Constable Discovered In Japan

A previously unknown painting by Constable has been discovered in a Japanese collector's store. The oil sketch of Dedham Vale in Suffolk, where John Constable grew up, is expected to fetch around £120,000 at auction at Sotheby's. The landscape was completed in about 1810 and was given to one of Constable's friends before being sold to a Japanese collector. It was finally confirmed as a work by Constable after extensive cleaning. "After cleaning, Constable's hand was immediately apparent, and soon after the work was fully accepted by Graham Reynolds - author and specialist on Constable's work."'Dedham Vale' is due to go under the hammer at Sotheby's on New Bond Street on 24 November.
Irish Art

Bomber's Home Office Art

The Home Office has paid out £375 for a painting created by convicted nail bomber Matthew Williams. Williams is currently serving five life sentences for attempting to set off a nail bomb in a busy Liverpool street. He was also behind a prison riot that nearly led to the end of the career of Conservative politician Michael Howard and admitted to other disturbing behaviour such as trying to poison his own family and acts of arson. The painting depicts a London man looking at his surroundings and has already won the Koestler Art Prize, an award that recognises prison artists. The Home Office said: "We strongly believe in rehabilitating all offenders including those guilty of very, very serious crimes."
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Irish Art

Toulouse-Lautrec Smashes Record

It was a big night for Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Christie’s New York, when the art auction house sold the artist’s painting of a laundress for a record-smashing $22,416,000 yesterday. The Laundress, the most expensive painting of the annual autumn art auctions at Christie’s and rival Sotheby’s, also achieved the highest art price at the first of two weeks of critical sales. The moving portrait of a local woman gazing out a window from 1886-87 easily eclipsed the old record for Toulouse-Lautrec of $14,522,500, set in 1997.
Irish Art

£7 Million Rembrandt Fake?

A £7 million masterpiece by Rembrandt could be a fake, an art expert has claimed. Self Portrait As A Young Man, dating from 1629, has hung in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery for the past 50 years. But renowned Rembrandt art expert professor Ernst van de Wetering has claimed the artwork was probably painted by a pupil in his workshop and not by the Dutch master at all. He described the painting as "primitive" and said it shows "a fundamentally different pictorial approach from that of Rembrandt". The professor, Rembrandt Research Programme chairman, has made the claims in his latest book, A Corpus of Rembrandt Paintings Volume IV.
Irish Art

Hirst's Art Voted No 1

Damien Hirst, the bad boy of British art famous for pickling a shark, has topped ArtReview's "Power 100" list. The 40 year old artist leapt 77 places to number one spot on the annual ranking published by the influential art monthly. Hirst has had a phenomenal year. Even if his new art work shown this year in London and New York was critically panned, it hasn't seemed to matter - no other living artist sold for more during the past year. Hirst hit the headlines late in 2004 by fetching £11 million in under two hours at a sale of his art, and months later his iconic 1991 work featuring a shark suspended in formaldehyde sold for around £7 million. The only other artist in ArtReview's Top 10 is American Bruce Nauman at number nine, who in contrast to Hirst leads his life away from the limelight on a horse ranch in New Mexico.
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Irish Art

Still An Enigma

Tracey Emin has forged her artistic career on making a public display of the most shocking and personal elements of her life story. Thanks to her embroidered tent, Everyone I've Ever Slept With, we know more about her sex life than we do about most of our friends. She has made exhibitions out of the sexual abuse she suffered as a child, her abortion and her darkest feelings of loss, self-doubt and betrayal. Even her grubby sheets have been on display at the Tate. How much more do we want or need to know? Those who do want more detail on all the best-known Emin myths won't be disappointed by Strangeland. It follows her down the dark alley where she was raped, aged 13. It details with some relish her stinking flat, her alcoholism and her wanking habits. And it describes, movingly, how she was left holding a dead foetus in the back of a London taxi five days after her botched abortion. But the real revelations here are of a gentler kind. While her best-known art has shown Emin at her most confrontational, in her writing, we meet a calmer, more sensitive soul. (Strangeland by Tracey Emin Sceptre £14.99)
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Irish Art

Picasso's Vase Fetches Thousands

Those who have always wanted to own a Picasso, but couldn't afford the hefty price tag for his artwork, had the chance to purchase more affordable art items yesterday. Sotheby's auction house held a sale of hundreds of Picasso pieces, including art works such as Tripode, a large ceramic vase, and 'Visage aux yeux rieurs', which was estimated to sell for between £5,000 and £6,000. Measuring 75.5 centimetres high, the three-legged Tripode vase features a face painted onto the body of the vase, and the largest known art ceramic piece sold in a London auction for £33,600. Picasso crafted his pottery between 1947 and 1953, making over 600 works in his lifetime. The pieces were mainly produced by craftsman who were commissioned by Picasso to give shape to his ideas. Tripode dates from 1951 and is one of his earliest works. There are currently 75 known copies of the vase.
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Irish Art