mary Cassatt
Two Children at the Seashore (1884, The National Gallery of Art, Washington)

Pierre Bonnard
In the Washroom (1907, Gallery Daniel Malingue, Paris)

Max Ernst
Ube Imperator (1923, Pompidou Centre, Paris)

Carsten Holler: Installation 'Test Site' (2006) at the Tate Modern

Test Site is a large series of slides which are impressive sculptures by sculptor Carsten Holler. You don't need to slide down the sculpture to appreciate it, the visual of seeing people slide down the 'inner spectacle', puts the viewer into a state of simultaneous delight and anxiety. Of course many wonder whether it is really art. But art, Holler says is changing its character, like it or not. In the 1970s, projects such as Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty were of minority interest. In London, Holler says, "every newspaper wrote about Test Site, and every taxi driver knew about the slides. British popular culture embraces something like this in a way other countries don't."

So the Turbine Hall has become a playground. In a more serious note, the artist says "I was also dealing with the space, all those grids and straight lines. Putting the slides there was an artistic, even poetic intervention. The spirals relate to natural growth and form. No one mentioned this. I wanted to make the people part of the work, but you didn't have to use the slides. Standing and watching could be like looking at a painting by Hieronymous Bosch."

Top 10 most expensive artworks to ever go under the hammer

1. Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso (£68m) - sold in May, 2010
2. L'Homme Qui Marche (Walking Man 1) by Alberto Giacometti (£65.7m)
3. Gar(TM)on la pipe by Pablo Picasso (£65.6m)
4. Dora Maar au Chat by Pablo Picasso (£60m)
5. Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Gustav Klimt (£55.3m)
6. New York Triptych (in 3 parts) by Francis Bacon (£55m)
7. Portrait du Dr. Gachet by Vincent Van Gogh (£52m)
8. Le Bassin Aux Nymphmas by Claude Monet (£50m)
9. Bal au Moulin de la Galette by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (£49m)
10. The Massacre of the Innocents by Sir Peter Paul Rubens (£47m)

2000 Louise Bourgeois: Maman

The Tate Modern is celebrating it's 10th birthday. On show, as part of it's permanent celebration is Louise Bourgeois' spider sculpture Maman. Bourgeois, who is 99 years old, no longer gives interviews. But for the Tate's birthday, she came out of retirement to talk about her commission in the Turbine Hall. The Spider gave the Tate Modern an instant identifable signature and made the artist a household name. Did this sudden fame surprise her: 'No,' she says modestly. 'The space is so beautiful – anything placed inside it would cause a strong reaction.'
As an artist, Bourgeois focuses on remembered interiors of her childhood. Maman turned the surrealist obsession with men upside down, creating a haunting image of motherhood insted - of a spider carrying her eggs.

Before this, Bourgeois says, 'I made a series of small sculptures with mirrors and chairs. They were about looking and being looked at. To continue these concepts on a large scale was an opportunity I could not pass up." What mattered to her most about this installation was the audience's engagement with it. Her towers were designed to be ascended, paving the way for subsequent participatory installations. "The towers were meant to be an experience. If you did not experience all three towers in sequence, then you did not get the piece.'

Artists Pablo Picasso and Andre Derain

A collection of paintings by the famous Parisian art dealer Ambroise Vollard will be put to auction at Sotheby's in June. When Vollard died in 1939, 141 of his paintings were put in a vault, and forgotten about for 40 years. When they were rediscovered in 1979, a legal battle lasting 3 decades began. Vollard was a key player in 20th century art, without him the likes of Gaugin, Cezanne and Modigliani may never had sold a painting. One of the most exciting paintings in the auction is Andre Derain's Harbour at Collioure. It was was part of the 1905 Paris exhibition that included works by Matisse, and led to the critics dubbing their works Les Fauves, or Wild Beasts.

Irish Artist Sean Hillen at Art Chicago

The artist Sean Hillen will be represented at Art Chicago by the BlueLeaf Gallery, Dublin. This is the first time he will be represented in America. His humourous photo assemblages were taken during the time of conflict in Northern Ireland. Hillen's reputation is well established, and was confirmed by the recent aquisition of 24 pieces by the Imperial War Museum in London recently for thier permanent exhibition. His topical ‘Troubles’ series (1983-1993) piece together imagery such as the Virgin Mary appearing above a British Army patrol, watchtowers in Piccadilly Circus, masked militants of the Irish National Liberation Army parading alongside the Queen's mounted guard and London Buses.

The BlueLeaf Gallery will also be exhibiting works by Cork based artist Tom Climent and Marty Kelly.

Sir John Lavery, Irish Artist

A famous painting by Sir John Lavery, The Golden Turban is to go on sale next month at Sothebys, and is expected to reach half a million Euros.

Head of PR at Sotheby's, said the international art market had seen massive demand since the end of last year. "What has happened in the last six months we have seen a kind of unprecedented demand back in the art market," he said.

A study, the Spanish Shawl, by Louis Le Broquy is also to go under the hammer, with estimates of 440,000 to 650,000 Euros.

National Crafts Competition, Call for Entries

RDS National Crafts Competition

In conjuction with the Crafts Council of Ireland has announced their annual competition. Founded in 1968, with a prize fund in excess of €28,000 spread over 20 categories, the competition is one of Europe’s leading independently adjudicated craft competitions.

The categories for entry are glass, furniture, ceramics and textiles. The craft workers and designers have their work appraised by an independent jury of experts and to compete for prestigious awards and prizes which total €28,000. Previous entrants have included the Strule Arts Centre, Omagh; the Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh and the Regional Cultural Centre, Letterkenny.

First round of entrants by May 17th.

Art Fair, 2010

The 2010 RDS Art Fair will take place from 5-7 November.

After a bit of market research and discussions with the arts sector, it has been decided that new aspects to the Fair will include a curatorial approach with an emphasis on displays and presentations, favouring galleries and professional artists.

Given the current economic climate, it will be interesting to see which artists exhibit, and their prices. I was recently at the London Art Fair, and was blown away by the quality of English art, and the extremely affordable prices. Irish art has always held a premium in the celtic boom - and I suspect more realistic prices will be on show at the RDS in November. Best of luck to the artists involved.

Mark Rothko

Mark Rothko was never quite an American painter – not in the same way that Pollock or de Kooning ever were. He never quite left the old world, Nietzsche and Aeschylus were his best friends. A major retrospective exhibition: Into an Unknown World, takes place at the Garage Centre for Contemporary Culture, Moscow, until August 14, 2010. Finally, the country he left but never returned to has recognised the genuis of his colour field paintings.

Two superb artists. My pick of the day

Georgia O'Keeffe

Blue Flower (1930, Whitney Museum, Boston)

Elsheimer

Flight into Egypt (1609, Alte Pinakothek, Munich)

George Stubbs
Whistlejacket (1762, National Gallery, London)

Anselm Adams
The Tetons and the Snake River (1942)

Frida Kahlo
Henry Ford Hospital (1932, Collection Dolores Olmedo Foundation, Mexico City)

Francesco Guardi
View of the Molo towards the Santa Maria della Salute (1775)

Sir Thomas Lawrence
Pinkie (1794, Huntington Institute, San Marino, California)

George Grosz
Pillars of Society (1926, Staatliche Museum, Berlin)

Georgia O'Keeffe
Cow's Skull: Red, White, and Blue, (1931, Metropolitian Museum of Art, New York)

Norman Rockwell
Save The Freedom of Speech (1942, Curtis Publishing Company)

Jack Vettriano
The Singing Butler (1992, Private Collection)

Ivan Nikolayevich Kramskoy
Portrait of an Unknown Woman (1883, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

Antonello da Messina
Christ Crowned with Thorns (also known as Ecce Homo: 1470, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)