Are you bored of your standard notebook? We have a very cool replacement that is sure to make many heads turn. Smooth Creations have come up with Smoothbook DR notebook that is more of an encyclopedia than a lappy if its size is anything to go by. In other words, this notebook is acutally a feature-packed computer.

And looks are of major focus here. The Smoothbook DR has been airbrushed with a fancy paint job. A horrifying-ly cool skull face, that looks as if it will tear you to pieces, is on the top face of the lappy. Three LED indicator lights indicate that the power is switched on, or when the notebook is running out of juice. And when you open the lappy, it will reveal a 17-inch screen with an impressive 1920X1200 resolution.

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Setting a new record for the category of world’s most expensive living female artist is a South African born artist Marlene Dumas. And this is made possible via her painting, popularly known as The Visitor, that generated sales of £3.1 million at a Sotheby’s auction. The painting was picked up by the New York private dealer Nancy Whyte during Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale scheduled on 1 July. The sales figure overshadowed Dumas’ preceding testimony of £1.8 million marked in February 2005.

The illustration is defined by Sotheby’s as an expressively demanding and noticeably beautiful. Spread over a canvas of 180cm x 300cm, the Visitor portrays a group of six-female sex-workers eyeing towards an illuminated door. The standing position of the women implies that they are contending for their deal while expecting the looming entrance of a punter. More than anything, Dumas work has invited criticism evoking issues like birth, death, sex, life, race, identity, motherhood and feminism.
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We have covered various paintings, antiques, statues at international auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s. And lately here comes a mandatory update to my list of paintings sold at Christie’s. A Gundam painting by Japanese artist Tenmyouya Hisashi lately fetched $600,000 (HK$4.8 million) at Hong Kong based Christie’s auction house. The painting “RX-78-2 Kabuki-mono 2005 Version” reflects a perfect blend of traditionalism with modernism.

Hisashi states: Japan is known for numerous “Gundam-Otaku’s,” and their admiration of Gundam is profound. Hence, he didn’t wish to alter the image of Gundam. By shifting Gundam’s “mobile suit” to tattoos, he has offered a custom-built model and its setting against the background of gold leaf from customary Japanese painting accentuates Gundam’s samurai genesis.

Via Kotaku / LikeCool

Masterpieces and artworks by artists who have passed away are eternal and invaluable. It is one arena that keeps its doors open even for deceased one’s to make their entry into the Guinness book of world records. And lately, this has been exemplified by a celebrated artist Lucian Freud. His depiction of an overweight nude woman (Sue Tilley, 51, Supervisor of Jobcenter) snoozing has summoned more than a few dough notes to be exhausted. The lady masquerade for this 85-year-old painter for long four-years and to say the utmost she tagged herself his muse. She was christened as “Big Sue” and got introduced to Freud by Mr. Leigh Bowery.

The painting overshadowed the earlier mark of $19.3 million and got sold off for $33.6 million.

Via BBC

Auction reports from Sotheby’s reveal that a cubist oil painting by 20th century French artist Fernand Leger generated sales of $39.2 million on 7 May at New York based auction. The pre-auction estimate for the 1912-1913 painting, “Study for a Woman in Blue,” was $35 million to $45 million. The conceptual arithmetical painting portrays a woman in a blue dress seated at a table with her hands in her lap.

Another painting that has set an artist record is Edvard Munch’s (munk) 1902 “Girls on a Bridge” as it got sold off for $30.8 million against its pre-sale guesstimate of $24-$28 million.

Via USAuctionInfo

One can’t assist but speculate number of nattily decent citizens sitting countless nights at International auction houses viz. Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips de Pury in coming next two weeks. A good percentage could be of serious bidders and others would be voyeurs eager to observe an implosion of $$$$ art market. It’s now being years that collectors and media have been waiting for the day when prices would finally top. But this time auction houses are hopeful that time will take a toll and things will play out well as they did three months ago in London, when, in spite of global economic nausea, a Francis Bacon triptych painting fetched $51.6 million.

Some highlights of the upcoming auctions:

Artist: Francis Bacon

Artwork: “Three Studies for Self-Portrait,’’ Triptych 1976
Auction House: Christie’s
Ballpark Figure: $25 million and $35 million

Artist: Jeff Koons

Artwork: “New Hoover convertibles, New Shelton Wet/Drys 5-Gallon, Double Decker”
Auction House: Christie’s
Sales: Christie’s post-war and contemporary sales
Ballpark Figure: $10 million
Date: 13 May

Artist: Monet

Artwork: “Le Pont du Cheminde Fer à Argenteuil,” 1873

Auction House: Christie’s
Ballpark Figure:$35 million
Date: 6 May

Artist: Edvard Munch

Artwork: “Girls on a Bridge,” a 1902 oil canvas painting
Auction House: Sothey’s New York Impressionist and Modern Art - Part I auction
Ballpark Figure: $28 million
Date: 7 May
Artist: Alberto Giacometti

Artwork: “Grande Femme Debout II,” 1959-60
Auction House: Christie’s
Ballpark Figure: $18 million
Date: 13 May
Artist: Henri Matisse, French painter

Artwork: “Portrait au mateau bleu”
Auction House: Christie’s Spring Impressionist and Modern sales
Ballpark Figure: $17 million
Date: 6 May
Artist: Pierre Patel the Elder

Artwork: ‘A landscape at Evening with Travelers’ and a Hunter Near Classical Ruins’ painted around 1640
Auction House: Sotheby’s London
Ballpark Figure: $800,000-$1.2 million
Date: 9 July

Via NYT

The first of Sotheby’s bi-annual sales of Scottish Pictures is scheduled for 1 May at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. Paying tribute to 20th century, the sale would feature the masterpieces and artwork from all periods and movements of Scottish Art during last century. The highlights of the exhibition would be from the Scottish Colourists, the Glasgow Boys, the Edinburgh Group and the New Glasgow Boys together with a worthy collection by Alexander Goudie. Year 2008 would witness the second year of the sales hosted at the Assembly Rooms. The eternal Colourist section of the sale will be organized by Samuel John Peploe’s (1871-1935) Cassis Harbour and John Duncan Fergusson’s (1874-1961) Bathers with Mirror.

Peploe’s French harbor scene is anticipated to fetch £80,000-120,000 while Bathers with Mirror (pictured above) is expected to generate sales of £150,000-200,000.

It portrays numerous signature elements and it is a splendid case of the latter period of his work, a phase subjugated by his high-spirited images of bathers and n****.

Via AuctionPublicity

“Sunset over the Atlas Mountains,” a circa 1935 oil painting by Winston Churchill is all set to go under hammer during Bonhams New York auction in 23 April. This is one painting that Winston adored so much that he invited President Franklin D. Roosevelt to see it even after years later. This vivacious countryside depicting Churchill’s balcony at the Mamounia Hotel in Marrakech is anticipated to fetch $600,000. Churchill invited Roosevelt to travel with him to Marrakech after a conference in Casablanca in 1943 so he could experience the beautiful view for himself.

Via MSNBC

An elite painting by 20th Century French artist Fernand Leger is all set to undergo a hammer for $45 million at New York based Sotheby’s impressionist sale scheduled for 7 May. “Etude pour La Femme en Bleu” (1912-13) is a brew of arithmetical shapes hued in blue and white with intonations of pale yellow, red and black. The canvas dates back to the family compilation of German collector Hermann Lange, who purchased it from Galerie Neumann-Nierendorf in Berlin in 1920s. If this painting happened to fall near the expected sale i.e. $35-$45 million, then it would top the lot of the evening sale that would in total count to be $284 million. Leger’s earlier record was set in 2003 when his 1914 painting fetched him $22.4 million at Christie’s International in New York.

Via Bloomberg

A 1932 oil painting, finished for the iconic cover of Tintin in America hammered the earlier world record for an unique comic book work. This was designed in March 2007 when a drawing by artist Enki Bilal called Bleu Sang (Blue Blood) generated €177,000. Touted as a “museum piece” in Artcurial’s auction booklet, the painting by comic artist, creator of Tintin, Herge got sold for €764,200 ($1.2 mn) inclusive of expenses on 29 March. Total earnings that this auction of 650 comic originals generated stood at €280,000.

Via News