Auction News Network

Warhol’s “Screamer Print Sells For $450,000

In Warhol’s his version of Munch’s famous woodprint, The Screamer’s face is violent red, and the background hues of the original bridge scene are morphed into vibrant pop art colors. Apparently, collectors love the transformation. The Warhol print sold yesterday at Sotheby’s, London, for $405,000.

Basquiat Painting Expected To Set $20m Record

In the early 80’s Jean-Michel Basquiat moved from street art into art galleries with his wildly neo-expressionist paintings such as an untitled, partial self-portrait that became—like all of his work–increasingly valuable after his death from a heroin overdose at 27. Christie’s will offer “Untitled, 1981,” at its Spring sale in London for what’s expected to be a record $20m.

Christie’s Brags About 2012 Sales

Christie’s boasted of record sales for the first half of 2012, ringing up sales of $3.5 billion. Post war and contemporary art knocked down $922m. A Rothko painting went for $87m in May. A total of 26 works sold for more than $10m.

Tax Crackdown Sends Pall Over China Art Market

The NY Times reports a pall has descended over China’s art market as the government has launched a sweeping investigation of firms and collectors undervaluing art and antiques to avoid government import taxes that can reach 35%. Two employees of an art-handling firm have been jailed since March in Beijing.

What Are The Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auction?

When Edvard Munch’s “Scream” sold for $119.1m at Sotheby’s last week, it established a new world record for most expensive painting ever sold at auction. In these times of newly minted billionaires from Asia, Russia, and the Mideast, however, records don’t stand for long. During the past eight years, a variety or works have worn the crown. Read more about the paintings that drew the top ten prices ever paid at auction.

Huge Prices Expected At Spring Art Sales

Much of the speculation about the series of modern art auctions beginning in New York tomorrow has focused on Edvard Munch’s “Scream,” which is expected to sell at Sotheby’s for more than $106.4m. This would make it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. There are a variety of other high value offerings, however, that in any other season would be getting the attention. These include Mark Rothko’s “Orange, Red, Yellow,” for which Christie’s expects a price of $35m-$45m, Andy Warhol’s “Double Elvis,” which carries a $30m-$50m estimate at Sotheby’s, and Roy Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl,” which Sotheby’s estimates at $30m-$40m.

Failed Busan Bank’s Art Collection To Sell

When Korea’s Busan Bank failed last year, after a drama involving a large scale influence peddling scheme, its substantial collection of western and Chinese Contemporary art was seized. The 2,000 items being offered tomorrow in Hong Kong are an eclectic mix, with rare books of Buddhist sutras, and works by Robert Indiana, Dan Flavin and Julian Schnabel, as well as canvases by Chinese masters Zhang Xiaogang, Seng Fanzhi, Feng Zhengjie. The top lot at Seoul Auction is expected to be Kim Whanki’s “Garden,” expected to sell for $1.15m-$1.4m.

Lost Lempicka Canvas To Sell For Millions

The painter Tamara de Lempicka came roaring out of the 1920’s with her Art Deco styled nudes to become lionized in Parisian art circles. One of her sensual paintings, “Nu adossé I,” was shown in a 1925 Milan exhibit, but then disappeared. The work has re-emerged and Sotheby’s will offer it in early May with a high estimate of $5m.

Warhol’s Silkscreen of Bardot Could Fetch $5m

Gunter Sachs amassed a huge, eclectic art collection that will take Sotheby’s two days in May to sell, including a Warhol portrait of the German playboy’s second wife, Brigitte Bardot, commissioned after his divorce. Although it is one of 35 Bardot silkscreens, it’s still expected to sell in the $5m range at the London auction.

Update: The Warhol silkscreen of Bardot sold for $4.7m, which experts called the bargain of the night. All told, the auction brought in $55.8m, almost double the low estimate.

High Estimate For Rare Irma Stern Painting

Irma Stern was born in South Africa. In her 20’s she gained some recognition in Europe, but hometown reviewers called her work “ugliness as a cult.” Stern died in 1966 and has had the last word as her paintings now sell in the millions, and there’s a museum in Cape Town dedicated to her art. Bonham’s is selling “The Pink Sari,” never before on the market, at its South Africa sale later this month.

Lichtenstein May Fetch $40m

In 1964 Hollywood agent Phil Gersh and his wife spent just $1,000 on “Sleeping Girl,” one of Roy Lichtenstein’s now iconic comic book images of a sexy blonde. They owned the painting for the rest of their lives. In the intervening 48 years, their $1,000 investment is expected to have multiplied rather nicely. When Sotheby’s offers the work for the first time at auction this May, it’s expected to sell for $30m-$40m.

More From The Peter Norton Collection

Few collectors of contemporary art have been as influential as former software mogul Peter Norton. Selections from his collection set nine world records at a Christie’s sale last November. Next month, more works from Norton will be offered in New York as part of Christie’s Post-War Contemporary Art. Of the 254 lots at the March 7^th event, the highest estimated at $600,000-$800,000 is Damien Hirst’s “Rubidium Chloride” (1965).

2-for-1: Double Sided Pechstein Nets $4.6m

Back in 1910, Max Pechstein was thrifty (and impoverished), so he often painted over a work, or painted pictures on both sides. This week one of those double sided paintings sold for $4.6m at the Ketterer Kunst Auction in Hamburg, the highest price paid for any auctioned art work in Germany this year. His wife posed nude for one side of the painting. On the other there is a vase and fruit. Pechstein favored the still life, and that’s the side he signed and dated.

Nazi Loot: $1.2m For Disputed Kandinsky?

Cologne auction house Kunsthaus Lempertz is auctioning a Wassily Kandinsky watercolor the Nazis looted from a museum in Hanover. But there is a question of who rightfully owns “Two Black Spots” and the original owners’ heirs want it back. Lempertz says the painting was “given away” by the owners to a family nanny in the 1920’s. Bloomberg reports Lempertz is selling it without warning about the provenance question. It remains to be seen if it will fetch its high estimate of $1.2m.

Nothing Abstract About $61.7m For Clyfford Still

The money certainly wasn’t abstract as bidders chased after Abstract paintings last night at Sotheby’s including a stupendous $61.7m paid for a Clyfford Still work titled, “1949-A-No. 1.” A second, smaller painting of his also from the 1940’s sold for $31.4m. The city of Denver sold Still’s work, which rarely comes to market, to benefit a museum in his name. Total take for the Postwar and Contemporary Art auction came to $315.8m.