Amsterdam Sauer. "Fireworks necklace"

Amsterdam Sauer. "Fireworks necklace"

Somptueux collier de chien en or gris et or jaune en fils entremélés formant une résille, sertie de diamants. Poids total des diamants : 29.78 cts - Poids brut : 104 g. Estimation 50 000 - 70 000 €

Note: Designer Bialice Duarte pour Amsterdam Sauer, qui a gagné avec ce collier le prix De Beers Diamonds International Awards en 2000.Dans son coffret. Avec son certificat

ARTCURIAL. Hôtel Hermitage, Monte-Carlo. 27 juil. 2009 15:00. Me François Tajan. www.artcurial.com

Jules Roger Sauer, a French born from Alsace-Loraine, immigrated to Brazil, alone, in 1939, when he was just 18 years old. With a minimal start-up capital of approximately ten thousand dollars, Jules founded his company in 1941 . He named it Amsterdam Limited. The city of Amsterdam, Holland was the world’s benchmark for excellence in the cutting and trading of diamonds. Sauer also had wonderful memories and a tremendous admiration for the Dutch people. Jules married Zilda in 1950 and the couple decided to move to Rio de Janeiro, the capital and the financial center of Brazil. There, the Sauer added jewelry manufacturing to the company’s list of business activities. Jules and Zilda built Amsterdam Sauer into the only 100% vertically integrated Brazilian company. From mining to retailing, Amsterdam Sauer controls every step of the jewelry production - never losing the focus on quality. Due to this precise expertise the company consistently displayed in the jewelry industry, it earned international recognition through its global clientele and various prestigious industry awards.

Amsterdam Sauer was the first South American Jeweler to be awarded, in 1966, the coveted De Beers - Diamond International Awards, with the Constellation Ring. The company holds a total of three De Beers - Diamond International Awards. Amsterdam Sauer was awarded the first time the coveted De Beers Diamond-International Jewelry Design Award in 1966 and again in 1992. Today, it is the only South America jewelry company awarded three times this most important jewelry title. The latest achievement was the DIA-2000, held in Paris.

Anselm Kiefer prend la scène de Bastille

Anselm Kiefer created the staging, sets, costumes of a remarkable visual and musical performance. Photo: EFE/Arne Dedert.

PARIS.- With a view to celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Opéra Bastille, Gerard Mortier, Director of the Opéra national de Paris, wished to entrust the reknown artist Anselm Kiefer with the entire creation (staging, sets, costumes) of a remarkable visual and musical performance, in association with the composer Jörg Widmann, who wrote the music.

This exceptional commissioned work will showcase the policy Gerard Mortier has been conducting at the Opéra Bastille: that of opening lyric theatre up to other artistic disciplines. For this final production under his guidance, Gerard Mortier wanted to bring about a powerful and remarkable encounter combining stage, painting, sculpture and music. With this musical work of a new kind - one which is both an installation and a performance - he makes his mark by demonstrating the openness of the Opéra de Paris to the interdisciplinary richness of contemporary art. It is not by chance that Gerard Mortier called on the talent of Anselm Kiefer. Am Anfang (In the beginning) extends the artistic exploration the German artist initiated at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples in 2003 with Elektra. After his success with the public with Monumenta at the Grand Palais and the commissioning of a major work - Athanor – for the north staircase of the Louvre's Cour C arrée in 2007. Today, Anselm Kiefer takes possession of the stages and back stages of the Opéra Bastilla with an artistic elegy of (dis)proportionate measure. Conceived in close collaboration with Jörg Widmann, the German clarinettist and composer considered among the most brilliant of his generation, this determinedly contemporary new production reinvents the stage of lyric theatre.

With Am Anfang (In the Beginning), Anselm Kiefer creates a completely new work of art of international breadth, to forcefully take position in the history of art of music. An agnostic pageant, it describes the chaos and annihilation of peoples and civilizations – where the chosen people met with crushing defeat, mistreated by the great powers of the Fertile Crescent situated between Egypt and Mesopotamia. The "Fertile Crescent" is the name given to this region of the world, one of the cradles of our civilization lying between the Tigris and the Euphrates in those times when God seemed to be a vengeful, terrible and arbitrary deity of inexplicable cruelty. Job's complaints and accusations of the Divine therefore have echoes in the three Abrahamic religions.

Dust and debris lie at the foot of twelve stark towers in this haunting landscape. The entire set carries with it a sense of inconsolable despair, in which the words of Isaiah and Jeremy resound with a pitiless relevance to today. Because in the end, isn't History a perpetual series of new beginnings?

A metaphysical work transcended by theatrical illusion, it links the wandering of the Jewish people, incarnated by the Shekhina, to the annihilated ancient empires such as those of Babylon, Jericho, Persepolis, Nineveh...and to the ruins of post-war Germany symbolized by the "Trümmerfrauen", or rubble women, in the same cycle of end and new beginning.

A work, In the Beginning is a production which for the first time in the Opéra Bastille's history takes place on all its stages and back stages. Unimaginable perspectives open up before spectators from the main stage, creating a number of smaller spaces where various actions play themselves out, linked to each other by the words of the prophets and Jörg Widmann's music, the rich melody of which casts its spell. The music indeed provides an infinitely subtle accompaniment to what the artist has to say, such that the rubble of History, like the work of art itself - where all to come has already been faced - is only the beginning concealing the end it holds within itself.

Am Anfang (In the beginning) by Anselm Kiefer will be offered in seven exceptional performances from 7 to 14 July 2009 at the Opéra Bastille. The matinee of Tuesday, 14 July will be at no cost, as tradition requires.

AM ANFANG (AU COMMENCEMENT)

Am Anfang (Au commencement), du 7 au 14 juillet 2009  à l'Opéra Bastille - entrée de 5 à 30 euros. Pour célébrer le vingtième anniversaire de l’Opéra Bastille, Anselm Kiefer a créé une œuvre inédite, réalisation à la fois plastique, scénique et musicale. La fascinante musique de Jörg Widmann interprétée par l’Orchestre de l’Opéra anime ce gigantesque décor de décombres et de cendres. La voix d'une récitante et les acteurs qui l'entourent donnent corps aux récits des livres d’Isaïe et de Jérémie, à travers lesquels nous parvient – du commencement jusqu’à aujourd’hui - la mer toujours recommencée de l’Histoire de l’Humanité...

Peintre allemand, Anselm Kiefer est né en 1945 dans le Bade-Wurtemberg. Il vit et travaille au pied des Cévennes à Barjac dans le Gard. Après des études de droit, de langues et de littératures romanes, il bifurque pour se consacrer à la peinture. Il passe par l´Ecole des beaux-arts de Fribourg-en-Brisgau et poursuit sa formation à Düsseldorf auprès de Joseph Beuys.

Ses tableaux sont généralement monumentaux. On y relève notamment les "Dachboden-Bilde", "Au peintre inconnu", "Sulamith", les "Architectures d´argile et tableaux sidéraux", "Das Spiel ist aus", la série intitulée "La vie naît des plantes". L'œuvre d'Anselm Kiefer démarre sur une interrogation capitale: comment, après l'Holocauste, être un artiste qui s'inscrit dans la tradition allemande? Ce travail existentiel de mémoire - et de deuil - s'est élargi d'une quête spirituelle nourrie de grands mythes et de mystique kabbalistique. Pétri de culture, il mêle peinture, photographie, livres et sculptures. Fasciné par le judaïsme, Anselm Kiefer a, tout au long de son oeuvre, exploré le thème de la Kabbale avec la même insistance que celui de la germanité, du cosmos…

Son travail a fait l’objet de nombreuses expositions monographiques au Kunstmuseum de Wolfsburg, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, Hirshhorn Museum à Washington, Metropolitan Museum of Art. Une grande exposition a eu lieu au Grand Palais en 2007. Il a entre autres reçu le prestigieux Praemium Imperial Prize à Tokyo en 1999 et a été élu lauréat du Prix de la Paix par le Conseil de la fondation du Prix de la Paix des Libraires et Éditeurs allemands pour l’année 2008.

Jean François Spricigo @ Rencontre d'Arles, Prix de la Découverte

Jean François Spricigo, Sans titre 01

"J'ai découvert le travail de Jean-François Spricigo lors de son exposition à la Galerie Agathe Gaillard et j'ai été frappé par la qualité de son regard et le mystère qui s'impose dans ses images. Ce sont des photographies qui posent des questions, intriguent et surtout échappent à la mode actuelle et ont un accent, un ton, une vibration qui font que Jean-François Spricigo ne ressemble à aucun autre photographe de sa génération." Lucien Clergue

Jean-François Spricigo est né en 1979 à Tournai en Belgique. Il vit et travaille en Belgique et en France.
Il commence à photographier dès l’adolescence, ses images deviendront son carnet de voyage pour les années à venir.
Son travail photographique est découvert en 2003 par Antoine d’Agata et Christian Caujolle.
En 2004, Guy Jouaville présentera sa première exposition en France à la scène nationale du Parvis à Tarbes.
La série Silenzio est montrée à l’espace photographique Contretype à Bruxelles en septembre 2005, à cette occasion les éditions Yellow Now publient un catalogue.
En 2007, sa nouvelle exposition, Notturno, se tient au Botanique à Bruxelles.
Cette même année, la Bibliothèque Nationale Française acquiert quinze tirages pour sa collection.
Il présente la série Prelude en février 2008 à la galerie Agathe Gaillard et en avril à la Simonis Gallery à Varsovie.
Son travail a été primée par la Fondation belge de la Vocation, et également par l’Institut de France de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts.

Exposition présentée à la Grande Halle.  7 juillet > 13 septembre www.rencontres-arles.com

Darwin Family Portraits To Feature in Sotheby's Sale of Early British Paintings

Joseph Wright of Derby, Portrait of William Alvey Darwin (1726-1783)  is expected to bring £40,000-60,000. Photo: Sotheby's

LONDON.- In the anniversary year when interest in the life and work of Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) is as high as ever, Sotheby’s announced that it will offer for sale three exceptionally rare portraits of members of his family in its sale of Early British Paintings on Thursday, July 9, 2009. The three portraits depict Charles Darwin’s grandfather, the consultant and physician Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802); his great uncle, William Alvey Darwin (1726-1783) and also William’s wife, Jane Darwin (1746-1835) with their son, William Brown Darwin (1774-1841). All three paintings are the work of Joseph Wright of Derby, one of the foremost portrait artists of the day. The three works have never appeared at auction before, having been commissioned by William Alvey Darwin in the late 18th century and having since passed down through successive generations of William’s family. The group has a combined estimate of £290,000-410,000.

Joseph Wright of Derby, Portrait of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) is expected to bring £100,000-150,000. Photo: Sotheby's.

Portrait of Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) is expected to bring £100,000-150,000 and the sitter was one of the most famous men of the his day and is here portrayed by his friend Joseph Wright of Derby, one of the foremost portrait artists of the day. The sitter was born on the 12th December 1731 at Elston Hall, near Nottingham, the seventh child of Robert Darwin (1682–1754), a lawyer and his wife, Elizabeth née Hill, (1702–1797). He was sent to the Chesterfield School in 1741 and in 1750 became a student at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he studied medicine. He held the Exeter scholarship there and whilst a student travelled to London to attend the lectures of the surgeon William Hunter. He subsequently studied medicine in Edinburgh, then the major centre for medical education in Europe.

Darwin established his first medical practice in Nottingham in 1756 and soon moved to Lichfield, where his practice flourished. He married Mary Howard (b. 1740), the daughter of Penelope (née Foley) and Charles Howard, a Lichfield solicitor, in 1757. Mary died in 1770 leaving three surviving children, Charles, who died at the age of nineteen, Erasmus, who became a lawyer and Robert Waring who became a successful physician and father of Charles Darwin, the author of The Origin of the Species. Darwin later formed an attachment to a Mary Parker (1753–1820) with whom he had two illegitimate daughters, Susan and Mary Parker.

At the time this portrait was painted in 1770, Darwin's medical practice dominated his life. He travelled extensively to treat patients and maintained a lively medical correspondence, providing advice and reflecting on specific cases. Innovative in his treatments, he experimented with drugs (including digitalis), gases, and exercise regimes, as well as unsuccessfully attempting inoculation of his own children. He was concerned with illnesses of both the body and mind, with heredity and with broad public health issues, including improving nutrition and ventilation. A keen inventor, among his many mechanical contrivances was a new steering mechanism for carriages, a copying machine and even a mechanical bird. Botany also became an absorbing practical and theoretical interest for Darwin by the late 1770s. He constructed his own botanic garden outside Lichfield and undertook the translation of writings of the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778).

Wright was a friend of John Whitehurst, the Derby inventor, who was well known to Darwin, being a member of the 'Lunar' group. When Wright became unwell c. 1767, Whitehurst would have recommended him to consult Darwin and it is probable that Wright stayed at Darwin's house in Lichfield on several occasions in the late 1760s and early 1770s. This portrait is one of two versions of Darwin portrayed in his role as consultant and physician dated 1770, the second is now on permanent loan to Darwin College, Cambridge (a copy which is not certainly original was acquired by the National Portrait Gallery in 1859). Darwin's friend Anna Seward recalled that the present portrait of Darwin was a good likeness, 'Dr Darwin sat to Mr. Wright. That was a simple contemplative portrait, of the most perfect resemblance.'[i] And indeed here Darwin is portrayed contemplating the viewer as if momentarily pausing during a consultation.

Darwin and Wright's paths continued to cross throughout their subsequent careers. It is possible that Wright introduced Darwin to his second wife Mrs Elizabeth Pole (1747–1832), widow of Colonel Edward Sacheverell Pole, who had sat to Wright and subsequently consulted Darwin on medical matters. A true icon of the Age of Enlightenment, Darwin was a founder of provincial scientific societies whose aim was to forward the progress of knowledge in these fields. They included the Botanical Society at Lichfield, the Lunar Society of Birmingham, and the Derby Philosophical Society. Wright was not invited to join any of these societies but he painted the portraits of members of both Societies and was clearly influenced by their revolutionary and enlightened ideals on topics from manufacture to slavery. Darwin was clearly also captivated by the artistic talents of Wright and in his later poetry he makes reference to the skills and attributes of Wrights landscapes. Darwin sat to Wright again in c. 1792-3 (Private Collection) seated, as a gentleman of letters, contemplating the middle distance with a quill in his hand.

In 1801 Darwin became seriously ill from pneumonia and retired from medical practice. Although he continued work on poetic works he and his family moved out of Derby in March 1802 to Breadsall Priory, which had been purchased by his son Erasmus. Darwin died there, apparently of a lung infection, on 18 April 1802 and was buried in Breadsall church.

Joseph Wright of Derby, Portrait of Jane Darwin (1746-1835) and Her Son William Brown Darwin (1774-1841) has an estimate of £150,000-200,000

Portrait of Jane Darwin (1746-1835) and Her Son William Brown Darwin (1774 1841) has an estimate of £150,000-200,000 while Portrait of William Alvey Darwin (1726-1783) is estimated at £40,000-60,000.

Jane Darwin was the daughter of Joseph Brown of Balderton, Nottinghamshire. She married William Alvey Darwin on the 28th October 1772. Her son William was born on the 12th February 1774 and died on the 10th June 1841. On the 22nd May 1817 he married Elizabeth daughter of Nicholas de St. Croix.

Following four years in Rome, Wright decided his best chance of success lay in filling the place left vacant in Bath since Gainsborough had left the town and settled in London. Wright moved to Bath with his family that autumn and only remained there for two years. He returned to Derby in the September of 1775 and the following year he painted the portraits of William Alvey Darwin (see first image) and Jane and her son.

At this time Wright had developed a close friendship with William Hayley and his friend the portrait artist George Romney. Romney's influence can be seen in this portrait which appears to owe part of its inspiration to Romney's portrait of Mrs Cawardine and her Child painted in the previous year. Both portraits acknowledge a debt to Raphael's Madonna della Sedia (Pitti Palace, Florence).

George Romney, Portrait of Mrs. Anne Carwardine and her eldest son, Thomas, 1775, Oil on Canvas. Estimate 200,000—300,000 GBP. Lot sold 408,800 GBP. Sotheby's London: Thursday, November 27, 2003 [Lot 9] Important British Pictures. photo Sotheby's

Raphael.  Madonna della Sedia. 1512-1514. Oil on panel. Palazzo Pitti, Galleria Palatina, Florence, Italy 

[i] See A. Seward, Memoirs of the Life of Dr Darwin, 1804, p. 21

Andy Warhol, "Skull Polaroid", circa 1976

Andy Warhol, "Skull Polaroid", circa 1976

Original Polaroid of a skull painting. 4 x 4 in. (10 x 10 cm.) stamped on verso with the first and original estate stamp. Estimate: from $1,000 to $1,500

Provenance: From the Fred Hughes collection

Note: Andrew Warhola (1928 – 1987), known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker, was a leading figure in the Pop Art movement. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Warhol showed early artistic talent and studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. In 1949, he moved to New York City and began a successful career in magazine illustration and advertising. During the 1950s, he gained fame for his whimsical ink drawings of shoe advertisements. In 1952, the artist had his first individual show. His first group show at The Museum of Modern Art in 1956.

Appropriating images from popular culture, the 1960s was an extremely prolific decade. Warhol created many paintings that remain icons of 20th Century art, such as the Campbell's Soup Cans and Marilyns. Warhol also made several 16mm films which have become underground classics. In 1968, Valerie Solanis, founder and sole member of SCUM (Society for Cutting up Men) walked into Warhol's studio and shot him. The attack was nearly fatal. At the start of the 1970s, Warhol began publishing Interview magazine and renewed his focus on painting, he also published The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (from A to B and Back Again). Firmly established as a major 20th Century artist and international celebrity, Warhol exhibited his work extensively in museums and galleries around the world.

Warhol began the 1980s with the publication of POPism: The Warhol '60s. His paintings from the 1980s return to his first great theme of Pop. Warhol also engaged in a series of collaborations with younger artists, including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Francesco Clemente and Keith Haring. Following routine gall bladder surgery, Andy Warhol died February 22, 1987.

Artnet Auctions. Thursday, July 09, 2009, 2:00 PM EST www.artnet.com