Displaying items by tag: auction house

After a tumultuous year, Sotheby's,  announced that its Board of Directors has concluded its CEO search and appointed Tad Smith, as president and chief executive officer, effective 31 March 2015.  Smith will also join the Sotheby's board of directors.

Smith, 49, was formely president and CEO of the Madison Square Garden Company (since February 2014). He oversaw the overall strategy and day-to-day operations of MSG Sports, MSG Media, and MSG Entertainment.

Manhattan’s federal court has dismissed a lawsuit brought by Elizabeth Bilinski and 19 other collectors against the Keith Haring Foundation over its refusal to authenticate 111 works.

According to the court papers, Bilinski submitted works she owned by Haring, which she and the other plaintiffs had acquired from Angelo Moreno, a friend of the artist, to the foundation in 2007. But the foundation, without giving a reason, rejected the pieces as “not authentic.” When Bilinski submitted what she considered more evidence of authenticity, including a statement from Moreno, the foundation refused to reconsider its decision. The collectors said that a forensic report indicated that the art could have been created during Haring’s lifetime, and that experts at Sotheby’s believed the works to be authentic, but the auction house refused to sell them without the foundation’s approval.

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.

Frank Gehry’s 1987 Winton Guest House will go up for sale at auction on May 19, according to the seller, the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. The building currently stands on a 180-acre site in Owatonna, Minnesota, that the university sold to a health clinic last summer; the seller has until August 2016 to move the house from the new owner’s land. Chicago auction house Wright is organizing the sale, and is noted for previous sales of historic architecture — in particular for the successful 2006 auction of Pierre Koenig’s 1959 Case Study House #21 in Los Angeles.

Mike and Penny Winton commissioned Gehry to design a guest house on their lakeside property near the Twin Cities in 1982, in close proximity to a 1952 Philip Johnson brick-and-glass house that stood nearby on the same plot of land. Completed in 1987, Gehry’s structure is noted for geometric rooms arranged like individual homes; they project from a central 35-foot-tall pyramidal living room, and the entire house covers 2,300 square feet.

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.

Three of Andy Warhol's most iconic portraits from the 1980s will go to auction at Bonhams in London on February 12 at the Post-War & Contemporary Art sale. Each depicts a person that was a close friend of the artist as well as an important figure of the decade: socialite Marjorie Copley, photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.

"Portrait of Marjorie Copley" (1980), an icy, demure departure from the bright Pop colors that largely dominated Warhol's work during this period, has been given an estimate of £180,000–£250,000 ($271,743–$377,421).

It’s about to get more expensive to shop at Sotheby’s. The auction house announced late Monday that it was effectively raising the rates it charges many of its buyers by changing the rate thresholds.

The first change in Sotheby’s rate structure in nearly two years means that beginning Feb. 1 buyers at its auctions will pay 25 percent on the first $200,000 of a hammer price, up from a previous low threshold of $100,000; 20 percent on the value between $200,000 and $3 million, up from the previous range of $100,000 to $2 million; and 12 percent on any amount remaining above $3 million, up from the previous upper threshold of $2 million.

A district court in Düsseldorf ruled on Tuesday that German art adviser Helge Achenbach must pay €19.4 million in damages to the heirs of Aldi Supermarket heir Berthold Albrecht, the DPA reports. The ruling culminates a civil court case brought against Achenbach following allegations that he defrauded Albrecht of up to €23 million (see Fraud Claim Against Art Adviser). The art adviser is also part of a criminal trial, taking place in Essen. He has confessed to portions of the allegations (see Achenbach Gives Surprise Partial-Confession in Fraud Case and Achenbach Confesses to Yet More Fraud).

Meanwhile, German auction house Van Ham has won the rights to sell artworks still owned by the adviser's bankrupt company, Achenbach Art Consulting.

On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, Christie’s announced that Ambra Medda will be the new Global Creative Director of the auction house’s 20/21 Design Department. Based in London, the department is dedicated to furniture, lighting, ceramics, and sculpture from the Art Nouveau, Arts & Crafts, Art Deco, Modernist, and Contemporary movements. The auction house holds 20/21 Design sales twice annually in New York (June and December), Paris (May and November), and London (April and October).

Medda, an accomplished curator, co-founded Design Miami alongside developer Craig Robbins in 2005 and served as the fair’s director for five years. With annual shows in Basel, Switzerland, and Miami, Design Miami has emerged as one of the world’s leading celebrations of design culture and commerce.