The Royal Academy of Arts is staging an unprecedented auction in aid of the National Academy of Arts of Ukraine (NAAU).
Featuring works by renowned British artists including Tracey Emin and Antony Gormley, the event is a collaboration between the Royal Academy and The Natalia Cola Foundation.
It marks the Academy’s first collaboration with an outside organisation.
Ukraine’s National Academy of Arts is currently facing a crisis as a result of Russia’s military invasion into the country last year.
The auction will be held in London on 28 January. A silent auction is currently ongoing, with bids being accepted online at www.saveukraineculture.com.
Funds raised by the event will go towards a number of different iniatives involving the NAAU.
These include a grant scheme for Ukranian artists, financial aid for Ukrainian Academicians, structural repair to NAAU buildings, the continuation of research publishing and exhibition activies, and the digitisation of archives, translation of its website and equipment.
‘Kiev No.1’ by Juergen Teller, 2007, commissioned by the Pinchuk Art Centre
(Juergen Teller via Royal Academy x Natalia Cola Foundation for National Academy of Arts of Ukraine)
Allen Jones, Claire Woods, and Jürgen Teller are also among the artists to have provided items for the auction.
Teller has presented a photograph taken during a trip to Kyiv in 2007.
Artist Stephen Shore, meanwhile, is auctioning a photograph from a 2018 MoMA retrospective, taken in the Bucha, Kyiv home of a Ukrainian victim of the Holocaust.
Stephen Shore’s ‘The Home of Tzylia Bederman, Bucha, Ukraine, July 18, 2012’, 2012-2013
(Stephen Shore)
The NAAU is also presenting a number of pieces by famous Ukrainian artists such as Anatoly Kryvolap, Oleg Tistol, Borys Mykhaylov, Tiberii Silvashi, and Vira Barynova-Kuleba.
Among the most valuable items up for sale is Gormley’s inkcap-on-paper piece from 2021, entitled RESPECT, which is expected to sell for between £10,000 and £15,000.
‘Respect’ by Antony Gormley, 2021
(Antony Gormley via Royal Academy x Natalia Cola Foundation for National Academy of Arts of Ukraine)
Oil-on-canvas paintings from Silvashi and Kryvolap are welcoming starting bids of £14,000 and £15,000 respectively.
Among the other items up for bidding is a collectable book, 9 ½ Years of Vogue In Ukraine, signed by the First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska, and a Giorgio Armani dress from the designer’s Spring/Summer 22 Runway collection.
The live auction will take place at 8pm on 28 January at The Royal Academy of Arts in London.
