New fine art and antiques fair in London

Masterpiece is a new fine art and antiques fair due to take place in the former Chelsea Barracks in London in June

An ambitious new fair will make London in June the epicentre of the antiques trade. Masterpiece London, combining fine art and antiques with contemporary works, jewellery, wine and cars, now has planning permission to be run in the former Chelsea Barracks on June 24-29. Aiming to fill the gap left by the demise of the Grosvenor Fair, it has signed up such names as Cahn International, MacConnal-Mason and Wartski, and was conceived ‘over lunch' by five leading figures in the industry.


Thomas Woodham Smith of Mallet, Robert Procop, president of Asprey, Simon Phillips of Ronald Phillips, Harry Apter of Apter-Fredericks and Harry van der Hoorn of Maastricht builder Stabilo will underwrite the new fair. Nicola Winwood, formerly assistant director at the Grosvenor, is the organiser. ‘We felt the industry needed a shot in the arm,' says chairman Mr Woodham Smith. ‘There is still a tremendous appetite for collecting and decorating and furnishing houses, and we hope this will be something different.'

Masterpiece follows the London International Fine Art Fair at Olympia (June 4-13), Haughton's Art Antiques London (June 10-16) and the Russian, Eastern & Oriental Fine Art Fair (June 9-12). ‘Overall, I think this is a good thing,' comments Ivan Macquisten, editor of Antiques Trade Gazette. ‘It will create a critical mass we haven't seen before. With the Gros-venor gone, there was a vacuum, and the space at the Barracks will mean more opportunities for dealers. There's always a risk, but I'm optimistic.'

Art collector Dirk Hannema proved right as Van Gogh work verified

AN ECCENTRIC art collector mocked for insisting one of his paintings was an unknown van Gogh has been vindicated 25 years after his death.

Nc Museum Of Art Gets Picasso Paintings

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh is getting four paintings as it prepares to reopen, including a nude portrait by Pablo Picasso of one of his lovers.
The News & Observer of Raleigh reported Thursday the paintings are being donated by Julian and Josie Robertson. Julian Robertson is a Salisbury native who owns a hedge fund called Tiger Management.
Deputy art director John Coffey says the museum never would have considered such a painting 50 years ago. He says the museum's collection has always been "polite."
The Picasso is titled "Seated Woman, Red and Yellow Background" and was painted in 1952. It depicts Francoise Gilot, the mother of two of his children.
The museum has been closed since September, while moving more than 750 pieces to a new building. It's scheduled to reopen April 24.

Divvya & Arjun Nirula reveal their artistic side with Captured Glass

For Divvya and Arjun Nirula, their first exhibition together—Captured Glass—is an opportunity to give expression to the family’s artistic talent and thought. The siblings belong to the famous family that set up fast food chain Nirula’s. “I was never cut out to join the family business and have always been keen on creative pursuits. After we sold our stake in the family business, it was time for my parents, my sister and me to actively move into artistic pursuits which we all love. The current exhibition is the first collaborative effort from our family,” says Arjun Nirula.

The exhibition, which is on at Arpana Caur’s Academy of Fine Arts and Literature in Delhi between Feb 20 and Feb 28, showcases work contained within the framework of two traditions - stained glass and stone carvings and etchings.

While Divvya Nirula is an art curator and consultant, Arjun is a film-maker. The family’s Nirula Family Company is into art investment and advisory services. “Even though we advise our clients on how to make money out of art, we also help them to form their own understanding of art. We advise them to invest at least a part of their portfolio on young and upcoming artists,” says Divvya.

The works at the exhibition are inspired by the universal mysticism and balance and was created around the playful nature of light and dark. “We had long discussions with our parents Renoo and Nalin Nirula and the pieces that have been created have become extensions of our discussions and expressions of our perceptions,” adds Divvya.

The family now plans to make this an annual affair. “We are already working on ideas for the next exhibition and I’m travelling to Italy to meet companies that make different kinds of glass. We hope to be able to tie-up with some of them in getting good material into India,” said Divvya Nirula. The family foundation Star Light also plans to provide a platform for various artists and art forms from India and overseas. “We will diversify into various forms including performing arts. From a very young age, I have pursued music and dancing, while my brother has been trained in theatre and films. We will not restrict ourselves to any one art form alone,” she says.

The Captured Glass exhibition is a fusion of western and eastern art forms and combines stained glass and Nakashi work. A diverse range of material has also been used such as glass, stone, wood and semi-precious stone. “This exploration of the battle between light and darkness took us more than a year to put together. There is a huge amount of interest in these works and the exhibition is already 100% sold out. People are showing a great interest in the next exhibition which we plan in a year’s time,” says Arjun Nirula.

What is adding to the interest in the exhibition is the fact that Divyya is curating it herself. It has been divided into four chapters namely The Falling; The Dialectics of Light and Dark; Form - where the artwork is presented in the forms of panels and mandalas and a fountain - and the concluding chapter, which is more of a beginning.

Oil Landscape Paintings by Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie at Walls Fine Art Gallery in Wilmington, NC

An exhibition of landscape paintings by Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie featuring imagery of both the eastern and western United States runs through March 20th at Walls Fine Art Gallery in Wilmington, NC.

Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie, a native of Hunan, China, now lives and paints full time in Atlanta, GA.  He received his formal art education in China, Europe, and the United States. In 1982, Jie graduated with a BFA in theater set design from the Central Academy of Drama at Beijing. He then taught art and design at Hunan University. In 1987 and 1988, Jie studied and lectured at the Ecole Cantonal d’ Art de Lausanne, Switzerland. Upon immigrating to the United States, Jie taught at Auburn University as a visiting professor. In 1995, he received his master’s degree in industrial design from Georgia Tech. Since then, he had been working at the Disney and Fox Feature Animation studios as a background stylist and visual development artist.  His screen credits include Mulan, Tarzan, Lilo & Stitch, Brother Bear, Ice Age 2 - The Meltdown.
“Xiangyuan Jie (affectionately called Master Jay) painted a stunning color script that helped guide us in painting our keys. Master Jay is probably the best painter I have ever met (we don't throw around the title "Master" to just anyone). Sitting next to him was kind of like going to graduate school.” –Robert MacKensie on “Ice Age, The Meltdown”

Jay’s expressive painterly approach is largely influenced by the direct and fluent style of early European, Russian, and American impressionists and realists.  Jie enjoys painting people from life settings and landscape on location wherever he goes on the road trips.

“There’s a hallway on the studio’s third floor where Disney artists show their own work in a gallery setting, and one day the wandering directors were exposed to the work of Xiangyuan (“Jay”) Jie. “Bob and I knew we wanted a real rugged, artful-looking film,” says Blaise. “We didn’t want it to be really detailed and highly rendered.” When they saw Jie’s bold, impressionistic landscapes, they were hooked. “You could see every brushstroke,”

says Bob Walker, “and the way he handles color is incredible.” The rest of the unit was immediately trained to paint like Jie.” –Taylor Jessen, on the film “Brother Bear”

Jie’s artworks have been featured in national and regional juried art exhibitions around the country. He has been published in Artist’s Magazine and International Artist’s Magazine, Southwest Art Magazine. He also received second place in 2003 and the honor award in 2002 and 2005 at the international competition sponsored by the Portrait Society of America. Jie also received third prize in Artist Magazine’s portrait competition in 1999. His landscape paintings were selected for the Top 100 in the 2002 and 2003 “Art for the Parks” competition, and received Landscape Art Award and Grand Teton Natural History Association Purchase Award and Judge's Choice Award.

Xiangyuan (Jay) Jie is a member of the Portrait Society of America, Oil Painters of America and Plein Air Painters of West. 

Michelangelo drawing show explores the hand of a master

Michelangelo created this circa 1532 study of a soldier for a work known as the "Resurrection of Christ." (Courtesy of Casa Buonarroti, Florence, Italy / February 16, 2010)

Even in his own lifetime, the works of Michelangelo stood out in ways that commanded awe and reverence.

While many other Italian Renaissance artists strove to understand the unclothed figures of their subjects, he often peered beneath the skin to understand the exact relationship of the bones, tendons and muscles.

And where others sought to depict lifelike physical forms, "Il Divino" — as he was often called by his admiring peers — injected his twisting, turning portraits with such convincing energy that they bristled with emotional and spiritual life as well as movement.

Such unequaled understanding of the human body revolutionized the world of sculpture and painting — and helped make 16th-century Italian art one of the high-water marks of Western Civilization. But in Michelangelo's ceaselessly restless hands, it rewrote the laws of architecture, too, introducing a game-changing approach to building design based on the parts, as well as the bilateral symmetry of the human face and body.

"When people think of architecture, they think of mathematical precision. But Michelangelo didn't see it that way," says Aaron De Groft, director of the Muscarelle Museum of Art, which explores the subject in "Michelangelo: Anatomy as Architecture, Drawings by the Master."

"He trusted his eyes — because he knew it not only had to be right, it had to look right, too. And he trusted his understanding of human anatomy because, to him, you couldn't understand architecture until you understood anatomy."

Drawn from the world-renowned collection of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Italy — which was Michelangelo's ancestral home — this small group of about a dozen images represents a genuinely rare opportunity to look first-hand into the mind of one of history's greatest artists.

Though he was known to draw incessantly — using and reusing sheets of paper to explore the faces, figures, muscles and bones of his subjects, as well as the forms and ornaments of his buildings — only about 600 sheets survived after the artist began destroying them shortly before his death at the age of 88 in 1564.

Fewer than 20 examples can be found in American museums. Several important small groups reside in the vaults of the Louvre, the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford University, Windsor Castle and the British Museum. Yet even the largest surviving collection at the Casa Buonarroti numbers just more than 200 sheets of drawings.

"These are his ideas — his preparatory studies — and with multiple images per page, there originally would have been thousands of them. So you're seeing inside his mind," De Groft says.

"But he didn't want people to see the struggles behind his work — and he burned most of them before he died."

Indeed, Michelangelo used his drawings like a workbench and his crayons and pens like tools, pressing them into service whenever he needed to perfect the ideas found in his sculptures, architectural designs and paintings.

Despite this utilitarian attitude, however, his genius as a draftsman easily matched if not surpassed his other artistic talents as a sculptor and painter. So even the quickest, most fragmented and seemingly most casual sketch shows the incontrovertible hand of a master.

"Michelangelo had a very special quality of expression that was recognized in his own time — and these drawings are part of that," says College of William and Mary professor emeritus Miles Chappell, who collaborated with De Groft on the exhibit.

"They're sketchy, but they're also full of life — and they're an indispensable part of the mosaic of his work."

Michelangelo drew in the Florentine style he learned as a young man, delineating the contours of his subject first, then following up with hatched lines to add shading.

He also used a quick, masterful and decisive line, Chappell says, altering its width and weight to produce a nearly infinite range of expression.

Sometimes he peers inside the body, as in the anatomical studies of torsos and legs that might have been conducted in preparation for two male figures sculpted for the Medici Chapel. Other times he explores the surface, as in a circa 1525 sketch tracing the way light falls across the muscled back of a classical Venus.

In another study of a soldier witnessing the resurrection of Christ, the artist's habitual attention to the evocative power of physical detail is so well-honed that you can almost feel the sense of tension, surprise and alarm in the headless figure's muscles.

"There's nothing here but a few lines," Chappell says. "But you can really sense the expression he was looking for."
Michelangelo devoted equal attention to his architectural studies, sketching tirelessly in search of forms, proportions and ornaments that would not only echo the lessons of the human body but also suggest its energy and emotions.

Among the most persuasive examples on view here is a study for the Medici Chapel, where the elaborate bases of the pilasters against the tomb's walls resemble the profile of a face consumed by sorrow.

Even in Michelangelo's day, his biographers noted that such devices were designed to echo the qualities expressed more overtly in the artist's figure sculptures.

That enabled the seemingly inanimate parts of the building to cry out in unison with its marble figures.

"There's real anguish in this room," De Groft says, studying a photograph of the finished chapel. "Everything about the architecture here is calculated to evoke sadness."

G-tokyo: The 'boutique' art fair

Quality over quantity: A view of G-tokyo art fair, which was held on Jan. 30-31 and had only 15 booths, including one from the Kodama Art Gallery (below). KEIZO KIOKU PHOTO

Although its contemporary art market is considered small in relation to the country's overall economy, Japan has no shortage of commercial art fairs.

Events held in the past year including Art@Agnes (since discontinued), Art Fair Tokyo, 101Tokyo Contemporary Art Fair, Tokyo Photo and Ultra: Emerging Directors Art Fair have all sought to tap into a limited collector base, all to varying degrees of success. Some fairs focus exclusively on local art galleries and others attempt to attract international participants while Art Fair Tokyo, notably, presents contemporary art alongside antiquities and other genres.

The latest fair to join the crowded art calendar is G-tokyo, which launched on Jan. 29 with a VIP preview and concluded Jan. 31. Organized by a committee of five leading galleries and fair director Toshiko Ferrier, G-tokyo was designed with the limitations of the domestic market in mind. It featured only 15 participants, with boxlike booths arranged along a single connecting corridor in the Mori Arts Center Gallery on the 52nd floor of the Mori Tower overlooking Roppongi.

The no-nonsense layout and the venue's wood flooring, high ceilings and crisp lighting resulted in a clean, easy viewing experience. All 15 participating galleries recorded sales by the end of the fair's run, and collectors expressed satisfaction with the wares on offer.

Dealers who spoke with The Japan Times said that they conducted most of their business during the preview. Sueo Mizuma of Mizuma Art Gallery devoted his booth to artist Akira Yamaguchi's "The Art of Electric Pole Arrangement," comprising drawings, paintings and sculptures imagining a fictional society dedicated to the aesthetic presentation of electric poles in the urban environment. Mizuma said that he sold almost all of the works, starting from ¥500,000, within the first 10 minutes of opening, and eventually sold out his entire booth.

Hidenori Ota of Ota Fine Arts was also busy, selling works by gallery artists Tomoko Kashiki, Yayoi Kusama and Yee Sookyung. A Korean collector beat out an Indonesian competitor for Kusama's colorful self-portrait, quoted by a gallery staff member as being between ¥20 million and ¥30 million. Wako Works of Art found numerous buyers for its installation of Gerhard Richter's mixed-media "Overpainted Photographs," which ranged from ¥2.9 million to ¥3.6 million although there were no takers for a ¥240 million large-scale painting by the German blue chip artist.

Works that remained unsold by the third day underscored the limitations of the local market. Measuring over two meters high, Tamotsu Ikeya's handsome canvas covered in a patchwork of thick, colored paint scored with concentric lines was a steal at ¥450,000 at Kodama Art Gallery, but remained unclaimed. Gallery staff said that potential buyers were hesitant about the size of the work, which would not fit into most Japanese homes.

Still, Tokyo's leading collectors all turned up for the preview, including Toshio Hara, founder of the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art; Eijiro Imafuku, publisher of the online art publication ART-iT; and Takeo Obayashi, whose nonprofit Backers Foundation sponsors international artist and curator residencies in Tokyo. Additionally, snatches of Mandarin, Korean, French and English could be heard throughout the venue.

Imafuku said that he was impressed with the professional look of the fair.

"With only 15 galleries, there's a limitation on what you can see, but the booths with new works are very interesting," he said. "I think the concern going forward is how to expand the fair without losing quality."

Obayashi was also positive, saying, "In the current economic climate, if you have clients coming from overseas and have dealers making sales, then that's a success."

Shinwa Art Auction President Yoichiro Kurata, launching a new joint venture in Hong Kong, the Asian Art Auction Alliance Company, brought collectors' groups from China and Taiwan to visit the fair. He explained that although the Chinese collectors were not so active on this trip, he expected them to return. "They are not very familiar with international contemporary art, so this time their focus was on looking and studying," he said. "They are very interested and I think they will be back."

While visitors generally said all the right things, fair participants themselves took the initiative in offering suggestions for improvement. Dealer Ota jokingly compared the fair to the Liberal Democratic Party, the conservative party that has run Japan for most of its postwar history.

Similarly, Junko Shimada of Gallery Side 2 said that while she felt G-tokyo's central location had provided incredible visibility, one aspect to improve upon with future editions would be to allow room for more project-based participation.

Galleries not included in the fair, which did not have an application process, organized their own counter activities. Wada Fine Arts spearheaded Mancy's Tokyo Art Nights on Jan. 30 and 31 at the Azabu-Juban venue Mancy's Tokyo, a deluxe karaoke and nightlife parlor where exhibitors were each given private rooms. Wada played video art on the karaoke monitors, while Mori Yu Gallery spread paintings, drawings and other works across a king-size bed.

Taking a long-term approach, the young galleries association New Tokyo Contemporaries has organized a series of monthlong events and collaborations between artists and emerging creators from fields including architecture, design and fashion, which kicked off with a party at the still unopened Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum in Marunouchi on Jan. 30.

Prior to the launch of G-tokyo, director Ferrier, who has a background as a collector and art consultant, said that she would seriously consider expanding participation to other local and international galleries, although she stressed that producing a navigable, "boutique" experience was core to the fair's identity.

"Collectors want good works; they don't want events," she said. "They want to be assured that if they go to a fair then they can find good works, and that's what G-tokyo offers."

Later, she acknowledged the bottom line in the fair business. "If you don't create a hierarchy," she said, "the market can't develop."

Giacometti statue claims highest price ever at auction

A sculpture from the 1960s has achieved world fame overnight after becoming the most expensive artwork ever sold at an auction. Its previous owner, a German bank, already has plans for the profits generated by the sale.

A life-size bronze sculpture entitled "L'homme qui marche I" ("Walking Man I") by Swiss artist Alberto Giacometti has been sold by the Sotheby's auction house in London for 65 million pounds ($104.3 million). This is the highest price ever paid for a work of art at an auction.

According to Sotheby's, it only took eight minutes of "fast and furious" bidding between ten prospective buyers before the piece was sold to an anonymous phone bidder. It had been estimated to sell for 12 to 18 million pounds.

The thin sculpture depicts a man in mid-stride with his arms hanging at his side. Commenting on the price achieved in the sale, Helena Newman, vice chairman of Sotheby's impressionist and modern art department worldwide, said, "The price is a reflection of the extraordinary importance of this exceptionally rare work, and the only life-time cast of this iconic subject ever to have come to auction."

The piece broke the price record previously held by Picasso's 1905 "Garcon a la Pipe" ("Boy with a Pipe"), which had sold for $104.2 million at a 2004 New York auction.

German bank's giant asset

Cast in 1961, "L'Homme Qui Marche I" belonged to the art collection of Germany's Dresdner Bank before coming into possession of Commerzbank when it took over Dresdner Bank in 2009.

Following the unexpected price record, Commerzbank is "very happy about this big success," a spokeswoman for the bank told Deutsche Welle. Proceeds from the sale are to go towards supporting Commerzbank's foundations and a number of selected museums.

"Promoting cultural education is one of the key aims of the Commerzbank foundations," said Klaus-Peter Mueller, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Commerzbank Foundation."

Established in 1970, the Commerzbank Foundation has an endowment capital of 53 million euros ($73 million) and is the most significant of all foundations operated by the bank. In 2008, the Commerzbank Foundation committed funds of approximately 1.5 million euros, 35 percent of which went to art and cultural projects.

Commerzbank is set to restructure the art collection of the former Dresdner Bank as part of the ongoing integration process. Around 100 outstanding modern and contemporary works will be made available to museums in Frankfurt, Dresden and Berlin on a permanent loan basis.

"We want as many people as possible to be able to see the works in the art collection of the former Dresdner Bank, and are keen to support the museums in expanding the focus of their collections," said Martin Blessing, CEO of Commerzbank.

Johns, Picasso to Top $30 Million Sale of Writer Crichton’s Art

Feb. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Christie’s International is to sell four paintings from the collection of the best-selling author Michael Crichton, with a total value of at least $30 million.
A Jasper Johns “Flag” and works by Pablo Picasso, Robert Rauschenberg and Roy Lichtenstein bought by the late Beverly Hills-based novelist will be sold in New York on May 11 and go on show in London today, the auction house said in an e-mail.
Confidence is returning in art sales after record prices, said dealers, such as the 65 million pounds ($103.4 million) paid for an Alberto Giacometti sculpture at Sotheby’s.
“We wanted to capitalize on the marketplace in London,” Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of Christie’s, Americas, said in an interview. “The new emerging buyers such as Russians are much more present. It’s the perfect time to offer a 1960s Picasso.”
Like all four works in the Crichton group, Picasso’s 1961 painting of a woman and two girls, “Femme et Fillettes” (Woman and Children), has yet to receive an individual valuation. The writer’s family beneficiaries have not been guaranteed a minimum price, said Gorvy.
“We’re waiting to see how the London sales perform next week, then calibrate the estimates from there,” said Gorvy. The Crichton works will be shown next to lots that Christie’s will be offering in its Feb. 11 contemporary sale.
Late paintings by Picasso have been in demand from wealthy collectors. At Christie’s Feb. 2 auction, Picasso’s 1963 painting “Tete de Femme (Jacqueline)” was the top lot with a price of 8.1 million pounds with fees, double the upper estimate.
Graff’s Picasso
The painting was bought by the London-based collector Laurence Graff, chairman of Graff Diamonds Limited, against competition from Russian bidders. The purchase was confirmed yesterday in an e-mail to Bloomberg News from Penny Weatherall, Graff’s personal assistant.
Crichton, who died aged 66 in November 2008, was the author of scientific thrillers that sold more than 150 million copies worldwide, such as “The Andromeda Strain” and “Jurassic Park.” He was also known for the television series “ER.”
The novelist was an authority on -- and friend of -- Johns, writing the catalog for the artist’s retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1977.
Johns’s painted newspaper collage “Flag,” dating from 1960 to 1966, is likely to be the most valuable work in the group. The 2-foot-3-inch-wide canvas was acquired by Crichton directly from the artist in 1974 and has never appeared at auction, said Christie’s.
The artist’s ‘Flag’ paintings are recognized as among the first images of Pop Art, challenging the supremacy of Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko and Willem de Kooning. Much prized by museums and private collectors, they rarely appear at auction.
The 1973 example, “Two Flags,” sold for $12.1 million in Sotheby’s, New York, in November 1989. The price is an auction record for a Johns ‘flag,’ according to the Artnet database.
Rauschenberg’s “Studio Painting (Combine)” dating from 1960 to 1961, and Lichtenstein’s 1965 “Girl in Water” complete the quartet. The paintings are on show in London through Feb. 12.