All posts tagged: masterpieces

15 Van Gogh Masterpieces that Set Auction Records

15 Van Gogh Masterpieces that Set Auction Records

Published by José Betancourt

In 1990 Vincent van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet stunned the art world when it soared to $82.5 million at Christie’s New York, setting a new record for any painting at auction at the time. It was one of several headline-grabbing sales that cemented Van Gogh as one of the market’s most coveted names. From swirling fields and blazing cypresses painted in Saint-Rémy to delicate still lifes and portraits from Arles and Auvers-sur-l’Oise, Van Gogh’s works continue to captivate collectors and institutions alike. Today his canvases routinely fetch eight-figure sums, driven by their emotional intensity and storied provenance. Below are 15 of the Dutch master’s most remarkable paintings, each of which has achieved a place among the highest prices for a Van Gogh in auction history. Landscape with Rising Sun (1889) Image Credit: Sotheby’s. On April 24, 1985, Van Gogh’s Landscape with Rising Sun, created in 1889 during his yearlong stay at the Saint-Paul-de-Mausole asylum in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, sold for $9.9 million at Sotheby’s New York. This sale established a record for Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works, exceeding the previous …

Collection including masterpieces by Klimt and Schiele to fetch ‘up to £150m’ at auction

Collection including masterpieces by Klimt and Schiele to fetch ‘up to £150m’ at auction

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the latest entertainment news, reviews and star-studded interviews with our Independent Culture email Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Get the latest entertainment news with our free Culture newsletter Masterpieces by some of the biggest names in modern art – from Gustav Klimt and Lucian Freud to Henri Matisse and Francis Bacon – will be auctioned by Sotheby’s in June. The works have been consigned by Joe Lewis and his daughter, Vivienne, whose family owns Tottenham Hotspur, and are expected to fetch a total of more than £150m. Among the highlights in the collection is Klimt’s captivating 1902 portrait Bildnis Gertrud Loew – a member of fin-de-siècle Viennese society born Gertha Felsöványi), which was last auctioned by Sotheby’s over a decade ago. The subject was one of Klimt’s patrons, from whom the painting was stolen by the Nazis when they arrived in Vienna. Also for sale is Modigliani’s Homme à la pipe (Le notaire de Nice), which has not been seen in public for almost half a century and is …

100 Masterpieces to See at the Art Institute of Chicago

100 Masterpieces to See at the Art Institute of Chicago

Published by Jenni Sidey

Founded in 1879, the Art Institute of Chicago is one of the nation’s oldest museums—and one of its greatest. Spanning two connected buildings and covering nearly one million square feet, it is also one of the largest, making a visit to the Art Institute a potentially intimidating endeavor. Ask 10 people what to see there, and you may get 10 different answers. Some will direct you to the Impressionist galleries, where world-famous works by Van Gogh, Caillebotte, and Seurat lie in wait. Others will tell you to go to the Surrealist section, which houses quite a few treasures. And still others—locals, most likely—will urge you visit some of the less often visited corners of the museum, notably the basement gallery for Narcissa Niblack Thorne’s elaborate miniatures. To help you out, we’ve assembled a list of 100 great artworks to see at the Art Institute. They run the gamut from ancient Greek statues to Japanese folding screens, from medieval rarities to modernist masterpieces. In sum, they offer a view of global art history that is only …

Here’s how Dutch art detective Arthur Brand tracks down stolen masterpieces : NPR

Here’s how Dutch art detective Arthur Brand tracks down stolen masterpieces : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

For 20 years, Dutch art detective Arthur Brand has acted as an intermediary between the police and people who know where stolen artwork might be hiding. Rebecca Rosman for NPR hide caption toggle caption Rebecca Rosman for NPR AMSTERDAM – In his modest IKEA-furnished apartment, Arthur Brand paces to distract himself. “I’m nervous,” he says, with the honesty of a man who has learned that bravado is useless in his line of work. He lights a cigarette, leans out the window, and scans the street below. “The waiting is the hardest part.” Brand, 56, has made a career out of waiting: for a phone call, a knock at the door, and, every once in a blue moon, a Picasso or a Van Gogh left discreetly on his doorstep. “Those are the moments you realize it’s worth it,” he says. Until, of course, everything resets, and the waiting game begins again. In another life, Brand says, he’ll take his mother’s advice and “find a normal job.” But in this one, he’s helped recover stolen art for …

A Superior Salvator Mundi, and 5 Other Masterpieces

A Superior Salvator Mundi, and 5 Other Masterpieces

Published by Jenni Sidey

The little Dutch city of Maastricht (population about 125,000), boasts an incredible masterpiece-to-resident ratio each March, when the TEFAF fair comes to town. This year, 276 dealers from 24 countries have brought many thousands of objects, arranged in sections devoted to paintings, antiques, jewelry, modern and contemporary art, design, ancient art, arts of Africa and Oceania, and more.  Speaking to ARTnews ahead of the fair, which opened Thursday and runs a full six days, New York Old Master dealer David Tunick likened TEFAF to “a museum for sale”; indeed prices range as high as $9.85 million, for a Pierre Auguste Renoir at New Orleans gallery M.S. Rau. Tunick’s impression was borne out in a day of hobnobbing with dealers at the crowded fair, where groups with financial institutions like Bank of America and museum directors including Max Hollein of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art were prowling the aisles, feasting on oysters and sushi at the various bars, and competing for busy dealers’ attention.  Following is a subjective list of just some of the stunning …

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

Download 60,000 Works of Art from the National Gallery, Including Masterpieces by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Rembrandt & More

Published by José Betancourt

As a young ama­teur painter and future art school dropout, I fre­quent­ly found myself haunt­ed by the faces of two artists, that famous­ly odd cou­ple from my favorite art his­to­ry novelization—and Kirk Dou­glas role and Iggy Pop song—Lust for Life. Vin­cent van Gogh and Paul Gau­guin, above and below respec­tive­ly, the tor­ment­ed Dutch fanat­ic and burly French bully—how, I still won­der, could such a pair have ever co-exist­ed, how­ev­er briefly? How could such beau­ti­ful­ly skewed visions of life have exist­ed at all? Van Gogh and Gauguin’s sev­er­al self-por­traits still inspire won­der. My younger self had the lux­u­ry of see­ing these par­tic­u­lar two up close and in per­son at the Nation­al Gallery of Art in Wash­ing­ton, DC: Van Gogh’s gaunt and pierc­ing vis­age, Gauguin’s sneer­ing self-par­o­dy. Now, thanks to the won­ders of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy, my old­er self, and yours, can view and down­load high-res­o­lu­tion pho­tos of both paint­ings, and over 60,000 more from the museum’s vast hold­ings, through NGA Images, “a repos­i­to­ry of dig­i­tal images of the col­lec­tions of the Nation­al Gallery of Art.” There you’ll …

Why Apple is the only studio that can adapt Brandon Sanderson’s masterpieces right

Why Apple is the only studio that can adapt Brandon Sanderson’s masterpieces right

Published by skeptic

In late January, Apple officially acquired the rights to makes movies and TV shows based on the works of author Brandon Sanderson, a hugely successful fantasy writer whose books have been begging to be adapted for many years. As Sanderson himself explains in the video message below, he’s talked with people in Hollywood before about bringing his novels to the screen, but for one reason or another it never worked out. “This feels really different this time. I think this one is really going to happen,” he says. It’s no coincidence that it finally feels different with Apple, which over the past several years has built itself into exactly the kind of place that will adapt Sanderson’s work well. What exactly is Apple adapting? They’re starting with Brandon Sanderson’s two best-known series Sanderson is known as an extremely prolific author, writing dozens of books and short stories over the course of his career, often in very quick succession. He’s kind of the opposite of A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin, who’s …