Ausserdem ein Mänchen by Paul Klee ($1,105,000)
Posted on May 7 - Filed Under Arts | Leave a Comment
Paul Klee’s painting, the “Ausserdem ein Mänchen” was sold for $1,105,000 at Christie’s New York auction yesterday.
From the auction lot notes:
“Klee left Germany in 1933, following Hitler’s ascendancy to power, and settled in Bern, where he had grown up as child. He produced a prolific body of work during the final years of his life, even while he battled the symptoms of scleroderma, a terminal skin disease. The artist was initially bedridden, but he learned to cope with his condition by sitting at a large drawing table instead of standing at an easel (fig. 1). He produced 25 works in 1936, a number which quickly jumped to 264 in 1937, 489 in 1938, and over 1,200 in 1939. Klee wrote to his son Felix, “Productivity is accelerating in range and at a highly accelerated tempo; I can no longer entirely keep up with these children of mine. They run away with me. There is a certain adaptation taking place, in that drawings preponderate. Twelve hundred items in 1939 is really something of a record performance” (quoted in F. Klee, Paul Klee: His Life and Work in Documents, New York, 1962, p. 72)
The present work displays the concisely rendered graphic elements and simplified colors that comprise the formal vocabulary of the artist’s late style. Klee has used strong black lines to structure an underlying field of irregular areas of flatly applied colors. Matthias Barmann has suggested that the artist’s stylistic transition during this period stemmed in part from his declining health: “Tracing the effects of scleroderma and its specific symptoms is complex, since these, apart from affecting his work on the physiological level, had psychological repercussions even down to the emergence of certain stylistic characteristics. His reduced, sign-like repertoire gave Klee, who was aware of how little time remained to him, a spontaneous outlet for his enormous creative urge. Also the archaic traits of the ‘bar-writing’ characteristic especially of the very last paintings my have represented a productive reaction to his restricted mobility” (in Paul Klee: Fulfillment in the Late Work, Hanover, 2003, p. 15) …”
Related literature: The Paul Klee Foundation, ed., Paul Klee: Catalogue Raisonné
MASK SERIES 99-A-2 by Zeng Fanzhi ($993,000)
Posted on May 6 - Filed Under Arts | Leave a Comment
Zeng Fanzhi’s painting “MASK SERIES 99-A-2″ was sold for $993,000 hammer price on Nov 14, 2007 in Sotheby’s New York auction.
From the auction catalog’s note:
“Zeng Fanzhi is recognized as one of the foremost Contemporary Chinese painters of the post-1989 generation. In 1994, Zeng began his Mask series, in which people’s faces are hidden behind the open gaze and wide grins of a mask. The main purpose of the façade is to conceal feeling, and it is hard not to read the artificiality of the covered faces as an allegory of cynical politeness in a society experiencing constant transformation. Mask Series 99 A-2 from 1999 is a classic example of Zeng’s genuine ability to render allegorical imagery, whose content most often is intuited from symbolic forms. In this particular painting we see two men, dressed in identical suits, each raising a glass of red wine toward the viewer. The masks they wear are identical, so there is a loss of individuality; the only distinct difference between them concerns their clothing, since the figure on the left wears a formal shirt and tie, while the figure on the right is dressed in a blue crew shirt.
The two men are giving a toast against a soft pink and red background that offers no clue of the locale they inhabit. As a result they appear to be toasting the artist’s audience, who are made to feel as if they are participating in a public function. In Contemporary art, alienation and identity remain contested issues, but here we have a socially oriented, more or less identical pair. The supposed vitality of their pose and fleshy oversized hands, made neutral by the presence of the masks, speaks volumes regarding the roles the Chinese are made to play in contemporary society. As a result, we hardly trust them as active agents following their own desires; instead, we read the two men as succumbing to a position that only adds to social confusion. In this painting of figures whose facile enjoyment is literally masked, it seems most likely that they are hiding their darker view of the world.
–Jonathan Goodman”
More information about Zeng at the Saatchi Gallery
Tags: Arts, auction, chinese painters, contemporary art, social confusion, Sotheby's, Zeng FanzhiPearl necklace sells for over 10 times Christie’s pre-auction estimate
Posted on May 5 - Filed Under Jewelry | Leave a Comment
The nine-strand necklace that once belonged to Umm Kulthoum sold for $1,385,000 in April in Dubai, which is over ten times the pre-auction estimate announced by Christie’s. See Bloomberg’s post on the Dubai art auction market.
Tags: auction, Christie's, Dubai, Jewelry, Pearl necklace, Umm KulthoumFerrari F50 Coupe Listed on eBay for $985,000
Posted on May 3 - Filed Under Cars | 2 Comments
9 days left from the Ferrari F50 auction on eBay. The car is listed for $985,000 and 5 offers were rejected so far. I will update this post after the auction is over with the final going price if any.
According to Wikipedia, only 349 was made, so this is truly a collector car.
Tags: auction, Cars, collector car, ebay, F50, ferrari-
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