Displaying items by tag: paddle8

Andy Warhol’s print of a nickel coin was expected to sell for as much as $30,000 in a money-themed online auction on Paddle8.com. Instead, the 1986 work failed to draw a single bid, the biggest casualty of the “Currency” sale in which 65 percent of the 20 lots went unsold.

None of this information can be gleaned now. When the auction ended at 5 p.m. on July 24, the estimates and final bids vanished from the site. So much for transparency.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the Internet entrepreneurs perhaps best known for their associations with Facebook and Bitcoin, are the latest techies to leap into the art world. This week, the twins’ Winklevoss Capital announced an investment round in Paddle8, a New York-based art auction house known for their high-profile charity events including a recent Faberge Egg auction. Paddle8 has flirted publicly with the use of Bitcoins for art transactions in the past and is one of the more tech-savvy of the online auction houses looking for a piece of the international market. Winklevoss Capital declined to discuss the specifics of the investment but said it was their first in the art or auction arenas.

Because of more restrictive U.S. visa requirements in the wake of 9/11 and a growing appetite for Western art in emerging markets in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere, online fine art auctions have turned into a bit of a boom industry.

If you’re in New York and want to see architectural ephemera, the Drawing Center’s Lebbeus Woods exhibition is primed for your enjoyment. But even if you aren’t in the Big Apple — if you’re anywhere that has a wifi connection — the Drawing Center has something to offer by way of architectural illustrations: Online auction house Paddle8 is hosting a sale of architects’ drawings through May 9, to benefit future design-themed programming at the Drawing Center.

ARTnews, the world’s oldest art magazine, has been sold by Milton Esterow to Skate Capital Corp., a private art and media industry investment vehicle belonging to Sergey Skaterschikov, a Russian art market analyst and investment banker. Esterow became publisher and editor of ARTnews, which was founded in 1902, after acquiring the publication from Newsweek in 1972.

Esterow said in a statement, “It has been a privilege working at ARTnews—a marvelous, fascinating 41-year ride running one of the world's most honored magazines. I have had the chance to meet, and work with, the great and the good. I have met with gifted artists, scholars, curators, collectors, dealers and writers in many countries. I have also met forgers and frauds. As Noel Coward once said, 'work is more fun than fun.'”

Skaterschikov is the owner Skates, an art investment review, and briefly owned the contemporary art fair, ViennaFair. In addition, Skates Capital is an investor in the online auction house, Paddle8.

Greenhill & Co, a New York-based global investment banking firm, served as financial advisor to ARTnews on the sale of the company. Terms of the transaction have not been revealed.