Move over Picasso! Two painting created by Michael Flatley’s famed “Lord of the Dance” feet have sold at auction for close to $128,000.
Flatley makes his art by tap dancing on canvas. His paintings are officially the highest value artworks sold at auction in Ireland this year, so far at least.
Famed for his career as an Irish dance icon for the past 20 years he recently announced his retirement from the stage, but it seems that he could have a new career in a different region of the art world.
His two paintings, “The Power” and “Flight of the Quetzal,” sold for €77,500 ($83,348) and €44,000 respectively. They were sold by West Cork’s Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art Auctioneers. Before the auction O’Driscoll appeared on RTE’s “The Late Late Show” last Friday and displayed the works.
Morgan O’Driscoll Fine Art Auctioneers recently became the first Irish auction house to hold a viewing in London with a viewing held from the April 13 to 15 of their Irish and international art auction at La Galleria, Pall Mall, in London. The auction took place at the RDS, in Dublin, on April 20.
The auction included works by an array of important Irish artists such as Louis Le Brocquy, Camille Souter, Frank McKelvey, Mainie Jellett, Colin Middleton, Daniel O’Neill, Sean Scully, Gerard Dillon, John Behan and George Campbell and international artists such as Robert Motherwell, John Hoyland, Hughie O’Donoghue, William Scott, Andy Warhol and Pablo Picasso as well as the paintings by Michael Flatley.
In 2014 Flatley sold a painting, entitled “I” for just over $6,000. The painting was auctioned as to raise funds for the restoration of Christ Church Cathedral, in Dublin. In December his painting “Rossmore Island” sold for $27,645.
At the December auction Michael Sheppard, of Sheppard's saleroom in Durrow, County Laois, joked with the crowd “Don’t blame me in a few years’ time when we see these going for millions.”
Time will tell!
Comments