Christie’s and Sotheby’s, the two most important auction houses in the world, really seem to want to ignore the great financial crisis that is hitting the global economy, to challenge each other with their masterpieces. Which of the two will sell the most, gaining the title of “queen of the autumn auctions”? All we can do is wait for the following dates: the 19th October at Christie’s London with the auction “Post War & Contemporary Art” and the sale at Sotheby’s New York, “Impressionist & Modern Art” organized for the 3rd November 2008.

“IT breaks my heart to see all of my paintings leave for America,” Claude Monet wrote to his dealer, Paul Durand-Ruel, in 1888. Nonetheless, the exodus Monet lamented in one of his more sentimental moments was good for Boston, and good, it turns out, for Sydney.
Next month, the city will play host to no fewer than 29 paintings by Monet from the collection of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The paintings form the backbone of an exhibition called Monet and the Impressionists, which comes to Sydney for 3 1/2 months after a stint in Japan.
Amazingly, despite having sent most of its Monets overseas, the MFA has Monets enough in reserve to impress. The depth of its holdings is astounding. Even more amazing is that, of the more than three dozen paintings by Monet owned by the MFA, only three were actually purchased. The rest were gifts.
What made Bostonians so sympathetic to Monet and his fellow impressionists? The answer is intriguing, for it is not cashed-up collectors or far-sighted critics who get the credit so much as Monet’s fellow artists.
The first painting by Monet to appear in Boston — a seascape — appeared way back in 1866, when the artist was in his mid-20s. It failed to find buyers. So did the three Monets sent to Boston in 1883 by Durand-Ruel: an early salvo in his campaign to convert America to impressionism.
Bostonians may have been “open-minded, curious, quietly sophisticated, well-travelled and well-heeled”, as Nicholas Grimshaw, president of London’s Royal Academy of Arts, put it.(ARTSJOURNAL)

One of the most significant bequests to the nation in a century, including masterpieces by Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon, goes on public display from today.
The exhibition of the 18 masterpieces, at Tate Britain, London, is likely to be the first and last opportunity to view the £100m collection in its entirety before the works are split between the Tate and the National Gallery.
Simon Sainsbury, the British philanthropist and art collector who died in 2006, left the pieces to the two institutions – five to the National, with the rest to be housed by the Tate. Some, such as Freud’s Boy Smoking, have not been seen by the public since 1954. Paul Gauguin’s Bowl of Fruit and Tankard before a Window has not been exhibited since 1936.
The pieces left to the Tate include three works by Freud, a rare early work by Bacon, Thomas Gainsborough’s Mr and Mrs Carter, and three works by the French artist, Balthasar Klossowski de Rola. Two pieces by the French painter, Pierre Bonnard, Nude in the Bath and The Yellow Boat, will make the Tate one of the principal places to see his work outside Paris.
Other works include the gallery’s first “conversation piece” by the German painter Johan Zoffany, and an oil painting of a hunt by the English artist John Wootton, who specialised in sporting subjects. The National Gallery will receive impressionist and post-impressionist works, including Monet’s Snow Scene at Argenteuil and Water-Lilies, Setting Sun.
Simon Sainsbury had a passionate interest in the arts, particularly 18th and 19th century architecture and art. Sir Nicholas Serota, the director of Tate Galleries, said the gift would “transform” the Tate’s ability to show a number of artists in depth. He said it was “one of the most important in the history of Tate” and would greatly enhance its collection.
Nicholas Penny, the National Gallery’s director, said the bequest would make a “huge difference to our impressionist and post-impressionist galleries”.
(The Independent)

In the last few weeks, London city has proved to be the European capital of the art market. With sales dedicated to the modern and impressionist sector, Sotheby’s and Christie’s have confirmed the good state of the market. Indeed, the “Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale” held on 24th June fetched 144 million pounds (284 million dollars), achieving the highest total for a European auction and giving “Le bassin aux nymphèas” by Claude Monet the new world record for the artist, selling the piece for 41 million pounds.

A Claude Monet painting has fetched a record £40.9m ($80.5) for the artist’s work at an auction in London. Le Bassin Aux Nympheas had been expected to fetch £24m ($47.2m) at Christie’s. The identity of the bidder has not been made public. Painted in 1919 in Giverny in France it has been seen in public just once in the past 80 years. Monet’s 1873 Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil, which sold in May, had held the previous record of £20.9m ($41.1m).
Experts say the art market remains in a “robust” position. BBC arts correspondent David Sillito said that buyers from all over the world attended the sale.
The “hammer price” for the painting was £36.5m ($71.8m) but the overall price rose to over £40m ($78.8m) with taxes. “There’s never been such a picture sold at auction in Europe in the last 20 years,” Oliver Camu of Christie’s said.
Monet painted several smaller water lily pieces, sometimes referred to as his “water landscapes”, before he decided to embark upon a series of large-scale Nympheas in 1914.
These paintings would eventually lead to his Grandes Decorations, the celebrated frieze now in the Musee de l’Orangerie in Paris.
Le Bassin Aux Nympheas is one of a tiny handful of paintings the artist relinquished during his lifetime as he viewed his water lilies as a large work in progress. Of its three fellow paintings one is in the collection of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, another was cut into two and the third is in a private collection. (Bbc News)

translated by Giorgina Arcuri

If quotations for contemporary art still do not seem to present symptoms of a crisis, those relative to the modern sector actually seem to be going through a moment of settlement.
The first signs of a change of course were observed in November 2007, when “The Fields (Wheat Fields)” by Vincent Van Gogh, auctioned by Sotheby’s New York, was withdrawn because it did not even reach its lowest estimate, which was 28 million dollars. In the same evening also “Te poipoi (Le matin)” realized by Paul Gaughin in 1892, was a disappointment.

translated by Giorgina Arcuri

On 25th June, Sotheby’s London auction house will open the “Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale”, an extraordinary event for collectors of masterpieces by the most famous names of the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. The success of this auction seems to be anticipated by the artistic figures that will be presented. In a period when we keep on waiting for the signs of the art market crisis to surface, Sotheby’s makes the right choice, that is to auction 56 pieces of undoubted quality executed by the greatest names of the history of art. A very wise strategy that even collectors should pursue, as important works are not affected by devaluations and even if the market may slow down due to the latter, it will certainly never fail.