Francesco Clemente

Is Italian artist Francesco Clemente the greatest painter to emerge in the past 20 years? Or, as some critics claim, is he a facile draughtsman whose ability to turn out gorgeously composed, easily accessible images threatens his potential to evolve into a truly important artist? Like David Hockney, Jim Dine and R.B.

Is Italian artist Francesco Clemente the greatest painter to emerge in the past 20 years? Or, as some critics claim, is he a facile draughtsman whose ability to turn out gorgeously composed, easily accessible images threatens his potential to evolve into a truly important artist? Like David Hockney, Jim Dine and R.B.

Ten paintings and sculptures by contemporary artists from the collection of an entertainment industry executive sold at auction Wednesday for $4.4 million in a weeklong series of auctions that has totaled $33.2 million so far. The sales of post-World War II art have thrust the value of several living artists' work to near and beyond $1 million for the first time in the history of art and set world auction records for 26 of them, several of whom are from Europe.

Ten paintings and sculptures by contemporary artists from the collection of an entertainment industry executive sold at auction Wednesday for $4.4 million in a weeklong series of auctions that has totaled $33.2 million so far. The sales of post-World War II art have thrust the value of several living artists' work to near and beyond $1 million for the first time in the history of art and set world auction records for 26 of them, several of whom are from Europe.

Ray Smith is a 27-year-old Texan now working in New York after a long stint in Mexico. He shows five oversize compositions, most often depicting reclining female nudes. Thinly painted on plywood that lets the grain show, the pictures use horizontal stripes to evoke landscape. Lazily they attempt to update classic Surrealism. "Mexico" is a torso with a floating head a la Francesco Clemente and a deep-space background with an equestrian statue right out of De Chirico.

Craig Roper's intensely gestural and calligraphic paintings have usually been divided into two distinct yet related themes. His more mystically symbolic "Eastern" works are defined by tightly composed images of floating masks, flowing vines, falling water and/or flaming torches.

Next year, the well-dressed house will be wearing colors influenced by water, Latino culture and Harry Potter. That's the word from Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, who spoke at a press breakfast this week at the International Home Furnishings Market here.

You stare out the old window with its little square panes onto a summer moon so huge it seems to be right in the back yard. Slowly other moons and planets materialize until the whole window is full of exotic astral bodies whorling with lavender and veined with pink canals. Comets crisscross the firmament and it is so beautiful that for the moment you don't care whether or not you have lost your mind. That seems to be the basic fantasy behind Billy Al Bengston's new paintings.

Beverly Hills is getting artier and artier. Last month, the PaceWildenstein gallery arrived in town. On Tuesday night, it was the opening--or rather the return of--the Gagosian Gallery. Principal Larry Gagosian had closed the doors on his L.A. contemporary art gallery 10 years ago and moved to New York. He marked his return to an airy, Richard Meier-designed space on Camden Drive with a two-tiered bash--700 for cocktails in the gallery, 210 for dinner at Mr. Chow.

Andy Warhol thought it would be terribly glamorous to be reincarnated as a ring on Elizabeth Taylor's finger. At Fahey-Klein Gallery, in a wonderful show of Polaroids from 1971-1986, Warhol's magnificent obsession with anybody and everybody touched by fame is carried on with characteristic style. Like the contents of a Campbell's soup can, these small photographs are concentrated--velvety, luscious, a little tinny.

Artifacts from ancient tombs and the tombs themselves tell us most of what we know about Chinese culture. But these objects and monuments can speak to day-to-day, worldly life, as shown in an exhibit opening Tuesday at UCLA's Wight Art Gallery. "Stories From China's Past: Han Dynasty Pictorial Tomb Reliefs and Archaeological Objects From Sichuan Province, People's Republic of China" illuminates the lives of Han Dynasty people, from zither players to horsemen.