Wassily Kandinsky’s Rigide et courbé (Rigid and Curved) is highlighted as part of Christie’s November 16th Impressionist and Modern Art Evening Sale in New York. The work, once owned by Solomon R. Guggenheim and first acquired from Kandinsky in 1936, is estimated at $18-25 million and will be publicly displayed for the first time in over 50 years.
Maurizio Cattelan’s 18-karat gold toilet titled America (2016) is installed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York and available for use in a fifth-floor restroom. The artwork, a functional replica of a Kohler toilet, has sparked discussion about wealth, consumer culture, and the readymade, with the museum and artist remaining tight-lipped on price.
Ben Heller, the previous owner who sold Blue Poles to the Australian Government in 1973, discusses the work by Jackson Pollock and how its sale in 1973 sparked controversy. The painting, for which Heller paid $32,000 in 1957 and later sold to the Whitlam Government for $1.3 million, is now part of an exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London.
Dan Flavin, Bruce Nauman, Sol LeWitt, Gilbert & George and other artists are represented in a collection acquired by Düsseldorf state museums, assembled by Dorothee and Konrad Fischer. The works will be exhibited in Cloud and Crystal at the K20 museum in Düsseldorf from 24 September to 8 January, with donations and purchases comprising about half each.
Richard Diebenkorn and Edward Hopper are the artists discussed. The works mentioned are Richard Diebenkorn’s 29 sketchbooks and an early Edward Hopper painting acquired by the Cantor Arts Center. The page describes two exhibitions: Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed and Edward Hopper: New York Corner, celebrating these acquisitions at Cantor Arts Center in Stanford, California.
The Kunstsammlung NRW announced the acquisition of over 200 works from the private Dorothee and Konrad Fischer collection. The works are on view at the K21 Museum in Düsseldorf and span installations, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and designs, with the deal partly a purchase and partly a donation.
Robert Kelly presents 15 large-scale paintings at Sophia Contemporary Gallery in Mayfair, London, during Frieze London, with four works from his Nocturne series (1999) shown at Frieze Masters in the Masters section; the gallery also features Constructivist and Suprematist Russian porcelain and sculpture.
Jackson Pollock painting Blue Poles is now valued at about $350 million, a more than 300-fold increase from the $1.3 million paid in 1973 under the Whitlam government. The article notes the work was insured for $258 million last year and upgraded to $350 million for its overseas move.
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Nude (1914), is returned to the Hess heirs and then repurchased by the Neue Galerie in New York in a restitution settlement. The painting was seized due to Nazi persecution of the Hess family; the museum had bought it in 1999 and later reacquired it, with no price disclosed for the repurchase.
Willem de Kooning’s painting Untitled XXV is going to be sold at Christie’s in New York on November 15, with an estimated price around $40 million. The work, from a prolific mid-1970s period inspired by Louse Point, previously sold in 2006 for $27.1 million, setting a post-war and contemporary art auction record at the time.
The article discusses an 1886 drawing by Adolf von Menzel, Blick über die Dächer von Schandau (View over the Roofs of Schandau), which will be returned to the heirs of Elisabeth Linda Martens by the city of Cologne. It notes that Martens likely sold the work in 1939 to fund the escape from Germany for herself and her husband, who was Jewish under Nuremberg laws. The sale is acknowledged as being under duress and the proceeds funded their escape.
Vincent van Gogh paintings were recovered in a farmhouse near Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, after vanishing in 2002 from Amsterdam's Van Gogh Museum. The works include Seascape at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884-85). The paintings were tied to assets seized from suspected Camorra associates, with officials confirming their authenticity.
The two Van Gogh paintings, a Seascape at Scheveningen (1882) and Congregation Leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen (1884-1885), stolen from the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2002, were recovered by Italian anti-mafia police. The Van Gogh Museum confirmed they are the real paintings and noted some damage but they appear to be in relatively good condition.
Two stolen Vincent Van Gogh paintings worth millions of euros were found in an Italian country house south of Naples, belonging to an alleged mafia drug smuggler. The artworks, a sea scene and a church where the painter's father was minister, were displayed by Italian investigators and are valued at about 50 million euros each.
The BBC reports that two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002 were recovered in Castellammare di Stabia, Italy, by Italian police from a Camorra-linked operation. The works, valued at about $100 million (£77 million; €89 million), were seized amid a broader investigation into organised crime and drug trafficking.
Vincent van Gogh paintings, Congregation Leaving The Reformed Church of Nuenen and Seascape at Scheveningen, were recovered in Naples 14 years after they were stolen from a Dutch museum. The discovery involved Italian investigators and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, with connections to a Camorra drug trafficking investigation; assets tied to Raffaele Imperiale were seized.
Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild from the Eric Clapton collection is to be offered at Christie’s New York on November 15 as part of the Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, with an estimated value around $20 million. The work was acquired by Eric Clapton at auction in 2001, and Christie’s London will unveil it on view October 1–6, 2016.