RA Magazine Blog Listing

Why do galleries and auction houses keep saying they want to be more like museums? Despite their riches, do they crave the cultural kudos that only distinguished curators and an adoring public can confer? Or is it more of a marketing technique to lure in new buyers and press and lift the value of their art to ‘museum quality’? Perhaps it's a bit of both.

RA Magazine Editor Sarah Greenberg maps out her top shows and events of Frieze week. With mobile-friendly map and print-friendly listings.

The temporary art city that is Frieze Art Fair has decamped from Regent's Park. The gallerists have departed, James Fujiyama's fantasy archeological dig has been dug up, Spartacus Chetwynd's performative Cat Bus has driven back to the depot and Annika Ström's Ten Embarrassed Men have left the building. But fear not - a number of our Frieze Week top contemporary art picks around London remain open...

Sotheby’s public view of top lots from its summer sales has some real gems. Whether or not you are going to bid for them, it is worth popping into the showrooms to take a look - it may be your last chance to see these fabulous works before they vanish into private collections.

The word masterpiece is being tossed around the art world with abandon these days, with Christie’s calling the public show of its top lots ‘Masterpieces’ and a major London art fair called ‘Masterpiece’ opening at the end of this month. Is this hyperbole, or are there any works worthy of the name? I went along to the Christie’s view in their King Street headquarters to find out.

‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch is one of the world’s most iconic paintings - will it become the world’s most expensive, when it is sold at Sotheby’s New York on 2 May? When I went to view it at Sotheby’s this week, it certainly exceeded all expectations.

Estimated to fetch £1m-1.5m (over £100,000 per centimetre) this long lost imperial seal of the Qianlong Emperor looks set to be the star lot of Bonhams Asian art sale this week.

After a tour of the sale rooms, Sarah Greenberg chooses her favourite works from this evening's Impressionist Modern auction at Christie's.

If you're in the Bond St area today by lunch time, run - don't walk - to Sotheby's for a last chance to see the public view, where you can glimpse some fabulous works from their Impressionist Modern sales that may soon vanish into private collections.

While many artists paint self-portraits at one time or other, Bacon painted them obsessively. This week only, lucky Londoners can see three Bacon studies for self-portraits within a five-minute walk from each other. Posted: 25 June 2012 by Sarah Greenberg, RA Magazine Editor

John Constable’s masterpiece ‘The Lock’ (1824) from the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection in Madrid is a top lot of Christie’s Old Master sale on 3 July. In this stunning painting, along with his other ‘six-footers’, Constable looked at the landscape from the ground up, creating a new point of view. But I was stopped in my tracks by Constable’s smaller, sublime sky study Storm Clouds over Hampstead...

The most successful Swiss import into America in recent years is not a type of chocolate or clock but an art fair, Art Basel Miami Beach. A sister to Art Basel since 2002, the fair has fast become one of the most influential in the international art calendar and acts as a magnet for collectors, curators, artists and art professionals for a handful of days.

This week sees some art sales take centre stage at Christie’s for those looking to invest in a special fine art gift for themselves or their loves ones.

Celebrating its 25th year, the London Art Fair (LAF) opened to the public yesterday in its usual location, the Business Design Centre in Upper Street.

Picasso’s paintings of his mistress Marie-Therese are among the most tender images of love in twentieth-century art, while Schiele’s drawings of his mistress Wally are among the most tormented. Magnificent examples of both are on public view at Sotheby’s Bond Street this week.

A trio of exceptional paintings – by David Hockney RA (b.1937), Francis Bacon (1909-92) and Peter Doig (b.1959) – is now on view at Christie’s, providing the opportunity to see some of the best of British painters of the 20th century and giving a masterclass in modern painting.

Ahead of the Academy’s ‘Australia’ exhibition this autumn, which will be the first survey of Australian art in over half a century in the UK, there is a chance this weekend to view in London highlights from the most significant private collection of the country’s modern and contemporary indigenous and non-indigenous art.

This weekend at Sotheby’s in London, a presentation puts the ceramics of Pablo Picasso under the spotlight, with over 100 plates, bowls, pitchers, tiles and vases produced by the titan of modern art late in life.