Displaying items by tag: Cy Twombly

On November 13, Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York realized an impressive $380,642,000 – the highest price achieved for any sale session in the auction house’s history. The 61-lot auction carried an estimate of $280.7 million to $394.1 million and saw records set for seven artists including Andy Warhol.

Silver Car Crash (Double Disaster), the last of four in a series of the artist’s paintings depicting car crashes, sold for $105.4 million, shattering Warhol’s auction record of $71.7 million. The work, which is believed to have come from a private Swiss collection, has belonged to a number of important collectors including Bruno Bischofberger, Gian Enzo Sperone, the Saatchi Collection and Thomas Ammann.

Other highlights from the auction included Gerhard Richter’s large-scale A.B. Courbet, which sold to a telephone bidder for $26.5 million; Cy Twombly’s 24-piece Poems of the Sea, which garnered $21.7 million; Willem de Kooning’s Abstract Expressionist canvas Untitled V, which realized $24.8 million; and Barnett Newman’s abstract By Twos, which sold to dealer David Zwirner for $20.6 million.

The founders of New York’s Dia Art Foundation are suing the organization and Sotheby’s to stop the auctioning of artworks they say were donated with the intention of keeping them readily available to the public. Heiner Friedrich and his ex-wife, Fariha Friedrich, who started the foundation in 1974 with art historian Helen Winkler, filed the suit in the state Supreme Court in Manhattan on November 7, 2013.

The sale, which is scheduled to take place at Sotheby’s on November 13 and 14, includes contemporary artworks by Barnett Newman, Cy Twombly and John Chamberlain – all of which the plantiffs claim were donated or loaned to Dia in the 1970s and 1980. The Friedrichs said in their complaint, “Dia’s proposed auction of the subject works would remove the works from public access and viewing in direct contravention of Dia’s entire intent and purpose and of plaintiffs’ arrangements and understandings with Dia.”

The Friederichs started Dia to help artists bring “visionary projects” to fruition and to make them available to the public. Heiner Friederich has not served on the foundation’s board since 1985; Fariha remains a trustee emeritus. They have asked for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to stop the sale.  

Steven A. Cohen, a hedge-fund manager and founder of SAC Capital Advisors, will sell works from him impressive art collection in New York later this month. The majority of the sales will be part of Sotheby’s contemporary art evening sale on November 13, but Christie’s will also sell a small portion, estimated to be worth less than $5 million.

The trove headed to Sotheby’s includes works by Andy Warhol, Gerhard Richter and Cy Twombly and is estimated to be worth around $85 million. Highlights include Andy Warhol’s portrait of Elizabeth Taylor titled Liz #1 (Early Colored Liz); a 10-by-8-foot canvas by German artist Gerhardt Richter, which was shown by the Pace Gallery at Art Basel in 2012; and a bronze sculpture by Cy Twombly.

Cohen, an avid collector who is active in the market, is bringing this collection to auction after SAC was accused in a grand-jury indictment of encouraging insider trading. The company was told it would have to pay $1.8 billion and admit wrongdoing to resolve securities-fraud charges, including a previous penalty of approximately $600 million.

The art collection once belonging to the infamous Ponzi-schemer, Bernie Madoff, will be sold at Sotheby’s New York and Stair Galleries in Hudson, NY at the end of this year. The 61 works have an insured value in excess of $575,000. Securities Investor Protection Corporation trustee, Irving Picard, and the U.S. bankruptcy court are liquidating the assets, which include posters, rugs and fine art. Sotheby’s will be responsible for selling a large portion of the works and Stair Galleries will sell the remainder including posters, carpets and decorative items. The collection has been stored at Cirkers Fine Art Storage & Logistics in Manhattan since 2009.

While the majority of the lot is lackluster, there are a few important works including a lithograph by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) illustrating a black bull, six bull lithographs by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) and a small drawing of a woman’s head by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). There are also a number of works on paper by important postwar artists such as Jasper Johns (b. 1930), Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Frank Stella (b. 1936), Cy Twombly (1928-2011) and Ellsworth Kelly (b 1933). The sale will also include a pair of oriental rugs that once decorated Madoff’s offices in Manhattan and Queens.

Picard has been working to liquidate Madoff’s assets since the disgraced financier’s arrest in 2008. To date, he has collected about $9.3 billion to compensate the people and companies that Madoff defrauded. Picard has overseen the sales of three powerboats, various cars, jewelry, pianos and Madoff’s wine collection.

The Dia Art Foundation, which closed its two galleries in Manhattan in 2004, has gathered about half the money needed to build its new space in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood. While the organization has pushed their fundraising efforts into high gear, they are left without an acquisition fund for its collection, which includes works from the 1960s to the present.

The Dia Art Foundation announced that they will be holding a sale of paintings and sculptures at Sotheby’s in New York on November 13-14, 2013 to remedy that. The foundation hopes to raise at least $20 million by auctioning off works by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), John Chamberlain (1927-2011) and Barnett Newman (1905-1970).

The Dia Art Foundation’s collection includes works by modern and contemporary artists such as Andy Warhol (1921-1987), Joseph Beuys (1921-1986) and Louise Bourgeois (1911-2010). Philippe Vergne, the Dia’s director, has not commented on what works he’s hoping to acquired with the funds from the Sotheby’s sale.

A major step has been taken in the Menil Collection’s master plan to create a “neighborhood of art” on their 30-acre campus. The Houston museum has chosen landscape architect Michael Van Valkenburgh to helm the expansion, which consists of the construction of six buildings dedicated to art, an outdoor sculpture park, bungalows, and green spaces spread across several blocks. Van Valkenburgh, who has offices in Brooklyn, NY and Cambridge, MA, has redesigned Pennsylvania Avenue at the White House (Washington, D.C.), Brooklyn Bridge Park (New York), Hudson River Park (New York), and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston). The London-based firm David Chipperfield Architects is directing the Menil’s overarching expansion plan, which includes the creation of new green spaces, walkways, visitor amenities, and gallery buildings.

Renzo Piano designed the Menil, which was founded by collectors John and Dominique de Menil, in 1987. The museum houses the de Menil’s comprehensive collection of 20^th century art, which includes works by René Magritte (1898-1967), Man Ray (1890-1976), Henri Matisse (1869-1954), Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), and Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The museum also includes a separate gallery dedicated to Cy Twombly (1928-2011), which was also designed by Piano.  

The first phase of the renovation is expected to kick off in September 2013.

A group of leading artists, artist estates, collectors, and dealer has donated 25 works of art to benefit the Whitney Museum of American Art’s new Renzo Piano-designed building in downtown Manhattan. The works, which are said to be worth upward of $8 million, will be put up for auction at Sotheby’s New York from May 14-15, 2013.

All of the artists involved in the multifaceted gift have strong ties to the Whitney and are represented in the museum’s stellar permanent collection. The most valuable work that will be up for auction in May is Jasper Johns’ (b. 1930) oil on canvas painting Untitled (2012), which is estimated to sell for $1.5 million to $2 million. Johns has had five solo shows at the Whitney and has participated in over 37 group exhibitions; the donation came directly from the artist. Other highlights from the sale include a Jeff Koons (b. 1955) silkscreen on stainless steel, a Cy Twombly (1928-2011) work on paper, a recent nude by John Currin (b. 1962), and other works by John Baldessari (b. 1931), Andy Warhol (1928-1987), and Ed Ruscha (b. 1937).    

All of the profits from the sale will directly benefit the Whitney’s new building, which is expected to open in the High Line District in 2015.

When the influential American painter Cy Twombly (1928-2011) passed away two years ago, he left the bulk of his artwork and millions of dollars in cash to the Cy Twombly Foundation of New York. The wealth of money and art passed from a trust to the foundation, which is devoted to protecting and promoting Twombly’s legacy. The Cy Twombly Foundation now finds itself embroiled in a lawsuit that was filed on Wednesday, March 13, 2013 in a Delaware state court.

The lawsuit claims that Thomas H. Saliba, one of the four individuals in charge of the foundation, took over $300,000 in unauthorized fees for investment services and assisted another foundation director, attorney Ralph E. Lerner, in pocketing funds. The claim was filed by Nicola Del Roscia, Twombly’s companion and the foundation’s president, and Julie Sylvester, a curator, Twombly expert, and the foundation’s vice president. Roscia and Sylvester also assert that Lerner and Saliba inflated the value of Twombly’s works in order to pad commissions for their own financial gain. Lerner and Saliba have refused to disclose their trustee commissions, making it impossible to determine the extent of their wrongdoing.

The recent lawsuit comes a month after Lerner asked the same Delaware court to appoint Twombly’s son, Alessandro, as a fifth board member in order to break the stalemate over the dispute. Roscia and Sylvester stated in recent court filings that Lerner’s request was an attempt to outmaneuver them. Roscia and Sylvester claim that Lerner hoped to bring Alessandro, the third trustee of Twombly’s trust, on board to help cover up Saliba’s wrongdoing.

While Twombly is a powerful force in the art market, highly inflating the prices of his work could prove dangerous for the foundation by creating confusion about the true value of his art and in turn destabilizing the Twombly market.

Onetime friends and business partners, powerhouse art dealer Larry Gagosian and billionaire collector Ronald O. Perelman have been involved in a bitter legal battle since September 2012. On January 25, 2013 Gagosian asked a New York judge to dismiss the case, which accuses him of using his high standing in the art world to arrange secret deals and influence art prices; Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is frivolous.

The ongoing clash started last year when Perelman purchased Jeff Koons’ (b. 1955) $4 million Popeye sculpture from Gagosian along with two other works said to be a Cy Twombly (1928-2011) painting and a Richard Serra (b. 1939) sculpture. Perelman paid for Koons’ oversize granite sculpture in full, but decided to cancel the deal when the work took longer than expected to complete. Since the value of Koons’ work is constantly on the rise, Perelman insisted that Gagosian owed him $12 million rather than the $4 million he initially paid for the unfinished work.

In his lawsuit, Perelman claimed that Gagosian had a secret agreement with Koons to redirect most of the profit from Popeye’s resale away from Perelman and towards Koons. The sculpture in question was ultimately sold to an unnamed buyer for $4.5 million and Gagosian gave $4.25 million of that back to Perelman, a fact Gagosian pointed out in court on Friday. Gagosian also claimed that Perelman refused to pay the agreed-upon price for the Twombly and Serra works, insisting that he would compensate for the debt he accumulated by giving Gagosian a number of artworks from his collection that he no longer wanted. Rather than benefitting from the deal as Perelman asserts, Gagosian said that he has lost $1.8 million so far.

While Perelman maintains that Gagosian is dishonest and deceitful in his dealings, Gagosian claims that the lawsuit is simply a way for his former friend to mar his name. Perelman’s side has made subpoenas as the battle continues.  

After twelve years at the helm of the world’s busiest museum, Henri Loyrette announced that he will leave his post at the Musée du Louvre in April of 2013. Before becoming the president and director of the Louvre, Loyrette served as the first curator and then the director of Paris’ Musée d’Orsay from 1994 to 2001 and has served as France’s chief curator of heritage since 1975. Loyrette has already informed the president of France, François Hollande, and the country’s minister of culture of his departure.

The Louvre attracts more visitors each year than any other institution in the world and Loyrette has managed to keep that number on the rise. In fact, the number of visitors has almost doubled under Loyrette’s leadership; 5.1 million patrons were reported in 2001 and by the end of 2012, almost 10 million people will have visited the Louvre this year.

However, Loyrette did much more than increase attendance during his time at the Louvre. He is responsible for implementing the museum’s contemporary art program and has organized exhibitions by Cy Twombly (1928-2011), Anselm Kiefer (b. 1945), and many other renowned modern artists. Loyrette employed a new policy that relied on crowd-sourced fundraising and launched a number of successful public campaigns that asked art enthusiasts to help the museum make important acquisitions. Loyrette also oversaw the opening of the Louvre’s outpost in the northern city of Lens as well as the expansion of the museum’s Islamic art galleries, which opened earlier this year.

Loyrette will no longer be in charge when the Louvre’s outpost in Abu Dhabi opens. The controversial project stirred debate in the French art world as Abu Dhabi has paid nearly $1.3 billion to use the Louvre name for thirty years and to gain access to the museum’s collection during that time. Designed by French architect Jean Nouvel, the Abu Dhabi location is slated to open in 2015.