Studio Voltaire takes its creative flair to Mayfair
As the season of goodwill approaches, the ever inventive Studio Voltaire, a not-for-profit venue off Clapham High Street, in south London, is taking up temporary residence next week in one of the spaces in Mayfair’s Cork Street made empty by developers who show no sign of finding new gallery tenants. One of the more intriguing offerings at Cork Street will be the possibility to commission a £30,000 “shadow portrait” from Mcdermott & Mcgough, US artists who have turned Studio Voltaire’s venue in Clapham into “The Oscar Wilde Temple”. Other artists of note who have donated works for sale include Phyllida Barlow, Antony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Edmund de Waal.
The Nottingham Playhouse is fortunate to have art enthusiast Mark Gatiss playing the lead role in its current production, The Madness of King George III. For a fundraising online auction for the theatre being staged by John Pye Auctions in Uttoxeter, Gatiss has made a cartoon entitled Royal Rumpus of himself as King George, with supporting actors as Queen Charlotte and the King’s doctor. The cartoon is in the spirit of the 18th-century satirist James Gillray, but also bears the unmistakable influence of the 20th-century artist John Minton, about whom Gatiss recently presented a television documentary. The estimate is a cautious £200.
Viewers have until 2pm today to view the contents of the legendary nightclub Annabel’s, in situ in Berkley Square, before they are auctioned by Christie’s later this afternoon. The timing of the sale, in the middle of London’s Modern British Art sales, is no coincidence as, among all the furnishings, sporting pictures, cartoons, Ballets Russes and Parisian jazz age poster designs, are a core of Modern British paintings by the likes of Augustus John, William Orpen, William Nicholson and Glyn Philpot, which carry the highest estimates of the sale.
The impending Russian art auctions in London are a little thin on Revolutionary avant-garde material – not surprising as barely a month goes by without another fake story emerging. However, London dealers James Butterwick and Alon Zakaim have unearthed a collection of 47 drawings from the Twenties by avant-garde artist Yakov Chernikhov, which display his interest in industrial architecture and abstract design. The artist died in 1951 and the collection was previously owned by his son. The find, says Butterwick, is “a minor miracle”. Prices at the exhibition, which will be held at the Alon Zakaim gallery in Mayfair, will range from €10,000 to €30,000 (£8,900 to £26,700).