Yarrow fans are hungry for the Wolf and Mesler to put people in the picture
Yarrow fans are hungry for the Wolf
Apart from dating Elizabeth Hurley and Anthea Turner in quick succession, Scotsman David Yarrow is best known as a wildlife photographer who has caught the eye of the Duke of Cambridge, among others.
Although his prints have proved popular, they never commanded high prices at public auction, until last year, when Sotheby’s sold an 8ft wide print of teeming cattle in Sudan, titled Mankind, for a triple estimate £60,000.
It was good news for his galleries worldwide, and added to anticipation for The Wolf of Main Street, which came up for auction at Sotheby’s in New York last week. Picturing a hungry-looking wolf walking along the bar of an inn, the image had a $15,000 (£10,500) estimate.
His Chicago gallery, Hilton-Asmus Contemporary, which is currently exhibiting another print of this image, was particularly excited, posting a warning on its website before the sale that the print would fly, and sure enough it did, selling for a new record at $100,000 (£70,000).
The buyer? None other than Hilton-Asmus Contemporary.
The most expensive pieces of art ever sold
Mesler to put people in the picture
The dealer Joel Mesler is known in New York for discovering new artists, but then losing them to bigger galleries when they become successful.
Fortunately, he also makes a living as an artist in his own right, and this week has his debut exhibition in London at the Simon Lee Gallery, in Mayfair, where he will show autobiographical works based on the letters of the alphabet.
Suggestive of the snake, Kaa, in Walt Disney’s 1968 film The Jungle Book, the paintings contain a serpent among the greenery and are priced at £8,430 each.
On Friday and Saturday, Mesler will also be in the gallery painting anyone who wants to sit for him, for just £200 per portrait. They are cheaper, he says, because they don’t take so long. Expect queues down Berkeley Street.
