Auction News Network

Steve McQueen’s Surfboard In Honolulu Auction

Now that that summer’s here and the beaches are beckoning, it’s almost time for the 6^th Hawaiian Islands Vintage Surf Auction in Honolulu. Mint condition, historic surfboards are big draw and none of them will be attracting more attention than what organizer Randy Rarick calls the “ultimate warehouse find.” That would be Steve McQueen’s pristine 1963 ‘speed’ board shaped by Pat Curren and rescued from the actor’s airplane hangar in Santa Paula, California.

Paul McCartney Will Not Let It Be

A long time ago, Paul McCartney and his wife and daughter had an idea for an animated movie about a mouse family living beneath his band’s concert stage. On vacation, Paul sketched some drawings and gave them to an animator. A film called the “Bruce McMouse Show” was made but never released. Forty years later, the daughter of the animator brought the original drawings to auction. That’s when Paul stepped in and said he would not let it be. There was no sale.

Picasso Tops Christie’s London Sale

Picasso’s portraits of three different lovers fetched the highest prices at Christie’s sale of Impressionist & Modern Art this evening in London. “Femme assise, robe bleu,” his 1939 painting of Dora Maar, was the top seller at $28.9m, more than double its high estimate. The total for the evening sale was $227m, in line with its $187m-$268m estimate.

Most Ever Paid For A Stradivarius: $16m

A Stradivarius said to be in the best original condition of any of those still in existence sold to an anonymous bidder for nearly $16m, more than anyone has ever paid for a stringed instrument. The seller bought the museum quality violin in 2008 for $10m.

First Bentley On The Block

You have seen fabulously priced Bentley cars before, but Gooding &Co., says the 1921 Bentley it’s bringing to this summer’s Pebble Beach auction is the very first one the English automaker ever delivered to a customer.

Price For Marilyn’s Dress Soars

The price blew up from high to astronomical over the weekend when Marilyn Monroe’s “Subway Dress” sold for a total of $5.5m. The buyer remained anonymous at the Beverly Hills auction staged to begin selling Debbie Reynolds’ vast costume collection. Cinephiles will recall in“The Seven Year Itch” where the oh-so innocently unaware Marilyn stood over the updraft of a subway grate as her dress soared and she cooed, “Isn’t it delicious?”

Modigliani Leads Bonhams Sale

Modigliani’s likely to be the star at Bonhams tomorrow as the major summer Impressionist & Modern Art sales begin in London. His “Portrait de Femme” carries the top estimate of $2.4-$4m at the event, where a Picasso study for “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” is also featured. Executed in watercolor and gouache, it’s estimated $486,000-$810,000.

Update: As expected, the Modigliani portrait was the top seller at $2.9m, at the lower end of its estimate. The Picasso study was withdrawn. In all, the auction brought in $5.8m.

High-End Real Estate Roundup

A particularly choice group of properties comes to auction this week, including a waterfront mansion in Darien, Connecticut once listed at $12.5m, and a $10.85m farm in Tennessee’s Smokey Mountains. Read about these and other high-end estates in Deidre Woollard’s weekly real estate roundup.

Peter Madoff’s Aston Martin Will Be Auctioned

His brother Bernie’s Madoff’s possessions are virtually all gone, sold in a succession of auctions to repay the victim’s of his Ponzi scheme. Now a federal bankruptcy judge has given the go-ahead for Peter Madoff’s 1958 Aston Martin Mark III drophead coupe to be sold as well. A London branch of Madoff’s firm paid $267,000 for the classic in 2008, for which Peter Madoff never reimbursed the company. RM will offer the car at its annual August auction in Monterey.

Bonhams Features Stars Of Illustration

The images are world famous, even if the artists’ names are not. Works by Ernest Howard Shepard (“Winnie-the-Pooh”), Maurice Sendak (“Where the Wild Things Are”), Hilary Knight (“Eloise”), and Garth Williams (“Charlotte’s Web”) will be featured at Bonhams Illustration Sale next week in New York. Of the 261 lots on offer at the two-session sale, the leading one is likely to be Maurice Sendak’s poster design promoting the 1990 International Board on Books for Young People, estimated at $400,000-700,000.

Records For Sir Stanley Spencer & Lucien Freud

Expectations were high for yesterday’s London sale of the Evill/Frost collection, which Sotheby’s had called “the most prestigious group of 20th Century British Art ever to come to auction.”  The results made estimates seem modest. The auction record for a painting by Sir Stanley Spencer fell twice, first by “Workmen in the House,” which sold for $7.6m, then by “Sunflower and Dog Worship,” which soared to $8.7m, more than double what Sotheby’s expected.

Monet Leads Christie’s Impressionist Sale

With the end of June comes London’s season of major art auctions. Up first is Christie’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale, featuring the collection of Ernst Beyler, a legendary Swiss art dealer. A likely star at the auction will be “Nympheas,” a late work by Claude Monet expected to sell for $27.5m.

Bonhams Spotlight On Rolls-Royce & Bentley

Few British cars in the 1930’s matched the allure or prestige of the Rolls-Royce Phantom II Continental Sports Saloon. The last automobile to be produced under the supervision of Henry Royce, it was phenomenally expensive at the time. Noel Coward, Prince Ali Khan, and various Rothschilds were among its owners. The 1933 example that Bonhams will offer on June 18^th has just 60,000 miles and is estimated at $121,000-162,000.

A New World Auction Record For Schiele?

An Egon Shiele painting is expected to sell for more than $36m—and perhaps as much as $49m– at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art sale in London later this month. “Hauser mit bunter Wasche (Vorstadt ll)” or “Houses With Laundry” offers not just quality and rarity, but also unclouded provenance, having had just two owners since Shiele created it in 1917. Sotheby’s anticipates a new world record for the artist at the June 22^nd sale.

Patek Philippe Leads Field At Christie’s

As at so many recent watch auctions, timepieces by Patek Philippe are the stars at Christie’s sale of Important Watches in New York tomorrow. The watchmaker produced 6 of the top 10 estimated lots at the sale, including the highest valued item, a rare 1960 18K gold perpetual calendar chronograph wristwatch with moon phases and tachometer scale, estimated at $600,000-700,000.

Update: The Patak Philippe wristwatch sold for $902,500, well above its high estimate. Even more valuable was a 20K openface Vacheron Constantin clockwatch, about which we’d written earlier. It sold for $1,762,500–more than three times its high estimate.