Art reaches new heights

David | Art news, Featured, Jack Vettriano blog, Wall Art Gallery | June 6, 2008

Andre Zlattinger is a senior director in the British paintings department at Sotheby’s and, as head of Scottish sales, handled record-breaking auctions such as Jack Vettriano’s The Singing Butler. In his spare time he is a keen mountaineer and last month he was on the edge of Everest’s “death zone”, preparing to strike out for the mountain’s summit on an expedition to raise funds for the hospital where his mother was treated for cancer before her death.He’s a regular visitor to the Highlands and Islands, and has also climbed in the Alps, the Andes and the Himalayas. On 1 May, Sotheby’s latest Edinburgh sale netted more than £4 million. From the Everest base camp, a delighted Mr Zlattinger said it showed the “real depth” of the Scottish market and “renewed interest in the Glasgow school“. He will be back in Scotland for his firm’s sale at Gleneagles in August.

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Painting by Glasgow Boy is found again

David | Art news | June 4, 2008

A LOST painting by one of the world-famous Glasgow Boys is for sale after being discovered in a small American town by an Edinburgh art gallery director .

The rare painting by Edward Walton was discovered on an art auction website by gallery director Emma Walsh. It is now part of a new exhibition at her Bourne Fine Art Gallery in Dundas Street, priced £95,000.

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Beryl Cook's Big Olives, Little Olives and the Dolphin

David | Art news, Beryl Cook news, Featured, Wall Art Gallery | June 2, 2008

Friends of artist Beryl Cook are planning a wake at the Dolphin , the pub that inspired many of her works.
Cook, who died aged 81 on Wednesday, was a regular at the Dolphin on Plymouth’s Barbican.

Dolphin landlord Billy Holmes said: “Me and a friend were performing cartwheels in the pub. I told Beryl about it one night and the next thing I knew, she’d painted it.”

The pub’s characters were the subject of many of her paintings, several of which line its walls.
Cook’s agent Robbie Hodges said: “I still think of her more as a friend than someone who was my business. She was very shy and unassuming, which is what people in here respected about her.Big Olives, Little Olives

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Banksy's Fragile Silence on the move for £500,000

David | Art news, banksy news, Featured, Wall Art Gallery | June 1, 2008

Banksy‘s latest work to go on sale is likely to move quickly – it’s on the side of a lorry trailer. Fragile Silence is likely to sell for £500,000. Owners Maeve Neal and Nathan Welland have known Banksy for 12 years .Banksy completed the work before the Glastonbury festival in 1998 .The couple sell tents at festivals all over the UK. The trailer has 2 bedrooms and is refrigerated .Norfolk dealer William Burroughs is selling the work. A wall featuring Banksy‘s work sold for £208,000 and a painting Space Girl and Bird , sold for £288,000

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A PAINTING bought in a market for 50p has been sold for £35,000 at auction.

David | Art news, Featured, Wall Art Gallery | May 29, 2008

The work, Chopping Logs Outside A Snow Covered Cabin, was found buried under junk in Glasgow’s Barras market 30 years ago.

But the piece, by Cornelius Krieghoff, was expected to fetch 100,000 times its original price when it goes under the hammer later this month.

The painting’s owner, who wants to remain anonymous, had no idea of its worth. He bought it for “10 bob” – because he liked it.

He said: “I often browse through the Barras and bought the painting because it was a great picture.

“I am surprised and delighted that my find has turned out to be such a worthwhile investment.”

The retired owner, who now lives abroad, added the Krieghoff to his collection of favourite paintings and thought nothing more about it until he began researching different artists and realised it was an original.

He took it to experts who valued it between £30,000 and £50,000.

Amsterdam-born Krieghoff, who died in 1872 at the age of 56, made his name painting Canadian landscapes and life outdoors, particularly in winter

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Beryl Cook dies , aged 81

David | Art news, Beryl Cook news, Featured | May 28, 2008

Painter Beryl Cook has died , aged 81. She has been ill for some time.She died peacefully at her home in Plymouth on Wednesday with her husband and family at her side. She leaves behind a legacy of a wide range of paintings in her own unique style. Beryl Cook was born between the two world wars, she eventually left Kendrick School in Reading at the age of 15, where she went to secretarial school and then into an insurance office. After moving to London and then Hampton, she eventually married her next door neighbour from Reading, John Cook. He was an officer in the Merchant Navy and after he left the sea in 1956, they bought a pub for a year before John took a job in Southern Rhodesia with a motor company.

Beryl Cook was born between the two world wars, she eventually left Kendrick School in Reading at the age of 15, where she went to secretarial school and then into an insurance office. After moving to London and then Hampton, she eventually married her next door neighbour from Reading, John Cook. He was an officer in the Merchant Navy and after he left the sea in 1956, they bought a pub for a year before John took a job in Southern Rhodesia with a motor company. ” target=”_self”>Beryl Cook bought their young son a box of watercolours, and when showing him how to use it, she decided that she herself quite enjoyed painting. John subsequently bought her a child’s painting set for her birthday and it was with this that she produced her first significant work, a half-length portrait of a dark-skinned lady with a vacant expression and large drooping breasts. It was aptly named ‘Hangover’ by Beryl’s husband

BBC – Beryl Cook news

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Banksy not pursued by graffiti police

David | Art news, banksy news, Wall Art Gallery | May 27, 2008

Bristol is the first city in the country to get a police team dedicated to eradicating graffiti and dealing with the so-called “artists”. However Bristol’s most famous tagger Banksy seems to be exempt from prosecution

Undercover officers are working round the clock to bring to book “taggers”

The fact that officials are not removing art by the notorious spray painter Banksy from buildings around the city is sending out the wrong message, police say.

They are also concerned that in spite of scores of spray-can vandals being arrested and put before the courts in recent months, not one has been sent to jail.

Some taggers, so-called because they daub their unique name tag on buildings and walls, are responsible for hundreds of acts of vandalism each.

One of the most prolific to appear in court was Daniel Tyndale, 21, of Fishponds Road, who was given a five-year Asbo, a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years and 300 hours of unpaid work in the community.

He admitted tagging 350 buildings, including a police station, the listed Bristol University psychology building and the Polish Church in Cheltenham Road.

He had a number of tags, including “dotcom”, “norm” and “planet” and targeted public car parks as well as private homes and vehicles, and even tagged a law firm outside the Crown Court. He alone was responsible for £1 million of damage, police estimated.

PC Ali Ross, who heads up the undercover graffiti team said: ” It’s about getting respect for their name around the world. They will spend a lot of time perfecting their style and the fact that Banksy’s work is being allowed to remain on buildings around Bristol is causing us a few problems.”

Bristol City Council refused to scrub off Banksy’s controversial painting of a man fleeing his lover’s bedroom daubed on the side of a Grade II listed building in Park Street.

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Sweet Bird of Youth by Jack Vettriano

David | Art news, Featured, Jack Vettriano blog, Limited edition prints, Secondary art market | May 26, 2008

Sweet Bird of Youth is unique among Jack Vettriano prints because it has been an open and a limited edition print . Normally an image either one or the other . Sweet Bird of Youth was published as a limited edition lithograph by Jack Vettriano in one of his first sets of limited editions . The print is still popular in both formats . This week also saw the unveiling of Vettriano’s newest work based on the theme of the Monaco Grand Prix 1971 .Former world champion racing driver Sir Jackie Stewart has said it was a “great honour” to be painted by artist Jack Vettriano.
Vettriano, one of the world’s best selling artists, has completed a new series of three pictures featuring Sir Jackie and his wife Helen. The triptych of paintings tell the story of the Scottish racing driver’s third victory at the Monaco grand prix in 1971.
The pictures, titled Tension, Timing, Triumph – Monaco 1971, were unveiled by Prince Albert at a reception in Monaco on Wednesday.

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Sue Howells crowned Britain's best selling artist

David | Art news, Wall Art Gallery | May 21, 2008

Artist Sue Howells has been named the best selling published artist in Britain by the International Arts and Framing Industry Annual Awards in Bristol.
Winners from previous years include best selling artists Beryl Cook and Jack Vettriano, who have gone on to become massive successes in the art scene .
Sue is inspired by artists such as LS Lowry, John and Paul Nash and Auguste Macke.
Sue said: “It was just like an Oscar or Bafta event with gold envelopes and lots of build up.”
She has often been in the top ten of the “art charts” published by leading art magazine Art Business Today.
“Nothing in my pictures is real, everything is off-kilter, which generates energy and seems to appeal,” said Sue from her studio in Harborne .
60-year-old Sue took up art classes at the local adult education centre as a hobby. Best selling art

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Thatcher portrait provokes controversy

David | Art news, Wall Art Gallery | May 21, 2008

A tinplate portrait of Baroness Thatcher has divided politicians after it was unveiled at the home of the Welsh assembly in Cardiff.
The work by artist Dylan Hammond will sit alongside one of Labour figure Aneurin Bevan for three months.
Mr Hammond said both politicians had had influence on Welsh life and it was “up to people how they respond”.
But one Plaid Cymru assembly member called the Thatcher portrait’s location “an insult” to the people of Wales.
Each portrait, measuring 4.3m x 3m (14ft x 9ft 10in), hangs against the £67m Senedd building’s glass facade so that it can be seen inside and outside.
Mr Hammond, who is based in Cardiff, said he put the founder of the NHS and the former Conservative prime minister together because “in a way, they represent a kind of polarity in a spectrum of political approach”. add your comments in the art forum

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