Displaying items by tag: Collectors

On Sunday, February 1, 2015, the 61st iteration of the inimitable Winter Antiques Show drew to a close at the Park Avenue Armory in New York City. Over the course of the ten-day event, collectors, first-time buyers, museum curators, interior designers, and dealers, took to the show floor to browse and snap up fine art, furniture, and decorative objects from antiquity through the 1960s (Fig. 1).

The show kicked off on Thursday, January 22, 2015, with an Opening Night Preview Party that welcomed nearly 2,000 attendees, including Martha Stewart, Michael Bloomberg and Diana Taylor, Arie and Coco Kopelman, Ellie Cullman, Thomas Jayne, Bunny Williams and John Rosselli, Sandra Nunnerley, and John Douglas Eason. The Preview Party, which benefited the East Side House Settlement, a community-based organization in the South Bronx, gave guests an opportunity to peruse and purchase works before the show opened to the public on Friday, January 23, 2015.

Each year,  the Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show welcomes a flock of eager collectors, leading art and design professionals, and top international dealers to the Palm Beach County Convention Center. A hallmark of the Palm Beach social season, the elegant show presents premier offerings ranging in style from classical to contemporary and thoughtful programming that fosters the understanding and appreciation of art and antiques.

One of the most highly-anticipated elements of the 2015 Palm Beach Jewelry, Art & Antique Show is the Designer Showcase, which features six captivating vignettes created by the world’s most influential interior designers, including Campion Platt, Suzanne Kasler, Gil Walsh, William and Phyllis Taylor of Taylor & Taylor, Lars Bolander, and Jennifer Garrigues. The designers have been asked to create spaces using fine art, furniture, and decorative accessories from exhibitors in the show.

Many in the crowd of dealers, collectors, and onlookers attending Sotheby's main sale of Old Master paintings on Thursday January 29 remarked on the difference that a single day made when contrasting the sale with the dismal results at Christie's Old Masters sale the day before (see: Canaletto, Caravaggio Fail to Sell at Christie's Worst Old Masters Sale Since 2002).

The sale totaled $57 million, as compared with an overall presale estimate of $54–77.6 million. Of 104 lots offered, 73 (or 70 percent) found buyers. The stronger sold-by-value rate, 78 percent, reflected spirited bidding on a few key lots.

Sotheby’s announced the auction, on March 18 in Paris, of the private collection of the Dillée family, a renowned Parisian dynasty of specialists and collectors of furniture and works of art. Consisting of 450 lots, the sale will be divided into two sessions, including French decorative arts from the 17th to the 19th centuries, Old Master paintings and drawings, bronzes, scientific objects and Antique arms.

Mario Tavella, Deputy Chairman of Sotheby’s Europe and Chairman Private Collections, said: “Our auction house is deeply honoured to be entrusted once again with the sale of an iconic collection of works of art, which, in this instance, has been carefully selected by the expert eyes of three generations of the Dillée family. Their Cabinet d’Expertise has seen some of the most beautiful objects go through its doors before being passed onto collectors, auction houses and institutions. We are hoping that the Dillée sale will attract new and old generations of collectors, as well as the notable museums that the Dillée family has dealt with in the past.”

Paris Art + Design (PAD), a pioneering event for art and design enthusiasts and collectors, has announced the galleries that will be participating in its 2015 edition. The Fair, which is held in Paris’ magnificent Jardin des Tuileries, will run from Thursday, March 26, 2015, through Sunday, March 29, 2015.

In less than twenty years, PAD has emerged as one of the finest fairs of its kind thanks to its selection of top-notch design objects and works of art. The eighteenth iteration of PAD will reinforce its dedication to eclecticism, creating unprecedented dialogue between modern art, historical and contemporary design, and jewelry. The intimately scaled show will feature close to seventy-five galleries from France and beyond, and expects to welcome approximately 40,000 art and design enthusiasts, professionals, and collectors -- both amateur and seasoned.

Christie’s announces the sale of two Italian private collections, the first from the Rome apartment of Principessa Ismene Chigi Della Rovere and the second from the palazzo of a Noble Genoese Family. Comprising over 225 lots this diverse sale offers collectors and decorators a wonderful insight into 20th century Italian style and glamour, presenting a rich and varied selection of Old Master pictures and decorative objects from around the world, which range from 18th century Italian and French furniture and Art Nouveau glass, to Chinese and Japanese works of art. Estimates range from £500 to £25,000 and the pre-sale viewing will be at Christie’s 85 Old Brompton Road from January 31 to February 3. The auction will be held on February 4, 2015 at Christie’s South Kensington and provides an opportunity to acquire exceptional antiques and works of art from two noble Italian families.

Andy Warhol was the top-selling artist at auction in the past year as increased competition for the most-expensive segment of the market drove global art sales higher.

Collectors bought 1,295 works by the deceased artist totaling $653.2 million, ahead of sales for Pablo Picasso and Francis Bacon, according to preliminary figures by New York-based researcher Artnet. Auctions worldwide rose 10 percent to $16 billion.

Art sales have more than doubled from $6.3 billion in 2009, as surging financial markets lifted the fortunes of the world’s richest.

The Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College has received a gift valued at about $2 million of 200 contemporary artworks from New York art collectors Martin and Rebecca Eisenberg, the school announced Friday.

The gift includes mostly works from the past 15 years, close to the time Martin Eisenberg has been involved with the center as a board member and avid supporter of the graduate program, its students and exhibitions.

The Smithsonian’s museums of Asian art in Washington, DC, are due to release their entire collections online on January 1, 2015. More than 40,000 works, from ancient Chinese jades to 13th-century Syrian metalwork and 19th-century Korans, will be accessible through high-resolution images without copyright restrictions for non-commercial use. The vast majority—nearly 35,000 objects—have never been seen by the public.

The Freer Gallery of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery are the first Smithsonian museums and the only Asian art museums to complete the labor-intensive process of digitizing and releasing their entire collections online.

Art Basel’s 13th edition in Miami Beach closed Sunday, December 7, 2014, amidst strong praise from gallerists, private collectors, museum groups and the media. Highlights of the show included the introduction of the new Survey sector, which brought 13 art-historical projects to the fair, including many rare works never before exhibited in an art fair context; and Art Basel's staging with Performa of Ryan McNamara's "MEƎM 4 Miami: A Story Ballet About the Internet" at the Miami Grand Theater. Solid sales were reported across all levels of the market and throughout the run of the show. Featuring 267 leading international galleries from 31 countries, the show – whose Lead Partner is UBS – attracted an attendance of 73,000 over five days. Attendees included representatives of over 160 museum and institution groups from across the world – and a surging number of new private collectors from the Americas, Europe and Asia.

Following a 100 percent reapplication rate for the Galleries sector and with new galleries coming from across the world, the list of exhibitors was the strongest to date in Miami Beach, firmly solidifying the show's position as the leading international art fair of the Americas.