Paul Gauguin’s “Le Vallon, Tahiti,” oil on canvas (1892 ) is expected to realized $9-$14 million in a sale of works from the Ernst Beyeler estate.

LONDON – Works of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art from the estate of Ernst Beyeler—the late Swiss art connoisseur who was a noted art dealer, collector and curator—will be auctioned in London on June 21-21, giving buyers the opportunity to purchase important pieces by Monet, Gauguin, Renoir and Picasso, among many others.

The sale, to be facilitated by Christie’s London, will include art works Beyeler and his wife Hildy lived with at their private home, as well as significant paintings and sculptures from the Galerie Beyeler.

Ernst Beyeler

Beyeler opened his celebrated gallery at Bäumleingasse 9 in Basel, Switzerland, in 1945, and hosted more than 300 major exhibitions over the next 45 years. Beyeler sold more than 16,000 works of art during his lifetime. Over the years, the Galerie Beyeler produced celebrated exhibitions featuring marquee works by Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger, Vassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Alexander Calder, Jean Arp, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Rothko, Francis Bacon, Roy Lichtenstein, Georg Baselitz and many other important artists. These shows were eagerly anticipated by connoisseurs, collectors and press alike, as Beyeler had his choice of the very best works from the artists. Even Picasso granted him the privilege to select works directly from the studio.

Beyeler died on Feb. 25, 2010, at the age of 88, less than two years after his wife Hildy. His last will stated that the Galerie Beyeler should be closed and that the works he owned should be sold to benefit the Fondation Beyeler.

“Many generations of specialists and collectors have seen their taste forged by Beyeler’s eye. To buy from Ernst Beyeler was to buy great 20th century modernism, and to buy from Beyeler was to buy the best,” said Jussi Pylkkänen, president of Christie’s Europe, Middle East and Russia.

Said Andreas Rumbler, Senior Director of Impressionist & Modern Art at Christie’s: “Ernst Beyeler was a model dealer who inspired great trust and confidence in those who worked with him and who bought exceptional paintings from him. It is a great honor to be entrusted with this sale. Ernst was much admired by several generations of specialists at Christie’s, myself included,”

“Miss May Belfort,” by Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec (1895) has a presale estimate of $3-$4 million.

Among the many highlights of the upcoming sales are significant works by Monet, Gauguin, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Picasso, Matisse, Alexej von Jawlensky, Oscar Kokoschka, Alberto Giacometti, Calder, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, Jean Arp, Jean Dubuffet, Mark Tobey, Frank Stella, Lichtenstein, Baselitz and Anselm Kiefer among others.

The highlights of Christie’s Evening Sale on June 21 will include a great late Monet, “Nymphéas,” executed between 1916 and 1919. Painted on a grand scale, this magnificent painting is a precursor to the post-war abstractions of Rothko, Clyfford Still and Sam Francis.

No major Beyeler exhibition was complete without a great Picasso, and so it is fitting that the auction will include the artist’s “Buste de Françoise,” a great colorist portrait of 1946. Other masterpieces include Gauguin’s “Le Vallon Tahiti” of 1892, Toulouse-Lautrec’s “Miss May Belfort” of 1895, Renoir’s “Nu allongé” of 1902, and Léger’s “Le Drapeau” of 1919.

Aside from these masterpieces, the auctions will also include a selection of paintings, sculptures, drawings and prints, as well as a superb group of 30 Picasso ceramics.

For more information about this auction, visit the Christie’s web site.

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Francis Bacon’s “Three Studies for Self-Portrait”

The Bacon pieces—“Three Studies for Self Portrait” (1974) and “Untitled (Crouching Nude on Rail)” (1952)—have been recently been exhibited in the United Kingdom before the sale for the first time, having resided in private American collections. It is expected to realize $25 million or more.

The arrival of these landmark works to the market—which feature Bacon’s timeless sinuous renditions of elasticized flesh that touch on the human condition and the fleeting nature of life—is buoyed by significant recent sales of Bacon’s work, most notably his “Portrait of Lucian Freud” from 1964, which realized more than $37 million in February of this year.

Bacon (1912-1992) painted only 10 self-portraits in the 1970s. In “Three Studies for Self Portrait,” each of the three distorted, guttural faces of Bacon is placed against a dark, muted background on 14-inch x 10-inch canvases. The work is one of the most anticipated lots of the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale and joins a cadre of important self-portraits to be offered in the auction, along with those by Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Urs Fischer and Mike Kelley.

Bacon’s unequivocally timeless, richly-hued self-portraits convey psychological intensity akin to Rembrandt and Van Gogh. Bacon’s depictions of himself express with haunting power the existential nature of the human condition. Having suffered the loss of many near to him in the mid-1970s—including the death of his lover, George Dyer—Bacon embraced the cathartic exercise of painting himself during this period of grief, guilt and self-reflection.

Painted in 1974, the triptych shows the artist with eyes shut—in sleep, pain or contemplation—and varied in degrees from twisted expression to mutilation, offering the piece a powerful sense of motion, and fragility. This work was acquired more than 35 years by the present owner. It was exhibited in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art’s in 1975 and at the Fondation Beyeler, in Basel, Switzerland in 1999.

“I loathe my own face, but I go on painting it only because I haven’t got any other people to do… [there is] nobody else left to paint.” Bacon said in 1975.

“Untitled (Crouching Nude on Rail)” (estimate: $10-$15 million), was painted in 1952. The work was part of one of the greatest art discoveries in modern times—one of several museum-quality works by Bacon that were rediscovered in the 1990s in a storeroom in Chelsea, London, where Bacon had left them in the 1950s. The discovered cache included one of the artist’s finest, “Pope” paintings, “Study after Velazquez,” 1950.

The present work is a sister painting of “Study for Crouching Nude, 1952,” in the collection of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Upon its discovery, Bacon expert David Sylvester hailed “Untitled (Crouching Nude on Rail)” as a masterpiece, describing it as “more poignant” than the Detroit Institute’s painting, which is “more controlled and conventional.” Sylvester further described the work with “Matissean sensuousness that evokes the flesh in that mood . . . combining eroticism and melancholy.”

Francis Bacon's “Untitled (Crouching Nude on Rail).

The malformed figure is half man, half animal figure. It is almost entirely abstracted, evoking psychological unrest with undertones of angst, passion and pathos. The expressive sweep and gesture of the work is symbolic in Bacon’s life and work, like one of his subjects and contemporaries, Lucian Freud. This work was acquired by the present owner in 1998, at the same time that Bacon’s rediscovered “Study after Velazquez” sold privately for the highest price ever paid for a Bacon painting.

“It is such a rare honor to be able to present to the market in one sale two amazing works by one of the greatest painters of the 20th century,” said Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman and international head of Post-War and Contemporary Art at Christie’s.” The Bacon market is truly global and we have witnessed strong prices paid in recent months. The rarity and importance of these two works will be very exciting for collectors and museums worldwide.”

Formore information about this auction, visit the Christie’s web site.

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From The Economist:
Bringing home the Bacon

Things are looking better and better for Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Last week’s Impressionist and modern-art sales in London brought in almost $400 million. “La Lecture” by Picasso went to an anonymous bidder for more than $36 million. Its presale estimate was for between $19 million and $29 million. A Francis Bacon tryptich engendered some hot bidding and finally gaveled down at $27 million.

From The Wall Street Journal:
Sotheby’s Sale Defies Demonstrators

Demonstrators in the Middle East? Why not Sotheby’s auction in London this week? A group of demonstrators tossed around fake £50 notes before they were escorted out. Their cause? They were protesting possible budget paring of arts programs. Outside was a sign that read “1 Warhol = 1,222 tuitions.” (A Warhol sold for $5 million.) Another sign proclaimed the event an “Orgy of the Rich.” Nonplussed, the “orgy” participants spent $71 million. One collector remarked, “It’s fun to see people stand up for what they believe in. An orgy of the rich? They’re not exactly wrong.”

From Reuters:
Rocker Slash to sell car, guitars in auction

Okay, everyone, let’s name the members of the hard-rock band Guns N’ Roses. Okay, there were several others in the group besides Axl Rose, with the composition changing over the years. One of the earlier members was guitarist Slash. Now with a move to a new house, Slash is going to dispose of some of his “clutter” that he picked up over the years. Julien’s Auctions will be selling, among a lot of other things, a 1966 Corvette Stingray (complete with fluffy dice), expected to go for between $90,000 and $100,000, a bunch of Southeast Asian furniture, model dinosaurs and 14 of his some 100 guitars. Most of the proceeds will go to a charity that helps abused and homeless adolescents.

From BBC:
Biddestone time capsule up for auction

The village post office sat empty for 40 years. Person or persons unknown chronicled life in Biddestone, England, by collecting items such as a 1917 postcard, snapshots of schoolchildren from 1924 and news stories. The find will be auctioned February 19 and included in the sale is the original post-office sign.

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Militaria-Filled WWII Bunker Discovered in Denmark

A German WWII bunker was found on Denmark’s North Sea coast by archeologists. The bunker has been untouched for 63 years, the Danish newspaper, Politiken, reported. According to Jens Andersen, director of the Hansholm Bunker Museum, wind blew away a layer of sand that had been covering the bunker and its booty of collectibles, exposing the military holding for the first time in more than six decades.

Archaeologists who inspected the site found the interior had not been touched since German troops abandoned it. An interior rife with military antiques includes chairs, bunks, cabinets, pieces of uniforms and bottles of ink.

According to Germany’s English-language newspaper The Local, this historic military bunker is one of more than 5,000 Nazi bunkers that line Denmark’s North Sea coast, part of what was known as the Third Reich’s “Atlantic Wall” line of defense.

At Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s, Bacon Brings It Home

In London, Christie’s and Sotheby’s held high-profile contemporary art sales, hoping to capitalize on recent escalating sales by well-known artists. At Christie’s, high estimates coupled with minimum guarantees made for a disappointing combination on July 1, despite exciting results for a Francis Bacon piece.

According to Bloomberg.com, healthy bidding accompanied a set of three self-portraits by Bacon titled, “Three Studies for Self-Portrait,” 1975. The artwork fetched $34.5 million, bought by an anonymous buyer by phone, and was the most expensive lot for the auction. The works of three other artists, considered pre-auction standouts, had mixed results. A Jeff Koons’ sculpture went for $25.6 million after being estimated at almost $24 million. Lucian Freud’s 1980 “Naked Portrait with Reflection” brought in more than $23.4 million after having a top estimate of $30 million. Lucio Fontana’s “La Fine di Dio,” on the other hand, estimated at close to $16million, did not sell.

At Sotheby’s auction the following day The New York Times reported brisk sales of contemporary paintings by Bacon, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Hirst and Marlene Dumas. Dumas’ 1995 “Visitor” sold for $6.3 million, two times Sotheby’s high estimate. Sotheby’s estimated the Bacon, a portrait of George Dyer, at $15.5 million: it sold for $27.4 million.

Mega Summer Antiques Show in Baltimore

The Baltimore Summer Antiques Show will take place August 28-31 and expects 30,000 in attendance and more than 550 international dealers, according to the official Web site promoting the 28th installment of the summer event. Following on the heels of the American Numismatic Association’s event in the same convention center, the antiques show will include an Antiquarian Book Fair, fine art, furniture, porcelain, silver, American folk art, home accoutrements, jewelry, furniture, glass and textiles. Among the highlights is a lecture series from renowned experts in the fields of silver, jewelry and antiquities.