TABLE BY DIEGO GIACOMETTI – OWNED BY THE LATE JAMES MASON – MAKES TOP PRICE AT BONHAMS
HOCKNEY, BANKSY, HAMILTON AND QUINN ALSO STAR LOTS
A table designed by Diego Giacometti sold for £106,000 at Bonhams, New Bond Street today (10 March 2010), as part of its Post War and Contemporary Art and Design sale. Entitled Table Torsade, and cast circa 1965, it had belonged to the late English actor James Mason (1909-1984) since the late1960s.
Austrian painter Arnulf Rainier’s Der Psychiatrist likewise far surpassed its estimate of £8,000 – 12,000, selling for a remarkable £54,000.
Following a fierce bidding battle, David Hockney’s Richard Neville Naked sold for £27,600. The picture was used, alongside drawings of Neville’s co-editors of Oz magazine, Jim Anderson and Felix Dennis, to raise funds for the Oz obscenity trial in 1971, in which Neville, Anderson and Dennis were prosecuted for publishing a sexual Rupert Bear cartoon parody in an issue of the magazine edited by a group of school kids.
Other lots hotly contended for included Banksy’s Lenin on Rollerblades, 2003 which sold for £16,800, and Marc Quinn’sHeliotrop Morphology, 1997, which sold for £10,800.
An unrecorded fruitwood and vellum cabinet by one of the most important Italian architects and designers of the 20th century, Gio Ponti, sold for £14,400.
Meanwhile Richard Hamilton’s The Release, portraying Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, sold for £22,800 against a pre-sale estimate of £10,000 – 15,000 in the Pop and Op Art sale, also at Bonhams, New Bond Street.
Bonhams
Bonhams, founded in 1793, is one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. The present company was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale UK. In August 2002, the company acquired Butterfields, the principal firm of auctioneers on the West Coast of America. Today, Bonhams offers more sales than any of its rivals, through two major salerooms in London: New Bond Street, and Knightsbridge, and a further five throughout the UK. Sales are also held in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Carmel, New York and Boston in the USA; Toronto, Canada; and France, Monaco, Hong Kong and Dubai. Bonhams has a worldwide network of offices and regional representatives in 25 countries offering sales advice and valuation services in 57 specialist areas. By the end of 2009, Bonhams had become UK market leaders in ten key specialist collecting areas.For a full listing of upcoming sales, plus details of Bonhams specialist departments, go to www.bonhams.com
