The uninterrupted desire to experiment was, perhaps, Pablo Picasso’s greatest attribute. A changemaker de facto - before his sixtieth birthday, the artist had already secured his name in history as a revolutionary force. Having evolved through several periods of art, beginning with the co-founding of Cubism and onward through tireless decades of dimensional shifts on canvas, Picasso delivered unrivaled modernity through iconic strokes of monumental proportion. Unsurprisingly, his later years were no different, and based on the over 3,500 fired clay works he would create from 1946-1973, he was just getting started. Picasso painting a piece of his pottery in his Vallauris studio. (Photo by Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images) FINDING CLAY In 1946, while visiting the small coastal town of Vallauris in the south of France, Pablo Pic...Read More

Art lots to keep your eye on in Pook & Pook, Inc.'s May 21, 2021 sale include several paintings by members of The Philadelphia Ten artist group. Lot 20, Maude Drein Bryant oil on canvas country landscape. Estimate $2,000-$3,000 The Philadelphia Ten was the brainchild of ten women painters who had all trained in Philadelphia at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (now the Moore College of Art and Design) and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in the early 1900’s. The group exhibited sixty-five times between 1917 and 1945. Over the years, composition of The Ten included twenty-three painters and seven sculptors, but their annual shows were mostly limited to ten artists whose work was shown in depth. Individual styles ranged within the group, but the greatest influence was that of Pennsylvania Impressionism, and the predominant ...Read More

Mesmerized by the magnificence of the jade stone, the Chinese Qianlong Emperor collected the most exquisite and exclusive assortment of jade objects of the Qing dynasty period. Legend tells that the emperor composed more than 800 songs and verses dedicated to his jadeite treasures. Scribes carved this literature onto jade artifacts, as was the practice with many Chinese rulers. Qianlong’s obsession with jade sparked a passion for jade jewelry around the world. After raw jade imports from Burma increased, this precious stone became a cultural passion among Chinese royal and noble families. A gigantic jade sculpture carved in the 18th century CE is a classic example of how the jade stone captured the Chinese imagination. Yu the Great Taming the Waters, which depicts a Qing landscape, required over seven years of work and illustrates China’s r...Read More

PHILADELPHIA, PA — Freeman’s is pleased to present Sylvia Shaw Judson’s Bird Girl, the highlight of its June 6 American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. This fresh-to-market work is one of the most recognizable American sculptures to ever appear at auction. Conceived in 1936 by the Chicago-based Judson, Bird Girl was cast by Roman Bronze Works in New York. One of four extant original bronzes, this iconic image is immediately familiar from Jack Leigh's haunting photograph used as the cover of John Berendt’s 1994 best-selling novel Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Sylvia Shaw Judson's, Bird Girl, Bronze. Coming up in Freeman's June 6 American Art and Pennsylvania Impressionists auction. This life-size statue of a nine-year-old girl holding a pair of shallow bowls in outstretched arms has been in the same private family col...Read More

Behind each maker is a method - a ritual pathway sought out to follow and propel their production forward: from the precise tools they’ve collected to the spaces they inhabit, right down to the very way they fix their coffee in the morning. Handmade objects come with layered origins, intertwined with the choices of the artisans who create them: sourcing, assembly, consumption, packaging - wash, rinse, repeat. Now, more than ever, the way objects are made, bought and sold, are having real time implications on the environment. Climate change is upon us and we must start considering how we partake or refrain. Perhaps, with the reinforcement of positive, creative examples we can better mimic the methods of the artisans who’ve taken their green methods and traced them down right to the last scrap and seed. From April 24 - May 1, Bidsquare is ple...Read More

Daniel Garber’s painting is an idyllic moment of country life, a milk wagon on a rustic lane. The view across the road from his house, in fact. Peaceful, but this tranquility belies the effort and technical mastery from which it was born. Garber worked both as a plein air and studio painter, starting a work outdoors, continuing to paint in the studio, slowly building up the detailed surface, and then returning to the outdoors at the right time of year and day, as long as conditions held. He would rework a painting until he was satisfied, even if it took months. Lot 85, Daniel Garber, oil on canvas titled The Mary Maxwell House (Milk Wagon), signed lower left, retaining its original Harer frame. Estimate $200,000-$300,000. Coming up at Pook & Pook, Inc, Bud & Judy Newman Collection on April 23. Pennsylvania artist and art dealer Peter Rudolp...Read More

With the Asia Week events just wrapping up in the USA, there are still a few more important Asian Art themed auctions coming up on the block. Freeman’s in Philadelphia will be offering their important Asian Arts sale on April 8th. Historically, the Freeman’s Asian art auctions features hundreds of lots of artwork from China, Japan, Korea, the Himalayan region and India. This time, they chose to have a much smaller sale consisting of only 138 lots, thus emphasizing quality over quantity. Their focus is specifically in the categories of Chinese porcelain and ceramics, furniture, paintings and textiles. Lot 12, A Chinese carved and underglaze red "Dragons and Waves" vase, Meiping Yongzheng six-character mark and of the period. Estimate $150,000-$250,000 The star of the auction is lot 12, a Chinese carved and underglaze red “Dragons and Waves” ...Read More

For the second year in a row, Bidsquare is proud to virtually host the MassArt Auction - a highly anticipated, annual event made fully accessible, online, through two main events: the Live Auction, which will be held on Saturday, April 10 at 8:00 p.m. ET, and will once again be conducted by Karen Keane, auctioneer and CEO of Skinner, as well as, a Timed/Silent Auction catalog, with online bidding open from March 27th-April 11, 12pm EDT. Both the Live and Timed Auctions will be exclusively available via Bidsquare, register here to participate. For over three decades, the MassArt Auction has served as the College's largest annual fundraiser and New England's biggest annual contemporary art auction. This signature event features an extraordinary array of artwork that continues to attract the most discerning collectors. MassArt Auction proceeds...Read More

As we end March heading further into Spring, we notice the bright sun, the smell of fresh air, and the birds chirping in the morning. The end of March also gives us a great opportunity to review the first quarter of 2021 from a collectible economist’s standpoint. If you refer back to our Top Picks article from October 2020, Pop Culture had already been setting records compared to years prior through the pandemic. When compared to the present day, October, 2020 was in some cases a 50% clearance sale in comparison to the prices we’re realizing today. The market is strong, more buyers enter the market every day while supply only goes down. We’re living in the time of cryptocurrency, NFT digital art, and people are seeking alternative investments more and more. Comics, trading cards, toys, video games, fine art, watches, automobiles - you name ...Read More

“A good fashion is a daring fashion, not a polite one." — Daisy Fellowes These words of the famous French socialite and fashion icon can describe the life and times of Elsa Schiaparelli, the Italian fashion designer who Daisy Fellowes once patronized. Elsa Schiaparelli, a Surrealist and avant-garde fashion designer, was path-breaking in more ways than one.  Elsa Schiaparelli was an intuitively imaginative designer and a noteworthy fashion personality, especially through the first and second World Wars. Paul Poiret greatly influenced Schiaparelli in the initial days of her fashion journey. Poiret was known for crafting styles that promoted freedom of movement among modern and forward-looking women. Poiret inspired Schiaparelli to launch her Maison in the 1920s.      George Hoyningen-Huené, Portrait of Elsa Schiaparelli, 1932, Hoyningen-Huené...Read More