Tag Archives: Art Insider

Art, Art Galleries, Arts & Literature, History, Reviews, Videos

Art: Picasso’s ‘Masterful Contradictions’ (1925)

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Sotheby’s (November 17, 2024):In late September of 1925, Pablo Picasso, his wife Olga and their young son Paolo returned to Paris from their annual summer holiday in the South of France.

The summers were beginning to blend together for Picasso, who was tiring of the swell set he and Olga socialized with. The home they returned to at 23 rue la Boetie was a changed one. After lengthy negotiations, Picasso had acquired an additional floor of the building to be used as his studio.

He set about immediately modifying the space: removing doors from their hinges, bringing in his copious art supplies (and a limited amount of furniture) and stripping back most of the existing wallpaper. After years of jostling with his elegant and socially aspirational wife for space in their apartment on the floor below he relished a place to colonize as his own.

Art, Arts & Literature, Museums, Reviews, Videos

Art Insider: Paul Gaughin’s ‘Camille Pissarro’ Tribute

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Sotheby’s (October 17, 2024): Presented in partnership with Celine, Sotheby’s Paris is proud to feature the Impressionist masterpiece “Le jardin de Pissarro,

Quai du Pothuis à Pontoise,” painted by Paul Gauguin in 1881, as one of the highlight lots in the upcoming Modernités sale. This painting is emblematic of the early years of Gauguin’s artistic journey. During 1879-1881, Gauguin became a regular visitor of Camille Pissarro, whom he fondly referred to as his “dear Professor.” He often joined Pissarro in Pontoise, where Pissarro had settled. It was under Pissarro’s mentorship that Gauguin began his career as a painter and mastered essential techniques.

These years were crucial to Gauguin’s artistic development, and this painting, depicting Pissarro’s house and garden, serves as a heartfelt tribute from student to master. The presence of two self-portraits by Gauguin on the reverse side makes this piece truly unique. Painted very early in his career, this dual-sided work already demonstrates a striking modernity. Gauguin’s style, even at this early stage, was ahead of its time and hinted at the innovations he would bring to art in the years to come. This painting is a bold assertion of the artist’s emerging identity.

Art, Arts & Literature, Engineering, Reviews, Videos

Art Insider: An Engineer Reviews Turner’s “Rain, Steam And Speed” (1844)

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The National Gallery (March 1, 2024): Is there engineering in art, as well as art in engineering? We look at Turner’s famous depiction of a steam train in ‘Rain, Steam and Speed’ and stormy seas in ‘Dutch Boats in a Gale’ (1801).

Rob Bell from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers gives us an engineer’s take on these two paintings at the National Gallery. The Institution of Mechanical Engineers was founded in 1847 and has over 100,000 members around the world.

Arts & Literature, Exhibitions, Interviews, Museums, Reviews, Videos

Interview: British Fashion Designer Sir Paul Smith On His ‘Picasso Celebration’

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Christie’s (July 10, 2023) – Iconic British fashion designer Sir Paul Smith, in his legendary chock-full studio, talks about bringing out “Picasso’s playful side” in a stylish new exhibition at the Musée National Picasso-Paris: Picasso Celebration: The Collection in a New Light.

Sir Paul Smith, guest artistic director at the Musée National Picasso-Paris. Photo © Paul Smith. Artwork © Succession PicassoDACS, London 2023
Sir Paul Smith, guest artistic director at the Musée National Picasso-Paris.

It is fifty years since Pablo Picasso died, on 8 April 1973 at Notre-Dame-de-Vie, his home in Mougins. The body of work that he left behind had a profound impact on the entire 20th century.


For this anniversary year, the Musée National Picasso-Paris has invited the British designer Sir Paul Smith, known for his work with colour, tailoring and unexpected details, to lead the artistic direction of an exceptional exhibition showcasing the museum’s collection.

Affiche Expositon Picasso Célébration
Art, Arts & Literature, Profiles, Videos

Profiles: German-British Painter Frank Auerbach

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Sotheby’s (June 16, 2023) – Morning Crescent and J.Y.M. Seated II are two seminal paintings by Frank Auerbach that represent the artist’s celebrated investigation into the genres of portraiture and the cityscape.

Executed eighteen years apart, both works exemplify Auerbach’s expressive use and colour and a faultless display of decisive and heavily impasto brushwork. Mornington Crescent is an incredibly rare and large-scale example from Auerbach’s 1960s output, and belongs to his ambitious and highly acclaimed body of landscapes.

This work ranks among the largest paintings in Auerbach’s catalogue raisonné and possesses a chromatic register that is unsurpassed. J.Y.M. Seated II is an important portrait of one of Frank Auerbach’s most celebrated sitters, Juliet Yardley Mills.

Frank Helmut Auerbach is a German-British painter. Born in Germany, he has been a naturalised British subject since 1947. He is considered one of the leading names in the School of London, with fellow artists Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, Profiles, Videos

Reviews: The ‘African And Oceanic Art’ Collection Of France’s Hélène Leloup

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Sotheby’s (June 12, 2023) – Hélène Leloup is one of the art world’s true pioneers, bringing together a spirit of adventure, a detailed anthropological approach and deep knowledge to become one of the foremost specialists in African and Oceanic art in Paris and New York. 

Now aged 96, Hélène is regarded as France’s most important and passionate dealer of sub-Saharan and Oceanic art, an adventurer and explorer, ground-breaking gallerist and collector, and eminent specialist in Mbembe and Dogon art, ever since her first foray to Dakar in 1952.

Art, Arts & Literature, Design, Furniture, Profiles, Videos

Design: Sculpted Bronze Art Of Diego Giacometti

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Sotheby’s (June 5, 2023) – Trained in the school of Art Deco decorators and sculptors, Diego Giacometti was equally attached to the discipline of pre-WWII production standards as to the classical artistic vocabulary deriving from ancient Greece, Egypt and Etruscan decorative arts .

The eminent history and personal connection of these tables and lamps to the artist and one of his dearest friends echo the oeuvre of Diego Giacometti itself— a sumptuous and timeless universe in bronze filled with the unique character and artistic prolificity of a true poet.

The featured ”Racine” Guéridon in particular figures as one of Diego’s most rare and original creations in bronze. The piece shows the sculptor’s prowess at skillfully adapting an organic motif into a strikingly abstract and perfectly balanced composition, which is simultaneously sculptural in its intent and highly functional.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Museums, Profiles, Videos

Arts: Meissen Porcelain – ‘A Fox with a Chicken’

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Getty Museum (May 17, 2023) – Imagine a menagerie of over 500 life-sized porcelain animals long gallery in a palace in Dresden. A Fox with a Chicken was a part of this new creation commissioned by Augustus II “The Strong” in the 18th century to share his love for Japanese porcelain with others.

A Fox with a Chicken

Meissen Porcelain Manufactory (German, active 1710 – present), Model by Johann Gottlieb Kirchner (German, 1706 – 1768)

Johann Gottlieb Kirchner produced the model for this life-size porcelain sculpture of a fox-looking a little guiltily around the chicken it is about to devour-as part of an extraordinary commission from Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland, who envisioned a life-size porcelain menagerie for his Japanese Palace in Dresden. The Meissen Porcelain Manufactory had been operating for only twenty years when Augustus commissioned this series of porcelain animals to be rendered “in their natural sizes and colors.” The production of porcelain models of this size had never been attempted before in Europe.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, History, Profiles, Videos

Artists: Post-Impressionist Paintings Of Paul Gauguin

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Sotheby’s (May 16, 2023) – Vice Chairman of Global Fine Arts, Simon Shaw, discusses a few extraordinary works coming to Sotheby’s this May from the Ambroise Vollard Collection, including Paul Gauguin’s Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline.

An exquisite example of Gauguin’s unbound creative spirit, Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline is filled with the sort of rich, jewel-like hues and striking tonal and textural contrasts that characterize the artist’s greatest works. The present painting was executed in 1885 at a watershed moment in Gauguin’s career, during which time he began to move away from the Impressionist aesthetic that had previously influenced his painting toward a new and more expressive stylistic idiom.

Expanding upon the bold coloration and defiant brushwork pioneered in works like Nature morte avec pivoines de chine et mandoline, Gauguin soon became a leading figure in the Post-Impressionist movement.

Art, Arts & Literature, Collections, Profiles, Reviews, Videos, Views

Profiles: Zhang Daqian’s Rare & Exquisite Paintings

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Christie’s (May 11, 2023) – From Zhang Daqian’s atmospheric masterpiece ‘Ancient Temple in Misty Mountain’ to Qiu Ying’s ‘Celestial Mountains and Pavilions’, a rare and exquisite painting that belonged to the personal collection of Zhang Daqian, enter the beautiful world of Zhang Daqian as an artist and a collector.

Works by Zhang Daqian at Sotheby’s

Chinese Paintings: The World of Zhang Daqian - YouTube

Chang Dai-chien or Zhang Daqian was one of the best-known and most prodigious Chinese artists of the twentieth century. Originally known as a guohua painter, by the 1960s he was also renowned as a modern impressionist and expressionist painter.