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An anonymous US collectors decision to withdraw the top lot an hour before Christies sale last night made for a jittery start in an already uncertain market. The 1994 Abstraktes Bild (811-2) had been estimated to sell in the region of 14m; its recall meant Christies had its lowest-value June auction since 2009.

But a run of good prices for artists including Sean Scully, Adrian Ghenie and Jean-Michel Basquiat helped banish Brexit blues and contributed to a solid result of 33.7m (39.6m with fees), well within the 26.3m to 37.7m estimate. The sell-through rate was a very strong 92%.

Edmund Francey, Christies head of post-war and contemporary art in London, said the work by Richter was withdrawn on the clients instruction. The Belgian collector Alain Servais said it was likely that the seller would not reduce the reserve, which meant there was little interest ahead of the sale. There is no direct relation to Brexit exceptas for the whole art marketwe are living in more uncertain times, Servais said. 

Of the 39 lots offered, ten went to collectors based in the UK, including Andy Warhols 1962 black-and-white dollar bill painting, which sold for 3.9m (4.5m with fees, est 4m-6m). Christies decision to reveal the breakdown of UK buyers is most likely strategic ahead of its 250th anniversary sale of British art tonight (30 June), but it is nonetheless striking given the dominance of US and Asian bidders this week, spurred on by a devalued pound.

An Asian collector bidding by phone through Elaine Holt, a Hong Kong-based director of impressionist and Modern art, bought one of two Basquiat paintings consigned by the actor Johnny Depp. Pork, a 1981 work painted on a door, fetched 4.5m (5.1m with premium, est 2.5m-3.5m), the highest price on the night. The other Basquiat, a self-portrait from the same year, sold to the New York dealer William Acquavella for 3.1m (3.6m with fees, est 1m-1.5m).

It felt as if there was a lot of US and Asian bidders last night. A lot of the expensive works were going to Asia, said the London-based art advisor Aphrodite Gonou.

Fears over Brexits effect on the art market have largely been allayed this week, but, as Gonou points out, the real litmus test comes next season. We will probably have a more realistic picture of what is happening with the market in the autumn. With this week's sales, the pound sank so low it attracted more people.

The Paris and Salzburg contemporary art dealer, Thaddaeus Ropac, has finalised plans to open in Mayfair in Spring 2017. The news, while long in the pipeline, gives a much-needed boost to Londons art market following last weeks Brexit vote. The investment comes at a time when other investors and businesses, including Vodafone, have threatened to pull out of the UK.

However bad [the Brexit situation] is, London is the quintessential centre of the art world, I am absolutely committed to it, Ropac says. The dealerwhose British artists include Antony Gormley and Tony Craggsays that he signed his first UK lease on Ely House, an 18th-century mansion on Dover Street, just before the results of the EU referendum came in. His only regret is the fall in sterling: If Id signed the lease a bit later I would have saved some money!

The impressive, five floor, 1,500 sq. m Ely House was built in 1772 by Robert Taylor and was previously the home of the antiques dealership Mallett. Malletts owners, the Stanley Gibbons Group, sold the lease and its adjacent building for 2.5m as part of a debt-restructuring programme.

Polly Robinson Gaer, previously a senior director at Pace gallery, will run the London space and Ropac has brought in the art markets architect-du-jour, Annabelle Selldorf, to redesign the building.
 

The Earls of Derby have a long tradition of cultural patronage, as this collection of essays Art, Animals and Politics demonstrates. Edited by the indefatigable Stephen Lloyd, it is the product of a conference that took place at Knowsley Hall in 2013, described by contributor David Starkey as a little bit like Knowsley itself a huge accumulation of various bits and pieces a statement of the variety of a great aristocratic house, all the things they get into and do.

In fact, the book is less piecemeal than Starkey suggests, as it focuses on four aspects of the Derbys cultural activities: power and performance in Tudor and Georgian England; early 18th-century patronage and collecting; the Thirteenth Earls patronage of Edward Lear in the 19th century; and the familys involvement in politics and foreign affairs from 1820-1900.

The most coherent section focuses on the methods and agents of Whig patron and collector James Stanley, Tenth Earl of Derby (1664-1736). The contributors have mined Knowsleys important archive, which reveals how the Tenth Earl sought to rebuild the Derby collection following the dispersal of the Stanley family heirlooms after the Civil War. Like other collectors of the period, notably James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos (1674-1744), Derby pursued the best paintings but depended on the connoisseurship of his agents, who did not always serve him well. This small number of trusted art advisers included his relation, the young lawyer Edward Stanley, and the painters John Green (active 1721-26), Hamlet Winstanley (1694/8-1756) and Thomas Wright (active 1723-49).

Derbys secretive methods sometimes led him to overpay for works of art when his agents unknowingly competed against each other, as Richard Stephens explains (for instance, at the posthumous sale of French artist Louis Chron in 1726). However, from 1722-28, Derby spent almost 9,000 on more than 200 pictures. Some of these were indeed masterpieces, such as Belshazzars Feast by Rembrandt, acquired for him by Winstanley and now housed in the National Gallery in London. Derby boasted in 1725: I verily believe I have as good pictures as any in England.

The solid scholarship provided by contributors Richard Stephens, Jonathan Yarker and Xanthe Brooke on 18th-century collecting sits at the heart of the book, but it contains other unmissable essays. Admirers of the Metropolitan Museum of Arts breathtaking portrait of Elizabeth Farren, later Twelfth Countess of Derby, painted in 1790 by Sir Thomas Lawrence, (a copy of which hangs at Knowsley Hall) will be fascinated by Gill Perrys account of the sitters role in linking theatre with aristocratic culture. Equally, Sir David Attenborough offers an erudite and touching description of Edward Smith Stanley, the Thirteenth Earl of Derbys (1775-1851) patronage of Edward Lear, complemented by Colin Harrisons essay on Lears magnificent landscapes in the Derby Collection.

In summary, if this volume is an omnium gatherum of various contributions, it succeeds in providing an overview of the strengths of a collection that has been built up by the Earls of Derby for more than 500 years.


Susan Jenkins is a curator and researcher into 17th- and 18th-century patronage and collecting. Her book, Portrait of a Patron: the Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos (1674-1744), was published in 2007

Art, Animals and Politics: Knowsley and the Earls of Derby

Stephen Lloyd, ed

Unicorn Press, 338pp, 60 (hb)

Two new curators will oversee the Kings Cross Project, an ambitious programme of commissioned temporary and permanent works for the redeveloped 67-acre neighbourhood in north London. The appointment of Tamsin Dillon, previously the interim head of exhibitions at Tate Liverpool, and Rebecca Heald, a tutor in curating contemporary art at the Royal College of Art in London, marks the beginning of the second three-year cycle of the nine-year programme.

The art project is part of a vast regeneration scheme in the commuter hub, which has shed its seedy reputation. The King's Cross Central Limited Partnership (KCCLP)a private initiative funded by Argent King's Cross Limited Partnership and AustralianSuper, a pension fundruns the Kings Cross Project.

Michael Pinsky and Stephanie Delcroix were the project curators for the first three years. Their programme, entitled Relay, included the work Black Maria (2013) by Richard Wentworth, a timber structure located in the atrium of Central Saint Martins college.

Another temporary work, Across the Buildings by Felice Varini, comprised a series of geometric shapes projected on to a series of Victorian buildings around Granary Square in 2013. A permanent piece, IFO (Identified Flying Object) by the French artist Jacques Rival, was unveiled in 2011 in Battle Bridge Place near the rail and underground stations.

Embroidered flora on antique helmets, Potters for Pulse, and more...

A new work that draws upon the history and heritage of the Houses of Parliament opens to the public today (until 1 September; tickets must be booked in advance) only days after the UK voted to leave the European Union.

The Ethics of Dust, a 50-metre-long translucent latex cast of an internal east wall inside Westminster Hall is by the Spanish artist, architect and conservationist Jorge Otero-Pailos. The work or skinwhich enshrines grime and soot from over the centuries hangs from the ceiling of the 1,000-year-old hall.

The site-specific piece was commissioned and produced by the non-profit art commissioning body Artangel. It acts as a historical and artistic record of the seat of democracy, which was shaken by the Leave campaign prevailing 52% to 48% on 23 June.

This huge skin bears the marks of history.  [Prime Minister] David Cameron came to the House of Commons on 27 June to give his statement on Brexit just as the installation was being completed, and we are all consumed by the events of the moment, says James Lingwood, the co-director of Artangel.

But The Ethics of Dust is concerned with a grander and longer history of this building at the heart of democracy.  It contains within it centuries of pollution. The dirt is transformed into something radiant, it reminds me of a huge tapestry, glowing with history, he says.

You can see the streaks of the water marks and the outline of sculptures that were once placed against the wall, the artist says. What interests me is when a work of art ends and the space begins.

The work, which is backed by Bloomberg Philanthropies, has involved collaborating with Parliaments restoration and stone cleaning project team over five years. The ambitious project is part of Otero-Pailos ongoing series, which considers conservation and cultural responses to pollution.

Last year, Otero-Pailos made a cast of a cast from Trajans Column in Londons Victoria and Albert Museum and in 2009, created a latex reproduction of an interior wall in the 14th-century Doges Palace in Venice.

The London Zoo is selling off four paintings by the Swiss-born animal painter Jacques-Laurent Agasse, who moved to England in 1800. Despite their importance, the pictures had remained unknown to art historians. They are due to be sold at Christies in London, where they should fetch around 500,000.

The paintings were commissioned in the 1820s by Edward Cross, a dealer in exotic animals and owner of a menagerie open to the public. For a time his menagerie was located on Trafalgar Square, but was moved to allow the building of the National Gallery in 1829. The Agasse pictures later passed down Crosss family and were bequeathed to the Zoological Society of London in 1950 by Mrs F.E. Emerson. The society runs the London Zoo in Regents Park and is also involved in research and conservation.

Although the bequest was noted in the societys 1950 annual report, since then the paintings have not been published by the society or even recorded in the Agasse literature (they did not figure in Tates 1989 exhibition on the artist). The pictures were hung in private areas of the societys offices and since 2013 they have been in store.

The trustees of the Zoological Society of London have now decided to sell the Agasse paintings. There are no legal impediments connected with the bequest and the Charity Commission has been informed. A Lion and a Lioness in a Rocky Valley (est 200,000-300,000) and Two Bengal Tigers in a Savannah Landscape with a Man in a Tree (est 200,000-300,000) are to be sold on 30 June. Giraffes with Impala in a Landscape (est 40,000-60,000) and Elk in a River Landscape (est 40,000-60,000) are to be sold on 8 July.


A spokeswoman for the society says: To continue to store and insure these paintings is adding a regular annual cost and the society feels it can do more good with funds from the sale. The proceeds would help continue work for wildlife, helping to conserve and protect some of the worlds most endangered animals, such as the Sumatran tiger.

Gumnut Babies, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie and the Little Ragged Blossom, are storybook characters who have delighted children for generations.

It’s been 100 years since renowned Australian author and illustrator May Gibbs created the magical gumnut world, and to celebrate North Sydney Heritage Centre presents a wonderful new exhibition.

Featuring original artwork, rare books, archival material, costume and pottery, the exhibition explores the place of the Gumnut Babies in Australian culture.

The free exhibition includes a diorama of Gumnut World creatures which helps to explain the botanical basis of May Gibbs’ work and features treasures from the Neil and Marian Shand Collection. Among the exhibits are first editions of May’s work, original artwork, and books from May’s library.

Visitors can also see a vintage home-made Gumnut Baby costume from the 1940s, Gibbs-inspired bush-themed fashion from Sydney fashion house Romance Was Born, a collection of inter-war Australian pottery and Gumnut models from May Gibbs’ Nutcote that were once used as a Christmas window display for Myers department store.

Open during library hours until the end of August 2016.

The 2-week program of classes and workshops allows kids to be mentored by The Grounds experts in pizza, cupcake making, magic, florals and gardening classes.

The Grounds is known for its innovative and fresh offerings, so co-founder, Ramzey Choker, is hoping to help parents teach kids how to cook at home using the best local ingredients. Inspiring the next cupcake queen or king of Sydney, classes include cupcake making and decorating as well as pizza making classes.

The snaking line of art-worlders waiting in the rain to be cleared by House of Commons security to view Artangels latest commissionThe Ethics of Dust by Jorge Otero-Pailos in Westminster Hallwere treated to a more direct engagement with contemporary history as several thousand London Remain marchers poured past from what was supposed to be a cancelled rally in Trafalgar Square. The stream of protestors, who included a posse of Royal College of Art students distinguished by their rather well-executed banners, received an enthusiastic response to their anti-Brexit chanting from the trapped queue. Among these were the artists Richard Wentworth and Simon Patterson, the Tate Modern director Frances Morris and Jenni Lomax, the director of Camden Arts Centre.

Once inside the venerable space of Westminster Hall and bathed in the honey glow of Otero-Pailoss suspended back-lit latex castwhich contains the grime of several centuriesmany felt a stronger desire to be outside with the animated, youthful throng contemplating the tumultuous events of the here and now, rather than the dust of ages. But all agreed that it was also apposite that we were gathered together in the most ancient part of our parliaments buildings, which itself had been built under the reign of a European, William Rufus the son of William the Conqueror, in 1097. For, as the protesters were chanting outside, we are European family.

For those sitting in the saleroom of Sothebys last night, the turmoil on the financial markets following the UKs decision to leave the European Union (EU) seemed a distant memory.

Records tumbled for Keith Haring and Jenny Saville, whose monumental body pile painting, Shift, last seen at the Royal Academy Sensation exhibition in 1997, was bought by Liu Yiqians Long Museum for 6m (6.6m with fees; est 1.5m-2m). The Chinese billionaire beat four other bidders including the US mega dealer Larry Gagosian to win the canvas, which will be exhibited in Shanghai in a show of international female artists called She.

Its good to see that some British exports are still desirable, Sothebys auctioneer Oliver Barker said before banging the gavel to hearty applause.

The far-reaching implications for British exports are still unknown, but some dealers said Brexit could benefit the art market in the short term as investors seek refuge in art as an asset class and savvy collectors search for a bargain with the pound so devalued. Its such an international market. If you are looking at something in terms of sterling it is a lot less expensive than it was three days ago, said the London dealer Harry Blain. Discounts have been estimated at around 10%.

The results for Sothebys contemporary evening sale were reassuring. The auction house made 43.9m (52.2m with fees; est 35.4m-50m). The sell-through rate was a strong 87%. But the trimmed sale on 29 June represented a 60% drop in value from last year.

Other success stories on the night included Jean Debuffet and Adrian Ghenie, whose baboon and moth painting, The Hunted (2010), sold to a private Asian collector on the phone for 1.6m (1.7m with fees, almost three times its high estimate of 600,000).

Alex Branczik, Sothebys head of contemporary art Europe, conceded that the uncertainty of the EU referendum had made it harder to consign works, but the results show that the passion for art collecting continues to over-ride broader concerns about the economy.

The results were indeed a boost for Britain. Its set to be the wettest June on record, the England team is out of the Euros and we have left the EU. But this sale was very encouraging, Blain said.

Nazy Vassegh, the chief executive of Masterpiece London, says she has sought to recalibrate the UK capitals unashamedly lavish, cross-disciplinary fair since her appointment in 2013.

While the fair maintains its premise of mixing older art with new, a previous emphasis on luxury goodsunpopular with some who, ironically, felt it cheapened the tonehas been scaled back. Vassegh says that a focus on the three pillars of art, antiques and design will give the fair a stronger identity. With stricter selection criteria for exhibitors now in place, visitors wont find modern pens at the seventh edition, which opens to the public tomorrow (30 June).

The organisers have also taken steps to bolster the fairs requisite educational programme, which will be led by a talk on British decorative arts by curators from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

The changes have done no harm to the attendance figures. The fair drew a record 40,000 visitors last year, in part due to the word spreading, Vassegh says. Were still only six years old.

As with most young fairs, there is some flux in the list of 150 exhibitors, with 23 new names appearing this year. These include the Dutch gallery Axel Vervoordt, which offers a stylish mix of Modern art and design with antiquities, as well as Tornabuoni Art and Cortesi Gallery, two of the recent wave of Italian post-war and contemporary art galleries in London.

It is crucial to strike the right balance of disciplines that curators and collectors want to buy and that the culturally inclined public want to see, Vassegh says. Modern and contemporary design is one area that will grow in prominence at this years fair. Another newcomer, the Stockholm-based design gallery Modernity, has chosen to attend Masterpiece as its first non-specialist fair.

For Jonathan Green, the director of Richard Green gallery in London, Masterpiece is a good-looking fair, improving slowly but surely. Whether participation results in hard sales is a matter of debateor rumourbut last year the gallery sold around ten paintings. We take a huge stand and put our best foot forward with the works that we take, Green says. With that level of investment, we expect to do a few million pounds worth of business. You get out what you put in.

Masterpiece London, Royal Hospital Chelsea, South Grounds, London, 30 June-6 July

Steve Martin the curator and art enthusiast occasionally gave way to Steve Martin the comic and film star at the media preview of The Idea Of North: the Paintings of Lawren Harris at Torontos Art Gallery of Ontario on Tuesday, 28 June. The show spans the long career of the Canadian artist, whose work ranged from cityscapes to landscapes to abstraction. It opens to the public on Canada Day, 1 July.

A stripped-down version of the comprehensive survey was on view last year the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and at Bostons Museum of Fine Arts. In Boston they came in throngs, in LA they came in thongs, Martin joked in a freewheeling conversation during the preview with Andrew Hunter, the AGOs curator of Canadian art, who co-organised the show with Martin and the Hammer's Cynthia Burlingham.

My first encounter with Harris was in a book. I mistook him for Rockwell Kent. I thought Thats the best Kent Ive ever seen, Martin recalled. Kent was a contemporary of Harriss and also travelled to far-flung places; his piece Icebergs, Greenland is included in the Toronto show. When told that the artist he was so impressed by was Lawren Harris, who is best known for his association with The Group of Seven, Martin said: Whos that? I thought Id discovered this guy, only to learn he was already famous in Canada.

Martins late exposure to Harris prompted a discussion of whether there are artists that Canadians might be missing out on. Have you heard of Vincent van Gogh? he asked the audience. As an avid museum-goer and art collector, Martin also shared his thoughts on what distinguishes good art from bad: A bad painting, you look at it and go, What? A good painting, you look at it and go, Wow.

Martin was also asked what advice he had for young artists, having been an aspiring writer and comedian before making it big in television and film. Do everything that is offered, he said. Take every opportunity to show your work. He added a note of self-awareness, however: Though its easy to say never give up, sometimes you have to give up and start again.

The biggest laugh followed a question as to why Harris, who passed away aged 85 in 1970, always seemed to be in good spirits, even saying of death: Theres a certain amount of fun in it. As usual, Martin had a ready reply Harris was rich, he said, adding more thoughtfully, When you have a mission in life, it makes you happy.

The destruction of the Temple of Nabu in the Assyrian city of Nimrud in northern Iraq by the Islamic State (Isil) has been condemned by Unesco and a leading UK archaeologist. As part of its propaganda campaign, the jihadist group issued video footage earlier this month that appeared to show part of the ancient archaeological site being blown up.
 
The United Nations training and research agency, Unitar, released satellite images taken on 3 June confirming the damage to the temple, which was built in the ninth century. Compared to imagery collected 12 January [2016], we observe extensive damage to the main entrance of what is known as Nabu Temple, the agency said.
 
The gate and the walls of the temple, dedicated to the Babylonian god of wisdom, were built centuries later. In general, it seems that they [Isil] do not have the knowledge to distinguish between modern reconstructions of buildings and the ancient remains. They display a formidable ignorance. But when explosives and bulldozers are used, some serious damage can be done, says Colin Renfrew, an archaeologist at the University of Cambridge and member of the House of Lords.

Extremists cannot silence history and their attempt to erase the memory of this region can only fail. The deliberate destruction of heritage is a war crime and must be punished as such, says Irina Bokova, the director-general of Unesco, in a statement.

The Isil video taken from several angles shows explosives being detonated behind and under the [entrance] arch, the archaeologist Christopher Jones writes on his blog. A series of mermen sculptures flanking the arch were seriously damaged.

He adds: As can be seen in after shots, the arch collapsed but the majority of the structure is still standing In a move surely calculated to provoke a media reaction, the video concluded with an Isis member stating that the group intends to go to Egypt and blow up the pyramids and the sphinx. The video footage also shows a bulldozer demolishing the seventh-century Mashki Gate in Nineveh, which is also located in the north of the country near the city of Mosul.