The Art Newspaper reports that Britain’s Tate and the National Gallery are attempting to raise funds to prevent export of two masterpieces: Raphael’s Madonna of the Pinks and Reynolds’s portrait of Omai. The piece notes that the National Portrait Gallery may also try to purchase William Parry’s portrait of Sir Joseph Banks with Omai and Dr Solander, after the Parry portrait was previously sold to an overseas buyer (Australian National Portrait Gallery) for £1.8 million ($2.9 million). The two governments’ institutions have faced funding challenges and export license deferrals to allow more time for fundraising.
Felix Landau, who ran a premier Los Angeles gallery on La Cienega Boulevard during the 1960s, died at 78. The Times notes his gallery’s role in introducing artists such as Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, Francis Bacon, Peter Voulkos, and John McLaughlin to Los Angeles.
Thomas Struth's XL size photographs are discussed in the UPI Archives article about his midcareer Met exhibition; mentions Struth, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Thomas Demand, and notes large-scale color prints and works such as Museum Photographs and Video Portraits.
John Edwards, Francis Bacon's closest friend and sole heir to his paintings and properties, died in Bangkok at 53. Edwards, an illiterate former barman from London's East End, was Bacon's model in around 30 late portraits and inherited Bacon's estate worth nearly $17 million after Bacon's death in 1992.
Hector Feliciano claimed 17.5 percent of the estimated $39 million value of paintings by Matisse, Monet, Léger and Bonnard recovered for Elaine Rosenberg; a New York State Supreme Court justice dismissed the suit, with the defense arguing there was no merit or contract.
The article reports that Swedish art dealer Anders Malmberg was convicted of stealing Andy Warhol's 1962 Red Elvis while it was on loan to the Guggenheim and selling it to Guggenheim trustee Peter M. Brant; Malmberg was sentenced to three years in prison for fraud, and the lender Kerstin Lindholm was awarded $4.6 million, with Lindholm valuing the work at $12 million for insurance purposes.
John Constable drawings sold at auction in London for £352,160. The top price was Bow View of HMS Victory in The Medway at £216,160, with other pieces selling for £95,200 and £40,800. The works were discovered in Glasgow and related to HMS Victory.
Three long-lost drawings by John Constable sold at auction in London for 352,160 pounds (547,000 dollars), nearly seven times their combined estimate, according to Martin Hickman of The Independent.
The Seagram art collection is being sold by Christie’s in a series of private and public auctions at Rockefeller Center from April 29 to July 23, with the photography portion at Phillips de Pury & Luxembourg on April 25–26. The 2,500-piece collection, acquired in 2000 after Vivendi bought Seagram, includes works by major artists and was associated with the Seagram building on Park Avenue; estimated value around $15 million, with public auction items valued between $8 and $12 million and 700 photographs expected to bring $2–$3 million.
Two paintings attributed to Francisco Goya, Tobias and the Angel and The Holy Family, were presented as long-lost works at Alcala Subastas in Madrid and planned for sale in May; experts at Madrid's Prado Museum reportedly acknowledged Goya’s authorship but could not officially confirm it.
The article discusses Kasimir Malevich works rediscovered and presented at the Guggenheim in New York, tied to Nikolai Khardzhiev whose collection was preserved in secrecy; it notes a market where a single Malevich painting can fetch $15 million, and references Khardzhiev and his wife leaving Moscow in 1993 with over 1,000 pieces.
Christie’s announced a landmark single-owner sale of 86 unique daguerreotypes by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey, estimated above £1.5 million. The photographs include some of the earliest surviving images of Greece, Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor.
Christie’s announced a sale of more than 100 works from Russell B. Aitken’s collection of African, American Indian and Oceanic art. Most had not been publicly exhibited since a group appeared in the Brooklyn Museum’s 1954 Masterpieces of African Art exhibition.