Hello everybody and welcome back to My Weekly Flickr.
We had our first snowstorm this week, a little early in the season but hopefully not a harbinger of whatâs to come. Especially since it was predicted to be minor with 1-3 inches and we wound up with 6-8 inches. Today is a much more pleasant day. The aftermath of the storm in New Jersey and New York is very different. We had piles of snow in the streets and many sidewalks uncleaned while in New York much of the snow had been cleared away. What surprised me were the number of branches that had been knocked off of trees in Manhattan, I canât ever remember seeing so many.
This week I had the pleasure of going to Christieâs Contemporary and Impressionist art auction preview. Among the large amount of art on display were two outstanding collections. Barney Ebsworth and Herbert and Adele Klapper. I thought the bidding was going to go through the roof for these works as they are really of fine quality and you can see from this article and video that I was right.
https://www.christies.com/features/Barney-Ebsworth-Collection-results-9552-3.aspx I really hope these paintings donât wind up in some distant foreign land where we wonât be able to see them again.
This is a long, well-illustrated essay on Barney Ebsworth and his collection.
https://www.christies.com/features/An-American-Place-The-Barney-A-Ebsworth-Collection-comes-to-Christies-9363-1.aspx This is Christieâs press release announcement.
https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=9109&lid=1 This is two articles discussing the Edward Hopper painting that is the star of this auction and, of course, my favorite item in it. It set a record for the artist. Itâs so famous that when my brother first saw the announcement he echoed my thoughts and said that he had seen it in so many exhibits he had no idea it was in a private collection. The first article mentions that it had been a promised gift to the Seattle Art Museum but Ebsworthâs children decided to put it on the block instead.
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/news/a-hopper-promised-as-gift-heads-to-auction-block-instead https://news.artnet.com/market/edward-hopper-leads-christies-barney-ebsworth-sale-1343087 This is an essay on the Christieâs website which discusses the lives and collection of Herbert and Adele Klapper.
https://www.christies.com/features/The-Collection-of-Herbert-and-Adele-Klapper-9399-1.aspx This is the Christieâs press release announcement.
https://www.christies.com/about-us/press-archive/details?PressReleaseID=9171&lid=1 These are some of the many things that I enjoyed. Some of them have long essays with interesting background on the artist and the work.
These are the two Hopper paintings for sale, an oil and a watercolor. Chop Suey is so iconic and has been in so many exhibitions that as my brother said it was surprising to discover it was still in private hands. You can see on the website the dozens of exhibits it appeared in since it was first shown in Rochester, New York in 1930. I love Hopper so you can imagine how pleased I was to get this opportunity to see it for what may be the final time although I certainly hope not.
Edward Hopper â Chop Suey
https://tinyurl.com/ycjpzoj6 Edward Hopper - Cottages at North Truro
https://tinyurl.com/y9y6aawn Charles Demuth is another American artist Iâve written about many times, each of his watercolors is a treat to see. I wish I was one of the billionaires who do the actual bidding in these auctions as waking up to a Demuth on the wall would be very pleasant indeed.
Charles Demuth â Fruit and Flower
https://tinyurl.com/y8emo8uh Charles Demuth - Three Lilies â This is unfinished and I assumed he had been working on it at his death but he had painted it a number of years prior. It left me wondering if he deliberately left it unfinished or abandoned it to work on something else and never went back to it. The little bit of color on the pencil drawing is very light and delicate.
https://tinyurl.com/yazz8bpy Albert Bierstadt - Western Landscape â This is a lovely little landscape, 7â x 10â, showing a mountain lake in pure untouched serenity. Iâve enlarged it in the second link.
https://tinyurl.com/y9zu24fd https://tinyurl.com/yb2zxn4y Iâve also written about Charles Sheeler whose paintings of industrial sites can seem almost photographic. There are two works of his in this auction, one an industrial scene and the other a still life of a pitcher, a vase and a glass with water and a leaf in it. The essays on each site explain his work as a photographer and then his translation of that into the paintings. I think what draws me to Sheelerâs paintings is their geometric appearance, the same thing that allows me to enjoy Mondrianâs geometric paintings. The still life was a bit of a surprise as I donât think Iâve come across many of those before.
Charles Sheeler â Cat-walk
https://tinyurl.com/ybd5yk45 Charles Sheeler â Still Life
https://tinyurl.com/y6vz77qs I refer to Mondrian above and this is one of six paintings in the Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale by that artist, all ironically landscapes. Iâm not sure Iâve ever come across a landscape by him before and here we have six. This is one of them. The second link is an enlargement.
https://tinyurl.com/yca6ln6d https://tinyurl.com/ycdb3z3v Vincent Van Gogh - Coin de jardin avec papillons â This is the start of the Klapperâs collection, thereâs very little I need to say about these paintings, theyâre all by major Impressionist artists and of fine quality. The second link is to a video and essay on the painting. I was very surprised that it didnât sell falling $10M short of the $40M low range estimate. My brother, who is far more knowledgeable about art than I am, had said he thought it wasnât a major painting and didnât think it would live up to the pre-auction hype.
https://www.christies.com/features/Van-Gogh-Coin-de-jardin-avec-papillons-9423-3.aspx There are six paintings by Monet in this auction and all of them are going to go for many millions of dollars. These two will bring the biggest yield.
Claude Monet - Le bassin aux nymphĂ©as â This is a large painting roughly 3ft x 6 1/2ft and one of the 60 Nympheas paintings he executed. It was the top lot of the night, selling for $28M to an anonymous Asian buyer. Hark back to my concern about where these paintings would land. The price, however, was still below the $30M-$50M estimate.
https://tinyurl.com/y9ww6s4c Claude Monet - LâEscalier Ă VĂ©theuil â This is a depiction of the stairs on the property on which he and his family lived and is one of a series of paintings.
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/claude-monet-1840-1926-lescalier-5790371-details.aspxClaude Monet - Vue du village de Giverny â When I approached this painting I assumed it was by Cezanne or Pissarro and was surprised to see it identified as Monet. But the essay explains that the period when this was painted was one of turmoil for the artists as some of them were moving towards Post Impressionism. This is an excerpt from the lot essay. âIn the present painting, however, he came as close as he ever would to a Post-Impressionist interpretation of the landscape, transmuting the forms of the natural world into an abstract order. More characteristic of CĂ©zanne than Monet, Vue du village de Giverny is first and foremost a carefully composed patchwork of formal elementsâdifferent shapes, colors, and texturesâthat takes priority over the depiction of a particular place under specific conditions of weather and light. Rather than a panoramic landscape in the conventional sense, the painting represents a constructive transformation of a corner of the countryside, seemingly viewed at close range and excerpted from a larger whole.â
https://tinyurl.com/y7egjc4j Paul CĂ©zanne - Vue dâAuvers-sur-OiseâLa BarriĂšre â I thought it appropriate to follow with the only painting by Cezanne in the auction. This is his earliest Impressionist work which was exhibited at the First Impressionist Exhibition. He had been working with Pissarro and it was Pissarro who arranged for the painting to be in the exhibition despite objections from the other artists. It was also the first painting to be sold outside of his immediate circle. The second link is an enlargement.
https://tinyurl.com/y9d4ncwu https://tinyurl.com/yapg6etnCamille Pissarro - La Rue Saint-Lazare, temps lumineux â There were six paintings by Pissarro in the auction and this one was my favorite and apparently was the favorite of the bidders as it had by far the highest pre-sale estimate. It closed just above the high end. I love the busy City street with the people and the carriages. Iâve enlarged it in the second link.
https://tinyurl.com/y82kxgrz https://tinyurl.com/y8qah6cc The Klappers owned six bronze statues by Degas as well as this lovely pastel depiction of dancers.
Edgar Degas - Quatre danseuses
https://tinyurl.com/y9fbwhlz Edgar Degas - Préparation à la danse, pied droit en avant
https://tinyurl.com/y9dlrnq4 Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec â Danseuse â Itâs appropriate to follow Degas with this Lautrec as he idolized Degas and followed in his footsteps at depicting the dancers at the ballet. Unfortunately for him, according to the lot essay Degas never acknowledged him whether due to being annoyed at his idolatry or feeling a moral sense of distaste since Lautrecâs dancers came from the lower forms of entertainment.
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/henri-de-toulouse-lautrec-1864-1901-danseuse-3905803-details.aspxThis was just an extraordinary visit for me seeing so many brilliant paintings. Both Ebsworth and the Klappers had exquisite taste to go with their riches.
Elsewhere in the art world was this story which I really find outrageous. A similar situation arose a few years ago in New York City and had an unsatisfactory outcome as I remember. Very ingenuous to say you put in picture windows so youâre not entitled to privacy.
As Angry Neighbors Sue Tate Modern Over Peeping Visitors, an Artist Installs Binoculars on Its Terrace to Better View the âArtâ
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/tate-modern-viewing-platform-binoculars-1395007 On that outraged note letâs visit the Flickrs.
Andy G.
Another Himekaji shot from our time in Puroland (Hello Kitty Land)!!!
https://www.flickr.com/photos/164347564@N04/43806319652/Susan Louise Fox 46
https://www.flickr.com/photos/155501406@N06/40416185951/sexy maid
https://www.flickr.com/photos/151092724@N08/41433757790/Stevie515
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevieg99/44174750925/20161218_92
https://www.flickr.com/photos/sissymaidjoslyn/31699815736/Little pink dress and heels.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/juliapanther/29915190117/Pvc maid's outfit.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/21134240@N03/43081254320/Pink satin maid
https://www.flickr.com/photos/glampriscilla/45053279131/ 112H2L
https://www.flickr.com/photos/klarissakrass/41327838605/A look of love and joy
https://www.flickr.com/photos/debbie_lewissmith/30687335258/