Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

Before her death in 2007, Brooke Astor was a fixture in New York City’s elite inner circle. A tireless philanthropist and champion of the arts, Astor left behind a legacy marked by kindness, generosity, and good taste.

Sotheby’s has announced an auction of the contents of two of Astor’s estates – her legendary Park Avenue duplex and her country estate, Holly Hill, in Briarcliff Manor, NY. A total of 901 items including European and Asian furnishings, Old Master paintings, Qing Dynasty paintings, tea sets, silverware, jewelry, a porcelain menagerie, and over 100 dog paintings will head to the auction block September 24–25. Per Astor’s request, proceeds from the sale will go to the institutions and causes she held dear including the New York Public Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bronx Zoo, Central Park, the Animal Medical Center of New York, New York City’s public school system, and a number of charities in Maine. Sotheby’s expects the sale to bring in between $6 and $9 million for the entire collection.

An icon of New York society and refinement, Astor spent her final years suffering from dementia. After her death at 105, her estate remained in limbo due a family dispute that lasted five years. The feud ended in March of 2012 and $100 million of Astor’s estate was freed for her charities. The amount going to Anthony Marshall, her only son, was cut by more than half as he was convicted of taking advantage of his mother’s deteriorating mental state and altering her will to his advantage.

Among the most coveted of Astor’s pieces that will be headed to Sotheby’s are an Imperial Chinese gilt-bronze lion clock slated to bring in around $180,000–$220,000 and an emerald and diamond necklace with earrings estimated at $280,000– $390,000 for both.

Sotheby’s has decided to get in on China’s art market boom and has signed a 10-year-joint-venture agreement to form the first international auction house in China. Until now, international auction houses have not been permitted in China outside of Hong Kong. The agreement is with Beijing GeHua Art Company, a state-owned enterprise that is part of the Beijing GeHua Cultural Development Group. Sotheby’s will be investing $1.2 million to take an 80% stake in the undertaking.

The venture, called Sotheby’s (Beijing) Auction Co. Ltd., comes at a time when Beijing is attempting to legitimize their reputation as the auction industry has recently been burdened with rampant fakes, smuggling, and non-payments.

Sotheby’s is looking to tap into China’s growing collector base and also plans to take advantage of the new Tianzhu Free Trade Zone being developed by GeHua in Beijing. The Free Trade Zone will give Sotheby’s clients access to tax-advantage storage facilities. An inaugural auction will take place at the Millennium Hall of the Beijing World Art Museum on September 27.

Last year, China overtook the United States to become the world’s largest art and antiques market so it’s no wonder that other companies are looking to get in on the action. For example, Christie’ International has licensed its trademark to Beijing-based auction house, Forever, although they do not hold sales in China itself. In addition, two of China’s biggest auction houses, China Guardian Auctions Co. Ltd. and Poly International, are looking to attract wealthy international clients. China Guardian opened a New York office this past December and plans to establish a strong presence in London as well.

One of the most immediately recognizable artworks of all time, Edvard Munch’s (1863–1944) 1895 version of The Scream will be on view at New York’s Museum of Modern Art for six months, starting October 24^th. Sold for nearly $120 million at Sotheby’s in May to a mystery collector, The Scream is the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction.

Munch created four versions of The Scream between 1893 and 1910. The other three versions reside in Norwegian museums and have not traveled for years. The pastel on board that will be on view at MoMA is the only version in private hands and has never before been shown publicly in New York. It is also the most colorful of the bunch and boasts a frame painted by the artist with a poem describing a walk at sunset that inspired the piece. A part of Munch’s “Frieze of Life” series, it is truly a privilege to be able to see The Scream, a cornerstone of Modern art, in person.

It has been suggested that the New York financier, Leon Black, was the buyer of the pastel that sold at Sotheby’s but neither Mr. Black nor officials at Sotheby’s will confirm. A member of MoMA’s board, Black is one of foremost collectors in the U.S.

The Scream will be on view at MoMA through April 29^th and the museum will be sure to ramp up security during its stay.

Eric Clapton is selling a painting by Gerhard Richter valued at $20 million -- almost 20 times what he paid for it in 2001.

The 1994 oil-on-canvas “Abstraktes Bild (809-4)” is one of a series of three Richter paintings bought by the U.K.-born rock guitarist for $3.4 million in total at Sotheby’s (BID) New York in November 2001. At the time, this was an auction record for a lot containing abstracts by the German artist.

Art fairs like the Paris Biennale, opening Friday, bring out the two salient features of the new art market: Prices are nearly all beyond the reach of average budgets, and most of the youngest dealers are already in their 40s or 50s.

World records tumbled during the past season, prompting lyrical celebrations in the news media. Auction houses love it. Should we too, seeing the records as homage paid by growing numbers of art lovers? Hardly. Seemingly paradoxical in recessionary times, records merely highlight the huge price rise of the art of the past over five decades.

True, this increase has not been uniform. Even as records are being set, wild estimates fail to be matched and some works sell at levels that leave their consignors with severe losses.

As the wider Impressionist and modern market slowly withers on the auction vine — the victim of a paucity of first-rate material — the international market for Surrealism has started to sizzle. Interest in the erotically preoccupied mid-century movement languished for decades as collectors lavished money and attention on Impressionist and Fauve art. Yet in the last two years, works by the handful of brand name artists associated with Surrealism — Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, René Magritte, and Joan Miró — are taking center stage.

In June at the Christie’s London Impressionist and modern sales, for example, Magritte’s darkly menacing “Les jours gigantesques,” 1928, depicting a violent struggle between a clothed man and a naked woman and remarkable for the illusionistic effect of one body superimposed on and merging with the other, sold to the New York financier Wilbur Ross for £7.2 million ($11.3 million) on an estimate of £800,000 to £1.5 million. Ross outgunned a posse of competitors, including London dealer Daniella Luxembourg.

When was the last time an expert from a top auction house dispensed with longtime allegiances and joined forces with someone from the enemy camp? In the fiercely competitive world of Sotheby’s and Christie’s, such an occurrence is rarer than a prized Vermeer.

But for months now there have been rumors that a new powerhouse partnership was in the works, one that would replace Giraud, Pissarro, Ségalot, the superprivate superdealer that pulled off so many big transactions and whose business began winding down soon after Franck Giraud, one of its partners, announced that he was leaving to “explore options inside the art world and out.”

The players making up this new venture, however, had been something of a guessing game.

Wassily Kandinsky, the Russian-born painter famous for his vibrant colors and early abstract techniques, is set to break records at Christie's this November. His 1909 painting "Study for Impression 8" was recently announced as the "first star lot" of the auction house's upcoming Impressionist and Modern Art sale, boasting an estimated price tag of $20-$30 million, according to Reuters.

"Study for Impression 8" is being sold by the Volkart Foundation, the charitable trust of 160-year-old Swiss commodities trading firm Volkart Brothers. After having spent time on loan to numerous art museums like London's Tate Modern and Musée des Beaux-Arts in Montréal, it's now poised to become Kandinsky's most expensive masterpiece, beating out his "Study for Improvisation 3," which sold for a whopping $16.9 million at Christie's in 2006, and the reigning auction record holder "Fugue," which went for $20.9 million at Sotheby's in 1990.

Picasso’s lovers, Richard Serra's steel and Andreas Gursky’s yacht-studded Monaco are the highlights of a $130 million trove Gagosian Gallery is taking for its first expedition to Brazil next month.

The occasion is the second annual ArtRio in Rio de Janeiro, a fair spread over 7,500 square meters (80,730 square feet) in four warehouses on Guanabara Bay. It will feature 120 galleries, including David Zwirner and White Cube, as well as events hosted by Christie’s and Sotheby's. The size and participants reflect a growing interest in the world’s sixth-largest economy.

Artists and collectors looking to cash in on the reported one percent's run on the international art market can take cues from a recent Washington State University study on auction house sales of paintings by Picasso, Magritte, Munch, and a dozen other impressionist and modern masters. Among the preliminary findings, a single percentage point increase in Google hits on the artist—the assigned indicator of popularity—corresponded to a chunky price increase of 38 percent.