Amedeo Modigliani Nu Assis Sur un Divan La Belle Romaine (est. $40 million, realized $68.9 million) led Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Evening Sale in New York, which realized $227,561,000. Claude Monet Le Bassin Aux Nympheas sold above its presale estimate, and other notable works by Amedeo Modigliani and Henri Matisse also performed strongly; several works failed to sell. Modigliani’s sale set the artist’s auction record.
The New York Times reports that Sotheby’s sold Modigliani’s 1917 portrait Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman) for $68.9 million, setting a new artist auction record and bolstering confidence at the start of the fall auction season. The piece previously fetched $16.7 million in 1999.
The article reports Sotheby’s sale of Impressionist and Modern art achieving a $227 million total, led by Modigliani’s portrait "La belle Romaine" which sold for $69 million, a world record for Modigliani. It notes bidding by Tobias Meyer and references past sales including a 1999 sale at $16.77 million and an estimated pre-sale value in excess of $40 million.
The ruling allows Fisk University to sell a half-share in its Stieglitz Collection to Alice Walton’s Crystal Bridges Museum for $30 million, but limits how the funds can be used: only $10 million may be used for Fisk’s viability, with the remaining $20 million to be endowed for a Nashville collection connection and income used to maintain and display the collection.
Fisk University in Nashville gained approval to sell a one-half stake in its Stieglitz Art Collection to Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The agreement, approved by the Chancery Court in Davidson County, would pay thirty million dollars with Fisk allowed to use only ten million of the proceeds, the rest to endow/display the collection. The donation of the Stieglitz collection was made about fifty years ago by Georgia O’Keeffe.
Lucio Fontana's Concetto Spaziale sold for $1,161,000 at Freeman's in Philadelphia, part of Freeman's Modern & Contemporary Art sale totaling $3.4 million. Other highlights included Roy Lichtenstein's Water Lilies with Willows sold for $612,200, a Calder gouache for $52,000, a Severini drawing for $67,000, a Guerschner portrait for $73,000, and a Le Pho oil painting for $97,000.
Warhol’s Men in Her Life sold for $63.3 million at Phillips auction, opening the sale of contemporary masters at Phillips de Pury & Company. The article mentions artists including Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Cindy Sherman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, and Rudolf Stingel, and describes the new Park Avenue salesroom and the Carte Blanche program.
Sotheby’s biannual sale of Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art totaled £14,064,175, with a sell-through rate of 62.8% by lot and 89.3% by value. The top lot was a Yuan Dynasty Blue and White Peony Jar that sold for £2.6 million ($4.1 million).
Souren Melikian reports that Christie’s topped Sotheby’s with a $272 million contemporary-art sale, with world-record prices including Roy Lichtenstein’s Ohhh...Alright..., which sold for $42.64 million, and Alexander Calder’s Red Curlicue, which realized $6.35 million. The article notes the high demand across 75 works offered and comments on the market’s enthusiasm.
Andy Warhol created a black-and-white Coke bottle on canvas that sold for $35.36 million at Sotheby’s contemporary and post-war art auction. The sale featured 54 works (91 percent sold) totaling $222.4 million, beating the high pre-sale estimate of $214 million.
Carol Vogel reports that the National Gallery of Art in Washington will receive a major collection of American furniture from Linda Kaufman, widow of George M. Kaufman, with accompanying Dutch old master paintings and watercolors by Winslow Homer and Childe Hassam; the transfer will occur three years after Mrs. Kaufman’s death and some works are already on loan as the gallery plans a major exhibition in two years.
Robert Gold reports that seven paintings stolen from a Stockbridge home in 1978 were largely recovered, with the final two paintings returned to their owner as announced by the U.S. Department of Justice. A Falmouth man, Robert Mardirosian, had been convicted in connection with the theft.
Christie’s Postwar and Contemporary evening sale in New York brought in $272.9 million, the week's highest total, with 70 of 75 lots sold (93%). Top lot was Roy Lichtenstein’s Ohhh…Alright… (1964), which sold for $42.6 million with premium. Andy Warhol’s Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) (1962) sold for $23.9 million, below its low estimate, while Jeff Koons’s Balloon Flower (Blue) (1995–2000) realized $16.9 million with premium. Dominique Levy bought Koons’s piece and later purchased Jackson Pollock’s Eyes in the Heat II for $6.2 million. Gerhard Richter’s Zwei Kerzen (499-2) (1982) sold for $13 million, near the low end of its estimate. The Mugrabi family and collectors/bidders featured prominently across the Warhol lots.
Andy Warhol’s Men in Her Life, 1962, led Phillips de Pury & Company’s Carte Blanche sale with a final price of $63.4 million (hammered at $56.5 million). Takashi Murakami’s Miss ko2, 1997, sold for $6.8 million, while Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Self-Portrait, 1982, brought $4.6 million. Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Untitled (Portrait of Marcel Brient), 1992, sold for a record $4.5 million.