Displaying items by tag: paul mellon

Some paintings act like object lessons in tracking the global migration of wealth, bouncing from one owner to the next in timely turns. Such was the case Tuesday when Sotheby’s sold a $46.5 million Mark Rothko abstract that previously belonged to U.S. banker Paul Mellon and later to French luxury executive François Pinault.

Rothko’s latest taker? An anonymous Asian collector who outbid two rivals to win the work.

Works from the life estate of Paul Mellon, longtime VMFA donor and trustee, are in the newly reinstalled Mellon Galleries, opening on Friday, January 16. The galleries have been closed for six months to protect the art during a roof replacement. Eleven works have been reframed as a part of the ongoing Mellon reframing project.

The life estate remained with Mellon’s widow, Rachel Lambert Mellon, until her death on March 17, 2014. Mrs. Mellon held a life estate in 26 works of art originally bequeathed to VMFA in 1999 by Mr. Mellon. Among the highlights are six masterworks by Degas, Gauguin, Pissarro, Seurat, Dufy, and van Dongen.

The auction of Rachel “Bunny” Lambert Mellon’s estate, which offered collectibles from a $39.9 million Mark Rothko painting to a rabbit-shaped doorstop for more than $5,000, fetched $218.1 million at Sotheby’s (BID) in New York.

The 1,521 objects including fine art, furnishings and jewelry owned by Mellon, who died in March at the age of 103, were offered in three sales over five days that ended yesterday. Ninety-eight percent of the lots sold.

Collectors sought a piece of the history of the American socialite, who was married to the late banking heir Paul Mellon. Sotheby’s said more than 5,000 visitors came to see the collection in one week at its New York headquarters.

A 9.75-carat fancy vivid blue diamond from the collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon sold for more than $32.6 million, shattering its high estimate of $15 million at Sotheby’s New York Thursday. The price set a world auction record for any blue diamond; and at more than $3.3 million per carat, it set a world auction record for price-per-carat for any diamond.

The pear-shaped diamond was sought after by seven bidders who competed for 20 minutes for the gem, Sotheby’s said. It ultimately sold to a Hong Kong private collector who named it “The Zoe Diamond.”

On Monday, November 10, Sotheby’s offered works from the collection of Rachel “Bunny” Mellon -- a gardening and design icon, an ardent philanthropist, and the wife of Paul Mellon, the heir to the Mellon banking fortune. The auction, which took place in New York, fetched a total of $158.7 million, far exceeding the sale’s presale estimate of $82.9 million to $120.1 million. All of the forty-three lots offered sold -- a testament to Mellon’s keen eye and impeccable taste. 

“Property from the Collection of Mrs. Paul Mellon: Masterworks” presented a curated selection of fine art, ranging from seventeenth-century still lifes to masterpieces of the twentieth century.

The National Gallery of Art's "Little Dancer Aged Fourteen" (1878–1881) takes center stage in "Degas's Little Dancer," a focus exhibition on view through January 11, 2015. The exhibition is presented in conjunction with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts' world-premiere musical "Little Dancer," which runs from October 25, 2014 through November 30, 2014. The musical is inspired by Edgar Degas's renowned original wax statuette of a young ballerina, which caused a sensation when it was first shown at the 1881 impressionist exhibition in Paris and is one of the most popular works of art in the Gallery of Art's collection.

"Thanks to the generosity of Gallery benefactor Paul Mellon, the Gallery has the largest and most important collection of Degas's original wax sculptures, including the groundbreaking 'Little Dancer Aged Fourteen,' one of the best-loved sculptures of all time," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art.

Ever since Rachel Lambert Mellon died in March at the age of 103, the art world has been wondering what would become of the vast treasures of art and objects that she and her husband, Paul Mellon, had collected and lived with.

On Tuesday, Sotheby’s announced that it had landed the sale of the estate of Mrs. Mellon, winning it over its rival Christie’s. The auctions, starting in November, will be among the most highly anticipated sales from a fabled family collection, with more than $100 million of art, jewelry, furniture and decorative objects. Proceeds will benefit the Gerald B. Lambert Foundation, a charitable entity established by Mrs. Mellon, known as Bunny, in memory of her father. The foundation supports the Oak Spring Garden Library, Mrs. Mellon’s celebrated collection of rare books, manuscripts, works of art and artifacts relating to horticulture, landscape design and natural history.

The final group of paintings, drawings and sculptures bequeathed to museums by Paul Mellon before his death in 1999 have at last begun to arrive. Hidden away for decades, many are rarities that had never been seen by curators.

The group includes more than 200 works — examples by such artists as van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Monet and Seurat — that were only recently removed from the walls of the Mellons’ many homes, where they were enjoyed by his widow, Rachel Lambert Mellon, who died in March at 103.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. has received Vincent Van Gogh’s ‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers,’ from the estate of museum benefactor, Paul Mellon. The work, which was painted late in the artist’s life, is the ninth Van Gogh painting to enter the museum’s collection. The work has not been displayed publicly since 1966.

‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers’ is one of Van Gogh’s “pure landscapes,” which he painted following his confinement in an asylum. Scholars suggest that the artist found solace in the tranquility of nature towards the end of his life as his mental health deteriorated.

‘Green Wheat Fields, Auvers’ is currently on display in the National Gallery’s West Building alongside two other works by Van Gogh: the still life ‘Roses’ and the portrait ‘La Mousmé.’

165 years ago, the Knoedler Gallery opened its doors in New York and went on to help create some of the country’s most celebrated collections including those of Paul Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, and Robert Sterling Clark. Throughout the years, top-notch works by artists such as van Gogh, Manet, Winslow Homer, John Singer Sargent, Louise Bourgeois, and Willem de Kooning passed through the gallery. When the Soviet government sold hundreds of paintings from the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad in the 1930s, they chose to work with Knoedler to sell paintings by masters like Rembrandt, Raphael, and Velazquez.

Knoedler’s exemplary past is often forgotten as the gallery’s present has been mired in lawsuits and accusations that the company’s former president, Ann Freedman, was in the business of selling fakes. Last year, Knoedler Gallery closed its doors for good.

This week, Los Angeles’ Getty Research Institute announced that it had bought the Knoedler Gallery archive. Spanning from around 1850 to 1971, the archive includes stock books, sales books, a photo archive and files of correspondence, including letters from artists and collectors, some with illustrations. The Getty was interested in Knoedler’s archive because it offers an expansive glimpse into the history of collecting and the art market in the United States and Europe from the mid-19^th century to modern times.

The archive was purchased from Knoedler’s owner, Michael Hammer, for an undisclosed amount. Meticulously preserved, the archive will be available to scholars and digitized for online research after the Getty catalogues and conserves it all.