Monthly archive
21 headlines
Source-linked reporting
news.artnet.com
David Teiger’s collection is being sold in multiple auctions across London, New York, and Hong Kong. Sotheby’s estimates the total realized value will surpass $100 million, with works by Maurizio Cattelan, John Currin, Peter Doig, and Elizabeth Peyton among those highlighted.
news.artnet.com
The Guggenheim Museum has been awarded $750,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to continue the Panza Collection Initiative, a conservation project examining Minimalism and Conceptualism. The third phase will publish research, interview archives, convene a symposium with the Getty Conservation Institute, and release a book of findings in 2020.
artforum.com
The German Lost Art Foundation, created by the German government in 2015, is criticized for removing 63 works by Egon Schiele from its Lost Art Database after provenance concerns. The dispute centers on heirs of Fritz Grünbaum, whose collection included many Schiele works confiscated by the Nazis, who claim the works were Grünbaum’s property and were seized in 1938. The foundation had reviewed information from Grünbaum heirs and included the pieces in its database of stolen artworks.
news.artnet.com
The Christie’s sale will feature roughly 200 lots from Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson, known as Hunk and Moo, and their daughter Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. Highlights include David Smith’s Five Ciarcs (1963) and David Hockney’s Sprungbrett mit Schatten (Paper Pool 14) (1978), with estimated prices of $10–$15 million and $6–$8 million respectively. Other notable works include an untitled Alexander Calder mobile from 1949 and Vija Celmins’s Starfield (1982).
hyperallergic.com
The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin announced it will donate 500 works to 17 museums in Texas. The gift accompanies a second phase of a collaboration with The Contemporary Austin, which transferred its legacy collection to the Blanton. Separately, the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe’s Kunstmuseum in Münster received 150 Joseph Beuys multiples donated by the Rotert family, with works on display in Shell and Core: Multiples by Joseph Beuys from November 29, 2018 to September 29, 2019.
theviolinchannel.com
The Violin Channel reports that a missing 1840 Giovanni Francesco Pressenda violin, believed stolen in Auckland on the evening of August 12, 2018, has been found undamaged and returned to its owner. The violin is valued at approximately US $500,000.
theviolinchannel.com
The Violin Channel reports an international stolen instrument alert for a 2010 August Mario Miralles cello that was stolen from a hotel in San Diego, California on August 8, 2018. The instrument was in a red carbon fiber one-latch case and contained a gold mounted Garner Wilson cello bow and an Arcus carbon fiber cello bow; the instrument is valued at about US $85,000. The San Diego Police Department is requested to be contacted with any information.
eu.cincinnati.com
Madeline Mitchell reports that violinist Elizabeth Pitcairn will visit Cincinnati with the 18th century Stradivarius known as the Red Violin, which has required security due to its high value. The instrument's high-profile status stems from a 1991 Christie's sale that set a record for a musical instrument, and Pitcairn says the bodyguard is to protect the instrument from harm.
abcnews.com
Joyceeta Biswas reports that a rare $100,000 cello used in Star Wars soundtracks was stolen from a San Diego hotel room. The instrument was custom-made by Mario Miralles for John Walz, principal cellist of the LA Opera Orchestra, who had worked with John Williams on the score for Star Wars films including Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Last Jedi, and Rogue One.
sandiegouniontribune.com
The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that a rare cello valued at $100,000 was stolen from a Mission Valley hotel room between 8 and 10 p.m. The owner is John Walz, principal cellist with the Los Angeles Opera. The instrument was made by Mario Miralles (Alta Dena), with a red carbon fiber case and two bows by Garner Wilson and Arcus.
artsy.net
The article discusses a Willem de Kooning valued at $160 million, stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985, which was later found in the bedroom of Rita Alter and her husband Jerry in New Mexico. A family photo suggests they were near the crime scene in 1985, and investigators believe a partner in crime removed Woman-Ochre from its frame. The painting resurfaced after an estate sale for $2,000, and FBI involvement is ongoing.
thisistucson.com
Willem de Kooning’s Woman-Ochre, stolen from the University of Arizona Museum of Art in 1985 and recovered in Silver City, New Mexico, remains unrepaired and not on public display. The FBI has not closed the case, and conservation work is anticipated to be lengthy and expensive, with fundraising ongoing for a full restoration.
businessinsider.com
Kaila Hale-Stern reports that a Willem de Kooning painting, Woman-Ochre valued at $160 million, was found in the bedroom of Jerry and Rita Alter after their deaths, raising questions about an FBI case into its theft from a University of Arizona museum decades earlier.
scdailypress.com
The Silver City Daily Press reports on the return of the stolen Willem de Kooning painting Woman-Ochre to the University of Arizona Museum of Art, celebrated by local business owners Buck Burns, Rick Johnson, and David Van Auker, and acknowledged by New Mexico lawmakers. The piece notes the restoration and conservation steps planned before the artwork can be displayed again.
bloomberg.com
Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 Nu couche (sur le cote gauche) sold for $157.2 million at Sotheby’s, fueling commentary that billionaire John Magnier benefited from a windfall while Sotheby’s earned a small commission. The price marked a record auction result for Sotheby’s at the time, though the sale was reportedly a sole, prearranged bid.
vulture.com
The Rothko painting sold at Sotheby’s for $72.8 million, with speculation about the buyer. Sotheby’s says the final bid was placed by phone through Roberta Louckx and that a bearded man in a skybox (identified as David Rockefeller Jr. by witnesses) was seen near the glass; the family sold the work for charity.
hyperallergic.com
The article reports that The Jewish Museum received a major gift of artworks from the Barnett and Annalee Newman Foundation, including works by Adolph Gottlieb, John Graham, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Camille Pissarro, Robert Rauschenberg, Mark Rothko, Aaron Siskind, Saul Steinberg, Frank Stella, Clyfford Still, and Barnett Newman; the foundation also donated $10 million for the museum’s endowment and a contemporary art curatorial position. It also covers Rosa Parks’s Detroit house being auctioned by Guernsey’s African American Historic & Cultural Treasures sale, with a minimum bid of $1 million, and notes that the house did not sell at auction, though a potential buyer showed interest. Additionally, it mentions Malcolm X’s autobiography manuscript being acquired by the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center from Guernsey’s sale.
sothebys.com
The article discusses HBO’s documentary The Price of Everything, featuring artists such as Gerhard Richter, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, George Condo and Larry Poons, and insiders including collectors Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, curators and dealers like Jeffrey Deitch, Connie Butler, Mary Boone and Gavin Brown, among others. It mentions Sotheby’s private reception and screening in Aspen ahead of the film’s release, and notes discussions with director Nathaniel Kahn and producer Jennifer Blei Stockman.
theartnewspaper.com
Roberto Polo, who was convicted in 1995 for embezzling $124 million from investors, signs an agreement to lend 455 works to museums in Toledo and Cuenca for 15 years. The article notes his extradition from the U.S. in 1993, his five-year sentence, and ongoing litigation by investors seeking repayment.
apollo-magazine.com
National Gallery, London acquired Self-portrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1615–17) by Artemisia Gentileschi for £3.6m; J. Paul Getty Museum acquired Rothschild Pentateuch (1296) with related items including Menorah of the Tabernacle; National Galleries of Scotland acquired Portrait of Max Ernst (1939) by Leonora Carrington; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired 10,000 Miles Along the Yangzi River (1699) by Wang Hui.
art-crime.blogspot.com
The article discusses the ruling by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit in favor of the Norton Simon Museum in the case von Saher v Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, No. 16-58308, involving the recovery claims of Marei von Saher for looted works by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The dispute centers around two Cranach paintings of Adam and Eve, previously valued at about $24 million, and the broader Goudstikker art-looting history during World War II.