Displaying items by tag: Auction

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum holds the only known copy of a complete list of “degenerate art” that was confiscated by Nazis from public institutions in Germany. The Entartete Kunst was compiled by Hitler’s Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and includes information on the provenance and fate of each work. The list was donated to the museum by the widow of Heinrich Fischer, an Austrian-born art dealer, in 1996. Since its acquisition, the Entartete Kunst has been used by provenance researchers from around the world.

For the first time ever, the Victoria & Albert Museum will make images of the original pages of the Entartete Kunst available online. The 479-page volume lists institutions alphabetically by location and for each museum, the confiscated works are listed and include information on what happened to each piece. For many works, the name of the buyer and a price are given, while others are marked with an “x,” indicating that they were destroyed.

The Nazis deemed any work that was “un-German” or “Jewish Bolshevist“ in nature degenerate art. While virtually all modern art was deemed degenerate, the Nazis promoted paintings and sculptures that were traditional in nature. The Nazis forced avant-garde German artists into exile and their works were either sold at auction or acquired by museums or collectors. In 1942, a large portion of so-called degenerate works by Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger and Joan Miró were destroyed in a bonfire.

A PDF of the Entartete Kunst will be made available on the Victoria & Albert museum’s website starting at the end of January.

This spring, Huguette Clark’s collection of musical instruments, Gilded Age furniture and rare books will be sold at Christie’s. The trove of approximately 400 objects is expected to bring over $50 million and will be divided among two sales in May and June. Before the auction in New York, highlights from the collection will go on view at Christie’s London and then at various locations throughout Asia.

Huguette was the daughter of U.S. Senator and copper tycoon, William A. Clark. Beginning in 1930, Huguette led a largely reclusive life and when she passed away in 2011, she left behind an estate worth nearly $300 million. The proceeds from the upcoming auction will go to the estate, which will most likely be distributed between art institutions and distant relatives.

In 2012, 17 pieces of jewelry from Clark’s collection were sold at Christie’s including a rare pink 9-carat diamond that fetched approximately $21 million, nearly twice its pre-sale estimate.

This past November, Francis Bacon’s triptych ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud’ sold for $142 million at Christie’s in New York, making it the most expensive painting ever sold at auction. Rumors swirled after the buyer’s name was not immediately revealed, with some speculating that Paul G. Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft and an avid art collector, had purchased the painting.

Nearly two months after the sale, it has been reported that the buyer was Elaine Wynn, former wife of Las Vegas casino owner and collector Steve Wynn. Elaine Wynn, who is a co-founder of the Wynn Casino empire, is estimated to have a net worth of $1.9 billion. The couple, who divorced in 2010, are the owners of a remarkable art collection and Ms. Wynn serves on the board of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Painted in 1969, ‘Three Studies’ depicts Bacon’s friend and artistic rival, Lucian Freud. It is one of only two existing full-length triptychs of Freud and it was included in the Grand Palais’ Bacon retrospective in Paris during the early 1970s.

Next month, Sotheby’s London will sell approximately 120 works from the collection of the late Jan Krugier, a preeminent dealer of 20th century art. Krugier, who passed away in 2008, sold works for Pablo Picasso’s family and was close friends with the artist. He operated galleries in Geneva and New York and was a powerful presence at art fairs such as TEFAF Maastricht and Art Basel.

37 works will be sold during an evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art on February 5 and the remainder of the collection will be offered during the day sale on February 6. Most of the collection is comprised of works on paper and include pieces by Francisco Goya, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Paul Cezanne, Edgar Degas and Pablo Picasso. Sotheby’s expects the entire collection to garner between $39 million and $57 million. The most expensive work to be offered is Alberto Giacometti’s cast bronze ‘L’homme qui marche III’, which is expected to fetch between $5 million and $8 million.

Last November, Christie’s New York held a highly anticipated sale of works from Krugier’s collection but the auction failed to meet expectations.

Two works by the famous Venetian painter Canaletto were sold earlier this month during Sotheby’s Old Masters sale in London for $15.7 million. The paintings, which belonged to the corporate collection of HSBC Holdings Plc, carried a pre-sale estimate of $19.5 million.

The two identically sized canvases depict St. Mark’s Square and the Rialto Bridge in Venice and were painted between 1738 and 1742. The works’ buyer has not been identified.

‘The Gossips,’ one of Norman Rockwell’s most famous paintings will go on view at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA for a limited time. The work, which appeared on the cover of the ‘Saturday Evening Post,’ was on loan to the institution for over two decades before it was sold during a record-setting auction at Sotheby’s in December. ‘The Gossips’ is being loaned to the Rockwell Museum by the work’s new owner.

Laurie Norton Moffatt, the Norman Rockwell Museum’s Director and CEO, said, “We are so happy to welcome back ‘The Gossips.’ The Museum is extremely grateful to the painting’s new owner for allowing us to once again share this beloved work with the public. We look forward to displaying the painting over the next few months, along with other special loans and our permanent collection of Norman Rockwell artwork.”

The figures in ‘The Gossips’ were inspired by Rockwell’s neighbors in Arlington, Vermont.

On December 31, after a long battle with budget deficits, the Higgins Armory Museum in Worcester, MA will close for good. The institution opened to the public in 1931 and housed the collection of John Woodman Higgins, a steel magnate and collector of American arms and armor.

The most important works from the collection (along with the Higgins’ nearly $3 million endowment) will go to the nearby Worcester Art Museum. The objects are planned to go on display in March; a permanent gallery for the Higgins pieces is planned for 2015. Other pieces from the Higgins’ collection are being sold periodically at auction. The future of the Higgins building, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, is undecided.

For nearly 8 decades, the Higgins Armory was the only museum in the U.S. devoted solely to arms and armor.  

The New York Court of Appeals reversed a decision that could have forced auction houses to reveal the identities of consignors. The original ruling was made by the Appellate Division of the New York Supreme Court in 2012 and declared that state law required that buyers be allowed to know the names of sellers in post-auction paperwork in order for the sale to be considered official.  

The ruling stems from a lawsuit filed against New York auctioneer William J. Jenack. After Jenack sold a Russian antique in 2008, the buyer refused to pay, claiming that the post-sale documentation had not identified the seller. The ruling on Tuesday, December 17, stated that Jenack had provided sufficient information to the buyer for the sale to be considered binding.   

The Portland Art Museum in Oregon will exhibit Francis Bacon’s ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud,’ the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. The triptych, which sold for $142 million at Christie’s in November, will go on view beginning December 21.

The presentation of the Bacon painting will be part of the museum’s Masterworks / Portland series, which is now in its fifth year and provides an opportunity to study a single object and artist in depth. Previous works that have been featured in the series include Raphael’s ‘La Velata,’ Titian’s ‘La Bella,’ and Thomas Moran’s ‘Shoshone Falls on the Snake River.’

While the painting’s owner has not been publicly announced, the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation helped make the Portland Art Museum’s presentation of the Bacon triptych possible. Allen, the cofounder of Microsoft, is a major art collector, leading many to believe that he purchased ‘Three Studies of Lucian Freud’ from Christie’s.

The U.S.-based Annenberg Foundation purchased 21 sacred Hopi masks at an auction in Paris on Monday, December 9. The Foundation acquired the works, which are worn by dancers during religious ceremonies and considered to be living beings, solely for the purpose of returning them to their rightful owner.

A number of groups, including the U.S. embassy, had attempted to block Monday’s sale. Advocacy group Survival International challenged the auction in court on behalf of the Hopi tribe, but the case was dismissed by a judge who ruled the sale legal in France. The sale of sacred Indian artifacts has been outlawed in the U.S. since 1990 but the law does not extend to overseas transactions. Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, director of the California-based foundation, decided to buy the masks after Survival International’s lawsuit failed.

The Annenberg Foundation helps fund non-profit organizations across the world.