Metropolitan Museum Acquires Peter Doig Painting, and a Meteorite Sells at Auction
Plus, the Saint Louise Art Museums acquires a Kehinde Wiley painting, and the V&A acquires Ivan Kyncl's theatre photography archive.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art has acquired Peter Doig’s landscape painting “Two Trees” (2017). The painting was a gift from George Economou in celebration of the Met’s 150th anniversary next year. “Peter Doig is one of the most important figurative painters of our time,” said Sheena Wagstaff, the Leonard A. Lauder Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art. “‘Two Trees’ is a masterpiece, as well as a watershed work in the artist’s oeuvre. It poses provocative questions about modern life, even as it sits within a lineage of peers such as Goya or Munch, who also touched on the rawness of contemporary life with distinctive painterly invention and strange beauty.”
The Saint Louis Museum of Art has purchased Kehinde Wiley’s large-scale painting “Charles I,” based on a 1633 portrait of the English king by Daniel Martensz. In Wiley’s painting, the subject depicted has been changed from male to female, featuring Ashley Cooper, a St. Louisan standing in the same pose as Charles I in the original Dutch painting. Wiley’s work was on display in the exhibition Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis. Although the painting is not currently on view, it will be installed in the contemporary galleries this summer.
The Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) has acquired the theatre photography archive of Ivan Kyncl, given to the museum by Kyncl’s family. The Ivan Kyncl Theatrical Archive includes 100,000 negatives and several prints, and a selection of works are now on display in the new exhibition Ivan Kyncl: In the Minute. [via email announcement]
Christie’s Deep Impact: Martian, Lunar and other Rare Meteorites online sale brought in a total of $801,125 from February 6–14. The sale’s top lot, a massive sculpture from outer space of an aesthetic campo del cielo iron meteorite, sold for $275,000.
Christie’s The Art of China: Including Private English Collections online sale brought in a total of £331,000 (~$432,000) from February 14–21. The sale’s top lots include a bronze censer and cover (Ming Dynasty, 17th century), a set of four small lac-burgaute “narrative” dishes (Kangxi Period, 1622–1722), a group of seven “robin’s egg” blue-glazed vessels (19th–20th century), and a carved Longquan celadon vase (Ming Dynastu, 15th–16th century), which sold for £12,500 (~$16,000) each.
Christie’s Bibliothèque Marc Litzler sale in Paris brought in a total of €4,401,375 (~$4,989,000) on February 20. The sale’s top lot, Mattisse’s “Paris, Tériade, 1947” sold for €298,000 (~$338,000).
