Displaying items by tag: Auction

The Goldwyn family, the great Hollywood film dynasty, will sell its art collection following the death of producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. two months ago. With an estimated worth of $25 million–$30 million, the collection will be parceled out over nine auctions at Sotheby's New York between May and October.

The centerpieces of Goldwyn's holdings are Pablo Picasso's "Femme au Chignon Dans un Fauteuil" (1948), a portrait of the artist's lover Françoise Gilot and, and "Anémones et Grenades" (1946), a Matisse still life. The Picasso is estimated to sell for as much as $18 million, while the Matisse, bought for $13,500 in 1948, is tagged at upwards of $5 million.

On March 17, Christie’s hosted its first-ever evening sale dedicated to Asian art in New York. The occasion was the first offering from the prized Robert Hatfield Ellsworth Collection, regarded as the most prestigious — not to mention largest — private collection of Asian art to hit the auction block. Thanks to the freshness of the material and the pedigreed provenance, the house had no trouble securing buyers for all 57 lots, and with a whopping $61,107,500, total, the results demonstrated strength across all areas of the market for Indian, Himalayan, Southeast Asian, Chinese, and Japanese art.

The sale began promptly at 6 p.m., with fierce participation from telephone bidders and individuals in the room for a superb gilt-bronze figure of a seated bear from China’s Western Han Dynasty (206 BC).

The online retail giant eBay today launched a new section of its website dedicated to live auctions at Sotheby’s. Modern and contemporary photographs by Man Ray, Paul Strand and László Moholy-Nagy are among the works for sale in the first auction, which will be streamed live on April 1. The second sale of New York memorabilia, which includes a ten-foot-tall sign from Yankee Stadium from the collection of the basketball player Reggie Jackson (est $300,000-$600,000), takes place on April 2.

The art collection of the late John Whitehead, former chairman of Goldman Sachs, is being offered as the cornerstone in Christie's Impressionist and Modern Art sale this May in New York.

The 90 piece estate, with rare works by Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Amedeo Modigliani, and Pierre Bonnard, is expected to achieve over $40 million in sales.

Whitehead served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he commanded a landing craft at Omaha Beach, in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.

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.

On Saturday, March 21, 2015, Leslie Hindman Auctioneers will offer fine art, furniture, and decorative objects from Lars Bolander’s private collection. One of Sweden’s foremost interior designers, Bolander is also a leading design figure stateside. Influenced by his diverse background, Scandinavian heritage, and extensive travels, Bolander has developed a singular style that celebrates simplicity as well as theatricality. From mountaintop cottages to Caribbean homes, Bolander’s designs deftly blend ideas and geographic styles, making him a favorite among international clientele.

Bolander’s fascination with design, particularly furniture, was solidified during his early education at the Stockholm School of Art and continued to flourish under the tutelage of the legendary Swedish designer Carl Malmsten.

Of all the billionaires that come and go on the Forbes China Rich List, Liu Yiqian is certainly the one with the biggest appetite for art. Liu, who ranked No. 220 with a net worth of $ 1 billion, yesterday bought a 600-year-old imperial embroidered Tibetan tapestry at a Christie’s auction for $ 348 million Hong Kong dollars ($45 million), setting a record for any Chinese works of art sold by an international auction house.

For the art-savvy Liu, the magnificent piece is too important to miss. The silk tapestry, known as a thangka, is more than three meters tall and two meters wide.

Mark Rothko once said that his formula for a good painting included a dollop of hope – “10 percent to make the tragic concept more endurable.” When bidders gather on May 13 at Christie’s to do battle for the next big Rothko to come to auction – a blazing red and black work, “No. 36 (Black Stripe),” painted in 1958, a banner year for the artist – they will have to bring a lot more than hope.

The painting, being sold by the German collector Frieder Burda, who has given it pride of place in his museum in Baden-Baden for several years, is estimated to sell for $30 million to $50 million. But prime Rothkos have become so rare and sought-after that the competition is likely to be fierce. Rothko’s auction record was set at Christie’s in 2012, when “Orange, Red, Yellow,” another of his trademark horizontal color-slab paintings, from 1961, sold for almost $87 million.

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.