Christie's New York art sale sets contemporary record The US art season ended with a record-breaking sales total of $412m (£259.9m) for Christie's, with records set for works by 11 artists. Is it a good thing to invest in an artist today! Look at the figures, the proof is in the numbers but it is still a guessing game and you have to pick the right artist but always buy what you like the chances are others will like it too and that is what makes the difference. Jeff Koons sculpture Tulip, which graced New York's Rockefeller Center plaza, achieved an artist record of $33.7m (£21.2m). New records were also set for Franz Kline and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Christie's claimed the $412m figure was the most successful sale of post-war and contemporary art in history. "This truly was an extraordinary sale," said Jussi Pylkkanen, president of Christie's Europe, Middle East and Russia. "Clearly there's an enormous amount of energy in the post-war and contemporary market. It's highly likely that we'll see a continuation of records being broken." Smashing record The previous day, rival auction house Sotheby's had staged its most successful auction in its history, taking $375m (£236m). Koons" Tulip became the second highest figure paid for a living artist, following on from Gerhard Richter's 1994 painting Abstraktes Bild, which sold in October. Tulip was created between 1995-2004 and is one of five versions of the work. Kline's canvas, featuring broad black strokes, sold for $40.4m (£25.4m), smashing the previous $9.3m (£5.8m) record for his work. The Christie's sale also included Andy Warhol's Statue of Liberty, which sold for $43.7m (£27.5m). Basquiat's untitled work from 1981 sold for $26.4m (£16.6m), beating the artist's previous record of $20.1m (£12.6m), which was only set in June. Basquiat started out as a graffiti artist before finding fame as a contemporary artist. He died of a heroin overdose in 1988 at the age of 27. Rothko's Red Strip sold for $23.4m (£14.7m), just a day after large-scale masterpiece No 1 (Royal Red and Blue) sold for $75.1m (£47.2m) at Sotheby's.

The Glasgow boys

The Scottish Colourists From 3rd November 2012 until 23rd June 2013, the National Galleries of Scotland in Edinburgh will host an exhibition of works by S. J Peploe. Last year, Peploe's still life 'The Coffee Pot" set the record at auction for a painting by a Scottish artist, selling for close to £1m. According to Guy Peploe, grandson of the artist and director of the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh, Peploe and others in his group, 'The Scottish Colourists" used Winsor & Newton Artists" Oil Colour to make their brightly coloured and loosely handled paintings, inspired by Matisse and Fauvism. 'The Scottish Colourists', S.J Peploe, J.D Fergusson, F.C.B Cadell and G.L Hunter, were avant-garde artists at the turn of the 20th century; they enjoyed working in 'plein-air," directly from nature on the Côte d'Azur, the fashionable seaside resorts of the French Atlantic coast and the Hebridean islands of Burra and Iona. Samuel John Peploe Born in Edinburgh (1871), Peploe was an admirer of the paintings of Manet and dedicated himself to painting the 'perfect" still life. In his Edinburgh studio, Peploe would spend days arranging simple still life elements; bowls, vases, fruit etc. against a dark or black background. When satisfied with the composition, he would make the painting in one sitting, exploring tonal possibilities in the loose, fresh manner he so admired in Manet and the 17th century Dutch painter Frans Hals. If a passage of paint became murky or overworked, the whole thing would be scraped off and he would start again. Peploe had his first commercial success with these paintings and these and others can be seen at the Scottish gallery in October, coincidesing with the National galleries Scottish Colourists series. John Duncan Fergusson Born in 1874 in Edinburgh to a comfortable middle-class family, Fergusson trained briefly as a naval surgeon before enrolling at art school in Edinburgh. Two years of drawing from antique busts before being allowed in the life room did not suit the impatient Fergusson and he decided to teach himself by taking off to for Paris in 1897. Much taken with Impressionism, Fergusson built a painting kit from a cigar box on his return. He would take his oil colours outside, working directly in 'plein air," like the Impressionists, but on a very small 4x5 inch scale, with using the cigar box lid as a palette. Over the next ten years Fergusson honed the quick, loose technique necessary to capture moments in bustling street scenes in Edinburgh and Paris, and the fleeting effects of light in the landscape. The Fergusson gallery in Perth, Scotland, has a selection of his materials including his tubes of Winsor & Newton Artists" Oil Colour and Artists" Watercolour. (ill.) Fergusson moved to Montparnasse in 1907, frequenting the cafes and restaurants of fashionable Paris he fully embraced the bohemian lifestyle. Of all the artists he encountered, Matisse and the Fauves were to be a particular influence, reflected in his brighter palette. Friends with Peploe, they spent the summer of 1910 along the French Atlantic coast in the fashionable resorts of Étretat and Le Tréport, days on the beach painting and evenings with their French hosts. Fergusson loved the lifestyle, Peploe, rather shy and reserved, eventually returned to Edinburgh and studio painting. However, the influence of both Fergusson and Fauvism made his painting more loosely worked and richer in colour. Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell Closely associated with his art, Cadell's (b.1883) character was outgoing, flamboyant and witty. Like the other Scottish Colourists he was a great admirer of the American artist Whistler, who was notoriously accused by the critic John Ruskin of, 'flinging a pot of paint in the public's face,'." Cadell said of Whistler, …he had what some great painters have, a certain 'amateurishness" which I rather like and felt always in Gainsborough. I can best describe what I mean in these words, 'a gentleman painting for his amusement (of course it must be understood that the said gentleman is a genius as well)'.1 A tiny, jewel like rock, the Isle of Iona perches in the Inner Hebrides off the coast of Mull. The crisp light is reflected and intensified by the surrounding seas. Back from the trenches of World War I, Cadell recuperated here and was to return every year joined by Peploe from 1920. Known to the islanders as 'himself', Cadell was a popular figure, renting a croft overlooking the Sound of Mull and setting off for a day's painting dressed in full Campbell tartan. Cadell took the white sand bays, green seas and distant weather boiling up over the mainland for his subject. Painted mainly on 15 x 18 inch uniform boards that could easily be carried, they were prepared with a white absorbent ground. To realise the chalky appearance of sand, Cadell would dab most of the oil out of the paint before applying it, resulting in the brilliant white overall effect, suggestive of the characteristic light of the island. He also showed the everyday life of the crofts and the 9th century abbey. Peploe adopted a more systematic approach to painting on Iona and regularly chose the same view of Ben More as seen from the island, a pre-occupation mocked by Cadell as 'dreary." Neither artist was interested in cloudless skies and preferred days on Iona when the weather was changeable and they had to hunt the fleeting and spectacular effects of Hebridean light. Immensely popular, sales of Cadell's Iona paintings were to sustain him. Shipping magnate George Service, who he had met on Iona, bought over 130 works. George Leslie Hunter The fourth Scottish Colourist, G.L. Hunter (b.1877) moved to California when young as his father had an interest in orange groves. Hunter worked as an illustrator of magazines whilst preparing paintings for his first exhibition in San Francisco, however, all the work was destroyed in the earthquake of 1906. Devastated, Hunter returned to Scotland. He lived an itinerant life, travelling around Europe painting, often with his friend Fergusson. Hunter exhibited in New York in 1929 to great critical acclaim but soon after suffered a break down from which he never fully recovered. In the 1980s there was a resurgence in the popularity of figurative painting, which included a renewed interest in these artists. A series of auctions of the four Scottish Colourists achieved huge sales and re-established their reputations. Revered in Scotland as a direct link to Matisse, Picasso and the culture of Paris at the turn of the 20th century, the Scottish Colourists made an 'optimistic art," a 'Belle peinture" still prevalent in Scottish painting, full of the light of outdoors and the heightened colours of Fauvism. 1 Honeyman (1977), p.83 Bibliography: 1. Three Scottish colourists : S.J. Peploe, F.C.B. Cadell, Leslie Hunter, New ed. Honeyman, T. J., Edinburgh : P. Harris, 1977. 2. The Scottish colourists 1900-1930, F. C. B. Cadell, J. D. Fergusson, G. L. Hunter, S. J. Peploe 3. Royal Academy of Arts (London), 30 June - 24 Sept. 2000 , Group exhibition Catalogue www.nationalgalleries.org/whatson/exhibitions/the-scottish-colourist-series-sj-peploe