Sister act
Joan Collins led a stellar cast at the London party in celebration of 'Jackie Collins – A Life in Chapters', an auction at Bonhams Los Angeles held over two days in May. Melanie Sykes, Shakira Caine and Nicky Haslam were among the celebrities playing Oscar-worthy support roles, alongside the family of the much-missed late novelist. Surrounded by some highlights from Jackie's extraordinary collection of art and jewellery – not least the larger-than-life characters of Beryl Cook's paintings and some leonine sculptures – the event was a fitting farewell for the woman who left Britain to become the epitome of Hollywood glamour.
Putting it into Perspex
Damien Hirst filled a 20cm³ Perspex box with medical waste; Grayson Perry put a golden teddy bear in another. These were key contributions to Cure³, a selling exhibition held at Bonhams' New Bond Street HQ in March in aid of the Cure Parkinson's Trust, for which 53 artists made work that fitted in the bespoke cubes. The event – devised by curatorial collective Artwise, in partnership with Bonhams and the David Ross Foundation – gathered artists such as Jonathan Yeo, Conrad Shawcross, Tony Bevan and Paul Huxley, all of whom saw their works snapped up. The top-priced box – featuring Peter Doig's sculpture of a lion and lighthouse – raised £40,000, contributing to a grand total of £230,000
Screen shot
To mark the 55th anniversary of her sudden death in the summer of 1962, Bonhams is offering 55 photographs of Marilyn Monroe from throughout her career – by the likes of Milton H Greene, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bert Stern and Elliott Erwitt. These include a selection from her days as a budding starlet, when still known as Norma Jeane Dougherty; the only portrait of her together with the Kennedy brothers, John F and Robert; a unique print of her Playboy magazine centrefold, signed by Hugh Hefner; and a set of informal portraits taken at home in California shortly before her death.
Sale: Modern & Contemporary Prints & Multiples, New York, 6 June
Enquiries: Laura Paterson
+1 (917) 206 1653
[email protected]
Hammer time
Franco Angeli (1935-88) was a key member of the 'Scuola di Piazza del Popolo', Italy's counterpart to American Pop Art. The group took its name from the square in Rome where Angeli would gather with fellow artists Mario Schifano, Tano Festa, Giosetta Fioroni, Francesco Lo Savio and Pino Pascali in the early 1960s, meeting at the famous Bar Rosati to discuss art and politics. They went on to create iconic works of Italian Pop Art. Angeli's oeuvre is extremely political, reflecting his enduring sympathy for the Communist Party, as well as his obsession with symbols and their power. One early and important work was Falce e martello (pictured here), whose title translates as 'hammer and sickle'. It was executed in acrylic and gauze, and will be offered in its original frame (also painted by the artist) at Bonhams Post-War and Contemporary Art auction on 29 June. Falce e martello pre-dates by a decade Andy Warhol's famous 'Hammer and Sickle' series, which he started after returning from a trip to Italy in October 1975.
Enquiries: Giacomo Balsamo
+44 20 7468 5837
[email protected]
Stone me
China has created jade objects for the small matter of 5,000 years. Resounding evidence is provided by more than 90 items from the Songzhutang Collection, to be offered at Bonhams Hong Kong on 30 May. Spanning the Neolithic period (c.3800-1900 BC) to the Yuan dynasty of the late 13th and 14th century AD, these pieces demonstrate the evolution of jade carving across millennia, from works used for ritual purposes to carvings considered masterpieces of decorative art. Highlights include a Tang dynasty jade mythical figure pendant and, from the Yuan dynasty, a jade cup carved with a mythological female figure and a writhing dragon.
Enquiries: Asaph Hyman
+44 (0) 20 7468 5888
[email protected]
Winning on Poyntz
This pair of Sèvres vases, dating to 1778, are a very rare example of chinoiserie depicting sea battles, and come complete with gilt handles in the form of goats' heads. The vases – on offer in the New Bond Street Fine European Ceramics Sale on 14 June – belonged to William Stephen Poyntz, a Whig MP in the late 18th and early 19th century. Poyntz, who lost both of his sons in a yachting accident in Bognor Regis, gave the vases to his daughter Georgiana Elizabeth. In 1830, she married her cousin, Vice-Admiral Frederick Spencer, the 4th Earl Spencer (and great-grandfather of Diana, Princess of Wales), and for more than a century the vases were part of the Spencers' rich porcelain collection at Althorp Estate, Northamptonshire.
Enquiries: Nette Megens
+44 (0) 20 7468 8348
[email protected]
It's been a long Waitt
In the early 1700s, Alexander Grant, chief of Clan Grant, employed the artist Richard Waitt to paint the portrait of all those who lived in and around his castle: family, kinsmen, retainers and servants. More than 40 paintings, now scattered between private collections and public galleries, are to be reunited for the first time for a new exhibition, sponsored by Bonhams. It will give a window onto a powerful Scottish family at the time of the Jacobite risings (1688-1746).
I, Richard Waitt, Picture Drawer, Grantown Museum, Grantown-on-Spey, Morayshire, Scotland, from 22 July to 31 October;
grantownmuseum.co.uk
