Published 17 Aug 2017
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin
"'Spirit of the age' is a phrase that's too often, perhaps, accompanied by a rolling of eyes or a contemptuous snort. And while we latch onto symbols that seem to reflect the contemporary grotesque – I'm thinking of fidget spinners, rainbow bagels and avocado lattes – the obverse of the coin is the people and ...
Published 31 May 2017
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin
"When Charlie Thomas brought down the hammer on lot 533 of the Harlech Sale – a 1925 Douglas motorcycle – the room of spectators gave him and the team of auctioneers a standing ovation. It wasn't just because the sale had been an all-day marathon, but because every single lot sold. This accords the auction the ...
Published 21 Feb 2017
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "Last month I was in Antibes standing on the terrace of the Picasso Museum. It was a glorious day. To my left in the far distance were the Alps, lightly dusted with snow against a china blue sky; in front of me were the sea and a line of elongated figures – sculptures by the French ...
Published 10 Nov 2016
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "Many of the artworks and objects in this issue were produced during tumultuous times. You might ask when has an era not been strapped to a rollercoaster? Fair point, but some of the works in this season's sales can be traced to specific moments during grim times – whether in the Second World War or ...
Published 24 Aug 2016
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "Artists are a different species from the rest of mankind. I know that's stating the obvious, but I was reminded of this eternal truth when reading Martin Gayford's piece about the life and loves of Max Ernst. Here was a painter who married four times one of his wives
was Peggy Guggenheim and ...
Published 20 May 2016
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "We write a lot about artists in Bonhams Magazine, but perhaps not as much as we should about people who enable artists to create work – their patrons. In this issue, we have a number of stories which show how important patronage and commissions are. For instance, one of the most important collections of British modernism ...
Published 24 Feb 2016
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "Bonhams prides itself on a certain innovative, buccaneering spirit. Or 'zigging' when everyone else is 'zagging', in the words of Ralph Taylor, our Senior Director of Post-War Contemporary Art, whom I interviewed for this issue.
Bucking the trend is also, of course, a characteristic of many of the artists that we have written about. This ...
Published 12 Nov 2015
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "One of the many excitements of putting together each issue of this magazine is the astonishing range of beautiful, curious and unusual items offered for sale at Bonhams. Yet it often strikes me how impromptu themes emerge from forthcoming sales.
In this issue, I was struck by the notion of pioneers. Take the artists, Frederic ...
Published 24 Aug 2015
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "It has just been announced that Matthew Girling is the new Global CEO of Bonhams. This prompted a rejig of our latest issue so that we could interview Matthew, the only CEO of a major auction house to take sales as an auctioneer. On page 14, amongst other things, he talks about how exciting it ...
Published 29 May 2015
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin
"Bonhams is regarded as the auction house for connoisseurs. And while I was editing this issue, I thought about the way in which our many specialists share their knowledge with collectors – and, indeed, with any member of the public. To speak to our departments about any object that falls within Bonhams' 60 different collecting areas ...
Published 4 Mar 2015
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin "When I was a child, my grandfather would take me to Oxford's Ashmolean Museum where we would play a game as to which work of art we would take home. I would like to say I chose Uccello's Hunt in the Forest or one of the museum's matchless Chinese vases. But for ...
Published 27 Oct 2014
Editor's Letter:
There are many joyful moments in the auction business. When a client is thrilled with a result takes some beating – as does the point during an auction itself when the price of a lot takes wing. But most of the specialists will say that discovering – or rediscovering – a lost masterpiece provides one of the greatest sense of ...
Published 15 Aug 2014
Editor's Letter: LUCINDA BREDIN
Where is the best place to see art? Having come back from holiday touring around Germany – where I visited a huge number of museums and saw loads of art – I had to dust off my art books when I got home in order to sharpen up the rapidly fading experience of seeing the work. There ...
Published 15 May 2014
Editor's Letter:
Hard on the heels of the opening of the acclaimed New Bond Street headquarters, Bonhams has made another giant leap forward. This month, the company unveiled its first dedicated saleroom in Hong Kong. Designed by award-winning architects, Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, it is state-of-the-art in every way. Set on the 20th floor of One Pacific Place – the centre ...
Published 19 Feb 2014
Editor's Letter: Lucinda Bredin
One of the most intriguing artefacts in the Bonhams salerooms this season is a monumental Assyrian slab made of black basalt. It shows the lower body of King Adad-nerari III (810-783 BC) in profile. In itself this is an extraordinary relic: it commemorates the crushing of the Hittites in Syria – we learn this from the ...
Published 21 Oct 2013
Editor's Letter
As I walked through Bonhams new headquarters in New Bond Street, the first thing I noticed was not just the space – the salerooms are huge – it was the light that floods into the building through vast expanses of glass. It gives a feeling of spaciousness and pleasing order while still projecting the sense of drama so essential ...
Published 13 Aug 2013
Editor's Letter
Sometimes clichés are true – or at least there is a modicum of fact in the mix. Take the notion of the 'troubled genius'. On occasions, this concept has given licence to all sorts of bad behaviour – one thinks of Marlowe, Byron, Caravaggio, Gauguin, Hemingway, Iggy Pop... But then there are gifted artists who cause trouble only for ...
Published 24 May 2013
Editor's letter
For auctioneers, there comes the moment when something comes in that stops their heart. This happened to everyone in the car department when the Mercedes-Benz W196 – aka the world's most famous racing car – was consigned to Bonhams Goodwood Festival of Speed Sale. This marvellous machine is 'the Fangio car', the one in which Juan Manuel Fangio ...
Published 22 Feb 2013
Editor's letter
One of the endless fascinations with art is wondering what will be sought after by generations to come. In this spring issue, there are a number of works featured that, at the time they were produced, most people wouldn't have given house room to – let alone paid good money for. Yet there have always been collectors ...
Published 19 Oct 2012
Editor's letter
We learn a lot about a nation by examining what they treasure. This thought came to mind when I was listening to Sebastian Kuhn and Nette Megens of the ceramic department give an off-the-cuff talk about Meissen porcelain and why, in the 18th century, this humble substance was regarded as 'white gold'. For Augustus the Strong, the ...
Published 24 Aug 2012
Editor's letter
Apart from providing a showcase in which to display some of the highlights on offer, Bonhams Magazine likes to surprise readers. Perhaps even change firmly held views. This issue is no different. For instance, take the Mongols. I had them pigeon-holed as marauding savages who destroyed any vestiges of culture with a scary variety of weaponry. But ...
Published 7 Mar 2012
Editor's letter
Now the smoke has cleared on 2011, what has emerged with stark clarity is that Bonhams has had a superlative year. The house celebrated its tenth anniversary since its merger with Phillips with results that hit headlines around the world. In November, for instance, Bonhams sold the most expensive lotduring the Asian Art week auctions, a Qianlong ...
Published 16 Mar 2012
Editor's letter
One of the most exciting moments in an auction house is when a painting, hitherto disregarded by its owners, has something about it that demands more research into its history, provenance – and attribution. Bonhams' specialists see thousands of works a year and, during their careers, they have built up a mental image library, which is why, when ...
Published 17 Nov 2012
Editor's letter
Bonhams has been in existence since 1793, but this is the first time that the headquarters in New Bond Street is going to be rebuilt – externally as well as internally. The plans for the building, which is being remodelled by Alex Lifschutz from Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands, are on page 17 where the architect talks to Emma Crichton-Miller ...
