Saturday, October 19, 2013

Flag - Jasper Johns

Price in US $ - 110 million



Flag is an encaustic painting (also known as hot wax painting) by Jasper Johns. Created when Johns was 24 (1954–55), it is arguably the painting for which Johns is best known. His work is often described as Neo-Dadaist and anticipates aspects of pop art, minimal art, and conceptual art.

Critics were unsure whether it was a painted flag or a painting of a flag; Johns later said it was both. Such a painting is surely art - or is it? That is a problem for the viewer, alone. Johns is gone; he has already made the painting, he has already presented the problem. The viewer is left to resolve it as best he can.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Eagle Standing on Pine Tree - Qi Baishi

Price in US $ - 65.5 million



Qi Baishi was an influential Chinese painter who was most noted for the whimsical, often playful style of his watercolour works. "Eagle Standing on Pine Tree; Four-Character Couplet in Seal Script" - this painting of an eagle perched on the branch of a pine tree, surrounded by two calligraphy scrolls, measures 100 by 266 centimetres (three by 8.5 feet). The work was completed by Qi in 1946 and presented to General Chiang Kai-shek for his 60th birthday.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Femme Assise Dans un Jardin - Pablo Picasso

Price in US $ - 49.6 million 



Femme assise dans un jardin (Woman Sitting In A Garden) was painted by Pablo Picasso in a single day in 1938 on a canvas sized 131 X 97 cm. This arresting portrait of Dora Maar seated on a chair in a garden is a dense, complex and exuberantly colored image. It is one of the greatest and grandest depictions the artist made of his fascinating and remarkable mistress in the pre-war period. The painting reflects the challenging relationship which the artist had with his mistress who was a poet, painter, photographer and intellectual.


Saturday, June 22, 2013

Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat - Vincent van Gogh

Price in US $ - 47.5 million



Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat is an 1890 painting by Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh went on to paint several versions of this painting. The excellent painting was an oil work on a canvas sized 36 1/4 * 28 3/4 (92 * 73 cm). One such version was used in Stanlist political art of 1930; where a peasant woman is portrayed holding sheaves of wheat. This peasant woman represented a complex and controversial image in the lexicon of Soviet political art. Peasant Woman was also depicted in Nikolai Kochergin's poster. In this poster, Nikolai depicted the woman as a buxom woman wearing a kerchief and bast shoes.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Diana and Callisto - Titian

Price in US $ - 70.6 million

Diana and Callisto is a painting completed between 1556 and 1559 by the Venetian artist Titian. It portrays the moment in which the goddess Diana discovers that her maid Callisto has become pregnant by Jupiter. Titian himself referred to his this group of paintings as ‘poesie’, the visual equivalent of poetry.




Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Police Gazette - Willem de Kooning


Price in US $ - 63.5 million



Willem de Kooning’s Police Gazette, an abstract 1955 landscape, is one of his more abstract canvases, primarily yellow, red and green. It was painted while he was living in New York City before moving to East Hampton, N.Y. By early 1930s Kooning had started experimenting with abstract expressions, using living shapes and simple geometric compositions that suggested the artist’s absolute contrast sense of creating formal elements that prevails in his work throughout his career. de Kooning is considered second only to Pollock in the Abstract Expressionist canon.

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