IZO

Nikolai Ge's painting The Synhedrion Court, removed from exhibition in the C19 on the grounds that it insulted the Church, has been restored and is on display at the Tretyakov Gallery until 18 January (Grigori Revzin/Kommersant, in Russian).

Igor and Tatyana Preobrazhenski (IZO, earlier) have had their sentences reduced to five years each for their fake paintings scam (ITAR-TASS).

I've written a report on Monday's sales for Open Space, and when it appears I'll post the English version here. In essence, Bonhams sale at first encouraged (33 of the first 50 lots sold) and then suggested that the modern and contemporary market is in a state of prostration (6 out of 46 lots sold). At Sotheby's, 32 out of 55 lots at the prestigious evening sale found a buyer at time of auction, a selling rate of 58%. The top-lot, an Aivazovsky, failed. Prices a little over a million pounds (all prices given here are hammer prices) were achieved by a Larionov nude and the Vladimir Makovsky Rag Market. The beautiful Konchalovsky I referenced yesterday went up to £880,000: the only other works to beat that were a Polenov and a Roerich, both at £900,000. Four Roerichs sold on the night. Overpriced works failed: why would anyone give up to a million dollars for a Bakst watercolour, for Lord's sake? The Sotheby's officials seemed relieved. The auctioneer toured the room, shaking hands with the few buyers in evidence (most sales were over the phone). "There's no crisis in Russia," said one, patriotically, if not entirely accurately. "Thank you, thank you," came the reply.

As far as my back-of-envelope calculation goes, the 144 lots of painting at Bonhams afternoon sale were 35% sold; and the contemporary art at the end hardly sold at all: of 46 contemporary lots (## 99-144) only six appear to have sold. The 19th century lots with which the auction began, however, did well.

A stroll around the Antiques Salon, at which, apparently, the quantity of fakes exceeds "conceivable boundaries" (marina_yudenich, in Russian):

In the end I have to say – without any joy, in fact with sadness – that I stand by my words of five years ago: there are no proper antique dealers left, but instead of them we have distinguished-looking silver-haired black-market traders who in the 1970s sold jeans. And chewing gum.

The XXV Antiques Salon runs until 25 October at the Central House of the Artist (Kommersant, in Russian).

Pukirev's 19th century classic An Unequal Marriage and Ronnie Wood with his new girlfriend Ekaterina Ivanova, taking a walk (I've put the two images together as a commentary on the photo of Wood and Ivanova). Life is stranger than fiction: unlike the poor girl in the painting, Ivanova seems genuinely happy. Is that because of or despite 150 years of female emancipation? I can't get my head round it (OK, I know, it won't last etc).

I'm told that Russian-Ukrainian oligarch Konstantin Grigorishin, who has been collecting since the early 90s and is a particular fan of Alexander Bogomazov (by whom he owns about twenty paintings), plans to open a private museum of some kind in the Moscow region. Grigorishin is reckoned to have a major collection.

The Stockholm Auktionsverk 2-3 October sale fell victim to the worldwide financial uncertainty in a big way. I counted 150+ lots unsold out of 240. It may be that the gradual shift in Russian taste to twentieth-century and contemporary work hurts Auktionsverk a little, since its expertise and catchment area lead to a concentration on pre-1917 art. But the main reason for the sale's failure is surely the worldwide buttoning-up of wallets. Russians are not immune to the perturbations in western markets: the Russian stock-market is down massively (the Russia-Georgia war didn't help, of course), real estate prices are declining, there's a liquidity crisis. I presume many buyers just decided to give Stockholm a miss. It sets a precedent that doesn't bode too well for the London auctions in November; although I personally have no objection to cheaper art: you can buy more of it for the same money.

The International Konstantinovsky Charitable Foundation in St Petersburg has bought the Nikita Lobanov-Rostovsky collection of Russian theatre art for "under $20 million" (John Varoli/Art Newspaper).

A report on the Moscow World Fine Art Fair (John Varoli/Bloomberg). Many dealers have a unique source of supply which ensures them some financial stability in an uncertain business. In the case of the Moscow firm Maricevic, it appears to be the work of Russian painter Stepan Kolesnikov:

After the 1917 Revolution, Kolesnikov fled Russia and in 1920 he settled in Belgrade, the Serbian capital. Over the past six years, Maricevic has brought more than 200 of Kolesnikov's works from Serbia for sale in Russia.

It's nice when someone agrees with you; even nicer when it's a portion of the professional art world. A friend calls to quote me this from the most recent issue of The Art Newspaper about the top-lot Kuindzhi at Sotheby's NY last month:

Before the sale, the work's authenticity had been questioned by collectors and dealers, none of whom wanted to go on the record. Sotheby's dismissed this: "We feel these rumours are spread by some dealers in order to scare bidders away and keep prices low," said one top auction house official.

Well, that's a bit far-fetched from Sotheby's: in fact, it suggests they inhabit a parallel universe in which values are inverted. Who are these dealers who want to "keep prices low"???!%$£@!! And it doesn't address the fact that the work sold plainly differs from the illustration of, purportedly, the same work in an early C20 Kuindzhi book that Sotheby's chose to reproduce in its catalogue. A couple of snapshots from Sotheby's catalogue below: on the left, the old book illustration, on the right, the painting that was sold by Sotheby's. Even at the tiny resolution I offer them here on IZO, they plainly differ. Look for example at the markings on the tree-trunks: it's like a game of spot the difference for pre-schoolers. I'm told by someone who viewed the old book itself that the differences really are substantial.

It's hard for me to see how Sotheby's can assert that the work illustrated in the old book and the work they sold are one and the same. It's possible, of course, that it underwent substantial all-over restoration at some point; in which case, one might expect Sotheby's to point that out. But I didn't get the impression, on viewing it in Moscow, that it had been restored. If the old book illustration does indeed represent the third version of this painting by Kuindzhi (the other two being in museums), then, logically, Sotheby's work would be something else: a fourth version, perhaps, painted, I suggest, on a very off-day? Or...? UPDATE: the report in The Art Newspaper is by John Varoli.

The annual spring antiques' salon, the demise of which as a serious event seemed on the cards because of competition from the Fine Arts Fair, looks good this year. There are strong stands from Maricevic and, back-to-back with them at the entrance to the show, LPM Fine Art; and from Private Collection: a selection paintings owned by businessman Sergei Ivanov which include the huge Malyavin shown at Venice in the 20s and unaccountably unsold at Sotheby's a few years ago. The entire Central House of the Artist is full. The best work of the show, in my opinion, is a huge Lentulov from circa 1932: the interior of a shop; asking price is $1.5 million.

The Confederation of Antique and Art-Dealers has issued a statement about the four volumes of fake paintings put out under the aegis of Rossvyakokhrankultura (IZO, passim). It states that these publications "destabilise the market" and destroy the trust between delaer and client; it questions the motives behind the publications, which have the effect of turning Russian buyers away from the Russian antiques' market towards, first, foreign auction houses and, second, contemporary art. Implicit here, perhaps, is a reproach directed at the sponsor/co-publisher of the books, Triumph Gallery (Izvestiya, in Russian).

The Vitebsk art scene at the start of the twentieth century is the subject of a book by Alexandra Shatskikh from Yale (Forward).

The Tretyakov Gallery is apparently re-creating the 1908 exhibition The Golden Fleece, open to the public from today (Gazeta.ru, in Russian). No info on how authentic the reconstruction is, but a nice idea: I'm always intrigued by the notion of art in its original context, which can be so different from today's.

The third volume illustrating purported fake paintings on the Russian market, assembled and published by RosSvyazOkhranKultura, will be launched tonight at the Triumph Gallery (tvkultura.com, in Russian).

An  exclusive on Alexander Ivanov, the man who bought The Egg. He's planning a museum in Moscow and one in Baden Baden, the German spa town that has been re-colonised by the Russian rich set (John Varoli/Bloomberg). A friend of mine who came back from Baden Baden on Sunday tells me there's already a contemporary art museum there, belonging to a scion of the Burda family, which currently hosts a fine Gerhard Richter show. She further tells me that, in the baths themselves, the Russian girls stand out a mile: not just because of their 99% Genuine Brazilian (TM) "haircuts", but because they're far and away in the best shape, and they don't mind who knows it.

Hard to credit after all this time, and after a thoroughly-researched book book which concluded that it was substantially destroyed, but a team of scientists in Germany believe they have discovered the fabled Amber Room in an underground Nazi storage network.

But MP Heinz-Peter Haustein, who has led a decade-long dig in the Ore Mountain region near the Czech border today said he is confident they have finally found the room valued at £200million.

"I'm well over 90 percent sure we have found the Amber Room," he said after electromagnetic tests revealed the cavern.

"The chamber is likely to be part of a labyrinth of storage rooms that the Nazis built here."

UPDATE: what they've actually found so far is gold, and the Tsarskoe Selo museum is sceptical about the Amber room:

Not a single gram of gold was used in the furnishing of the Amber Room ... These suppositions are intended to create a sensation (Gazeta.ru, in Russian).

The Royal Academy's "goodwill payments".

Behind the scenes of the From Russia show (The Art Newspaper).

The day before his arrest (IZO passim) Vladimir Nekrasov appeared on Russian television to show off a painting in his collection, Chagall's Rose Lovers, and to speak about its magical powers, which include helping girls find love and men be warriors (via zverolov).

Jonathan Jones's podcast tour of From Russia.

Russia is returning some C14 stained glass to Germany (BusinessWeek).

A Russian art history classic: French Painters, Russian Collectors.

Slide show of From Russia (The Guardian).

The exhibition From Russia opened at the Royal Academy tonight after extended travails (here and IZO passim). It contains a large number of wonderful paintings, including a fantastic Repin portrait, some brutally beautiful Mashkovs, iconic Maleviches, not to mention Matisse's Dance etc. (Dance is being touted in the British press as The Best Painting Ever, which I know is not true, if only because its companion piece, Music, not on show here, is even better.) A very large plump Kustodiev nude is also pretty irresistible. Good to see real paintings by Tatlin in cubist-influenced style, very strong, and realise I was right to reject recent offers as fakes.  What gossip? That sculptor Anthony Gormley hopes to present his project Event Horizon in Moscow in the spring or summer. Most ambitious planned spot: on top of the FSB headquarters on Lubyanka square. So far neither a yea nor a nay has been received. UPDATE: below, the crowd for the speeches; they wouldn't let any more in the room.

Ringing the bells brought home by Viktor Vekselberg (Boston.com).

News round-up

The Russian Committee of the International Museum Council has written to the Chairman of the Russian Government, Viktor Zubkov, lobbying him in respect of the scandal (and passim) surrounding the Tretyakov Gallery's Sotsart show. The letter apparently asks Zubkov to disregard the petition from multiple "social organisations" asking for TG director Valentin Rodionov's dismissal (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

Meanwhile, the Rodionov-Sokolov lawsuit has moved to a new court and the hearing date is now unknown (Lenta.ru, in Russian).

A Square of Russian Heroes has been opened in the park by the Central House of the Artist. The first hero honoured: Mikhail Kalashnikov, creator of the eponymous gun (RIA Novosti, in Russian).

Vasili Tsagolov's show in Tsekh Gallery, Kiev, reviewed in Kommersant (in Russian). This is not investment advice, it is simply a flight of fantasy by an unqualified observer, but if you want to put money into contemporary Ukrainian art, Tsagolov could be your guy.

And also in the Ukraine, someone has bought a canvas by Surikov in a second-hand shop (STB, in Russian). Apparently someone found a Malevich in an attic in Chernovtsy a year ago.

The latest station of the Moscow metro has opened: Sretensky Bulvar. I believe the images in the embrasures (not clear what the technique is) are by Ivan Lubennikov.

News round-up

It looks like the Royal Academy show may get the go-ahead.

The Russian presence at the Palm Beach art fair next year (about 1/3 the way down).

The stolen Ternopol Repin has been found in Kiev.

Jane and Louise Wilson's investigation of the Russian space programme.

Dmitri Bulatov's genetically-engineered tadpoles are among Wired's top-ten 2007 organisms.

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Macdougall results. Up on last time with records for Konchalovsky and Komar and Melamid.

A Shishkin made 7.8 million Swedish krone in Stockholm today (that's about $1.2 million, I think).

The Ukrainian curator Peter Doroshenko has been squeezed out of his job running the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (it's in England, for some reason) after a "staff mutiny" in the face of his management style and curatorial programme. Doroshenko also co-curated the Ukrainian pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale.

Ronald Feldman, New York's leading Russian art gallerist, seems to have bought some fake Pollocks.

Exhibitions of contemporary Russian art in Paris (scroll down).

Yuliya Shtutina (Lenta.ru, in Russian) casts an eye over the London sales. She points out the high prices for average paintings of "patriotic" subjects which, she speculates, may be gifted to the Russian government.

Pravda (in Russian) is anticipating a big financial scandal involving former Minister of Culture, now head of FAKK (Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography), Mikhail Shvidkoi.

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the buyer of The Egg and Christies results, which at $81 million just topped Sothebys. If you think the top bidders are throwing their money around heedlessly, think again:

"Commercially, it is insane to pay more than 8 million pounds for this egg,'' said Andrei Ruzhnikov, a partner at Aurora Fine Art Investments, a fund owned by oil billionaire Viktor Vekselberg.

My comment about Bonhams yesterday was accurate as far as it goes, but they also sold 70% by value, which is not too far off Sotheby's and Christie's levels.

After considering the bidders, the widow of Dmitri Prigov has sold the rights to four novels to Irina Prokhorova's NLO publishing house.

News round-up

Christies sold the magnificent egg for £8.9 million to, I am told, a Mr Ivanov, of Moscow, who apparently runs a Faberge shop called, modestly enough, the Russian National Museum. He was probably buying for a client. A Goncharova still-life fetched £1.6 million plus premium, an Annenkov portrait £2 million plus premium, as I recall. It was a marathon sale lasting until about 8 pm; there is I think something vulgar and even disrespectful in the amount of art these auction houses are cramming into their sales.

Sotheby's totalled $80 million over two days. Bonhams sale a couple of days ago, I note, browsing through the catalogue, seems to have been more than 50% unsold. Malthusian economics kicking in here perhaps: the offerings on the fringe having expanded beyond what the market can sustain.

Later this evening I bumped into Norman Rosenthal, director of the Royal Academy, and asked him how he was getting on securing the masterworks for his upcoming Russian show. Everything's fine, he said, sounding a mite anxious.

Marat Guelman reports (in  Russian) that a number of Russian social organisations have written to Prime Minister Zubkov asking him to sack the director of the Tretyakov Gallery Valentin Rodionov in connection with the Sotsart affair: a reaction maybe to his lese majeste in suing the Minister of Culture. Guelman further regrets the defection (in Russian) of his young star Aleksei Kallima to the mighty Triumph Gallery, and adds piquant info about who is buying from Triumph. UPDATE: Marat seems to have deleted this post or put it behind lock-and-key.

A good Pavel Peppershtein slide-show, of the show at Ridzhina Gallery, at Art Times.

News round-up

John Varoli/Bloomberg on the Christies and Macdougall Russian art sales. Alexis de Tiesenhausen's defence of his top-lot egg:

"Some say the Rothschild egg is not an Imperial egg, and so not worth the estimate we're asking,'' said Alexis de Tiesenhausen, head of Christie's Russian art department. "But I say, show me an egg with such impeccable provenance, one that has been in the same family for 100 years.''

NTV reports (with video; in Russian) that Valentin Rodionov is claiming a symbolic one rouble damages from Alexander Sokolov for the corruption slur.

Also from NTV: Norman Foster presents his project for reconstruction of the Pushkin Museum.

News round-up

A painting by Repin didn't make it to auction in Estonia last weekend because of customs' problems (Lenta.ru, in Russian). Not clear whether the problems were with Russian or Estonian customs.

Some Brillo boxes in the Museum of Modern Art, Stockholm, attributed to Andy Warhol, are fake. Apparently they were made three years after the artist's death for an exhibition in St Petersburg. No info is given about the exhibition in question, who commissioned the fakes, who perhaps sold them etc.

Alexei Breus writes on the art market in the Ukraine (in Ukrainian). And activists from the Eurasian Union of Youth have smashed up (in Russian) an exhibition at the Ukrainian House of Culture in Moscow of archival documents devoted to the famine in the Ukraine 1932-3; the activists blame the Ukrainian government for blaming the famine on Russia.

Eldar Ryazanov, director of Office Romance (on a straw poll, the most popular Soviet-era film of all) and several other hits, is 80. Here are a few musical clips.

News round-up

John Varoli reports on a planned revival of the Faberge brand. I'm not sure how this sits with an enterprise I reported on in August. What's more, when I walk through the Burlington Arcade on the way to my gallery, I pass a shop selling works designed by a descendant, one Theo Faberge.

The Daily Telegraph appears to be the only mainstream news source reporting on the artists' appeal to Putin and reaction, covered here a couple of days ago.

And: Gene Shapiro auctions got nearly $500,000 for a Vasili Sitnikov a few days ago (estimate $40-60,000).

No letter of legal comfort yet

The Russians are concerned that masterpieces due to travel to London for a survey of early twentieth-century Russian art at the Royal Academy may be entangled in legal claims.

Tokyo show/Konchalovsky movie

Alla Rosenfeld curates Russian theatre art in Tokyo.

The Moscow Times on Andrei Konchalovsky's new film (pdf), Gloss (Glyanets).

Museum shows

Country Life reports on the Empress Josephine's collection at the Hermitage outpost in London:

Her collection of more than 350 paintings, as well as sculpture and works of art, was not only made up of purchases and commissions:a major element was loot from the imperial campaigns. At its heart was the collection taken from the Electors of Hesse-Cassel after the Battle of Jena in 1806, including Claude's Tobias and the Angel and Metsu's Breakfast. Unlike the treasures Napoleon had amassed from all Europe, Josephine's looted works were not restituted on the fall of the empire. To the fury of the Germans, they were bought by Tsar Alexander, an admirer of Josephine and friend to her children, and spirited away to Russia. This explains the presence of much of Josephine's collection in the State Hermitage at St Petersburg.

And The Japan Times reports on Russian art in Tokyo.

Goncharova record

Natalia Goncharova's Picking Apples made nearly $10 million at Christies' Tuesday evening sale in London.

UPDATE: apparently this is a world-record for a woman artist.

London sales IV - the Piter principle

A few months back I posited a mini-boom in paintings of St Petersburg. At Christies yesterday a nocturnal view of St Petersburg by K. F. Lagorio beat the artist's record by more than 10 times, as far as I can tell, to reach £1.3 million plus commission. Hmmm, not a "mini" boom any more...

Garin and the Alpha-Art

Vernisazh magazine has an interesting interview with veteran antique deealer Aleksei Garin. Garin foundeed the first Russian auction house, Alpha-Art, in the early nineties. His first attempt was closed down by the Ministry of Culture after howls of protest from the only-just-post-Soviet bureaucracy, which couldn't tolerate the notion of high-quality works of art in private hands. Alpha-Art eventually held 19 auctions, on one occasion achieving a crowd-stunning $100,000 for a painting by Viktor Vasnetsov.

If you look at the old catalogues and price-lists you'll see that a Korovin which today costs one-and-a-half million was sold for all of $4,500. And not many people wanted to buy it.

Garin closed Alpha-Art when he had got to know all the buyers and could place every work without need for an auction. He has shifted now to dealing in Dutch old masters, citing difficulties with the Russian market: lack of quality stock, high prices, problems with authentication.

Malmo show

Currently on display in the Malmo Fine Art Museum, Sweden, is a show of Russian paintings from the period 1880-1914. The works once formed part of the Baltic Exhibition, which took place in the museum in 1914. After World War I and the Russian Revolution, the works stayed at the museum. In the intervening years, many have disappeared: 59 remain, which form the current show, including works by Bilibin, Korovin, Kustodiev, Petrov-Vodkin, Repin, Vrubel. The ownership of the works is, as one might imagine, being debated. Thinking ahead, it probably behoves the museum to publish a catalogue or list of works shown at the 1914 exhibition, in order for collectors and the trade to protect themselves: how many of those canvases which apparently "disappeared" from the museum have subsequently passed (or currently are passing) through dealers' or auction-house hands and might, at some point, become the object of a lawsuit by an heir or heirs of the artist wishing to recover them?

Diaghilev appreciated

Clive James writes about (pdf) Sergei Diaghilev, the entrepreneur who created The World of Art and the Ballets Russes. He points out that "Soviet art historians wrote him out of the picture for more than 60 years." This was the case, but not simply because Diaghilev refused to be lured back to Russia after the October 1917 revolution; it was also because he was emphatically homosexual. A string of artist-lovers begining with the dancer Nijinsky is recorded in many memoirs. His passions were inseparable from his creative projects. One of his later partners, Igor Markevitch, commented: "I would say that the greatest works created by the Ballets Russes were a direct result of love affairs."

The Piter principle

There appears to me a mini-boom in the price of top-class views of old St Petersburg, the demand, dealers say, emanating from President Putin's administration.

Genoa show

Russki Album reviews (pdf) enthusiastically (in Russian) a show of Russian art 1905-40 being held in Genoa.

Royal Faberge

The Faberge collection of King George I of the Hellenes (a Danish prince elected King of Greece in 1863) goes on sale next week at Christies.

Thinking about Aivaz

On a visit a couple of days ago to Feodosia, where I have bought a tiny house sans gas, water, electricity, I popped into the Aivazovski Museum (no photography allowed, so below is the best I could do). It's plain from works displayed there such as The Meeting Of Venus On Olympus that "Aivaz", as the dealers call him, was weak-going-on-hopeless at conveying solid form and perspectival 3D space. When you look at his waves and his boats - 3D objects also - they're also not quite convincing, to my mind. What he excelled at, and what it seems to me he lavished his sensibility on above all, was painting the atmosphere. There's enormous passion and concentration in the graded hues of his skies, in his mists and the dancing sun- or moon-struck clouds. So, for me, an artist of the sky rather than the sea. No doubt there will be a selection of his works at the upcoming Christies and Sothebys sales: does the memory, in the minds of many rich Russians, of summertime visits, while on holiday in the Crimea, to the (still-dowdy) Aivazovski Museum now fuel a nostalgic passion for his work?

US exhibitions

At Princeton University, Mir Iskusstva: Russia's Age Of Elegance shows early C20 works by members of The World Of Art from the Russian Museum collection (until June 11). Lena Sorokina's contemporary show Contested Spaces in Post-Soviet Art opens to the public at Sidney Mishkin Gallery (Baruch College, 135 East 22 Street, New York, NY 10010; tel: 646 660 6652) on 24 March.

Lachmann in London

A visit from dealer Alex Lachmann. Lachmann bought the fantastically high-priced works by Quarenghi at the last Sotheby's sale. His insider knowledge (this is what pushed the price up): that they once formed part of the collection at the Winter Palace. He has just bought, on behalf of a Russian collector, an Andy Warhol dollar-sign at Christies for $2.5 million (5x estimate!)