Displaying items by tag: piet mondrian

Christie’s Evening Sale of Impressionist and Modern Art realized $202,608,000 (£128,721,728/ €178,022,150) with sell-through rates of 93% by lot and 99% by value. Bidders from 34 countries competed in the room and on the phone for works by Impressionist and Modern masters, including Piet Mondrian, Chaïm Soutine, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani and Fernand Léger. Bidding on Modern works was particularly active, a testament to the energy brought to the market by crossover collectors and the success of Christie’s curated week of sales spanning both Impressionist & Modern and Post-War and Contemporary categories.

"Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015" is a major new exhibition tracing a century of Abstract art from 1915 to the present day, and is to open at the Whitechapel Gallery, London. The exhibition brings together over 100 works by 100 modern masters and contemporary artists including Carl Andre, David Batchelor, Dan Flavin, Andrea Fraser, Piet Mondrian, Gabriel Orozco, Hélio Oiticica, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Rosemarie Trockel, Theo Van Doesburg and Andrea Zittel, taking over six exhibition spaces across the gallery.

The show is curated by Iwona Blazwick OBE, Director, and Magnus af Petersens, Curator at Large, Whitechapel Gallery, "Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015," is international in its scope.

From quick sketches to watercolors and finished masterpieces, works by artists such as Eugène Delacroix, Jacques-Louis David, Edgar Degas, Edouard Manet, Paul Cézanne, Vincent van Gogh, Egon Schiele, Piet Mondrian and Pablo Picasso are brought together in Mind’s Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne (on view through October 26, 2014). Organized by the Dallas Museum of Art, the exhibition features more than 120 works on paper—many of which have never been exhibited publicly—by 70 artists. Drawn in part from the DMA’s collection, but with significant loans from private collections in North Texas, Mind’s Eye, offers new insights into the working methods and practices of these artists, providing an intimate view of their approach to art making while also presenting the drawings and watercolors as finished works of art in their own right.

“One of the goals of the Dallas Museum of Art is to encourage collecting within the community. There is no better example of how to do this than to highlight the Museum’s graphic holdings together with those that have been assembled in private homes throughout our area,” said Maxwell L. Anderson, The Eugene McDermott Director of the DMA. “Mind’s Eye: Masterworks on Paper from David to Cézanne presents a rich and fascinating array of works in various media by artists from the Austro-Hungarian, Belgian, British, Dutch, French, German, Spanish and Swiss schools, spanning nearly 150 years—from the French Revolution to the dawn of modernism.”

Christie’s failed to sell 33 percent of the artworks offered in its Impressionist and modern art evening sale in London as collectors rebelled against aggressive estimates and subpar quality.

Yesterday’s tally of 85.8 million pounds ($145.7 million) was about 30 percent lower than rival Sotheby’s (BID) sale the night before. Of the 60 lots offered, 20 failed to find buyers, including works by Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian and Alberto Giacometti.

“There was a big difference in quality between the two sales,” said London-based art dealer Pilar Ordovas. “There were many works which would have been better suited for a day sale.”

Turner Contemporary offers an exclusive UK viewing of the first exhibition to consider the significance of colour during Piet Mondrian’s early career. Mondrian and Colour explores Mondrian’s (1872-1944) practice, tracing the painter’s use of colour from figuration to early abstraction. Bringing together around 50 paintings by the artist from the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag and other collections in Europe and the USA, the exhibition will demonstrate that Mondrian’s abstract works were not simply mathematical exercises in form but also expressed his search for a new universal harmony.

This first exhibition on the significance of colour in the paintings of Mondrian will investigate his artistic career beginning with the earthy paintings of his early work, his paintings in red and blue which arose from his interest in theosophy and the colour fields he painted in the period following 1921.

Now that the first week of the big spring auctions is over, Sotheby’s is wasting no time touting its sales in London next month, hanging highlights in its York Avenue galleries for collectors to peruse during the contemporary-art previews this weekend.

Knowing that today’s appetite for prime abstract paintings appears boundless, Sotheby’s expects a 1927 Mondrian that has not been on the market since the 1950s to be a star of its June 23 auction. This stark canvas, “Composition With Red, Blue and Grey,” was first owned by Harry Holtzman, an artist who helped found the American Abstract Artists Group, an influential organization that espoused the principles of European Modernism, and who was a friend of Mondrian’s and an expert on his work.

Malcolm Rogers, the Ann and Graham Gund Director of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), announced to the museum’s board of trustees that he will retire as soon as a successor is hired to fill the position. Rogers has been with the MFA for nearly 20 years and spearheaded the museum’s various expansions and renovations and oversaw a number of acclaimed exhibitions. Rogers said, “My 20 years have been such an invigorating time at the MFA, as we worked to reinforce the Museum’s position as a vital community resource and transform it into a global destination for arts and culture. I would like to thank the Museum’s Board of Trustees, staff, members and volunteers, as well as the millions of people from Boston and around the world who consider the MFA a special part of their lives and have visited during my two decades here.”

Since his appointment in 1994, Rogers has grown the MFA’s comprehensive collection, enhanced arts education programs, and beautified the museum’s campus. In 2008, Rogers reopened the MFA’s historic Fenway entrance, which had been closed for nearly 30 years. In 2010, the new Art of the Americas Wing opened at the museum -- a milestone achievement for Rogers, the MFA and Boston. Rogers spearheaded a campaign that raised $504 million, of which $345 million funded new galleries and conservation labs. In 2011, a wing of the museum was renovated and reopened as the Linde Family Wing for Contemporary Art, which features 10 new galleries, classrooms, and a variety of public spaces. Currently, gallery renovations are underway in the MFA’s George D. and Margo Behrakis Wing for Art of the Ancient World. Works acquired during Rogers’ tenure include Edgar Degas' “Duchessa di Montejasi with Her Daughters, Elena and Camilla,” Piet Mondrian’s “Composition with Blue, Yellow, and Red,” and Ellsworth Kelly’s “Blue Green Yellow Orange Red.”

The MFA will celebrate Rogers’ 20th anniversary this fall with a series of events including lectures, community programs, and a gala, which will be held on September 6.

The Philadelphia Museum of Art presents the exhibition Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis, an interdisciplinary show that sheds new light on the experimental decade of the 1920s in Paris. During that time, Fernand Léger, a French modernist painter, played an important role in redefining painting by engaging with the urban environment as well as mass media.

The cornerstone of the exhibition will be Léger’s The City (1919), which is also a pivotal part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s collection. The show will include other works by the artist that explore the city theme as well as film projections, theater designs, architectural models, and print and advertising designs by Léger as well as his contemporaries including Piet Mondrian, Le Corbusier and Many Ray.

Léger: Modern Art and the Metropolis, presents over 120 works, including loans from American and European public and private collections. The exhibition will be on view through January 5, 2014.

The Evening Sale of Impressionist & Modern Art that took place at Sotheby’s London on June 19, 2013 garnered $165.9 million, surpassing its high estimate of $164.3 million. The auction, which featured 71 works, sold 81.7% by lot and bidders hailed from 33 countries around the world.

The sale’s top lot was Claude Monet’s (1840-1926) painting of Venice, Le Palais Contarini (1908), which sold for $30.8 million after a three-way bidding battle. Other highlights included a Piet Mondrian (1872-1944) painting in the artist’s quintessential palette titled Red, Yellow and Blue (1927), which was scooped up by a telephone bidder for $14.5 million and Wassily Kandinsky’s (1866-1944) Bauhaus-era work on paper Ineinander (1928). A number of Surrealist works fared well at the sale including Max Ernst’s (1891-1976) La Horde (1927), which sold to New York’s Acquavella Galleries for $3.2 million and René Magritte’s (1898-1967) L’Idee, which features one of the artist’s well-known floating green apples and brought $7.1 million.

Helena Newman, Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Department in Europe, said, “There was an extraordinary dynamic at play in the sale room. Established collectors – drawn out by the quality of the estate collections presented in the sale – competed with many of the new contender’s in today’s market. Record levels of participation were driven by a truly global audience.”

The evening auctions continue at Christie’s London on June 25, 2013 with its Post-War and Contemporary Art sale.