Displaying items by tag: jose mugrabi

It is being rumored that Alice Walton, the Walmart heiress and founder of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, AK, purchased Andy Warhol’s Coca-Cola (3) from Christie’s in November. The painting sold for $57.2 million during the auction house’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale. The price is more than Walton has been known to have ever spent at an auction.

The work is one of only four paintings of a single Coca-Cola bottle made by the Pop artist between 1961 and 1962. Coca-Cola (3) was being offered by New York art dealer Jose Mugrabi and was expected to garner between $40 million and $60 million.

A representative for Walton would neither confirm nor deny the purchase.  

Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in London totaled $116 million on February 12, 2013. The sale featured a number of works by art market powerhouses such as Francis Bacon (1909-1992), Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), and Gerhard Richter (b. 1932). Bacon’s oil on canvas triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait (1980), which sold for $21.5 million, was the evening’s top lot. German collector, Jurgen Hall, who plans to loan the work to a major international institution, purchased the painting.  

44 of the 54 lots offered sold and over 20 works brought more than $1 million dollars. Highlights included two Richter paintings, Wolke (Cloud) (1976) and Abstraktes Bild (769-1) (1992), which sold for $11.9 million and $12.8 million respectively. Basquiat’s Untitled (Pech/Oreja) (1982-83), a large-scale acrylic, oil stick, and paper collage, went for $10. 7 million and another one of his hefty works, Five Fish Species (1983), sold for $7.8 million. Both works were purchased by New York-based art dealer Jose Mugrabi.

While there were some major sales, the auction fell comfortably within its pre-sale estimate of $95.7 million to $132.2 million. The contemporary auctions will continue tonight, Feburary 13, 2013, at Christie’s London.