Rare Qianlong ‘Dragon’ Vase Stuns at Auction, Sells for $3.7 Million—Over Six Times Its EstimateMETRO NEWS: Soviet painting by Czeslaw Znamierowski sold in China for $120,000Rare Chinese ‘Dragon’ Vase Fetches Over €1.1 Million in ParisSotheby’s Successful NFT Auction of ‘MetaSkull’ Collection Brought Over $665K for Famed Contemporary Artist Jacky Tsai
Maurice Leloir’s Four Historical Scenes Sell for €128,600 at BonhamsJacob Jordaens’s Portrait of His Wife Sells for €154,200 at BonhamsRenaissance Portrait Attributed to Conrad Faber Sells for €295,000 at BonhamsJodi the Nanotyrannus Sells for US$47.3 Million at Sotheby’sQianlong Emperor’s Jewel-Encrusted Gold Ewer Sells for US$7.11 Million at Christie’sHockney’s €282,200 Print Leads Warhol and Banksy in €1.06 Million Bonhams SaleMV Agusta Sells for $1.3 Million, Setting an Italian Motorcycle Auction RecordEnigma Machine Sells for £203,600 at Bonhams: Inside the 1941 Cipher DeviceUzo Egonu’s Will Knowledge Safeguard Freedom I Sets Auction Record at £198,900Yusuf Grillo’s One Man Band Sets Artist Auction Record at £461,300Ben Enwonwu’s Anyanwu Sells for £602,100, Setting a Sculpture Record at BonhamsRare Gandhi Portrait Achieves £152,800, Tripling Its EstimateBanksy’s British Cool Mickey Snake Triumphs at Bonhams, Selling for £330,600Whistler’s First Portrait Commission Sells for Five Times Estimate, Fetching $495,000Bridget Riley Stuns Art World as Myrrh Soars to $2.36M at Bonhams

Asia

Art, antiques, auctions, and cultural stories from across Asia.

Ninjin Art makes a big splash at Tokyo’s Flying Teapot

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Reg Cleet meets his first alien in Ninjin Art’s The Night Turns (Mandelgrün).

Ninjin Art’s newest animation ‘The Night Turns (Mandelgrün)’ has picked all the right numbers for its premiere at The Flying Teapot, a key Tokyo locus for the Japanese avant-garde art scene. With a runtime of 3 minutes 52 seconds, ‘The Night Turns (Mandelgrün)’ combines the kimo-kawaii animation of Cornwall’s Ignatius Rake with the haunting synthesizer sounds of London’s Louis S Hill to tell the story of Reg Cleet, a man abducted by telepathic aliens that look like teeth and who want him to marry their queen and seed the next generation of alien/human hybrids.

JAPAN ART EXPO: Japanese Swords, Art & Culture – June 2023

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Close view of Japanese armour with an ornate helmet and a face mask bearing a white moustache.

Japan Art Expo (JAE) is a unique two-day event in the heart of Europe. At once an art fair and educational conference, which will showcase the best of Japanese craftsmanship. There will be an international array of dealers from Europe and Japan specializing in various fields across Japanese Art. Dealers will be joined by scholars and specialists to bring their passion and expertise to professionals, collectors and hobbyists alike, all under one roof.

ORTHO Successfully Launches Fashion Metaverse – Designer Le Thanh Hoa Delivers Unique Show

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Cocoon No. 141: digital and runway models in black off-the-shoulder gowns with high-low hems.

Fashion-oriented metaverse platform ORTHO – a Vietnamese digital fashion house – has successfully launched its virtual world that combines high fashion and high-tech elements. On October 27, ORTHO and famous Vietnamese fashion designer Le Thanh Hoa (LTH) organized the first virtual runway fashion show to present his unique collection called AN, which translates as peace. In addition to the metaverse runway experience, he delivered a physical show in Hanoi, the capital city of Vietnam.

The virtual show enjoyed tremendous success, attracting about 1,000 people who savored the fashion experience in the metaverse.

The physical show in Hanoi was attended by about 200 guests from the fashion industry. The presentation was filled with nostalgic, peaceful, yet not melancholic imagery.

Sotheby’s Successful NFT Auction of ‘MetaSkull’ Collection Brought Over $665K for Famed Contemporary Artist Jacky Tsai

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MetaSkull promotional graphic with a colourful, intricately patterned skull and the words SKULL ART NFT.

Jacky Tsai and Froyo Games, a Web3 GameFi platform, announced the successful auction sale of “MetaSkull 元宇宙骷髅”(1/1001), the first digital art NFT in the MetaSkull collection, which is a series consisting of 1001 unique NFTs created with generative art programming. The auction was hosted by Sotheby’s – a Xperience Digital Art Auction, with the unique skull motif’s final bid concluding at USD $7,700 (HKD $60,480). 

The combined auction proceeds from Mr. Tsai’s digital artworks amounted to USD $665,832 (HKD $5,226,480), with a total of 5 lots sold – including Jacky’s impressive “Golden Years”, which sold for USD $321,036 (HKD $2,520,000).

Internationally Acclaimed Artist Ella Spira MBE Launches an Immersive Multimedia Art Exhibition in Singapore

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Ella Spira seated in black clothing against a pale background, resting one hand near her chin.

On Thursday, 3 November 2022, the Grammy-nominated British composer, artist and co-founder of production company Sisters Grimm, Ella Spira MBE, will launch her latest art project, ‘Global Landscapes Singapore’ at Art Now gallery, in the Raffles Hotel Arcade, unveiling her work as a visual artist. The exhibition will be opened to the public with no tickets required on the 4th and 5th of November.

Spira’s Singapore work has already proved popular with collectors. Singapore-based and Chinese investor Jack Tao fell under the spell of Ella Spira’s Banyan Tree painting and recently acquired it for £250,000. He went on to commission Spira to create the Global Landscape Singapore.

METASKULL NFT DROP | Renowned Digital Artist Jacky Tsai and Froyo Games Launch Skull Art NFTs for Metaverse

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MetaSkull NFT 1/1001 by Jacky Tsai.

Jacky’s first digital project was an NFT titled “Chinese Floral Skull, Lot 37” that sold at Sotheby’s auction for $302,400 US, which was the highest price paid for an NFT designed by an Asian artist.

Jacky Tsai, a London-based and Shanghai-born modern contemporary artist, is pleased to announce “MetaSkull Collection 元宇宙骷髅”, his inaugural Skull Art NFT collection that features the artist’s iconic skull motif designs.

Mr. Tsai worked in collaboration with Froyo Games, a Web3 gaming platform with extensive video-game development experience globally, to develop and launch the MetaSkull Collection, which is geared for the metaverse. 

The First “Gallery Creation” by Hong Kong Gallery

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BRAX Bubblegum by Young Club: a pink and red costumed character against a blue background.

A local creative label & Gallery YOUNGCLUB launched BRAX – the first gallery-created character, as an art series based on youth and artists. 

In the image of a young artist, BRAX explores and grows in its adventure journey, creating a series of stories in the dreamland, vividly presenting the value and adventurousness of the young generation.

BRAX is a forever 17-years-old character keeping its identity hidden by wearing a doll costume.

It can be a character representing any of us in society. This 17-year-old teenager starts his own journey with its costume, arouses the resonance of young artists on the way of creation, and brings back memories of their youth.

SaiakuNana and Ignatius Rake declare ‘Punk Rock Forever’

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SaiakuNana with an electric guitar outside a pink gallery storefront covered in drawings and lettering.

Celebrated Japanese artist SaiakuNana, who has exhibited her work in Tokyo, London and New York, has joined forces with award-winning Cornish animator and filmmaker Ignatius Rake to produce a music video that documents her must-see gallery in London’s East End before it closes this coming July 17.

“I became a fan of SaiakuNana’s work the moment I saw it at the Watari-um gallery in Tokyo,” Rake says.

“I was immediately struck by the power and vibrancy of her paintings, which combine the kawaii aesthetic of modern Japanese popular culture with the raw energy of punk rock and abstract expressionism.”

In 2018, SaiakuNana won the Grand Prize at the 21st Taro Okamoto Award for Contemporary Art, the Japanese equivalent of the UK’s Turner Prize.

Japan – NUTS ART WORKS Exhibition: Works Speak Eloquently Than Lips!!!

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NUTS ART WORKS exhibition graphic with a sign painter, tiger head and bold black-and-yellow lettering.

SAI is pleased to present ‘WORKS SPEAK ELOQUENTLY THAN LIPS!!!’ an exhibition by NUTS ART WORKS, a craftsman known for producing store signs and graphics for fashion brands such as SUPREME, taking place from Friday 11th February to Sunday 27th February 2022.

Naoto Hinai, the artisan behind NUTS ARTWORKS, has been fascinated with vintage American culture since childhood and has worked as a self-taught hand-painted sign maker since 1996. With every step of the production process created by hand, Hinai’ s level of craftsmanship has earned him the trust of Tokyo’ s Harajuku cultural scene, as well as brands and stores in various industries. Throughout his career, he has created shop signs and graphics for leading brands, including SUPREME, NEIGHBORHOOD, Ralph Lauren, and UNIQLO.

NFT AUCTION: RtistiQ Set To Launch Digital NFTs of Raja Ravi Varma’s ‘The Coquette’ and ‘Reclining Nair Lady’

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Detail of The Coquette, showing a woman in green and purple clothing with necklaces and earrings.

To start off the new year, RtistiQ will present the Digital NFT versions of Raja Ravi Varma’s (RRV) works ‘The Coquette’ and ‘Reclining Nair Lady’, two of his most famous paintings. With the originals considered to be National Treasures and unable to be brought out of India, the NFT versions will be auctioned online on the RtistiQ platform from 17 February to 20 February 2022.

This collection will be single editions of works of the Indian Art Legend to be tokenized and minted and this also marks the first NFT sales in collaboration with a traditional gallery and an artist foundation.

Original Artworks valued at USD 2.5M

Lithographs valued at USD 1K