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The Headlines
WOMEN SHINE AT CHRISTIE’S SALE. Marlene Dumas’s Miss January (1997) has set a brand new world document for the most costly art work by a girl bought at public sale, going for $13.6 million (all quoted costs embrace purchaser’s charges) at Christie’s twenty first century night sale on Could 14, reviews Karen Okay. Ho for ARTnews. General, “after two nights of respectable, not disastrous auctions,” writes Ho, the public sale home’s sale continued that pattern, yielding $96.4 million. The night was led by 14 blue chip artists, together with Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Child Increase (1982), which bought for $23.4 million with charges, however a lot of the eye was on girls artists, together with Simone Leigh, whose 10.5-foot-tall bronze sculpture Sentinel (2020) bought for $5.7. That end result additionally broke the artist’s 2023 document sale of Las Meninas II (2019) for $3 million. “It was girls that carried the night time, and that was very thrilling,” stated artwork adviser Abigail Asher. “What can I say? Possibly it’s as a result of I’m a feminist.”
MODEL IN PAINTING IDENTIFIED AS LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. A mysterious portray of a soldier undressing subsequent to water as he prepares to affix one other younger man who’s swimming, has been recognized as a portrait of Lawrence of Arabia, reviews the Occasions. For years the Nationwide Belief questioned whether or not the portray, which hung in Lawrence’s house for some 60 years, additionally depicted its proprietor. Now, specialists say the art work by Henry Scott Tuke, who met Lawrence in 1922, is modeled after the latter. Nevertheless, Tuke made Lawrence seem youthful than he was on the time he made the portrait. In truth, the art work, titled Image of Grey — an RGA soldier on a seaside, could have been impressed by Oscar Wilde’s “The Image of Dorian Grey,” through which the central character stays younger, whereas his painted portrait ages. “It’s an imagined and idealized work, not an precise portrait of Lawrence in 1922,” stated Dr John Chu, senior curator for the belief.
The Digest
The Metropolitan Museum of Artwork in New York has been gifted over 6,500 artworks from the famend images collector Artur Walther and the Walther Household Basis. The donation consists of distinctive post-war and up to date images from around the globe, and a particular showcase of works from the gathering by African photographers will likely be exhibited within the Met’s Michael C. Rockefeller Wing when it opens later in Could. [The Art Newspaper]
The traditional Peruvian archaeological website and pre-Columbian metropolis generally known as Chan Chan, has been vandalized with obscene graffiti. Officers are looking for suspects, and people chargeable for damaging the UNESCO World Heritage Website withstand six years in jail. [Artnet News]
The transgressive artwork of the late British artist Helen Chadwick will get a uncommon retrospective at Hepworth Wakefield from Could 17 to October 27. “Chadwick had a genius for evoking the slippage between need and disgust,” writes Skye Sherwin of the artist whose influential apply was minimize brief on the age of 42, when she died unexpectedly. [The Guardian]
The town of Paris won’t pay the total 3 million euros ($3.36 million) in losses associated to months of migrant occupation of the town’s Gaîté Lyrique artwork middle. The establishment’s leaders say they had been promised compensation for monetary prices incurred over 5 months of closure and the compelled use of its constructing as residing quarters by a whole bunch of younger migrants. [Libération]
The Jameel Arts Centre in Dubai, which helps artists and artistic communities, is one in all three establishments to have been awarded the medal of excellence within the inaugural Artwork Basel Awards, which recognises these “shaping the following technology of cutting-edge artistry.” [Art Jameel]
The Kicker
SCROLLING THE CHINESE CLASSICAL ART MARKET. When a 700-year-old calligraphy scroll by Rao Jie bought in April for 25 occasions its low presale estimate at HK $213.5 million ($27.5 million), following a whopping, 95-minute bidding conflict at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong, the information understandably made some headlines. However if you happen to’re solely listening to about it now, which will even be as a result of the outlook for the Chinese language classical artwork market stays cautious, in line with Enid Tsui, writing for the South China Morning Submit. General, Hong Kong public sale outcomes have been declining, together with a “sharper drop” for contemporary and up to date artwork auctions, attributable to Chinese language financial slowing, in line with the Mishcon de Reya China Artwork Market Report 2025. Steven Zuo, head of Sotheby’s classical Chinese language Work, explains demand for calligraphy from Rao Jie’s lifetime, throughout China’s Sung and Yuan dynasties, the head of the artwork type, is reliably sturdy, and subsequently not reflective of a wider market pattern. What’s extra, this 14th century, six-meter lengthy, cursive-script calligraphy containing two prose items, as soon as belonged to the Qing imperial assortment. “The extended bidding conflict over the work by Rao Ji was an exception quite than a mirrored image of the final market sentiment,” causes Benjamin W. Yim, an skilled collector of Chinese language artwork.
