Canada
Including Canadian-born people
See also : Women artists Art by women ca 1960 Current art by women British Royals Autograph Coin Gold coins World coins Sport memorabilia Sport memorabilia II Sport document Photo Photos after 1990
Chronology : 1916 1926 1930 1965 1967 1983 2000
See also : Women artists Art by women ca 1960 Current art by women British Royals Autograph Coin Gold coins World coins Sport memorabilia Sport memorabilia II Sport document Photo Photos after 1990
Chronology : 1916 1926 1930 1965 1967 1983 2000
1891 Ball and Basket for Indoor Sport
2010 SOLD 4.3 M$ including premium
Basketball (originally spelled Basket-Ball) is a sport of flexibility and skill. It was created in 1891 in the United States, a little late compared to other competitive sports whose growth is linked to the development of transportation.
By design, it is not a rough sport. The idea of the inventor, the Canadian James Naismith, was to occupy without risk of injury the sportsmen in winter, when weather conditions do not allow to play baseball or football.
The elevated position of the baskets gives a specific interest to this sport that does not invite to physical contact. One can argue whether similar sports existed before basketball and inspired Naismit. No matter: the basketball based on his thirteen rules has become one of the most popular sports due to the simplicity of its required equipment.
Naismith had typed these thirteen rules, in two sheets that he modified by hand writing and signed. His family, who had kept this precious document, sells it at Sotheby's in New York on December 10 for the benefit of a Canadian foundation that spreads the ideals of sportsmanship of the inventor. The photo of these pages is shared by Artdaily.
It is clear that this lot is highly important in the history of sport. The auction house devoted a separate catalog to it, and expects $ 2M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The invention of basketball is really a major act of modern history, one of those advances that have impacted the lives and behavior of millions of people. The document was sold for $ 4.3 million including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by Sotheby's :
By design, it is not a rough sport. The idea of the inventor, the Canadian James Naismith, was to occupy without risk of injury the sportsmen in winter, when weather conditions do not allow to play baseball or football.
The elevated position of the baskets gives a specific interest to this sport that does not invite to physical contact. One can argue whether similar sports existed before basketball and inspired Naismit. No matter: the basketball based on his thirteen rules has become one of the most popular sports due to the simplicity of its required equipment.
Naismith had typed these thirteen rules, in two sheets that he modified by hand writing and signed. His family, who had kept this precious document, sells it at Sotheby's in New York on December 10 for the benefit of a Canadian foundation that spreads the ideals of sportsmanship of the inventor. The photo of these pages is shared by Artdaily.
It is clear that this lot is highly important in the history of sport. The auction house devoted a separate catalog to it, and expects $ 2M.
POST SALE COMMENT
The invention of basketball is really a major act of modern history, one of those advances that have impacted the lives and behavior of millions of people. The document was sold for $ 4.3 million including premium.
I invite you to play the video shared on the web by Sotheby's :
1916-1917 The Striking Colors of Bitter Cold
2015 SOLD for $ 3.66M CAD including premium
Born in Ontario to a family of wealthy industrialists, Lawren Stewart Harris did not need his art for earning his life.
This amateur who took care of organizing the Toronto arts community painted at first some sceneries of streets and of logging. His art that might appear to be basically Canadian was however triggered by his discovery of Scandinavian art and especially of paintings by Gustaf Fjaestad at an exhibition in Buffalo in 1913.
Harris worked in his studio at that time. He imagines the pure colors of snowy landscapes in cold weather. On November 26 in Toronto, Heffel sells a Winter landscape, lot 120 estimated CAD 1.2 million. Here is the link to the auction house's website.
This oil on canvas of large size for this artist, 121 x 127 cm, was painted in 1916 or 1917 at a time when Tom Thomson was interested in similar themes. The picture is divided into well-structured sections of homogeneous texture that contrast sharply with each other from the heavy white snow of ground and of fir branches up to the bright blue of the sea (or lake) through the tissues of forests and cliffs.
This creative period gives Harris the urge to explore by himself the far north in winter. From 1918 he organizes auto trips of his group. The light on Lake Superior is even more blinding than it was in his imagination. His increasingly purified style becomes the most dramatic expression of the chilling landscapes of Canada.
This amateur who took care of organizing the Toronto arts community painted at first some sceneries of streets and of logging. His art that might appear to be basically Canadian was however triggered by his discovery of Scandinavian art and especially of paintings by Gustaf Fjaestad at an exhibition in Buffalo in 1913.
Harris worked in his studio at that time. He imagines the pure colors of snowy landscapes in cold weather. On November 26 in Toronto, Heffel sells a Winter landscape, lot 120 estimated CAD 1.2 million. Here is the link to the auction house's website.
This oil on canvas of large size for this artist, 121 x 127 cm, was painted in 1916 or 1917 at a time when Tom Thomson was interested in similar themes. The picture is divided into well-structured sections of homogeneous texture that contrast sharply with each other from the heavy white snow of ground and of fir branches up to the bright blue of the sea (or lake) through the tissues of forests and cliffs.
This creative period gives Harris the urge to explore by himself the far north in winter. From 1918 he organizes auto trips of his group. The light on Lake Superior is even more blinding than it was in his imagination. His increasingly purified style becomes the most dramatic expression of the chilling landscapes of Canada.
1926 The Timeless Mountain of Lawren Harris
2016 SOLD for $ 11.2M CAD including premium
Lawren Stewart Harris is a mystical hiker. Alone or in a group, he is looking in nature for the eternal truth. Canada offers him landscapes that are inviolable by humans. He explores the frozen shores of Lake Superior from 1921 and the Canadian Rockies from 1924.
He executes drawings that he will transfer into increasingly large oil paintings while eliminating any unnecessary detail, resulting in a symphony in blue and white. The white of snow and ice is for this theosopher an oracle of purity in communion with the blue sky.
1926 marks the accession to the maturity for this artist in his simplifying illumination. A small oil sketch 30 x 38 cm on board preparing his great composition of the Old Stump, Lake Superior, was sold for CAD 3.5 million including premium by Heffel on November 26, 2009.
In the same year the hiker is dazzled by the perfect triangle of Mount Ishbel between Banff and Lake Louise. He has found his Sphinx. Once isolated from the neighboring mountains, Ishbel displays a towering symmetry. The bottom-up view leads the eyes to the smooth colors of wood and rock before reaching the sparkling summit.
Harris named this view Mountain Form without locating it, so confirming that he has met his ineffable truth. In a more Humboldtian approach, the title later became Mountain Forms. This oil on canvas 152 x 178 cm is estimated beyond CAD 3M for sale by Heffel in Toronto on November 23, lot 118 subject of a dedicated press release.
The artist continues his philosophical quest and his hiking. Mountain and glacier, oil on canvas 74 x 89 cm painted in 1930, was sold for CAD 4.6 million including premium by Heffel on 26 November 2015 over a lower estimate of CAD 1M.
He executes drawings that he will transfer into increasingly large oil paintings while eliminating any unnecessary detail, resulting in a symphony in blue and white. The white of snow and ice is for this theosopher an oracle of purity in communion with the blue sky.
1926 marks the accession to the maturity for this artist in his simplifying illumination. A small oil sketch 30 x 38 cm on board preparing his great composition of the Old Stump, Lake Superior, was sold for CAD 3.5 million including premium by Heffel on November 26, 2009.
In the same year the hiker is dazzled by the perfect triangle of Mount Ishbel between Banff and Lake Louise. He has found his Sphinx. Once isolated from the neighboring mountains, Ishbel displays a towering symmetry. The bottom-up view leads the eyes to the smooth colors of wood and rock before reaching the sparkling summit.
Harris named this view Mountain Form without locating it, so confirming that he has met his ineffable truth. In a more Humboldtian approach, the title later became Mountain Forms. This oil on canvas 152 x 178 cm is estimated beyond CAD 3M for sale by Heffel in Toronto on November 23, lot 118 subject of a dedicated press release.
The artist continues his philosophical quest and his hiking. Mountain and glacier, oil on canvas 74 x 89 cm painted in 1930, was sold for CAD 4.6 million including premium by Heffel on 26 November 2015 over a lower estimate of CAD 1M.
1926 Lawren Harris in the Freezing Light
2009 SOLD for $ 3.5M CAD including premium
Born into a wealthy family, Lawren Harris did not need working. He devoted himself to painting and to the Canadian artistic life. In 1919, two years after the untimely death of Tom Thomson, he was a founding member and probably even the instigator of the Group of Seven, created to promote Canadian landscape artists.
Familiar with the country of extreme freezing, including the North Shore of Lake Superior and Baffin Bay, Harris provides a stylized vision. The composition highlights a detail in a landscape, usually frozen. The composition is reminiscent of the countless photographs of winter in Niagara, but in addition he draws the light.
Art is to Harris a medium to a metaphysical research. Dating from 1926, a painting of Lake Superior is perhaps the most complete and most reproduced of his works . A trunk stands alone in the middle of the image. It stops like a burned tree or a broken column, and is fully within the ice. The sunlight from the left is revealing an extraordinary purity of the air.
This image has been chosen to illustrate the Wikipedia article devoted to Harris. The work, 102 x 128 cm, is preserved at the National Gallery of Canada.
On November 26 in Toronto, Heffel auctions the last preparatory sketch for this painting. It is an oil on board, 30 x 38 cm, whose image is identical to the final masterpiece. It is estimated 2 MCan$.
POST SALE COMMENT
Heffel auction house had understood that they had in hand a masterpiece of Harris. Sold 3.5 MCan$ including premium, this work obtains the second highest price of all time for Canadian Art, according to the press release issued after the sale.
Other outstanding results were recorded in this sale, including another painting of Harris at 2.8 MCan$ including premium, and a painting by Thomson at 2.75 MCan$ including premium.
Familiar with the country of extreme freezing, including the North Shore of Lake Superior and Baffin Bay, Harris provides a stylized vision. The composition highlights a detail in a landscape, usually frozen. The composition is reminiscent of the countless photographs of winter in Niagara, but in addition he draws the light.
Art is to Harris a medium to a metaphysical research. Dating from 1926, a painting of Lake Superior is perhaps the most complete and most reproduced of his works . A trunk stands alone in the middle of the image. It stops like a burned tree or a broken column, and is fully within the ice. The sunlight from the left is revealing an extraordinary purity of the air.
This image has been chosen to illustrate the Wikipedia article devoted to Harris. The work, 102 x 128 cm, is preserved at the National Gallery of Canada.
On November 26 in Toronto, Heffel auctions the last preparatory sketch for this painting. It is an oil on board, 30 x 38 cm, whose image is identical to the final masterpiece. It is estimated 2 MCan$.
POST SALE COMMENT
Heffel auction house had understood that they had in hand a masterpiece of Harris. Sold 3.5 MCan$ including premium, this work obtains the second highest price of all time for Canadian Art, according to the press release issued after the sale.
Other outstanding results were recorded in this sale, including another painting of Harris at 2.8 MCan$ including premium, and a painting by Thomson at 2.75 MCan$ including premium.
1930 Mountain and Glacier by Lawren Harris
2015 SOLD for $ 4.6M CAD including premium by Heffel
Link to pre sale video.
1952-1953 The Colored Impasto of Jean-Paul Riopelle
2017 SOLD for $ 7.4M CAD including premium
Born in Montreal, Jean-Paul Riopelle is looking for a new style to express the blazing nature. An admirer of van Gogh, he considers the preeminence of touch and color over the figuration.
He immersed himself in 1947 in the artistic and intellectual theories of the Paris group around André Breton and developed a gestural technique free of will and psychology. An attempt to re-inject these anti-bourgeois conceptions in Montreal was unconvincing and he settled permanently in Paris in December 1948.
Riopelle covers his canvas with an impasto of vibrant colors crossed by white scars. The paint reaches a considerable thickness which the artist describes as an unintended consequence of his creative act : as long as he is not satisfied with the visual balance of his work, he adds colored materials with his knife.
Such abstract perfectionism applied on the whole surface of the canvas made Riopelle being compared with Pollock and greatly contributed to his international fame.
Around 1955 the artist finds a solution to work in thinner layers. His art then loses its most innovative characteristic that had moved the boundary between painting and sculpture.
An oil on canvas 120 x 200 cm painted in 1951-1952 was sold for € 1,86M including premium by Christie's on June 1, 2012. On May 24 in Toronto, Heffel sells Vent du Nord, oil on canvas 130 x 195 cm painted in 1952-1953, lot 19 estimated CAD $ 1M.
He immersed himself in 1947 in the artistic and intellectual theories of the Paris group around André Breton and developed a gestural technique free of will and psychology. An attempt to re-inject these anti-bourgeois conceptions in Montreal was unconvincing and he settled permanently in Paris in December 1948.
Riopelle covers his canvas with an impasto of vibrant colors crossed by white scars. The paint reaches a considerable thickness which the artist describes as an unintended consequence of his creative act : as long as he is not satisfied with the visual balance of his work, he adds colored materials with his knife.
Such abstract perfectionism applied on the whole surface of the canvas made Riopelle being compared with Pollock and greatly contributed to his international fame.
Around 1955 the artist finds a solution to work in thinner layers. His art then loses its most innovative characteristic that had moved the boundary between painting and sculpture.
An oil on canvas 120 x 200 cm painted in 1951-1952 was sold for € 1,86M including premium by Christie's on June 1, 2012. On May 24 in Toronto, Heffel sells Vent du Nord, oil on canvas 130 x 195 cm painted in 1952-1953, lot 19 estimated CAD $ 1M.
1956 Borduas in Black and White
2018 SOLD for $ 3.6M CAD including premium
Inspired by the surrealist poems of André Breton, Paul-Emile Borduas developed from 1941 an abstract automatic art for which composition and gesture are not preconceived. A teacher at Montreal's Ecole du meuble, he led the hostility of his students against the conservative and clerical policy of Prime Minister Duplessis, a period mocked as the Grande Noirceur. His creativity influences Riopelle.
After three years in New York where he met the abstract expressionists, Borduas set up his studio in Paris in 1955. Abandoning the colors, he staged black shapes whose distribution on a white background reflected his emotions between the anguish of the explosion and the construction of a better civilization.
Borduas is a very good connoisseur in the history of art, influenced by Malevich for the primacy of support over image and by Cézanne's still life for the balanced disposition of objects. His cohorts do not seem static : they enter or leave the canvas as did the unlimited colors of Mondrian.
There is no perspective in Borduas' paintings. A relief is however present with the rolls created from the thick paint by the accumulations of the spatula. His white backgrounds anticipate by a few months the folds reinforced with kaolin in Manzoni's Achromes.
On May 30 in Toronto, Heffel sells Figures Schématiques, oil on canvas painted in 1956. At 130 x 195 cm it is one of the largest formats executed by the artist. It is estimated $ 3M CAD, lot 018.
Black continued to invade the spaces of Borduas. He died of a heart attack in 1960 beside his just completed Composition 69. This composition in intense black is crossed at the top of the image by white slashes, in a last act of hope that reminds the zips by Barnett Newman and anticipates by two decades the Outrenoir by Soulages.
After three years in New York where he met the abstract expressionists, Borduas set up his studio in Paris in 1955. Abandoning the colors, he staged black shapes whose distribution on a white background reflected his emotions between the anguish of the explosion and the construction of a better civilization.
Borduas is a very good connoisseur in the history of art, influenced by Malevich for the primacy of support over image and by Cézanne's still life for the balanced disposition of objects. His cohorts do not seem static : they enter or leave the canvas as did the unlimited colors of Mondrian.
There is no perspective in Borduas' paintings. A relief is however present with the rolls created from the thick paint by the accumulations of the spatula. His white backgrounds anticipate by a few months the folds reinforced with kaolin in Manzoni's Achromes.
On May 30 in Toronto, Heffel sells Figures Schématiques, oil on canvas painted in 1956. At 130 x 195 cm it is one of the largest formats executed by the artist. It is estimated $ 3M CAD, lot 018.
Black continued to invade the spaces of Borduas. He died of a heart attack in 1960 beside his just completed Composition 69. This composition in intense black is crossed at the top of the image by white slashes, in a last act of hope that reminds the zips by Barnett Newman and anticipates by two decades the Outrenoir by Soulages.
1965 Orange Grove by Agnes Martin
2016 SOLD for $ 10.7M including premium by Christie's
1965 Agnes Martin caught by the Desert
2007 SOLD for $ 4.7M including premium by Christie's
2010 UNSOLD
PRE 2010 SALE DISCUSSION
One can hardly imagine an artistic language simpler than that of Agnes Martin. She covers her canvases with a layer of monochrome acrylic, and she finishes the work by a regular grid in pencil. Like Rothko, it reaches the supremacy of abstract art: a painting by Agnes Martin must be for real, no reproduction can approach the effect offered by the original.
Qualifying herself to abstract expressionist, Martin wanted to express the perfection and eternity of nature. In 1965, while living in New York, she created The Desert, 183 x 183 cm, light beige. This woman from Saskatchewan had long taught in New Mexico. Fleeing New York, she will settle as early as 1967 in Taos, this small paradise for artists where we recently discussed a work by Fechin.
On May 12, Sotheby's sells the Desert in New York, with an estimate of $ 4 million. It had been sold for $ 4.7 million by Christie's on May 16, 2007.
Canada is proud to have given birth to Agnes Martin. Information about this lot was shared by the Montreal Gazette and by CBC News.
POST SALE COMMENT
Among the top lots, The Desert is the only disappointment of this extraordinary sale: unsold.
Yet in the same sale, a small painting from 1962 (27 x 27 cm) titled Kyrie has been sold $ 2.2 million including premium on a $ 600 K estimate. The grid clearly visible and reinforced with nails is a good example of the art of Agnes Martin.
One can hardly imagine an artistic language simpler than that of Agnes Martin. She covers her canvases with a layer of monochrome acrylic, and she finishes the work by a regular grid in pencil. Like Rothko, it reaches the supremacy of abstract art: a painting by Agnes Martin must be for real, no reproduction can approach the effect offered by the original.
Qualifying herself to abstract expressionist, Martin wanted to express the perfection and eternity of nature. In 1965, while living in New York, she created The Desert, 183 x 183 cm, light beige. This woman from Saskatchewan had long taught in New Mexico. Fleeing New York, she will settle as early as 1967 in Taos, this small paradise for artists where we recently discussed a work by Fechin.
On May 12, Sotheby's sells the Desert in New York, with an estimate of $ 4 million. It had been sold for $ 4.7 million by Christie's on May 16, 2007.
Canada is proud to have given birth to Agnes Martin. Information about this lot was shared by the Montreal Gazette and by CBC News.
POST SALE COMMENT
Among the top lots, The Desert is the only disappointment of this extraordinary sale: unsold.
Yet in the same sale, a small painting from 1962 (27 x 27 cm) titled Kyrie has been sold $ 2.2 million including premium on a $ 600 K estimate. The grid clearly visible and reinforced with nails is a good example of the art of Agnes Martin.
1967 Seven Years of Meditation
2015 SOLD for $ 6.3M including premium
Agnes Martin expresses the ground, after Pollock, and agrees to be considered among the artists of abstract expressionism. Inspired by Zen and Buddhism, she permeates into quietness and beauty.
Her technique is perfectionist: on a canvas painted in monochrome oil, superseded after 1964 by acrylic, she draws a set of colored lines in a single repeating pattern from top to bottom, too thin for the naked eye but endlessly bringing a renewed richness of texture. This practice based on the parallels is somehow reminiscent of the highly aesthetic weaving of the primitive Navajo blankets.
The titles of her most accomplished works express the landscape. The Beach, 190 x 190 cm, painted in 1964, was sold for $ 6.5 million at Sotheby's on November 13, 2013. Desert, painted in 1965, was sold for $ 4.7 million by Christie's on May 16, 2007. Mountain II, painted in 1966, was sold for $ 4.5 million by Christie's at the same sale. These prices include the premium.
Agnes was active up to that point in the artistic life of New York, but 1967 marks a challenge to her fragile mental health. The fame that is reaching her is not suitable for her aspiration to discretion. The building where she has her studio is scheduled to be destroyed and her artistic mentor, Ad Reinhardt, younger to her by one year, dies unexpectedly.
Agnes Martin, aged 55, takes the road for a wandering life according to the hippie mood that will soon lead her to settle permanently in Taos. She stops painting for seven years.
On November 10 in New York, Christie's sells an acrylic, graphite and ink on canvas 183 x 183 cm painted in 1967, lot 13Bestimated $ 5M. The title, Happy Valley, indicates a feeling and thus marks her need to resume her lost peace of mind. Although the exact day is not known and the artwork is not located, it is probably one of the last paintings made by Agnes Martin before her grand start to the unknown.
Her technique is perfectionist: on a canvas painted in monochrome oil, superseded after 1964 by acrylic, she draws a set of colored lines in a single repeating pattern from top to bottom, too thin for the naked eye but endlessly bringing a renewed richness of texture. This practice based on the parallels is somehow reminiscent of the highly aesthetic weaving of the primitive Navajo blankets.
The titles of her most accomplished works express the landscape. The Beach, 190 x 190 cm, painted in 1964, was sold for $ 6.5 million at Sotheby's on November 13, 2013. Desert, painted in 1965, was sold for $ 4.7 million by Christie's on May 16, 2007. Mountain II, painted in 1966, was sold for $ 4.5 million by Christie's at the same sale. These prices include the premium.
Agnes was active up to that point in the artistic life of New York, but 1967 marks a challenge to her fragile mental health. The fame that is reaching her is not suitable for her aspiration to discretion. The building where she has her studio is scheduled to be destroyed and her artistic mentor, Ad Reinhardt, younger to her by one year, dies unexpectedly.
Agnes Martin, aged 55, takes the road for a wandering life according to the hippie mood that will soon lead her to settle permanently in Taos. She stops painting for seven years.
On November 10 in New York, Christie's sells an acrylic, graphite and ink on canvas 183 x 183 cm painted in 1967, lot 13Bestimated $ 5M. The title, Happy Valley, indicates a feeling and thus marks her need to resume her lost peace of mind. Although the exact day is not known and the artwork is not located, it is probably one of the last paintings made by Agnes Martin before her grand start to the unknown.
1983 The Very Long Road of Agnes Martin
2016 SOLD for $ 6.7M including premium
Agnes Martin expressed and disclosed in her art the perfect tranquility of nature. She shared with her audience her deep impregnation within Zen and Taoism. To achieve such a level of spirituality, her painting is devoid of form, space and time.
In the opposite, her life is a poignant fleeing from madness. She is subject to auditory hallucinations and catatonic trances and a paranoid schizophrenia has been diagnosed. In the big city, she forgets who and where she is, accepts exhibitions but rejects fame and catalogs. She once said that she is not a woman. It seems that her illness was aggravated by an upset homosexuality that she never confessed.
She decides in 1967 to go to the West. In her case, it is the best therapy. She lives alone without being actually isolated but refuses any help. In her wanderings in the desert she builds her own shelter huts. Old age will help Agnes to retrieve some social life but she deliberately ignores some usual aspects of it. She had never read a newspaper again.
From 1967 to 1974 she stopped painting. On November 15 in New York, Christie's sells an acrylic and graphite 183 x 183 cm made in the next phase of her career, in 1983, lot 13 A estimated $ 5M.
This untitled opus consists of ten identical gray rectangles, equidistant and of equal width on a lighter gray background whose brightness has been carefully crafted. Agnes remembered from Rothko both mysticism and rectangles but did not imitate him. Her rectangles display a perfect sharpness.
The art of Agnes Martin is minimalist without being simple. The difficulty for this demanding artist was to avoid what she names a dissonance between the aligned position of the ten rectangles and the strictly square format of the canvas.
In the opposite, her life is a poignant fleeing from madness. She is subject to auditory hallucinations and catatonic trances and a paranoid schizophrenia has been diagnosed. In the big city, she forgets who and where she is, accepts exhibitions but rejects fame and catalogs. She once said that she is not a woman. It seems that her illness was aggravated by an upset homosexuality that she never confessed.
She decides in 1967 to go to the West. In her case, it is the best therapy. She lives alone without being actually isolated but refuses any help. In her wanderings in the desert she builds her own shelter huts. Old age will help Agnes to retrieve some social life but she deliberately ignores some usual aspects of it. She had never read a newspaper again.
From 1967 to 1974 she stopped painting. On November 15 in New York, Christie's sells an acrylic and graphite 183 x 183 cm made in the next phase of her career, in 1983, lot 13 A estimated $ 5M.
This untitled opus consists of ten identical gray rectangles, equidistant and of equal width on a lighter gray background whose brightness has been carefully crafted. Agnes remembered from Rothko both mysticism and rectangles but did not imitate him. Her rectangles display a perfect sharpness.
The art of Agnes Martin is minimalist without being simple. The difficulty for this demanding artist was to avoid what she names a dissonance between the aligned position of the ten rectangles and the strictly square format of the canvas.
1992 Dead Troops talk by Jeff Wall
2012 SOLD for $ 3.7M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
2000 The Diaphanous Happiness of Agnes Martin
2015 SOLD for £ 2.84M including premium
Influenced by Zen, Agnes Martin finds joy in the contemplation of the desert in Taos. She shares it through her paintings made of grids of equidistant lines. The surface appearance, plain but not strictly monochrome, expresses her vision of the dune, the beach or the mountain. She wraps the viewer in her art and readily admits that her work belongs to abstract expressionism.
Agnes Martin restarted her work in her later life with another pattern. The canvas is prepared with a gesso that will bring the luminosity. The horizontal bands drawn freehand with pencil are replacing the grid and define alternative areas of diaphanous colors, mostly pink and blue.
It is a rare case of an artist who was able to go up to the ultimate in her search and expression of happiness. Although her technique is different, she is close to the art of Gaitonde who had himself been influenced by Rothko.
The titles now express feelings. Loving love, 152 x 152 cm, painted in Taos in 2000 when the artist was 88 years old, was sold for £ 2.1 million including premium by Christie's on July 1, 2014. The stripes are of uniform width, except that the two central ones are blue, accentuating the impression of symmetry.
An untitled work made in the same year or maybe the year before in the same format is estimated £ 2.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 15, lot 7. The pink stripes are twice wider than the blue.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
Agnes Martin restarted her work in her later life with another pattern. The canvas is prepared with a gesso that will bring the luminosity. The horizontal bands drawn freehand with pencil are replacing the grid and define alternative areas of diaphanous colors, mostly pink and blue.
It is a rare case of an artist who was able to go up to the ultimate in her search and expression of happiness. Although her technique is different, she is close to the art of Gaitonde who had himself been influenced by Rothko.
The titles now express feelings. Loving love, 152 x 152 cm, painted in Taos in 2000 when the artist was 88 years old, was sold for £ 2.1 million including premium by Christie's on July 1, 2014. The stripes are of uniform width, except that the two central ones are blue, accentuating the impression of symmetry.
An untitled work made in the same year or maybe the year before in the same format is estimated £ 2.5M for sale by Sotheby's in London on October 15, lot 7. The pink stripes are twice wider than the blue.
I invite you to watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
2007 Her Majesty's Bullion
2010 SOLD 3.27 M€ before fees
A "bullion coin" is produced for investment and not for circulation. These coins have a facial value, by similarity with the ordinary currency, but their real value is their weight of metal.
Gold bullion coins generally have a purity of 99.99%.
In 2007, the Royal Canadian Mint announces the launch of a product line to 99.999%. And as now the only way to get noticed is gigantism, they produce a coin with facial value of 1 million Canadian $. A small number of investors will then order similar parts.
The piece measures 53 cm in diameter, 3 cm thick, and weighs 100 kg. Chemists will appreciate this remarkable feat of engineering. The obverse is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The reverse shows the emblem of Canada, three maple leaves. Its value to weight is approximately € 3.2 million.
The copy that was owned by an Austrian financial company is for sale by Dorotheum in Vienna on June 25. Exciting fate for this symbol of capitalism: the owner has gone bankrupt!
POST SALE COMMENT
This lot has been sold 3.27 million € before fees. This is the price of its metal value to weight, not surprisingly. The extreme purity of gold has not generated an added value.
Gold bullion coins generally have a purity of 99.99%.
In 2007, the Royal Canadian Mint announces the launch of a product line to 99.999%. And as now the only way to get noticed is gigantism, they produce a coin with facial value of 1 million Canadian $. A small number of investors will then order similar parts.
The piece measures 53 cm in diameter, 3 cm thick, and weighs 100 kg. Chemists will appreciate this remarkable feat of engineering. The obverse is a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II. The reverse shows the emblem of Canada, three maple leaves. Its value to weight is approximately € 3.2 million.
The copy that was owned by an Austrian financial company is for sale by Dorotheum in Vienna on June 25. Exciting fate for this symbol of capitalism: the owner has gone bankrupt!
POST SALE COMMENT
This lot has been sold 3.27 million € before fees. This is the price of its metal value to weight, not surprisingly. The extreme purity of gold has not generated an added value.