The Irish Times is excited that Bonhams has decided to sell Irish art with its own dedicated sales in London looking for a global audience:

Bonhams believes it can provide sellers of Irish art with an international window through its network of international offices and clients, from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. […]

Bonhams will hold its first sale exclusively devoted to Irish art in London next month. Many of the paintings in the sale have been consigned by collectors in Britain, Canada and the United States. […] 107 works which will be offered in the inaugural Important Irish Art sale in London on February 9th.[…]

Ironically, an item with one of the lowest estimates, (£1,500-£2,000/€1,780-€2,374) is attracting most interest.Roundabout Ponies is the last sketch drawn by Jack B Yeats two days before he died in a Dublin nursing home in March, 1957. He gave it as a gift to the matron and it is being sold by her heirs.

Bonhams Move on Irish Art (Irish Times)

The Irish Times reports that some long lost works by Irish painter Jack B. Yeats are coming to market in London:

TWO PAINTINGS by Jack B Yeats, bought more than 60 years ago by the English novelist Graham Greene in Paris, have reappeared on the international art market.

They will be sold at auction in London next week by fine art auctioneers Christie’s, which said that one of the paintings alone may be worth more than €500,000.

A Horseman Enters a Town at Night was painted by Yeats, then aged 77, in 1948 and has never been seen in public.Continue Reading

Bloomberg stirs the pot on the simmering issue of art held by Irish banks. Scott Reyburn raises the previously reported issue that the Bank of Ireland will start selling its collection. But the money will not go to cover the bank’s gaping capital hole:

Proceeds from future sales will be added to the company’s existing community and charitable investment program, the Bank of Ireland said in an e-mailed statement. In recent years, a number of higher-value works, including paintings by Jack. B. Yeats, have been donated to the Irish Museum of Modern Art in lieu of corporation tax, Nolan said.

The most valuable works in the Bank of Ireland collection would currently be estimated at about 100,000 euros each, said James O’Halloran, managing director of the Dublin-based auctioneers James Adam & Sons Ltd., who last month was appointed sole adviser to the Bank of Ireland on the dispersal.Continue Reading

Art collecting is by definition an exclusionary pursuit. As an artist’s body of work increases in value, any artifact created by the painter becomes more valuable and less accessible. In Ireland, that’s leading a gallery to breakup a sketch book of watercolors by Jack B. Yeats into a sale of 30 tiny works. Of course, there’s another reason to break up the images and that’s because the middle market for Irish art is slow right now:

Ian Whyte, managing director of Whyte and Sons Auctioneers, explained the sketchbook will be split up into 30 individual pieces, which will allow more modest collectors the chance to purchase at a more affordable estimate of €200 upwards.

“Many would love to own a Jack Yeats work but they can fetch anywhere from €5,000 to €1m on the open market,” Mr White explained. […]

“The art market like every other has been hit by the recession. Art is discretionary,” Mr Whyte said, adding that the rare works were still fetching millions of euro on world markets.Continue Reading