The Financial Times reported that creditors of a bankrupt Russian bank are likely to decide the fate of Kazimir Malevich's The Black Square. The painting could be worth about $20 million on the open market, but an export license from Russia’s culture ministry is unlikely, possibly forcing the bank’s liquidators to auction it domestically at a lower value. Inkombank held the work, with three versions in state museums and the fourth in a warehouse; a license to export could unlock international sale, while a refusal would hurt creditors.
The Dayton Art Institute exhibition The Triumph of French Painting: Masterpieces from Ingres to Matisse draws nearly 60 works from Monet, Manet, Degas, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Matisse, Picasso, Corot, Gauguin and others, drawn from the Walters Art Museum and the Baltimore Museum of Art. Notable pieces include Monet's Charing Cross Bridge (Reflections on the Thames) (1901-1904), Manet's The Cafe Concert (1878-1879), Degas' Before the Race (1882-1884), Van Gogh's A Pair of Boots (1887), Cezanne's Mont Sainte-Victoire Seen from the Bibemus Quarry (1897), Matisse's Odalisque with Green Sash (1927), Picasso's Woman with Bangs (1902), and Gauguin's Vahine no te vi (Woman of the Mango) (1892).
The Berggruen sale in New York fetched a record price for a Cézanne landscape, La Montagne Sainte-Victoire (1888–1890), sold for 38.5 million dollars; the painting was part of the Berggruen collection previously acquired in 1982 from George Embiricos.
The page reports on a Sotheby’s auction where a ceramic Michael Jackson statue with his chimp Bubbles sold for 5.6 million dollars, and Jackson Pollock’s 1951 Black and White Number 6 fetched 7.9 million dollars; both were anonymous winning bidders, and the Michael Jackson sculpture set a record for a work by pop artist Jeff Koons.
Jeff Koons created a porcelain sculpture of Michael Jackson and his pet chimpanzee Bubbles that sold at Sotheby's in New York for a record price of almost £4 million. The piece was bought by an anonymous telephone bidder, believed to be a private collector, from Lew Manilow of Chicago, who had been selling it.
La subasta en Londres de dos cuadros de Claude Monet, Almiares, los últimos rayos de sol y Au parc Monceau, superó los tres mil millones de pesetas. Uno de los cuadros, Almiares, se adjudicó por 10 millones de libras y forma parte de una serie de estudios pintados en 1890-91; parte de los beneficios irán a los descendientes de sus antiguos propietarios, una pareja de judíos alemanes expropiada por los nazis en 1935. El Au parc Monceau estuvo asociado a Ludwig Kainer y su esposa Margret, expoliados por los nazis.
The article discusses Claude Monet’s Impressionist painting The Portal of Rouen Cathedral in Morning Light going on view at the Getty Museum, noting its provenance and price context from Monet’s Rouen Cathedral series, with related acquisitions including Edgar Degas, Vincent van Gogh, and Hans Hoffmann works, and a total acquisitions outlay for 2000-2001 around $50 million.
Ernst Beyeler, Basler Galerist und Museumsstifter, feiert seinen 80. Geburtstag. Eine Klage gegen die Fondation Beyeler wurde vor dem Basler Zivilgericht eingereicht von Jen Lissitzky, der ein Bild aus der Sammlung seiner verstorbenen Mutter Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers zurückfordert. Das Bild ist Kandinskys Improvisation Nr. 10 aus dem Jahr 1910, ein als Schlüsselwerk der abstrakten Kunst geltendes Werk, dessen Wert auf rund 25 Millionen US-Dollar geschätzt wird.