Martin Lawrence Galleries filed a lawsuit in New York Supreme Court against Jason Beltrez and Christie’s for the recovery of a Warhol painting stolen from its SoHo gallery in 1998. The work, Warhol’s Dollar Sign (1981) is valued at $300,000; Beltrez claims purchase for $180 at a New Jersey open-air market. Christie’s is named as a defendant solely as a stakeholder, with the painting to remain in its custody until resolution.
Edemar Cid Ferreira’s collection included a Fernand Léger painting Les Papillons (1937) and a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting described as Hannibal, both identified as part of a group of works sought by Interpol. The Léger was withdrawn from Sotheby’s sale in February 2008 and had previously not sold at Christie’s in May 2007; the Basquiat painting was seized by US authorities in November 2007 after a tip from Brazilian officers. The piece notes that the 29 works connected to Ferreira’s case include artists such as Francis Picabia, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly, and sculptures by Henry Moore and Anish Kapoor.
The Estella Collection of Chinese Contemporary Art is highlighted by Sotheby’s as the largest and most important collection of Chinese contemporary art to appear at auction, with over 200 works by artists including Ai Weiwei, Zhang Xiaogang, Cai Guo-Qiang and Xu Bing. The sale is planned in two parts, in Hong Kong this April and in New York this autumn, with an estimated total value of HK$65-95 million (US$8-12 million).
Pollock's 'The Magic Flame,' a circa 1946 painting, was bought by a European collector from Hauser & Wirth in Zurich and London for about $8 million, making it the top work sold at TEFAF Maastricht. The sale was reported by Scott Reyburn and Bloomberg News.
The Leopold Museum in Vienna is accused by Austria’s Green Party and the IKG of holding Nazi-looted works, including Egon Schiele's Houses on the Lake, 1914, and works by Albin Egger-Lienz, with provenance disputes surrounding Jenny Steiner.
A newly discovered wood Dainichi Nyorai sculpture attributed to Unkei sold at Christie’s for $14.377 million against a $1.5–2.5 million estimate. The result set records for Japanese art and for Asian art sold in New York, exceeding the prior Japanese-art benchmark by more than $12 million.