Gallery Talk

Abstract Painting Found in Rubbish in New York

This image originally provided by Sotheby's auction house in New York shows the 1970 painting, "Tres Personajes" (Three People), by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo. The abstract painting was found, lying in trash on the street on Manhattan's Upper West Side. (AP Photo/Sotheby's, file)

The painting "Tres Personajes" by Rufino Tamayo was discovered in 2003 by Elizabeth Gibson, who spotted it on her morning walk on Manhattan's Upper West Side. She said she took it home because "even though I didn't understand it, I knew it had power."

The brightly colored abstract work was purchased for $1,049,000 by an unidentified private American collector bidding by phone at Sotheby's Latin American Art sale.

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Quentin Blake Gives Travellers A Cheerful Welcome

Quentin Blake has worked with property developers to make an entire building in central London disappear. He was commissioned to provide a giant drawing to hide the empty and boarded up Stanley Building South, which stands on the edge of the £2bn King's Cross redevelopment. It was felt thet it was too much of an eyesore to be the first thing that passengers see as they step off the high-speed train from Paris.

Blake, 75, was asked to create "an imaginary welcoming committee". He has included characters singing and dancing, swigging beer and enjoying food. "It is a scene of celebration with bunting and flag-waving to greet the new arrivals. It is an arresting image to make visitors feel that they have arrived somewhere fun, welcoming and memorable."

Blake, who illustrated Dahl classics such as The Twits and Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, was chosen because he was interested in a proposal to open a Museum of Illustration somewhere on the redevelopment site.

Richard Oseley quotes Blake in the Camden New Journal. He said: “It’s a wonderful opportunity to be able to work on this exciting project, and see my drawings reproduced on such a huge scale.
“We hope it will give travellers a cheerful welcome to London as they arrive at St Pancras International.”

See article from The Independent for the full story

Henry Moore Sculpture Exhibition

The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is hosting a landmark exhibition of monumental works by Henry Moore. 28 large-scale bronze sculptures have been exhibited throughout Kew’s unique 300 acre World Heritage Site. There have been previous exhibitions of Moore’s work in London but never on such a scale and in a landscape setting. 

Each site at Kew has been specifically selected to ensure maximum impact complementing and enhancing the 300 year old gardens. The sculptures sit amongst the great glasshouses, majestic trees and glorious gardens of the site.

Sculpting was Moore’s primary interest and he saw the world around him as an ever-changing inspirational display of natural forms. His work includes themes of reclining figures, mother and child,
organic forms, interlocking forms and internal/external forms.
The Princess of Wales conservatory shows a film about Moore and The Nash conservatory houses an exhibition of sketches, plaster models and objects used to create the wonderful work.

The Exhibition began in September and runs until the end of March 2008.

 

'Large Reclining' Figure' 1984

'Double Oval' by The Orangerie

Andy Warhol's Liz Taylor sold for $23m

An Andy Warhol painting of actress Dame Elizabeth Taylor has been sold for $23.7m (£11.4m) at an auction in New York.

The 1963 portrait, called Liz, was bought by an anonymous bidder.

The painting had been expected to fetch more than $25m (£11.9m) at Christie's.

The auction house refused to confirm reports that it was British actor Hugh Grant who sold the portrait after he bought it in 2001 for a reported $15m.

Warhol created 12 portraits of the actress as she recovered from illness.

"I started those a long time ago when she was so sick and everybody said she was going to die," the artist said at the time.

"Now I am doing them all over, putting bright colours on her lips and eyes."

In May a painting of a car crash sold for $71.7m (£36.3m), a record for a Warhol piece. The 1963 painting, Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I), depicted an overturned car on fire.

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