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Rising Value of Unrestored Cars
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Postwar & Contemporary Art
$40m Portrait of Bacon’s Violent Lover
April 10, 2013Although he reportedly once threw the artist through a window and was famously violent, Peter Lacy was said to be the love of Francis Bacon’s life. In 1962, shortly after Lacy’s death Bacon painted a “PL” portrait not seen in public for the past 40-years. It will be auctioned at Sotheby’s next month. High estimate is $40m.
Read more...High Expectations For Richter At Christie’s Sale
February 12, 2013A variety of works by celebrated 20th century British artists Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Peter Doig and Damien Hirst are in the lineup tonight for Christie’s auction of Post-war and Contemporary Art in London. A 2004 painting by Gerhard Richter, however, is expected to lead the February 13th sale. Although the auction house hasn’t released an estimate for “Abstraktes Bild,” its expectations are clearly high, and not without reason. Between just 2011 and 2012, Richter’s world record auction price has been broken four times, most recently by the $34.2m a mystery buyer paid last October for “Abstraktes Bild (809-4) from 1994.
Read more...Christie’s Luxury Week
December 10, 2012Closing out its 2012 season, Christie’s will offer a Luxury Week series of sales, beginning today with an event in New York devoted to jewels, led by a 50.01 carat diamond ring by Graff, (est. $7m-$10m). In tomorrow’s sale, Christie’s will auction a collection of furniture, fine and decorative art from the estate of legendary director Billy Wilder, and in coming days, there will be sales, six in all, devoted to watches, wine, and 20th century design.
Read more...Records Fall At Christie’s Contemporary Art Auction
November 15, 2012It was the big names that registered at Christie’s Postwar & Contemporary art sale last night: Andy Warhol, Franz Kline, Jeff Koons, and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Intense bidding for brand name art brought the auction to a $412m result, with top honors going to Warhol’s 1962 painting “Statue of Liberty,” which sold for $43.7m, including fees. “Never overestimate,” said art advisor Robert McClain, ”people’s willingness to pay a premium for the obvious.”
Read more...Kippenberger Sets New Auction Record
October 12, 2012Since his death at just 44 in 1997, German artist Martin Kippenberger’s reputation has been steadily on the rise. Yesterday’s sale of Postwar & Contemporary art at Christie’s saw a new high for the artist, whose “Untitled” sold for more than $5m. It was a world record auction price for Kippenberger, and the top seller at the auction, which brought in over $62m.
Read more...Mix Brando And Warhol For Big Money
September 06, 2012Whenever auctioneers mix Brando and Warhol prices soar. Christie’s is selling Andy’s iconic silkscreen of Marlon on a movie motorcycle. They’re estimating it will sell in the $20m range in November. Warhol screened 4 of them on raw linen canvas. They don’t come up often. Nine years ago this nearly 4×4 foot piece went for $5m.
Read more...Christie’s Brags About 2012 Sales
July 17, 2012Christie’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.
Read more...Tax Crackdown Sends Pall Over China Art Market
July 17, 2012The 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.
Read more...Postwar Art Shrugs Off Economy At Christie’s
June 28, 2012Is the art market impervious to the current economic turmoil? Yesterday’s Postwar & Modern art sale at Christie’s in London would seem to indicate the answer is yes—at least in the case of blue chip works from the postwar period. Witness the two world records established at the auction by Yves Klein’s “Le Rose du bleu,” which sold for $36.7m, more than $10m above its high estimate, and an untitled work by Jean-Michel Basquiat, which realized $20.16m. All told, $207.33m changed at the sale, nearly double Sotheby’s results from its parallel event the night before.
Read more...Works By Bacon, Basquiat & Klein At Christie’s London Sale
June 19, 2012Christie’s hasn’t released estimates for the top three featured lots at its Postwar and Contemporary art sale later this month. This is generally a sign of high expectations for the works, which include Yves Klein’s “Le Rose du bleu,” Francis Bacon’s “Study for Self-Portrait,” and an untitled canvas by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The auction house is explicit, however, about the expected value of Gerhard Richter’s “Struktur(2)”, which is estimated at $14.m-$18.8m.
Read more...Rothko Sells For Record $86.9m
May 10, 2012Christie’s had been expecting a huge price for Mark Rothko’s 1961 canvas, “Orange, Red, Yellow.” Accordingly, the painting carried an estimate of $35m-$45m into the auction house’s sale of postwar and contemporary art this week in New York. As it happened, Christie’s expectations were conservative. On Tuesday evening it sold for almost $87m, the highest price ever paid for a work of its category.
Read more...What Are The Most Expensive Paintings Ever Sold At Auction?
May 07, 2012When 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.
Read more...Bacon & Rothko Lead London Sale
February 13, 2012A work by Mark Rothko hasn’t been seen on the London auction market in a decade, much less one of the calibre of “Untitled”(1955), a canvas from Rothko’s classic period. Christie’s expectations for the work at its postwar and contemporary art auction tomorrow are high–$14.2m-$18.9m—but even higher for Francis Bacon’s “Portrait of Henrietta Moraes,” a work from 1963 that’s expected to bring $28.3m.
Read more...2-for-1: Double Sided Pechstein Nets $4.6m
December 12, 2011Back 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.
Read more...Nothing Abstract About $61.7m For Clyfford Still
November 10, 2011The 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.
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