Displaying items by tag: Sotheby's

David Bennett has been named to the newly-created position of worldwide chairman of international jewelry at Sotheby’s, the auction house announced on March 5.

In the Geneva-based role, Bennett will design and implement a strategy for the continued expansion and development of Sotheby’s global jewelry business, which the auction says is one of its fastest growing categories, achieving $600 million in sales in 2014.

Marc Chagall's drafts for the famous stained-glass windows at the St. Stephen Church in Mainz, Germany, designed in 1982 will go on display in the city next week before joining the permanent collection of the Diözesanmuseum (Diocesan Museum) in Tübingen, "Art Magazin" reports.

The hand-sketched plans for the magnificent blue windows were purchased for €70,000 ($78,000) by a group of local businessmen and the chairman of the Board of Trustees of the St. Stephan Church. The plans became available after they failed to sell at a Sotheby's auction in New York last year.

Sotheby’s may find itself in a new shareholder fight even as its battle with billionaire investor Daniel Loeb and search for a new chief executive officer proved costly in 2014.

The New York-based auction house said today that profit fell 9 percent in 2014 as expenses increased. Net income fell to $117.8 million, or $1.69 a share in the 12 months ended Dec. 31, from $130 million, or $1.90 a share in the same period last year, Sotheby’s said today in a statement.

Sotheby’s has announced that its upcoming spring auctions of Contemporary Art in New York will feature a selection of works donated by artists in support of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles. While the list of donations has not yet been finalized, approximately 35 works will be offered in Sotheby’s evening and day sales on May 12, 2015, and May 13, 2015. Proceeds from the auction will benefit MOCA’s endowment.

All of the artists who have donated works to the sale, including John Baldessari, Mark Bradford, Mark Grotjahn, Jeff Koons, Barbara Kruger, and Ed Ruscha, have strong ties to MOCA.

Today, Sotheby’s announced that a rare Emerald-cut 100.2-carat perfect diamond will lead its April 21 Magnificent Jewels sale. The stone is just one of six diamonds over 100 carats and comparable-quality ever to be sold at auction, and is estimated between $19 and $25 million.

“The size is what makes it rare and beautiful,” said Frank Everett, Sotheby’s vice president of sales for jewelry, to the "Observer." (It is the largest perfect Emerald-cut to be sold at auction.) “It could be considered a kind of object of art. When you hold it in your hand it’s such a unique experience—you can see the mastery of the cut and the entire geometry.”

Phillips is used to coming in at the tail end of these auction series, with a smaller, shorter sale than Sotheby's or Christie's, and with a more contemporary, less postwar emphasis. The auctioneer's problem is to secure good examples by artists at reasonable estimates because, in most cases, the house is second or third port of call for sellers. Now in its plush, central location on London's Mayfair, with Sotheby's and the new, large Gagosian gallery-to-be just around the corner, it is also upgrading the staff. With former Christie's chief executive Ed Dolman at the helm, the latest signing is Matt Carey-Williams, a young man with a veteran's experience from Sotheby's, Gagosian, and White Cube, as deputy chairman, Europe and Asia, who was very much part of the action this evening.

Late last year the $15 million or £9.5 million estimate for Georgia O'Keeffe's work at auction was shattered after a rather intense bidding war between two unknown rivals. "Jimson Weed/White Flower No 1," a 1932 painting of a simple white flower, was finally bought after the flurry by an unnamed buyer with a telephone bid at Sotheby’s auction house.

The floral painting by the late US artist has sold for $44.4 million or £28.8 million at auction; this set a record for an artwork by a female artist. The auction of the work smashed the previous record of $11.9 million or £7.5 million for an untitled work by Joan Mitchell, which was set in set in May. The work was put up for sale by the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in New Mexico, after the need arose to raise proceeds for its acquisitions fund.

A Gerhard Richter abstract painting sold Tuesday night at Sotheby’s contemporary art auction in London for £30.4 million, or about $46.3 million, including fees.

The monumental, 10-foot high canvas, “Abstraktes Bild,” numbered 599 and painted with veils of red, blue and green pigment, was bought by a telephone bidder, represented by Cheyenne Westphal, Sotheby’s worldwide co-head of contemporary art, after lengthy competition from another telephone bidder.

A new record price for an artwork, nearly $300 million, may have been achieved with the sale of a Paul Gauguin canvas by a Swiss collector. The buyer is rumored to be the Qatar Museums.

The seller, Rudolf Staechelin, a retired Sotheby's executive who now lives in Basel, confirmed the sale this afternoon to the "New York Times," but declined to identify the buyer or disclose the price. The 1892 oil painting, "Nafea Faa Ipoipo (When Will You Marry?)," is one of over 20 works in his collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art. Prior to the sale, the Gauguin canvas had been on loan to the Kunstmuseum in Basel for close to fifty years.

British rock legend Eric Clapton is selling Cy Twombly's "Crimes of Passion I" (1960). The painting will go under the hammer next week during Sotheby's London Contemporary Art Evening Auction, and comes with a presale estimate of £4-6 million.

Clapton hasn't hold on to the Twombly masterpiece for long. The guitar hero purchased it in November 2012 at Sotheby's New York—but then again, it looks like Clapton has become a very astute market player.