Nobuyoshi Araki, Yayoi Kusama, Tatsuo Miyajima, Yasumasa Morimura, and Mariko Mori are discussed as leading Japanese artists in the international market; the article notes their highest prices at auction and representation, with prices and galleries mentioned for each.
The Washington Post article discusses Italy’s most wanted stolen art, notably Caravaggio's Nativity With SS. Francis and Lawrence, which was stolen from the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo in 1969. The piece notes the painting's value in the tens of millions of dollars and links the theft to the timing of Italy's creation of the world’s first SWAT team to combat art theft.
An abstract painting bought for five dollars at a southern California thrift store by Teri Horton may be an authentic Jackson Pollock, according to the San Jose Mercury-News report. Canadian forensic art expert Peter Paul Biro found one of Pollock’s fingerprints on the canvas and concluded it was real.
The article discusses the Norton Museum of Art’s Gail and Melvin Nessel Wing, which expands gallery space by 75 percent to become Florida’s largest art museum. It notes the total size reaching 112,500 square feet, highlights features of the new wing, funds raised toward a $35 million goal, and mentions the architect Chad Floyd of Centerbrook Architects and Planners.
Roy Lichtenstein's Blonde Waiting, a Pop art painting, is at the center of a civil suit seeking $26.5 million from art dealer Larry Gagosian and three others over unpaid taxes on profits from art sales through a corporate alter ego; the piece was originally owned by Richard L. Weisman and later tied to gallery deals in New York and Los Angeles.
Steve Wynn paid $23.5 million for Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Dans les Roses (Portrait de Madame Leon Clapisson) at Sotheby’s in New York. Three works consigned by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, two Degas pastels and a Renoir painting, also sold for about $14 million. The auction total was $65.6 million, below the $70.9 million low presale estimate, with 11 of 39 works not finding buyers.
Michel Cohen, a New York art dealer, was arrested in Brazil for allegedly selling Pablo Picasso's Nu Accroupi for $4.5 million and collecting $7.5 million for a Monet painting he did not deliver. The gallery involved was Richard Gray Gallery in Manhattan, and extradition proceedings were initiated by U.S. authorities.
The article reports that on 19 March 2003 the US filed a civil lawsuit against dealer Lawrence Gagosian, Gagosian Gallery, and others to recover $26.5 million in federal income taxes alleged to be past due from a shell company used to buy and sell art. It details a $32 million purchase of 62 contemporary paintings from Richard L. Weisman, their sale of 58 paintings for $20 million to Thomas Ammann Fine Art, and subsequent asset transfers from the shell company Contemporary Art Holding Corporation (CAHC). The defendants allegedly acted as alter egos and could be personally liable for CAHC’s tax obligations; the Gagosian Gallery disputed the title to three works.