World-Art/Business
New York, Dec 6 2013: “East
Wind Over Weehawken”— an art work capturing the
bleak reality and the loneliness of the depression era America in 1934 by
reality painter Edward Hopper created a sale record at Christie’s Dec 5 sale of
American modern classics in New York. The oil painting fetched the auction
house $40,485,000 (₤24,695,850/ €29,554,050).
The artist painted iconic 1934
streetscape of a New Jersey suburb soon after a retrospective exhibition of his
works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1933— in the depression era
when the American and European economies were affected by an economic slump in
the run-up to the World War II. It was a pivotal moment in the artist’s career
after his solo exposition at MoMA.
The auction house said the art work belonged to the collection of
depression-era American art at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA).
The work is Spartan and silent — characterised by the isolation,
melancholy and gloom of depression in dull shades. The buildings are
underscored by a gray sky and brooding hues of blue, black, brown and ochre. The
lifeless and dull rows of “seemingly” desolate building blocks lining a street
intersection combines with a suspended narrative — a story interrupted in
telling — lends it the distinct Hooper touch, setting him apart from his
contemporaries.
The proceeds from the sale will be used to support the creation of new
fund for the purchase of artworks to expand the collection of the Pennsylvania
Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) and the school of art.
Hopper’s works have
been driving auction sale for the last one year. Experts of American art at
Christie’s say “the renewed demand for Hopper’s works is driven by the masterpiece
quality of his art”. In May 2013, “Blackwell Island” — a view of the skyline of
the island from beyond a blue expanse of water in his signature photo-realistic
style with the ear’s expressionistic influences— sold for $19,163,750, a record
then. It was recently announced that the
work will soon join the Crystal Bridges
Museum of American Art. In the same sale, Hopper’s “Kelly Jenness
House” achieved $ 4.1 million, another world auction record for a work on paper
by the artist.
The previous season,
in November of 2012, “October on Cape Cod” sold for $9.6 million,
setting the world record for art sold online at any international auction
house.
Edward Hopper
(1882-1967) was an American realist painter and printmaker. While he was famous
for his landscapes in oil, he was an accomplished watercolorist, printmaker and
etching artist. His “meticulous depiction” of the urban and rural surroundings
often conveyed his personal vision of modern American life.
-Staff
Writer
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