BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART ACQUIRES 23 MAJOR WORKS AND A LUCIAN FREUD REACHES $29.4M AT SOTHEBY’S

Plus a Martin Kippenberger sold for $11 million at Phillips, and the Saint Louis Art Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art were jointly gifted Native and South American textiles.

Benjamin Sutton

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, “Dwell: Aso Ebi” (2017), the Baltimore Museum of Art, purchased as the gift of Nancy L. Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff, Baltimore, in Honor of Kristen Hileman (courtesy the Baltimore Museum of Art)

Transactions is a weekly collection of sales, acquisitions, and other deals. Subscribe to receive these posts as part of the weekly Art Movements newsletter.

The Baltimore Museum of Art used the proceeds from recent auctions of deaccessioned works to acquire seven pieces for its collection in part or in full. It announced those acquisitions, along with the addition of another 16 works, on Tuesday. The acquisition includes works by Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Amy Sherald, Jack Whitten, Wangechi Mutu, Yun-Fei Ji, Adam Pendleton, Kenji Nakahashi, Chuck Ramirez, and more.

“Museums are entering a new era of heightened consciousness of incomplete histories and biases that must be addressed,” Chris Bedford, the Baltimore Museum of Art’s director, said in a statement. “In acquiring works by the most significant black and female artists working in the United States, as well as pivotal works from Korea, China, Mexico, and Japan, we hope to not only methodically address previous omissions in our collection but also broaden the canon and historical narrative told through art.”

Christie’s day sale of post-war to contemporary art in London brought in a total of £12,779,625 (~$16.7 million) today. The sale’s top lot, a 1957 painting by Pierre Soulages, fetched £2,888,750 (~$3.8 million).

The contemporary art evening auction at Sotheby’s in London on Tuesday night brought in a total of £110,239,550 (~$144 million). The sale’s biggest lots included two works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, a 1998 landscape painting by David Hockney, and the evening’s top lot was the Lucian Freud nude painting “Portrait on a White Cover” (2002–03), which surpassed its pre-sale estimate to hammer down at £22,464,300 (~$29.4 million).

The 20th century and contemporary art evening and day sales at Phillips auction house in London on June 26 and 27 brought in a total of £45,173,313 ($59,469,184). The top lot was a painting by Martin Kippenberger titled “Ohne Titel (aus der Serie Das Floß der Medusa)” (1996), which sold for £8,446,500 ($11,092,788).

Swann Auction Galleries‘ sale of revolutionary and president Americana from the collection of William Wheeler III brought in a total of $528,985. A letter Andrew Jackson sent to his adopted son Andrew Jr. sold for $9,375.

Margaret Shelton, “Mount Rundle from Harvey Heights, Canmore” (1978), watercolor on paper, from the University of Lethbridge Art Collection; gift of Dr. Margaret (Marmie) Perkins Hess, 2017 (courtesy University of Lethbridge Art Collection)

The University of Lethbridge Art Gallery received a bequest of more than 1,000 works from the estate of Dr. Margaret Perkins. The gift includes more than 400 works by Indigenous artists, particularly Inuit and Northwest Coast First Nations artists.

Serape, early 19th century, Mexican, wool, and dye, 56 1/2 x 93 in, Saint Louis Art Museum, gift of Elissa and Paul Cahn (courtesy Saint Louis Art Museum)

The Saint Louis Art Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art were gifted a number of Native American and South American textiles and art works from Paul and Elissa Cahn, two St. Louis-based collectors. The St. Louis Art Museum received 46 Diné (Navajo) works that include blankets, weavings, rugs, and other art pieces. Most of these works date from between 1868 and 1900. The museum also received Pueblo and Mexican textiles, which include blankets and garments worn and woven by indigenous Aymara peoples. These textiles date from the 16th to mid-19th centuries. An exhibition titled Southwest Weavings: 800 Years of Artistic Exchange is set to open in late 2018. The Cahns gifted the Minneapolis Institute of Art with 44 Native American textiles. The museum also received 14 watercolors made in 1904 depicting the textiles in the Cahns’ collection.

Salvador Dalí and Edward James, "Mae West Lips" sofa (1938) (courtesy the Victoria & Albert Museum)

The Victoria & Albert Museum acquired one of Salvador Dalí and Edward James‘s famous “Mae West Lips” sofas.

 

Loretta Bennett, "Forever (for Old Lady Sally)" (2007), color softground etching with aquatint and spitebite aquatint on Somerset white textured paper; image size: 20.5 x 36 in; paper size: 29.5 x 44 in; edition of 50 (courtesy the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts)

The Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts launched a partnership with the Paulson Fontaine Press and announced the acquisition of nearly 40 works including pieces by Huma Bhabha, Violet Oakley, Loretta Bennett, and Kerry James Marshall.

Berlin’s Bode Museum restituted “Three Angels with the Christ Child,” a wooden sculpture from about 1430, to the heirs of a Jewish couple who fled the Nazi regime. The heirs agreed to sell the work back to the museum for an undisclosed price.

https://hyperallergic.com/448826/baltimore-museum-of-art-acquires-23-major-works-lucian-freud-reaches-29-4m-at-