For sale: Hepworths and the art of Robin Williams
Barbara Hepworth’s garden in St Ives is being recreated in London this week, under the tented structure of the Frieze Masters fair in Regent’s Park. Courtesy of art agent Dickinson, the replica is replete with fake palm trees, taxidermy seagulls, a pond, gravel, a garden shed, artist’s studio and, of course, art. Frieze Masters has become celebrated for the inventiveness of the dealers’ stands – and this one looks like being one of the biggest yet. The timing is also good as the Hepworth market is on a roll. Last week, a half-ton bronze Hepworth sculpture was sold at the British Art Fair in London by the Belgrave Gallery of St Ives for more than £2.5million – the highest price ever achieved at that fair.
This year’s Frieze Masters will also mark the final public appearance at a UK fair of distinguished antiquities dealer Rupert Wace. After 33 years as a dealer at the forefront of his field, doing five fairs a year, Wace will make an appearance at TEFAF in New York next month, followed by a final exhibition in his Crown Passage gallery, which is opposite Christie’s, around Christmas. Wace will then close shop to spend more time on research and consultancy, “without the constant pressure to perform”.
The collection of the film star Robin Williams, who died by suicide in 2014, and his second wife, Marsha, goes under the hammer in New York this week. Along with his Golden Globe awards, rare books, toy soldiers and watches is an interesting art collection that indicates the couple’s fondness for outsider and irreverent street art. The two would buy art for each other as presents. Marsha, a film producer and painter, introduced her husband to outsider art. A painting by the self-taught, mentally disturbed Adolf Wölfli, which she bought for him, could set a record for the artist at more than $200,000 (£153,000). Later, when the Banksy wave hit Los Angeles in 2006 (remember all the press about Angelina Jolie buying Banksy?), Marsha bought him a painting of military helicopters in Vietnam wearing pink bow ties in a bright, sunny sky. She knew he would like Happy Choppers because of his lifelong fondness for toy soldiers. Then, when she realised that their children could relate easily to this art, she bought more street art by Banksy: Mr Brainwash, Space Invader and Blek le Rat, examples of which are now being sold to raise money for Williams’s favoured charities. Happy Choppers is expected to fetch $500,000 (£383,000).