Gagosian is opening the second season of its Artist Spotlight series with works by Ed Ruscha. The online exhibition follows a successful run launched in the Spring, selling newly made works by Jenny Saville, Mark Bradford and Mark Grotjahn, among others. The announced sales totaled more than $10 million, but Gagosian representatives report the total achieved across the series is far higher. The success of the Ruscha sale, where all of the works were sold before the show opened, suggests the biggest names in art are having no problem finding buyers.

Gagosian reported it had placed all five of the works with buyers, each made this year and priced at $95,000, shortly after unveiling them for the 48-hour viewing window. There’s still one work to be revealed. The dealer will announce it on October 20.

The new works by Ruscha feature the artist’s recognizable blurred text on neutral grounds with short phrases like “Riot Box” and “At That.” The paint of the typeface appears smeared, which according to the gallery’s statement recalls an ever-moving state of text in the digital sphere. They draw on Ruscha’s “ribbon” drawings made in the late 1960-70s, featuring single-words like “City,” and “Sin” coiled like fabric. In his next phase, Ruscha developed an airbrush look that gave his words a signature fogginess.Continue Reading

Sotheby’s has unveiled Banksy’s Show me the Monet, the street artist’s take on Claude Monet’s painting of his Giverny water lily garden to sell at auction this fall. The work is expected to sell for a price between £3-5 million ($3.8-$6.5 million) in Sotheby’s London contemporary evening sale on October 21.

According to the Sotheby’s statement, the work features a riff on the famed impressionist painting with a contemporary twist that speaks to “society’s disregard for the environment in favour of wasteful consumerism.” Completed in 2005, Show Me the Monet is an example of Banksy’s “remixes” of canonical artworks. The series is known as ‘Crude Oils’, and in addition to Show Me the Monet, they include his spins on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers; Jack Vettriano’s Singing Butler, and Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe. Show Me the Monet was first shown in the street artist’s London debut at 100 Westbourne Grove in 2005. Since its creation, it has resided with a single private owner.

In October last year, Banksy’s Devolved Parliament, a satirical painting depicting members of the British House of Commons replaced with chimpanzees, sold for £9.9 million ($12 million) during a Sotheby’s London evening sale, setting a new record for the artist.

Prada is partnering with Sotheby’s for an online auction titled ‘Tools of Memory’, that will bring works from the labels’s FW2020 campaign to the art market this fall. The sale will be open for bidding on 2-15 October. The Italian house will donate the proceeds to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) educational initiatives.

The sale, organized by the auction houses’s Milan office, will bring 72 items from the Prada Fall/Winter Men’s and Women’s Milan fashion shows, including ephemera ranging from garments, polaroids and runway décor to luxury collectors. Some of Prada’s recognizable styles including geometric prints and shearling-lined coats from 40 featured looks will go on offer in ‘Tools of Memory’. Items are priced at a range from 300-€12,000 ($350-$14,200)

Shown in January and February this year, Prada staged its FW2020 presentation at the hall of the Deposito of Fondazione Prada, designed by international architecture and design firm AMO. Among the highlights of the sale is a red wood statue of Greek deity Atlas designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, founder of AMO, valued at €5,000-7,000 ($5,900-8,300). The statue featured as a centerpiece of the Milan show.

Photographs of the runway show and backstage moments will also highlight the luxury design sale. New York-based fashion photographer Daniel Arnold’s pre-show photographs of models and backstage fittings will be on offer at prices between €400-600 ($470-700).

Following news that the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, New York, would deaccession a Jackson Pollock at auction, another institution has said it will sell works from its holdings. Today, the New York Times reported that the Brooklyn Museum in New York is selling 12 works from its permanent collection at Christie’s to raise capital for the maintenance of its collection. Works by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Gustave Courbet, and Camille Corot, among others, will be sold across Christie’s upcoming Old Masters and European Art sales on October 15 at the house’s New York headquarters. Other works from the Brooklyn Museum will be sold in two online sales, with bidding open from October 1–20.

Christie’s confirmed the total pre-sale estimated value of the 12 works is $2.3 million–$3.5 million. All of the works from the Brooklyn Museum collection come to the market with guarantees.

In April, amid financial strain during the coronavirus pandemic, the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) issued an update to its standard code for deaccessions, saying that museums could now sell works from their permanent holdings in order to fund collection upkeep. Historically, the AAMD has maintained that all proceeds from museum sales should be used for new acquisitions (although the restriction is not legally mandated). The window to sell works for collection management is open until April 10, 2022.

Museum deaccessions have long been met with public criticism. Anne Pasternak, the Brooklyn Museum’s director, told The New York Times that, while the decision to deaccession works was difficult, it is the practical move to ensure the collection’s longevity. Pasternak reported the institution’s goal is to establish a $40 million fund, generating an annual $2 million to pay for the management of the 160,000-item collection.

The sale is part of the museum’s previously initiated collection review. Last year, the Brooklyn Museum sold a major Francis Bacon painting titled Pope (ca. 1958) from the artist’s Tangiers period at Sotheby’s in New York in order to raise money to support its collection. The work was gifted to the museum in 1981. It sold at its low estimate for $6.6 million.

Lucas Cranach the Elder’s 16th-century painting Lucretia is among the top lots headed to sale, valued at $1.2 million to $1.8 million. The Cranach will be sold alongside others by Donato de’ Bardi, Giovanni dal Ponte, Francesco Botticini, and a portrait attributed to Lorenzo Costa in Christie’s Old Masters evening sale. Another set of works including those by Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, Hendrik Willem Mesdag, and Charles-François Daubigny will sell in Christie’s European Art sale on the same day. Corot’s 19th-century portrait of a woman, titled Italienne debout tenant une cruches, is among the highest-valued lots of the ones headed to the European Art sale. It is expected to achieve a price between $200,000–$300,000.

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Freemans has unveiled a Jackson Pollock landscape painting once thought to be lost to sell at auction this fall. The work will be offered in a single-owner sale of works from the collection of Philadelphia’s Dr. Henry and Mrs. Fannie Levine. The Pollock will go up for sale on October 5 at Freeman’s Philadelphia location alongside works by modern artists like Karel Appel, Paul Jenkins, and Bernard Buffet. Pollock’s Pennsylvania Landscape (1936) is expected to achieve a price between $60,000-$100,000.

The small-scale 1936 farmhouse scene is an example from Pollock’s early career. He completed the series of landscapes while employed by the Works Progress Administration’s Federal Art Project. This was around the time he studied under American painter Thomas Hart Benton, whose images of rural America, painted during the 1930s Depression Era art movement, influenced Pollock’s early style. Benton was an early collector of his student’s work. He acquired Red Barn and Rolling Hills during his mentorship of the emerging painter.

Principally known for this gestural drip paintings, Pollock’s early landscapes do not come to the market often. A comparable work, Untitled (Landscape with Tree to Right), also completed in 1936, features a similar scene of rolling hills. It was sold at Sotheby’s during a contemporary day sale in May 2013 for $281,000, beating its high estimate of $150,000. Prior to the 2013 sale, it sold at Christie’s in 1986 for $22,000. The present work on offer at Freemans last sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1974.

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