DBFA PR Book 2018

David Benrimon Fine Art 724 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor New York, NY 10019 +1 212 628 1600 info@benrimon.com www.benrimon.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS

About the Gallery

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Artists

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Exhibitions

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Notable Sales

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Press

78

Contact

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ABOUT THE GALLERY With over 30 years experience in the art world, David Benrimon has the distinct advantage of understanding the art world from many different angles. David Benrimon started with framing and curating when he founded Varick Street Framing in 1977 and Central Art Framing in the 1980’s to serve Manhattan’s growing artistic community.

Both companies served as a haven for helping dealers such as Leo Castelli and artists as famous as Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol realize their vision through framing. The canvas and the subject of the art is important, but the frame enhances the appearance and provides greater context to the artwork. David always said, “framing is a skill that adds a dimension to the art so that the canvas can be separated from the wall and become its own subject.” David would speak with Andy, Roy and others in the art scene about what type of frames they would like to accentuate their work. They were engaging conversations that encouraged the artist to augment his artistic vision and also allowed David to learn more about the Pop and contemporary art scene from its founders and purveyors.

As the art community in SoHo grew, David began acquiring important works by artists that would later become part of art history. David was an early proponent of Pop art and realized that these artists were creating a novel artistic movement that would greatly change the course of art history. David always believed that art has to be responsive to social factors and the environment in which the artist lives. His time in SoHo provided him with a valuable opportunity to learn with the next generation of artists, and David took advantage of the occasion.

David has always been lead by his ambition. In 1994, he founded Mistinguette Gallery where he catered to private collectors seeking Impressionist Artwork with an emphasis on French art and posters, while still retaining influence as a dealer of Pop art. Galerie Mistinguette continued to grow and expand. David’s ambition and clients encouraged him to take his art business to the next level by seeking museum quality artworks and David Benrimon Fine Art LLC (DBFA) was created in 2002 to advise collectors and

investors on the dynamic world of Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary visual art, located in Great Neck, New York. In 2009, David Benrimon Fine Art LLC moved to Manhattan to better serve an ever expanding clientele.

More recently DBFA has curated art exhibits and catalogues on internationally renowned artists. DBFA continues to expand the exclusive roster of artists it carries, curate larger and more dynamic exhibits and create bolder catalogues.

DBFA has enticed international clients throughout Asia, Europe and the Middle East to procure the advising services of David Benrimon Fine Art LLC. Discerning collectors want magnificent, important artworks with great condition, thorough literature, prominent exhibition history and clear provenance at fair prices to enjoy in their homes. DBFA offers artworks that fulfill these qualifications; additionally, when these collectors are ready, with DBFA’s expertise, they can sell discretely, at a nice sum and continue collecting. DBFA advises dozens of clients each year on purchasing and selling their artwork. DBFA is a preferred choice for discerning collectors because of it’s knowledgeable staff, discrete manner, and educated art perspective.

At David Benrimon Fine Art, you will find dedicated advisors who will guide you through every step of the purchasing or sale process in a thorough and efficient manner. From conducting full research and diligence on the price, title and condition of interested artworks, DBFA takes the time to match clients with artworks they will enjoy aesthetically as well as appreciate in value over years. DBFA maintains long-established relationships with a select group of dedicated collectors, investors and corporations. David Benrimon Fine Art prefers the depth of long-term relationships with a few clients to the breadth of short-term contracts with many. DBFA looks forward to working with clients for all their art business needs.

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ARTISTS Modern & Impressionist Georges Braque Alexander Calder Marc Chagall Jean Dubuffet Gustav Klimt Fernand Léger Tamara de Lempicka René Magritte Henri Matisse Joan Miró Amedeo Modigliani Claude Monet Henry Moore Pablo Picasso Camille Pissarro Pierre August Renoir Auguste Rodin Egon Schiele Alfred Sisley Post War & Contemporary Josef Albers John Baldessari Jean-Michel Basquiat George Condo Jim Dine Adolph Gottlieb Damien Hirst Robert Indiana

Jasper Johns Alex Katz KAWS Yves Klein William de Kooning Yayoi Kusama François-Xavier Lalanne Roy Lichtenstein Joan Mitchell Takashi Murakami Julian Opie Richard Prince Marc Quinn Robert Rauschenberg Ed Ruscha Sean Scully Manolo Valdés Andy Warhol Tom Wesselmann Latin American Fernando Botero Claudio Bravo Frida Kahlo Roberto Matta

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EXHIBITIONS

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WARHOL

March 8 - March 20, 2018

BOTERO

February 22 - March 18, 2018

BOTERO: PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES & DRAWINGS October 26 - November 22, 2017

LALANNE

May 11 - June 9, 2017

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ANDY WARHOL: IDOLIZED

November 3 - December 15, 2016

FERNANDO BOTERO: BEAUTY IN VOLUME II

October 22 - December 22, 2015

PICASSO: FEMMES May 7 - June 30, 2015

ROY LICHTENSTEIN: REFLECTIONS ON POP & WATER LILIES November 6 - December 18, 2014

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NOTABLE SALES

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN POST WAR & CONTEMPORARY LATIN AMERICAN

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IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN

Pierre-Auguste Renoir Brassée de Roses, 1918 Oil on canvas 9 ¼ x 12 ½ in | 24 x 32 cm

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Claude Monet Vase de Tulipes, 1885 Oil on panel 20 x 15 in | 51 x 38 cm

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Camille Pissarro Paysans et Meules de Foin dans un Champ, 1878 Oil on canvas 21 ¼ x 25 5⁄8 in | 54 x 65 cm

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Alfred Sisley La Seine Pres de By, c. 1881 Oil on canvas 15 x 18 in | 38 x 46 cm

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Marc Chagall Bouquet au verre, 1959 Pastel, watercolor and gouache on Japon paper 26 x 20 in | 67 x 50 cm

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Marc Chagall Le Violoniste sous la Lune, 1975 Oil on canvas 53 1⁄8 x 44 3⁄4 in | 135 x 114 cm

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Amedeo Modigliani Portrait de Elisabeth Fuss Amore, 1916 Oil on canvas 21 x 13 in | 55 x 26 x 33 cm

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Egon Schiele Sitzende in Unterwäsche, Rückensicht, 1917 Gouache, Watercolor and Crayon on Paper 18 x 11 5⁄8 in | 46 x 30 cm

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Georges Braque Nature Morte à la Corbeille de Fruits, 1927 Oil on panel 21 1⁄2 x 36 ¾ in | 54 x 94 cm

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Pablo Picasso Portrait of Jacqueline, 1957 Oil on canvas 25 ½ x 21 ¾ in | 65 x 55 cm

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Fernand Léger Deux Femmes Tenant des Fleurs, 1954 Oil on canvas 21 3⁄8 x 25 1⁄2 in | 54 x 65 cm

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Joan Miró Personnage, 1977 Oil, wax, gouache and ink on cardboard 35 1⁄2 x 24 3⁄4 in | 90 x 63 cm

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Tamara de Lempicka Portrait du Sommi Marquis, 1925 Oil on canvas 39 3⁄8 x 28 ¾ in |100 x 73 cm

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René Magritte Le Baiser, c. 1957 Gouache on paper 10 5⁄8 x 13 1⁄4 in | 27 x 34 cm

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Auguste Rodin Le Baiser (Moyen modèle dit Taille de la Porte), 1927 Bronze Height: 33 Ÿ in | 85 cm

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Henry Moore Seated Woman: Thin Neck, Conceived in 1961 and cast before 1963 Bronze with Green patina Height: 64 ½ in | 164 cm

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POST WAR & CONTEMPORARY

Mel Bochner Amazing, 2016 Monoprint with collage, engraving and embossment on paper 30 x 22 1â „4 in | 76 x 56.5 cm

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George Condo Boy in striped shirt, 2011 Oil on canvas 36 x 36 in | 91 x 91 cm

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Jean-Michel Basquiat Untitled, 1982 Acrylic and grease pencil on canvas 48 x 30 in | 120 x 75 cm

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Richard Prince Untitled (Cowboy), 2012 Inkjet and acrylic on canvas 73 1⁄2 x 48 3⁄10 in |186 x 122 cm

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Josef Albers Study for Homage to the Square: Soft Pulse, 1962 Oil on masonite 18 x 18 in | 46 x 46 cm

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Sean Scully Yellow Figure, 2002 Oil on linen 63 1⁄2 x 57 1⁄2 in | 161 x 146 cm

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Adolph Gottlieb Untitled, 1965 Oil on canvas 18 x 14 in | 46 x 36 cm

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Willem de Kooning Untitled (Woman), c. 1965 Oil and charcoal on paper 29 x 23 in | 74 x 58 cm

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Yayoi Kusama Infinity Nets, 2014 Acrylic on canvas 51 x 64 in | 130 x 163 cm

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Yayoi Kusama Tulip with All My Love 3-1, 2011 Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic, metal, urethane paint 88 x 65 x 78 in | 225 x 165 x 200 cm

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Joan Mitchell Grande Vallée Luc XVIII (Diptych), 1983-84 Oil on canvas 110 1⁄4 x 102 in | 280 x 259 cm

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Joan Mitchell La Grande Vallee, 1983 Oil on canvas 102 x 79 in | 259 x 200 cm

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KAWS Untitled, 2011 Acrylic on canvas 20 inches in diameter

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KAWS Ups and Downs, 2013 Silkscreen 35 x 23 in each | 89 x 58 cm each

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Marc Quinn White Mist, 2007 Oil on canvas 66 ½ x 99 ¾ in | 169 x 253 cm

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Damien Hirst Dot Painting, Tetrazepam, 2007 Gloss Household Paint on Canvas 34 x 50 in | 86 x 127 cm

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Roy Lichtenstein Reflections on Crash, 1990 Lithograph, screenprint, woodcut and metalized PVC collage with embossing on Somerset Pap 59 x 75 in | 149 x 190 cm

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Roy Lichtenstein Water Lilies: Pond with Reflections, 1992 Screenprint enamel on processed and swirled stainless steel 58 x 84 ½ in | 147 x 215 cm

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Andy Warhol Flowers, 1964 Synthetic polymer and silkscreen inks on canvas 24 x 24 in | 61 x 61 cm

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Andy Warhol Eagle, 1983 Acrylic and silkscreen on canvas 60 x 60 in | 152 x 152 cm

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Andy Warhol Marilyn (F. & S.II 23), 1967 Screenprint in colors 36 x 36 in | 92 x 92 cm

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Andy Warhol Flowers (Portfolio of 10) (F. & S. II. 64-73), 1970 Screenprint in colors 36 x 36 in | 92 x 92 cm

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Jim Dine Primary Hand, 2007 Oil, acrylic and charcoal on wood 60 ¼ x 60 ¼ in | 153 x 153 cm

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Tom Wesselmann Still Life with Four Roses and Pear, 1993 Mixed media on cut out steel 20 3â „4 x 21 in | 52 x 53 cm

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François-Xavier Lalanne Brebis, Belier and Agneau (from the Nouveaux Mouton series), 1994-1997 Bronze and epoxy stone 34 1⁄8 x 14 x 39 1⁄2 in | 87 x 36 x 100 cm

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Manolo ValdĂŠs Reina Mariana, 2008 Bronze 66 x 49 x 33 in | 168 x 125 x 84 cm

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Yves Klein La Victoire de Samothrace, 1962 Pigment on plaster 20 x 10 x 12 in | 51 x 26 x 31 cm

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Carol Feuerman Diver (Life-size), 2014 Bronze with 24 kt gold leaf with stainless steel base 77 x 25 x 11 in | 196 x 64 x 28 cm

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LATIN AMERICAN

Fernando Botero Maternity, 2006 Bronze 19 1⁄4 x 7 7⁄8 x 7 1⁄2 in | 49 x 20 x 19 cm

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Fernando Botero Rapto d’Europa, 2014 Bronze 24 x 17 3⁄4 x 11 7⁄8 in | 61 x 45 x 30 cm

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Fernando Botero Donna sdraiata con coperta mano su testa, 2006 Bronze 9 x 22 5â „8 x 7 1â „2 in | 58 x 19 cm

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Fernando Botero Cavallo, 2013 Bronze 38 1⁄8 x 18 7⁄8 x 33 1⁄2 in | 97 x 48 x 85 cm

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Fernando Botero Dancers, 2012 Bronze 27 1⁄8 x 17 x 10 5⁄8 in | 69 x 43 x 27 cm

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Fernando Botero Donna su Cavallo, 2015 Bronze 139 x 60 x 89 in | 353 x 152 x 226 cm

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Fernando Botero Society Woman, 2003 Oil on canvas 61 x 48 in | 155 x 122 cm

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Fernando Botero The Saint, 2017 Oil on canvas 73 x 39 in | 186 x 100 cm

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Fernando Botero Couple with Still Life, 2013 Oil on Canvas 37 x 47 in | 96 x 121 cm

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Fernando Botero Card Players, 1991 Oil on canvas 60 x 71 ¼ in | 152 x 181 cm

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Claudio Bravo Paquette Verde (Green Package), 2005 Oil on canvas 76 ½ x 51 ¼ in | 194 x 130 cm

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Frida Kahlo Portrait of Miriam Penansky, 1929 Oil on canvas 24 x 18 in | 61 x 46 cm

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PRESS

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A Hamptons Art Fair Expands Its Footprint

By Warren Strugatch June 7, 2018

The consensus among fair directors, exhibitors and collectors is that the multiple fairs of the past overworked the market. “The thinning out benefits everybody,� said Alex Benrimon, sales director of the David Benrimon gallery in Manhattan, who is a return exhibitor. With about two-thirds of its exhibitors displaying fine art, Art Market Hamptons, as Market Art + Design was originally known, has apparently cornered the market.

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George Condo’s Journey from Warhol Assistant to Kanye Muse to Art Market Dominance

By Nate Freeman May 30, 2018

The next day, at Phillips, New York-based art dealer David Benrimon loudly entered the bidding on Condo’s Red Head (2012), before being taken over by a phone bidder. Then, a man in the room—whom art market writer Josh Baer identified in his Baerfaxt newsletter as Stewart Rahr, a pharmaceutical billionaire and friend of President Donald Trump—purchased the work at a $1.5 million hammer, or $1.8 million with fees. The Condo sold early at the 5:00 p.m. Phillips evening sale on May 17th, and during the evening sale at Christie’s that same night at 7:00 p.m., just a few blocks away, Pylkkänen opened the bidding on Nude and Forms, the work that broke the record when it sold to the client on the phone for $6.16 million.

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$45.3 M. Basquiat Is Top Lot in Robust $131.6 M. Phillips Sale of 20th-Century and Contemporary Art

By Annie Armstrong May 17, 2018 Austrian gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac took a swing at Adrian Ghenie’s portrait, Elvis (2009) (Ropac shows Ghenie) but ultimately was the underbidder, with the piece selling to another bidder for $519,000. Next up was Andy Warhol’s Two Marilyns (1962), which was being sold by the artist’s brother, Paul Warhola, and made a squarely within-estimate $3.62 million.

Another Warhol, this a 40-inch-square yellow Last Supper (1986), went for $8.75 million against an estimate of $8 million to $12 million.

David Benrimon was among those vying for George Condo’s Red Head (2012), which ended up getting picked up by pharmaceutical entrepreneur Stewart Rahr for $1.82 million. Next

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up was Willem de Kooning’s Untitled 13 (1977)— Brett Gorvy entered the bidding at around $2 million, but was beaten by a bidder working with Antoshenkova, who ended up winning the piece for $4.16 million, with all fees included.

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Good Day Art Gallery

By Fox 5 May 3, 2018

David Benrimon speaks with Fox 5’s Good Day Art Gallery regarding several pieces exhibited at Art New York.

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Christ painting by Leonardo da Vinci sells for record $450M

By CeFaan Kim November 16, 2017

“Electrified!�

David Benrimon speaks with ABC 7 news on the exciting flurry of bids that ended in the Christ painting by Leonardo da Vinci selling for a record $450 million.

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Contemporary Art Buyers Cautious After Wall Street Dips

By Scott Reyburn May 17, 2017

A substantial fall on Wall Street cooled demand Wednesday night at a Christie’s auction of contemporary works that was regarded by many as the first serious test of the art market in the Trump economy.

been fireworks,” said David Benrimon, a New York dealer. “While the sale was strong over all, it did change the mood among American bidders, and these contemporary sales are about Americans.”

The 71-lot sale raised $448.1 million with fees against a low estimate of $339 million. Ninety-six percent of the works found buyers — helped by the auction house’s guaranteeing the minimum price of no fewer than 39 works — but bidders were conspicuously cautious, and few lots sold significantly above their estimates. Fifty-five percent of the lots were bought by American bidders, Christie’s said.

The core of Christie’s sale was a group of 25 works formerly owned by the eminent Kings Point, N.Y., collectors Emily and Jerry Spiegel, who both died in 2009. In September, their collection was divided between their daughters, Pamela Sanders and Lise Spiegel Wilks, who were reported to be feuding. Ms. Sanders is selling a total of 107 pieces with a value of more than $100 million at Christie’s while Ms. Wilks will be offering a Jean-Michel Basquiat painting valued at $60 million at Sotheby’s on Thursday night.

“If Wall Street hadn’t taken a dive, there would have

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Like A Local: The Best Art Galleries On The Upper East Side

By Christopher Kompanek December 7, 2016

The veteran namesake owner of this gallery worked with legendary pop artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. The exhibition “Idolized” featured the iconic silkscreen portraits of Marilyn Monroe along less frequently exhibited pieces like “Moonwalk,” one of Warhol’s last unsigned pieces before his death in 1987.

Recent exhibits beyond the pop art sphere have included a solo show of Columbian painter Fernando Botero and a series of Pablo Picasso’s female portraits that put the artist’s infamous womanizing in the context of his work.

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Monet’s ‘Grainstack’ Sets Record With $81.4 Million At Auction

By Scott Reyburn And Robin Pogrebin November 16, 2016

After a 14-minute battle involving five bidders — four on the phone and one in the room — a new auction high was set for the French Impressionist Claude Monet on Wednesday evening when the artist’s radiant 1891 canvas “Meule,” or “Grainstack,” fetched $81.4 million with fees at Christie’s in Manhattan.

sold for $14.3 million in 2001. The grainstacks, said Abigail Asher, a New York art adviser, “are timeless.”

The painting auctioned on Wednesday, which had been estimated at $45 million, ultimately sold to Margot Rosenberg, a director in Christie’s client advisory department, on behalf of an anonymous buyer on the phone during the Impressionist and Modern sale.

Continue reading the main story The previous auction record for a Monet was set in June 2008, for “Le Bassin aux nymphéas,” one of the iconic series of water lilies, from 1919, which sold at Christie’s London in June 2008 for 40.9 million pounds. (Adjusted for inflation, in 2016 dollars, that would be roughly $63.6 million today.)

“This one is different,” said David Benrimon, a New York dealer who has bought and sold Monet works. “There is more of the deep red of a sunset in this painting. It’s unique.”

“The Impressionist market is alive and well,” said Brooke Lampley, head of the Impressionist and Modern Art department at the auction house.

Works from the grainstack series — the first of Monet’s formal series paintings — rarely come to market. The last painting from this group at auction

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The painting helped bring the total of Christie’s sale to $246.3 million against a low estimate of $200 million, and 39 of the 48 lots were successful. The equivalent sale last year yielded $145.5 million from 59 lots.

Adrien Brody is ‘Hooked’ on painting for major exhibit at Art New York

By Ethan Sacks June 8, 2016

Oscar winner Adrien Brody’s latest role is as a different kind of artist.

The New York native is returning to his hometown for an exhibit of his paintings dubbed “Hooked” at the prestigious Art New York show that runs from Tuesday through Sunday at Manhattan’s Pier 94.

“It’s a gift and an honor to show work that was inspired by the chaos that is uniquely New York,” Brody told the Daily News by email. “All the artists, the noise, and the streets that raised me, as well as all the beauty, suffering and inspiration it exudes, is present in my work.

“This opportunity allows me to give that back and share it with my fellow New Yorkers.”

A who’s who of the more famous of those fellow New Yorkers — including Robert De Niro, Michael Strahan, Brooke Shields, Raven-Symoné, and director Brett Ratner — were spotted eyeballing Brody’s work at his booth (SP20) on the first day.

Brody doesn’t just dabble with some paints in a trailer between takes on a movie — he took a year and a half off from acting to focus on art and also producing projects.

He previously did a show Hamburgers and Handguns.”

called

This time around there is a school of fish-inspired paintings, sculptures and even a skateboard.

Brody says his inspirations include everything from Japanese koi to Warhol’s 20-year consumption of Campbell’s soup.

If the theme for “Hooked,” done in conjunction with Benrimon Projects, seems fishy, that’s no accident.

“This series references our culture’s evolution to being “hooked” on convenience and instant gratification,” says Brody.

“Hotdogs,

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Adrien Brody Steals Spotlight at Art New York

By Eileen Kinsella May 5, 2016

Now in its second year, Art New York jump-started Frieze week 2016 by holding its VIP preview on Tuesday. The crowds, at least, seemed to appreciate the opportunity, turning out in force for the show at Pier 94 on the far west side of Manhattan.

This year saw the addition of the Context fair, a Miami transplant that, like Art New York, is in Nick Korniloff’s group of fairs, and is dedicated to the development and reinforcement of emerging and mid-career artists.

Inside the spacious pier the curious will find a vast array of art, ranging from Pop masters like Roy Lichtenstein, to contemporary stars like Eric Fischl, Robert Longo, and Kaws, as well as up-and-coming artists from Europe and South America.

A highlight of this year’s fair—and a sure-fire visitor draw—is a selection of paintings by Oscar-winning actor and now artist Adrien Brody (following a pop-up show at the most recent Art Basel in Miami Beach) at Benrimon Projects.

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The artist himself was on hand for the preview, sporting a white shirt and ponytail and sitting at a table in the Benrimon booth surrounded by his art, as he chatted with reporters and fair-goers.

Bernice Steinbaum Gallery, of Coconut Grove, Florida offered a fun and whimsical booth with an animal theme (flamingos for Florida and pigeons for New York, explained owner Bernice Steinbaum to us). Alongside a fantastic-looking lion and iridescent wall-mounted walrus by Enrique Gomez de Molina, were large black and white drawing/installations of towering skyscrapers and pigeons by Jennifer Basile, and computer renderings of various “digital” i.e on screen birds in real cages, by Troy Abbot.

Cuban artist Pavel Acosta’s near-identical replication of a Frida Kahlo self portrait, made entirely with paint chips “stolen” (as the artist describes it) from crumbling structures throughout Havana, holds a commanding position on the outside of the Steinbaum booth.

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Led by Record $65M Manet, Christie’s Solid Impressionist Sale Tallies $165M

By Brian Boucher November 5, 2014 Christie’s New York held a “tame” $165.6-million

off the market, residing with an unnamed family, since

led by a $65.1-million canvas by Edouard Manet. The

the same year as The Bar at the Folies-Bergères, this

Impressionist and modern art sale Wednesday night, painting nearly doubled the artist’s previous auction

high of $33.3 million, set at Sotheby’s London four years ago by an 1878 self-portrait.

1909. Painted just two years before the artist’s death, canvas depicts actress Jeanne Demarsy, then in her

teens, as an allegory of spring, in a floral-print dress in front of tall, flowering shrubbery.

On her way out of the salesroom, New York dealer

Auctioneer Andreas Rumbler egged on potential

good, very consistent.”

remaining in private hands that Manet exhibited at

Dominique Lévy pronounced the sale “tame but

The total edged by the house’s $157-million pre-sale

high estimate, and with just 39 works on offer at its Rockefeller Center salesroom, the sale was tightly

edited and mercifully short, wrapping up after just 75 minutes. Half the pieces offered sold above their high

bidders by pointing out that it was the last painting

the Salon. It gave rise to a contest lasting nearly seven

and a half minutes, almost exclusively conducted by

phone bidders. The winner, seated in the front row, was New York dealer Otto Naumann, Josh Baer has reported.

estimates, and 90 percent of works found buyers. The

“That was exciting—the night’s only real bidding war,”

auction.

dealer David Nash told A.i.A. after the sale.

sale improved slightly over last year’s $144.3-million

Christie’s followed a larger sale at Sotheby’s the

previous night, which brought $422 million, the house’s highest-grossing sale in any category.

Lévy said.“It’s a very commercial picture,” New York

“It deserved the price,” said New York dealer David Benrimon.

Sounding the night’s one real sour note was Fernand The Manet, Spring (1881), a 30-inch-high canvas, was

tagged at up to $35 million. The painting has been

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Léger’s Builders with Tree (1949-50), which failed to sell, falling short of its $16-million low estimate. A

distinguished provenance couldn’t save the painting,

its $8-million high estimate, to place as the night’s

which has passed through the collections of legendary

third-highest price. At a post-sale press conference,

French art dealer Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, the Sara

head of department Brooke Lampley pointed out the

Lee desserts company and casino magnate Steve

meteoric rise in price of some of the works sold. Lot

Wynn. At 4½ feet wide, it shows four construction

5, a Picasso, had sold for $9,500 in 1966; Wednesday

workers perched on the girders of a building in

night it fetched $4.3 million. Lot 5, a Gino Severini,

progress. Having recently joined the Communist

was to be had in 1974 for $40,000, while Christie’s sold

Party, the artist created the painting as a tribute to the

it for $4.7 million.

working man.Rumbler waited around for nearly three minutes but the painting was not to be saved.

The New York fall auctions continue next week with postwar and contemporary art sales at Sotheby’s,

“That was embarrassing,” Nash told A.i.A. “The

Christie’s and Phillips. Sotheby’s sale Tuesday is

problem wasn’t the quality, it was just that it carried

expected to bring up to $419 million, led by a Rothko

a guaranteed minimum price and so they ended up

estimated in excess of $50 million. Two Warhol

floundering around for bidders.”

canvases are each expected to bring up to $60 million at Christie’s sale Wednesday, which is anticipated to

The night’s second-highest price was fetched by

bring up to $750 million. A Robert Ryman canvas

Alberto Giacometti’s Stele III, a bronze sculpture

tagged at $7 million is the biggest ticket at Phillips,

with the bust of his brother Diego atop a column.

which hopes to bring in as much as $68 million in its

It brought $9.9 million, well above its $6.5-million

evening contemporary auction on Thursday.

high estimate. While a happy result, it represented less than 10 percent of the $100-million ticket for a sculpture by the artist sold at Sotheby’s on Tuesday.

Christie’s Giacometti was followed by Joan Miro’s Tuilerie a Mont-roig, a 1918 landscape about three feet wide. It was bought for $8.7 million, just above

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$100M Giacometti Leads Sotheby’s Record $422 Million Sale

By Brian Boucher November 4, 2014 Sculpture dominated at Sotheby’s Tuesday night

green ground. It had been off the market since 1991.

in New York, as a $100.9-million Giacometti bronze

Of 73 lots offered, 58 found buyers. Halfway through

and a $70.7-million Modigliani stone head helped to

the two-hour sale, the house had already garnered

push the house to its highest-ever sale total, at $422.1

its highest Impressionist sale total. The sale went

million. It was a rousing start to two weeks of New

on to tally the highest amount for the house in any

York auctions at Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips.

category.

Van Gogh’s Still Life, Vase with Daisies and Poppies

The night’s biggest ticket, Giacometti’s bronze-

was the night’s third-highest seller at $61.8 million,

and-wood sculpture Chariot (1950), measuring just

and went to an unnamed Asian buyer.

under 5 feet high, met its estimate of $100 million.

A trademark elongated figure stands atop a platform

“The star lots were amazing works,” Citi Art Advisory’s

mounted atop two large wheels. After opening at

Suzanne Gyorgy told A.i.A. after the sale, “although I

$80 million, the bidding was slow and suspenseful,

would have thought the van Gogh would have gone

stretching over three minutes that saw only five

higher, and the bidding on it was slow.” The record

bids in $2-million increments, with the sculpture

for a van Gogh is $82.5 million, set at Christie’s in

hammering at $90 million. Even auction veterans told

1990 for the Dutchman’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet.

A.i.A. they were unable to identify the bidders, except for Sotheby’s specialist David Norman, conveying a

Painted just a month before his death, van Gogh’s

telephone bid.

1890 still life solidly exceeded its $50-million high

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estimate. The canvas, measuring just 2 feet high,

The sculpture nearly matched the artist’s auction high

contrasts bursts of red and blue flowers with a pale

of $104.3 million, set at Sotheby’s London in 2010 with

a Walking Man from 1960. Tuesday night’s sale was

Pablo Picasso’s 1969 canvas Seated Man, showing a

just the second sculpture in auction history to cross

mustachioed, green-clad figure, was pegged to sell

the $100-million mark. It had remained in private

for up to $12 million, and brought $11.4 million. It

hands for four decades. The seller was guaranteed

was the top Picasso lot, with two others placing in the

an agreed-upon sum by the auction house prior to

night’s top 10. The Spaniard is heavily represented in

the sale.

the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of a gift from Leonard Lauder; also currently on view is a John

The 1911-12 Modigliani gray stone Head, 28 inches

Richardson-curated show on Picasso and the camera

high, depicts a dramatically elongated woman’s face.

at Gagosian, as well as a Picasso exhibition Pace New

“The Modigliani is magic,” New York private dealer

York.

Andrea Crane told A.i.A. “Standing in front of it, you remember what art is supposed to do.”Monet sold

The Impressionist and modern auctions continue

well, with four canvases by the Impressionist placing

tomorrow night with a sale at Christie’s, which

in the evening’s top 10, one of them selling for as

carries an estimate of just $110 million. Postwar and

much as $33.8 million.

contemporary art sales, which are expected to far

“There’s a lot of liquidity all over the world, especially in the Far East,” dealer David Benrimon told

A.i.A.,

speaking

of

the

freewheeling

exceed the Impressionist and modern totals, follow next week, with a $738-million high estimate at Christie’s and $419 million at Sotheby’s.

spending.

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Fernando Botero: Beauty in Volume September 18 - October 28, 2014

David Benrimon Fine Art is pleased to

The sculptures included are among his rarest

Botero’s work in our new state of the art gallery

on paper offer iconic representations of the

announce its solo exhibition of Fernando

located in the Crown Building, 730 Fifth Avenue.

This follows the gallery’s critically acclaimed

presence in the Botero market for over 20 years.

The exhibition focuses on master works

from Botero’s career and includes paintings, sculptures and works on paper. We have carefully chosen the title of the show, Beauty in

subjects he often painted.

Whether satiracle or graceful, each piece invites, enchants and engages the viewer through their connection to art historical references, such as the reclining nude, the still life, or the traditional

Madonna and Child – themes dating back to the early Renaissance.

Volume, to not only reflect upon the scale of his

This exhibition has been curated by Gina

themselves.

catalogue with an essay written by Linda Rosen.

prolific career, but also upon the subject matters

Spanning over four decades, each work in

the show has been carefully selected for its overwhelmingly

recognizable

style

known

as “Boterismo.” The paintings are exclusive

for their valiant and bold use of color such as ochre, ruby and Prussian blue, as well as for the

overwhelming “roundness” and sumptuousness.

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and most desirable produced, and the works

Viggiano and is accompanied by an exhibition

For further information please contact the gallery at info@benrimon.com or at +1.212.628.1600.

Man on a Horse Bronze, 2010 51 x 30 3/8 x 24 in.

130 x 77 x 61 cm.

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Sotheby’s Sale Draws Cohen as Wynn Buys $28 Million Koons

By Katya Kazakinaz May 15, 2014 On May 13, Christie’s sold a record $745 million worth

One of the top lots was Jeff Koons’s stainless steel

York. The next evening, Sotheby’s tallied $364.4 million.

the estimate of about $25 million. Created from 2009

of postwar and contemporary art in three hours in New Although it was Sotheby’s third-highest postwar-art sale in a decade, the result was half its rival’s haul.

to 2011, the 6.5-foot-tall muscle man holds an open can of spinach.

“It was day and night,” New York art dealer David

Hedge-fund manager David Ganek was the consignor

compare the material yesterday and today.”

Warhol, dealers said. The work was sold to Alberto

Benrimon said about the two auctions. “You cannot

Watching the sale were hedge-fund manager Steven

A. Cohen; Mary-Kate Olsen, wearing oversized sunglasses, and her fiance Olivier Sarkozy, the half

brother of former French president Nicolas Sarkozy;

of neon-colored “Big Electric Chair” (1967-68) by Andy Mugrabi, whose family owns one of the largest private Warhol collections in the world. The $20.5 million price

was within the estimated range. All prices include buyer’s commission; the estimates don’t.

fashion designer Marc Jacobs and gallery owner Larry

The top lot was Warhol’s “Six Self-Portraits,” a group of

Sotheby’s new board member, yawned as bidding for

spiky fright wig against a black background. The work

Gagosian. Activist hedge-fund manager Daniel Loeb, a Matthew Barney work was underway.

The 79-lot sale had 39 guaranteed lots, compared with nine a year ago. The results fell within Sotheby’s

target range of $336.6 million to $474 million. Twelve

artworks failed to find buyers. Eight auction records were established, including for Keith Haring and Rosemarie Trockel.

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sculpture “Popeye,” that sold for $28.2 million against

the artist’s six small self-portraits wearing his signature sold for $30.1 million, within the estimated range.

The sale began with 19 works from former hedge-fund

manager Adam Sender’s collection, all of which sold

including those by Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince.

Estimated at $21.1 million to $29.9 million, the group tallied $44.6 million.

The top lot in Sender’s group was Martin Kippenberger’s

and status symbols. Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips

The work fetched $5.5 million against a high estimate

annual auctions in New York, considered important

painting of two men walking arm-in-arm down a street. of $4 million. Jeffrey Deitch, a dealer and former

director of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los

this week are holding sales, which are part of the semibarometers of the art market’s health.

Angeles, was the buyer.

Some dealers said the quality of work for sale was

Sender, 45, shuttered his Exis Capital Management Inc.

painting, estimated at $6 million to $9 million, reached

earlier this year. He worked for Cohen before starting Exis in 1998 and was one of the first among the new generation of hedge-fund managers to start collecting

contemporary art. The group also included Cohen and Loeb.

Sherman’s “Untitled #93,” estimated at $2 million to

superior at Christie’s. At Christie’s, a 1960 Joan Mitchell $11.9 million, a record for Mitchell and for any female artist at auction.

Yesterday at Sotheby’s, a 1958 abstract canvas by Mitchell, “Cherchez l’aiguille,” estimated at $6 million to $8 million, failed to attract a single bid.

$3 million, sold for $3.9 million. The color photograph

At a post-sale press conference, Alex Rotter, co-head

$96,000 when Sender bought it at Christie’s in New

auction house was “focused on getting results” for its

from her series known as “Centerfolds” fetched York in 1998.

of contemporary art worldwide at Sotheby’s, said the clients.

“It was a great sale,” Sender said in an e-mail after

“I wasn’t at the sale last night,” he said about Christie’s.

office for investing purposes.”

do the best for our consignors and buyers. We sell

the auction. “The money will be used to fund a family

Prices for top-tier postwar and contemporary artworks

“We are here. We are looking at our consignors. We carefully but also aggressively.”

are on the rise as collectors view them as investments

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Sotheby’s Racks Up $219 Million in Impressionist Sale Amid Heavy Asian Bidding

By Brian Boucher May 8, 2014 Led by Picasso, Matisse and Monet, Sotheby’s New York tallied $219 million at an uneven Impressionist and modern art sale last night. One-third of sales came from Asian buyers, according to Sotheby’s.

The auction came in the wake of news that the house would accommodate activist shareholder Daniel S. Loeb with three seats on its board of directors.

The evening’s total just barely met the house’s low estimate. Of 71 works offered, 21 failed to sell, for an unimpressive sell-through rate of 70 percent.

Last May’s auction of similar material at Sotheby’s brought $230 million.

“It was a sale with its highs and lows,” conceded Simon Shaw, co-head of department worldwide, at a post-sale press conference.

“It started off great but things were overestimated, and the market is very smart,” said New York dealer Christophe van de Weghe, who bid unsuccessfully on a Monet and a Picasso. Referring to the previous night’s sale at Christie’s, he added, “But the energy overall was much better today than yesterday.”

By all accounts, that was due at least in part to the crisp pace set by the auctioneer, London’s Henry Wyndham, stepping in after the resignation of Tobias Meyer in November. “He has a good rhythm,”

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observed New York art dealer and collector Alberto Mugrabi after the two-hour auction. “He’s a fantastic auctioneer,” van de Weghe said. “He’s very entertaining.” He’s also quick: a great many works were dispatched in less than 60 seconds.

The evening’s star lot-and the subject of a 13-minute bidding war-was Picasso’s The Rescue (1932), which brought $31.5 million, more than doubling its $14 million low estimate. (The painting brought $14 million at Sotheby’s New York in 2004 from the same party who sold it last night.) It shows a bather being rescued from drowning while others play ball on the beach. Bidding via Sotheby’s David Norman and Simon Shaw, phone bidders inched upward in quarter-million-dollar increments in a contest that outlasted by a minute the slugfest over Edvard Munch’s The Scream in the same sales room two years before. “That was two Russians going at it for sure,” one market source speculated of last night’s Picasso contest.

The Spaniard had a mixed night, however. While two other works in the top 10 were by his hand, five of 13 items on offer by the master failed to find buyers, for a Picasso sell-through rate of 62 percent. The most dramatic failure of the night was his Head of Marie-Thérèse (1932-34). It had been in the collection of MoMA curator William Rubin and had never before come to auction. Tagged at up to

$20 million, it was on the block 90 seconds before going down without a buyer.

“It has a powerful, aggressive presence,” David Norman told A.i.A. after the auction. “I guess if you’re spending $15 million, you want a gentler, more lyrical piece.”

“After that long contest for The Rescue, I thought ‘Picasso! Picasso! Picasso!’” said New York dealer Frances Beatty, of Richard L. Feigen & Co. “But then we came back down to earth.”

Asian bidders ruled the night, taking home the second-, third- and fourth-highest-priced lots.

Number two was Henri Matisse’s 1924 oil The Morning Sitting, which rang up at $19.2 million, just below its low estimate of $20 million, in less than a minute of bidding. The canvas depicts dancer and musician Henriette Darricarrère, the artist’s studio assistant, at work on her own canvas.

Fourth priciest was Alberto Giacometti’s 1948 bronze The Square, showing five of his trademark attenuated human figures. Estimated at up to $18 million, it fetched $13 million last night-thrice what it fetched at Sotheby’s New York in 2000.

“The auction houses have to work much harder to achieve good sales,” New York dealer David Benrimon told A.i.A. as the auction wound down. He had bid unsuccessfully on a 1947 Miró canvas that brought $8 million. He’d had better luck selling, with a Braque still life from 1927, acquired from his gallery four years ago, which brought $1.9 million on a high estimate of $900,000.

“Yesterday had no steam,” he added. “But both last night and tonight, there was no electricity.”

Third most expensive at $15.8 million was Monet’s Japanese Bridge (1918-24), a nearly abstract canvas in blues and greens showing the foot bridge spanning the artist’s lily pond at Giverny.

After three minutes of bidding, the work sold in the middle of the house’s estimated range.

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Sotheby’s $290-Million Sale Breathes New Life into Impressionist and Modern Auction Week

By Brian Boucher November 7, 2013 A group of 14 modernist works by artists including

“The estimates were much more reasonable than

Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern art evening sale

told A.i.A. after bagging a 1975 Marc Chagall

Moholy-Nagy, Picabia and Giacomo Balla buoyed

last night after two nights of doldrums at Christie’s.

The over-two-hour sale tallied $290 million with

64 works on offer, approaching the house’s high

estimate of $313.9 million. In the Impressionist and

modern art category, the total was second only to the house’s $331-million sale in May 2012, which

included Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Eighty-one percent of works found buyers.

“There was very good energy in the room—incredible

last night,” New York dealer David Benrimon

canvas for $2.2 million at the evening’s end.

“Tonight they did their homework and had better

estimates. Many works were fresh to the market, and had not been shopped around before the sale.” Simon Shaw, head of the Impressionist and

modern art department, pointed out at a post-sale press conference that only a dozen works offered

last night had appeared at auction in the last 20 years.

energy,” said New York dealer Christophe Van de

Opening the evening’s proceedings were the 14

bidding on a large 1969 Picasso. (Musketeer with a

All had been off the market since prior to 1975 and

Weghe, leaving the sales room after unsuccessfully

Pipe brought $30.9 million.) “What was surprising was that so many lots sold over their high estimates.”

According to Sotheby’s, 94.2 percent of sold works brought prices at or above their estimates.

modernist works, which brought a total of $64 million. were purchased from Paris’s Galerie Tarica, according

to the catalogue. The highest price among these

works was achieved for Balla’s 1913 oil and ink on

paper Moving Automobile, an abstract work in which motion is evoked with raking diagonal lines and

multiple swirl shapes. It fetched $11.5 million, which, despite not meeting its low estimate of $12 million, set an auction record for the artist.

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During the 37 minutes it took to sell these 14 works,

While moderns dominated, Impressionists also

two for Francis Picabia. His abstract canvas Volucelle

(1893), which rang up at $16.1 million, above its high

auction records were set for four artists, including II, ca. 1922, sold for $8.8 million to an unnamed

buyer, more than doubling his record previous to last

night, of $4.1 million. Over five minutes of bidding,

sold well, led by Claude Monet’s Ice, White Effect estimate of $14 million. The winter landscape shows ice floating on the Seine.

May Ray’s Promenade, a 1916 abstract oil, brought

At a post-sale press conference, Shaw touted global

doubling the artist’s previous record of $3 million.

buyers from 36. You can have a sale like this, he

$5.9 million from an anonymous purchaser, nearly

The biggest sale of the evening was Alberto Giacometti’s 1955 bronze Large Thin Head (Large

Head of Diego), which met its high estimate of $50

million after seven minutes of bidding. The buyer was New York’s Acquavella Galleries.

Picasso’s Head of a Woman (1935), a painting of

his young lover Marie-Thérèse Walter, was the second-highest sale, fetching $39.9 million from an

unidentified buyer after a four-minute bidding war,

participation, with sellers from 13 countries and boasted, “when you have property that his fresh to

the market and estimated in a responsible way,” a clear dig at the competition.

“This is a sophisticated market,” New York dealer

Frances Beatty, of Richard L. Feigen & Co., told A.i.A. after the sale. “People recognize quality and they

are looking for opportunities. They see Dada and Surrealism are undervalued—witness the Picabia and Man Ray prices achieved tonight.”

with Sotheby’s specialists David Norman and Simon Shaw contending.

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Record Lichtenstein Sells at $267 Mln Sotheby’s Auction

By Katya Kazakina and Philip Boroff May 9, 2012 Roy Lichtenstein’s “Sleeping Girl” sold for $44.9 million at Sotheby’s in New York last night, a record for the artist, in a $266.6 million contemporary-art auction that was almost a third smaller by value than Christie’s the night before.

Records were also set for Ai Weiwei, Cy Twombly, Glenn Ligon, Mark Bradford and Isa Genzken, as 11 of the 57 lots didn’t sell.

The casualties included two paintings by Willem de Kooning, who had a recent retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and a photograph by Cindy Sherman, who has a solo show there now.

“It seems like there’s a lot of money chasing the trophies, but the rest of the market is tepid,” said Suzanne Gyorgy, global head of art advisory and finance at Citi Private Bank. (C) “It felt shaky.”

The night before, Christie’s achieved records for Jackson Pollock, Gerhard Richter and Alexander Calder in the biggest- ever contemporary-art auction.

Just three of 59 lots failed to sell.

“Maybe people were spent out,” said Joanne Heyler, director and chief curator of the Broad Art Foundation, established by collector Eli Broad. “There wasn’t the same density of high-value lots. The market hasn’t completely lost its head.”

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Dealers said Sotheby’s estimates were optimistic for a cache that was less spectacular than Christie’s, which had 13 lots from the estate of collector David Pincus that alone totaled about $175 million.

‘Freshness and Provenance’ “At the end of the day, it’s about the material, its freshness and provenance,” said David Benrimon, whose family operates three galleries in New York.

“Sleeping Girl” surpassed the high estimate of $40 million and the previous Lichtenstein record of $43.2 million, set six months ago at Christie’s.

The 3-by-3-foot image of a sultry blonde was in the collection of Phil and Beatrice Gersh, who bought it from the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1964, the year it was painted. The Gershes were founding members of the city’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Beatrice Gersh died last year. Her husband, a former talent agent, died in 2004.

“Sleeping Girl” tied for the top lot with Francis Bacon’s 1976 canvas “Figure Writing Reflected in Mirror.” That painting depicts a seated man scribbling on a white sheet of paper with his back and profile toward the viewer. The man is reflected in the mirror.

‘Double Elvis’

‘Marden, Mitchell’

Andy Warhol’s 1963 canvas of two Elvis Presleys brandishing guns fetched $37 million, above its low estimate of $30 million and less than half of the $71.7 million Warhol record.

There were no takers for Brice Marden’s gloomy geometric abstraction from 1986-87. Likewise, a vibrant 8 1/2-by-13-foot Joan Mitchell painting didn’t sell.

Titled “Double Elvis [Ferus Type],” the silkscreen painting depicts the singer dressed as a cowboy and shooting from the hip against a silver background.

Sotheby’s (BID) charges buyers 25 percent of the hammer price up to $50,000, plus 20 percent from $50,000 to $1 million, and 12 percent above $1 million. Presale estimates don’t include the buyer’s premium. The auctioneer is scheduled to report quarterly earnings later today.

The painting was snapped up by the Mugrabi family, which owns one of the largest private Warhol collections.

“There’s a little adjustment in the Warhol market,” Benrimon said. “It’s been flat since last year.”

A ton of porcelain sunflower seeds by Ai fetched $782,500, an auction record for the Chinese dissident artist. In January, Mary Boone Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea district exhibited five tons of Ai’s seeds configured into a 16-by-32-foot rectangle. In 2010, Ai installed more than 100 million similar hand-crafted seeds in the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern.

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A Passel of Picassos Helped Christie’s Score a Solid $117 Million for Its Petite Impressionist and Modern Sale

By Judd Tully May 1, 2012

NEW YORK — Christie’s launched the spring auction season with a small but potent evening sale that took in $117,086,000, comfortably mid-stream of the $90.5-$130.2 million pre-sale expectation. Better still, 28 of the 31 lots offered sold, making for a trim buy-in rate of 10 percent by lot and four percent by value. Twenty-one of the lots sold made over a million dollars, and of those, seven scored over five million dollars — yet no artist records were set. The confidence-building numbers, however, pale when compared to last May’s $156 million result, made on just 47 lots.

In certain ways, the biggest news of the evening was the absence of star auctioneer Christopher Burge, who appears to be further cutting back his auctioneering schedule, cherry picking, it would seem, bigger game. Jussi Pylkkänen, the Londonbased president of Christie’s Europe, made an admirable debut at the podium, delivering an almost flawless performance.

Pylkkanen tried to prove his mettle early on by initially refusing to split a bid on lot three, Pablo Picasso’s tiny-but-sexy “Le Repos (Marie-Therese Walter)” from 1932. Bidding started at $4.2 million and quickly ambled to $8.2 million at which point a bidder in the

106

room offered $8.3 — a $100,000 increment. Pylkkanen refused to accept it and waited for the proper advance of $200,000 to $8.4 million. At that point, another telephone bidder offered another split bid, causing titters in the crowded salesroom. This time the auctioneer caved in and took it.

At last, the painting sold to another telephone for $9,882,500 (est. $5-7 million), including buyer’s premium. New York private dealer Nancy Whyte was among the posse of underbidders. The sleepy portrait last sold at Christie’s New York in November 2002 for $3,089,500, making it a rather astute investment.

Picasso had a very good night, as a sunny Cannes watercolor and India ink work from 1933, fresh from the estate of San Francisco collector Evelyn Haas, “Sur la terrasse,” sold to London dealer James Roundell for a buoyant $1,594,500 (est. $500-700,000). “I thought it was a classy object and a bit underpriced,” said Roundell, who characterized the evening thusly: “in performance terms, a real solid sale, so it bodes well for the market.”

Five Picassos made the top 10 list of the priciest lots, including the late and lively “Deux nus couches” (1968), featuring two oversized floating nudes set

against a green background resembling Astroturf.

It sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for $8,818,500 (est. $8-12 million). The seller had acquired it in 1969 from Paris’s storied Galerie Louise Leiris.

Another Picasso, lot 15, “Femme assise” (1953), attracted at least three bidders, selling to the telephone for $5,234,500 (est. $2.5-3.5 million.) “You can’t get anything modern for under five million dollars,” said underbidder David Benrimon, a New York dealer who further admitted, “The place to buy is at auction.”

Christie’s executives Marc Porter and Stephen Lash were busily underbidding for anonymous clients on telephones but the winner wasn’t readily identified.

Several observers believed he was an agent acting on behalf of a client, but our pursuit of an ID got no further.

It felt that way from a spectator’s point of view, as a recently rediscovered Paul Cezanne watercolor from his prized “Card Player” series, “Joueur de cartes,” from 1892-96, on laid paper sold to a bidder seated near the front of the salesroom for $19,122,500 (est. $15-20 million). The work had been cloistered in the same family collection since c. 1935, and featured the familiar features of a mustachioed gardener seated like a Cezanne apple, lost in cardsharp concentration.

(The fresh-to-market watercolor trailed Cezanne’s top price in that medium, as “Nautre morte au melon vert,” from ca. 1902-06, sold for $25.5 million at Sotheby’s New York in May 2007.)

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Elizabeth Taylor’s Van Gogh Sells for 10.1 Million Pounds

By Scott Reyburn February 7, 2012 Paintings that belonged to Elizabeth Taylor raised $21.9

The unsigned 1889 Van Gogh painting, showing the

bidders bought rare works by major-name artists.

voluntarily confined after his breakdown in Arles, was

million at auction last night as investment- conscious

The top lot owned by the late actress was a Vincent

asylum at Saint-Remy in Provence where the artist was bought by a telephone bidder.

Van Gogh painting that sold at Christie’s International

“Vue de l’asile et de la Chapelle de Saint-Remy” had

with fees, beating a hammer-price estimate of 5 million

the actress for 92,000 pounds at Sotheby’s (BID) London

(CHRS) in London for 10.1 million pounds ($16 million) pounds to 7 million pounds.

Auction-house staff members taking telephone bids

been acquired by Taylor’s art-dealer father as a gift for in 1963. It later became the subject of a restitution claim that was rejected by a U.S. appeals court in 2007.

were packed three deep at the sale of 88 Impressionist,

Degas, Pissarro

and decreased returns on financial investments have

The double Oscar-winning star of “Cleopatra” and

asset class. Sellers are encouraged by rising prices for

had also been the owner of an early Edgar Degas self-

modern and Surrealist works. Economic volatility spurred rich individuals to buy art as an alternative museum-quality works.

“There’s a lot of belief in the value of tangible assets

at the moment,” the New York-based dealer David

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” who died last year, portrait and an 1894 Camille Pissarro landscape that respectively sold for 713,250 pounds and 3 million pounds, both above estimate.

Benrimon said in an interview. “We’re seeing a lot

The rest of her collection was auctioned for $157 million

knowledge or expertise.”

sale’s proceeds will be donated to the Elizabeth Taylor

more people enter the art market who have no

at Christie’s New York in December. A portion of the

Aids Foundation (ETAF), Christie’s said. The total raised was $183.5 million, the auction house said.

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The surprise of the night was the record 19.1 million

A 1925 “Painting-Poem” by Joan Miro also attracted

“Reclining Figure: Festival,” estimated at 3.5 million

for 16.8 million pounds against a forecast of 6 million

pounds paid for the 1951 Henry Moore bronze pounds to 5.5 million pounds.

Entered by a New York seller, the darkly-patinated

sculpture was from an edition of six and was of relatively early date for the artist’s monumental bronzes. Another version was exhibited at the Festival of Britain in 1951.

It was bought in the room by the Cologne-based dealer

Alex Lachmann, who buys for Russian clients, against at least six other bidders. The price was more than four

times the previous auction record of 4.3 million pounds for the artist, set at Christie’s, London, in 2008.

Giacometti Logic

intense competition, selling to a telephone bidder

pounds to 9 million pounds. Early works by the Spanish

Surrealist are highly prized and upright paintings of a similar date with ochre grounds are in the Art Institute of Chicago and the New Orleans Museum of Art.

The most highly estimated lot was the 1914-1915 Cubist still life “Le livre,” by Juan Gris, valued at 12 million pounds to 18 million pounds. Though the work had

never been offered at auction before, this proved overambitious and Christie’s allowed the painting to sell to a

telephone bidder for 10.3 million pounds, considerably below its forecast.

“The estimate was just too high,” Van de Weghe said.

“Otherwise the good things were selling well.”

“If a Giacometti is worth $100 million, how can an

The sale, with a success rate of 86 percent by lot, raised

the New York dealer Christophe Van de Weghe said in

pounds to 127.1 million pounds. The equivalent event

important Moore be worth less than a tenth of that?”

an interview. “Maybe that was the logic behind such an amazing price.”

135 million pounds, against a valuation of 86.2 million last year took 84.9 million pounds.

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By Aaron Feis, C.J. Sullivan and Rita Delfiner October 22, 2010

Here’s the rub.

One package at the Time Warner Center’s mall is getting more attention than most from shoppers and visitors alike -- the genitals of a 12-foot-tall bronze nude statue that stands near the complex’s entrance.

Fernando Botero’s “Adam” has provided a titillating temptation to passers-by at the Shops at Columbus Circle to rub his miniscule manhood as friends snap their pictures.

In fact, there’s so much fondling going on that the patina on the nude’s nether regions has turned golden, making it stand out against the darker brown of the rest of the statue.

“I had a customer here who was laughing, saying, ‘You can see his peepee is a different color because people are always touching it,’ “ recalled a store manager who requested not to be identified.

A building worker, who also asked that his name not be used, said, “Legend would have it that when they put him in here, he wasn’t smiling.”

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Justin Kugel, 28, a student who was shopping last night, said, “I’ve seen people rubbing it and having their picture taken. That’s kind of gross.”

There’s a Botero statue of Eve nearby -- and some people pat her bountiful booty, another shop owner said.

David Benrimon, who owns a Manhattan art gallery with “one of the largest collections of Botero in the world,” said the artist was not aware of the personal attention “Adam” was getting.

“I was with him. I didn’t mention it,” Benrimon said.

“It’s interaction in art. People like to touch.”

Kat Haack, an event director in Orlando, Fla., last night snapped a picture of the well-worn area.

“It’s horrendous. It’s bizarre,” he said.

But the sculpture left Mark Harris, 35, smiling.

“I like it cause his thing is so small,” he said. “It makes me feel good about mine.”

Young Artists Achieve Records in Phillips’s Buoyant $10.5 Million Frieze Week Sale

By Judd Tully October 14, 2010

LONDON— Phillips de Pury & Company led off London’s contemporary art auction season with a compact but spirited sale that brought £6.6 million ($10.5 million), comfortably ahead of the £5.6 million

The Warhol “Scream” was underbid by New York

dealer Christophe van de Weghe, and the “Mao”

by New York dealer David Benrimon.

($9 million) low estimate. Thirty-five of the 51 lots

Phillips’s

offered found buyers for a 31 percent buy-in rate by

uncharacteristically packed with spectators, no doubt

Howick

Place

headquarters

was

lot and 14 percent by value. Three artist records were

a result of the VIP opening of the nearby Frieze art fair.

set, putting a cherry on the sale.

Curiously, a number of the auction’s most interesting entries — part of a larger group offered by London

Only one work hit the million pound mark, and that was

advertising magnate and famed market-maker

the gorgeous cover lot, David Hockney’s six-foot-high

Charles Saatchi — were withdrawn before the sale.

“Autumn Pool (Paper Pool 29)” from 1978, in colored an d pressed paper pulp that sold to a telephone bidder for £1.32 million ($2.1 million) on a £700,0001 million estimate. Abigail Asher of the New York and Los Angeles art advisory firm Guggenheim Asher was the underbidder. Two works by Andy Warhol also drew spirited bidding as the artist’s 1984 “The Scream (After Edvard Munch)” (est. £500-700,000), reprising the famed Munch painting of the screaming woman on a bridge, sold to a telephone bidder for £657,250 ($1 million), and “Mao,” a complete set of ten 1978 screen prints from an edition of 250, sold to another telephone bidder for £469,250 ($749,927) against an estimate of £250-350,000.

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Stately Homes Sell The Silver

By Colin Gleadell July 12, 2010

More than £50 million worth of art and antiques from British stately homes were sold at auctions in London last week.

Among them were masterpieces that will inevitably be shipped abroad unless public institutions in Britain wish to keep them, and can find the funds to match the auction prices.

Raising money to restore the roof and invest in property were the trustees of Althorp, the family home of Diana, Princess of Wales, and her brother, Earl Spencer.

Buyers from as far afield as Albania and Kazakhstan claimed all but 60 of the 757 lots, that included everything from horse-drawn carriages to copper jelly moulds, but they did not go crazy. The sale, which included two valuable old master paintings, raised £21 million. After subtracting Christie’s commission charges, that was about £2 million short of the minimum amount expected. Bidding was thin on Althorp’s star lots, which carried substantial estimates.

A Rubens portrait of a man in armour that was considered only “School of Rubens” until the 1940s, and had hung over a doorway in Althorp, was bought on the low estimate for £9 million by the London and Munich dealer Konrad Bernheimer, taking instructions

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on his mobile phone. Holing out below its estimate, but still at a record at £5.2 million, was an imaginary portrait of the biblical King David (pictured) by the 17th-century Bolognese artist Guercino. Acquired for Spencer House in London in 1768, it was bought

by Simon Dickinson, the Jermyn Street dealer whose name appears regularly on export licence applications, notably on behalf of the big spending Prince of Liechtenstein.

Literally selling off the family silver was the Marquis of Lothian, who had placed an exceptional early 18th-century silver wine cooler with Sotheby’s.

Weighing 11 and a half stone and big enough to bath a baby in, it sold near its higher estimate for £2.5 million, a record for a piece of English silver, to a private Asian collector. Asia, or more specifically Hong Kong, is where the wine market is at its strongest at the moment.

The climax of the aristocratic sell-off was at Sotheby’s Old Master sale where the Earl of Rosebery was offering J M W Turner’s atmospheric view, Modern Rome – Campo Vaccino, painted in 1839. The estimate of £12 million to £18 million was reasonable considering its peerless provenance and untouched condition, and as the saleroom filled with expectant chatter, it became clear a new record was on the cards. Turner’s

previous auction record was the $35.9 million (£20.5 million) paid, reportedly by Las Vegas casino resort developer Steve Wynn in New York in 2006 for a view of La Giudecca, Venice.

In London last week, the bidding boiled down to a battle between two Americans. Mobile phone clasped to his ear, New Yorker David Benrimon, better known as a dealer in Impressionist and contemporary art, was acting for a private collector, and, he revealed later, he had set a limit of £25 million on his bids.

Also in the room was Scott Schaefer, the senior curator of paintings at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, who was letting John Morton Morris, director of London gallery Hazlitt Gooden and Fox, bid for him. As the bidding slowed down, and Benrimon eked out a couple of bids over his limit, Morris replied with little hesitation until the painting was won – knocked down for £26 million, or £29.7 million with the auctioneers’ commission charge to the buyer added.

In the months to come some, if not all, of these works are likely to come under the scrutiny of the Government’s export reviewing committee, which can delay exports to give British museums time to buy. It may be we already have enough Turners in this country, or that the Rubens is not important enough to keep. Certainly the cash problem would be critical. After last December’s auctions, when a superb Domenichino, St John the Evangelist from Glyndebourne, was sold for £9.2 million, its export was delayed, giving a British-based financier the opportunity to match the price, and he is currently lending it to the National Gallery in London.

What is clear is that sales from British stately homes, many of them open to the public, are likely to continue. As the landed gentry faces increasingly challenging economic circumstances, the market for their masterpieces remains buoyant, if discriminating. The salerooms will benefit from this combination of circumstances, even if British heritage lovers do not.

Afterwards, the saleroom chat was that, even at that price, the painting was cheap. And perhaps, compared with a great Impressionist painting, with which the Turner would undoubtedly hold its own, it was.

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At Auction

By Sallie Brady

ForbesLife Magazine dated December 14, 2009 London or Dubai, market up or market down, U.K. gallerist Edward Horswell is selling. Not Monets, not Damien Hirsts, but lions and tigers and bears immortalized in bronze. Our perennial love of animals and a postcrisis quest for quality have led to six- and seven-figure prices for bronze animal figures, whether 19th-, 20th-, or 21st-century. At September’s biennial Florence International Antiques Fair, a rare 15th-century Flemish warrior elephant turned up in the Altomani & Sons booth bearing a price tag of approximately $193,000--a surprise to dealers and collectors who had underestimated by thousands the animals’ magnetism. Capturing all the beauty of the beast in bronze dates back to the Etruscans and their fourth-century b.c. Chimera of Arezzo.

Tabletop animal bronzes were made centuries later

by European Renaissance sculptors.

The mid-19th century, though, marked a turning point for animalier, the French word for the school of artists who made animals their subjects (and frequently used zoos for inspiration). Some of the biggest stars of the period are Isidore Bonheur, Pierre-Jules Mene, and the so-called Michelangelo of the Menagerie, Antoine-Louis Barye. In the early 20th century, Rembrandt Bugatti, a member of the Italian automotive family, created the genre’s most

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coveted pieces. Today his work, based on subjects in the Antwerp Zoo, can fetch millions.

From his 40-year-old Sladmore Gallery on London’s Jermyn Street--started with his mother’s own bronze collection--Horswell reports animalier has been stubbornly recession-proof. “Since the banking crisis, we’re finding that bronzes from the 19th century are particularly strong,” says the man who is arguably the world’s keeper of the bronze animal kingdom. “In the first three months of the year, we sold 45 bronzes from the 19th century--that’s more than in the previous 18 months.”

Prices for the very best pieces have increased by at least 50 percent in the past ten years. Barye’s Turkish Horse, sold in 1999 for $45,000, is now worth about $100,000. A Barye bronze recently set a record at Christie’s when it commanded $300,000.

Even more dramatic is the Bugatti market, long the secret preserve of niche buyers. Bugatti’s Babouin Sacré Hamadryas (1909–10), one of 11 casts, sold for a stunning $2.3 million at Sotheby’s in late 2006, driven up in part by buyers pushed out of the market for Giacometti sculpture, which now can sell for $20 million. (The previous Bugatti baboon on the market--in 2000 at Tajan in Paris--brought in about $965,000.) A number of these crossover collectors were in the room when Horswell paid $2.7 million for Grand Tigre Royal (1913)--a Bugatti world record-only to sell it “for a profit.” But, then, Horswell and Bugatti go way back. The dealer remembers seeing one of his mother’s invoices for a Walking Panther by the artist: “It was for $3,000. One recently sold at auction for $500,000.”

The iconic leaping hares of Barry Flanagan, who died earlier this year at 68, command upwards of $900,000. And then there is the husband-and-wife team of François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, who together have been dubbed “the next Bugatti.”

Although they turned out whimsical bronzes for decades (François-Xavier died in 2008), they burst onto the New York art scene only in 2006, garnering such fans as former MoMA president Agnes Gund and designer Tom Ford.

When Lalanne pieces surfaced in February’s Yves Saint Laurent sale, “we had a lot of new interest,” notes Clara Ha, director of New York’s Paul Kasmin Gallery, where Lalannes on offer include a petite rabbit ($70,000) and a monumental gorilla ($650,000). Says Ha: “A lot of these works are at the end of the edition.” It could be time to shop for a new pet.

Contemporary animalier standouts include Fernando Botero, whose horses and birds are being sold by the Great Neck, New York, dealer David Benrimon for up to $400,000.

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Sotheby’s Sale Shows Reassuring Signs of Market Life

By Judd Tully

February 3, 2009 LONDON—A nervous art market jumped its seasonopening hurdle this evening as Sotheby’s slim sale of Impressionist and modern art earned a total of $32,564,300 ($46,238,050), a result that came within range of the pre-sale low estimate of $40.6 million but still lagged far behind the high estimate of $55.6 million.

Twenty-two of the 29 lots found buyers, for respectable (and even encouraging) buy-in rates of 24 percent by lot and 32 percent by value.

“You either had works that were very sought after, or they didn’t go,” said Melanie Clore, Sotheby’s co-chairman of Impressionist and modern art worldwide. “For the right works, there’s really a lot of demand.”

While only six of the 22 sold lots made more than £1 million, the evening’s top earner shot to a hammer price of £11.8 million, drawing a round of applause.

Edgar Degas’s posthumous bronze Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans, complete with raggedy muslin skirt and satin hair tie, was cast in 1922 in an edition of 28 based on the wax original from c. 1879–81. The final sale price (with buyer’s premium) was an impressive £13,257,250 (est. £9–12 million), a result that easily beat the $12,377,500 earned by another work in the edition

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at Sotheby’s New York in November 1999. Tonight’s version, which went to a Japanese collector bidding by telephone, last sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2004 for £5,045,600.

The Degas consignor, Sir John Madejski, may have made a handsome return on his investment, but others didn’t fare nearly as well. A striking Francis Picabia, Lunis (1929–30), in oil and mixed media from his “Transparences” series, went to a telephone bidder for £529,250 (est. £450–650,000). Although well within the estimate range, the work last sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2006 for £1,072,000, or about double tonight’s result.

If that was a glaring example of what a price correction looks like in the current market, elsewhere strong works continued to perform surprisingly well. Take, for instance, the small but power-packed cover lot, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s hallucinatory Strassenszene (Street Scene) from 1913, which went to a lone telephone bidder for £5,417,250 (est. £5–7 million). The painting last sold at Sotheby’s London in June 1997 for £1,981,500. It’s a work that comes with a built-in bonus, in that the verso of the canvas contains an eerie portrait from 1914 of Botho Graff, an archeology professor and art historian who admired Kirchner’s work.

The Kirchner was not the only German or Austrian work in healthy demand. A recently restituted Oskar Kokoschka city view, Istanbul l from June 1929, earned £1,497,250 (est. £1.2–1.8 million), going to a phone bidder speaking to none other than Sotheby’s CEO William Ruprecht. The sale benefited the heirs of former owner Oskar Federer some 70 years after the work was seized from him by the Nazis.

“With the weak pound and the nervousness of certain buyers, there are opportunities in the market for longtime and savvy collectors who haven’t enjoyed the frenzy of the past few years to step back in and get great things,” said Asher moments after the sale.

Overall, the evening produced mixed results. On the one hand, there were casualties, like the rare and impressive, but pricey, Amedeo Modigliani oil Cariatide from 1913, which died after a lone bid of £4.7 million (est. £6–8 million). On the other, you had the large and late Joan Miró abstraction Femmes et Oiseaux dans la Nuit, which drew interest from at least half a dozen bidders before selling to international art trader David Nahmad for a robust £2,001,250 (est. £750,000–1 million). The underbidders included two New York dealers, Jose Mugrabi and David Benrimon.

Rene Magritte’s small and stunning Souvenir de Voyage from 1958, depicting the Leaning Tower of Pisa being propped up by a feather, also did well, selling to Abigail Asher of the New York/L.A. art advisory group Guggenheim Asher for £746,850 (£400–600,000).

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New York: Impressionist and Modern Art

By Judd Tully January 1, 2009 The global economic downturn finally caught up with the art market in November during the Impressionist and modern evening sales in New York. As Christie’s and Sotheby’s registered a nasty rash of buy-ins, bottom fishers and born-again connoisseurs who had long been priced out of the market took advantage of the houses’ lowered expectations to buy many works for less than their estimates.

Although it wasn’t pretty, Sotheby’s pulled off the best evening sale of the week on November 3. Using the same strategy it had practiced during its contemporaryart sales in London, the house beat down consignors’ reserves on lots with bullish estimates that had been set weeks before the world financial meltdown. By increasing the chances that these works would sell, Sotheby’s saved its skin, ensuring a high overall take that covered its losses on guaranteed ones.

Even so, in this tough-love market, hammer prices for the house’s offerings were 20 percent or more below the low estimates. This trend was evident early on, as the London dealer Libby Howie nabbed Maurice de Vlaminck’s Fauve Le Remorqueur, 1906 (est. $4-6 million), for $3,666,500. “It’s a very good work by him,” says Howie, “but I wasn’t going to go any higher.”

The new price ceiling kept a tight lid on bidding, as bargain hunters shopped in an almost contest-free atmosphere. The New York gallerist Jack Tilton, for instance, faced little competition for Monet’s reflective landscape Printemps à Vétheuil, 1881 (est. $1.5-2 million), which he nabbed for $1,314,500. And London’s James Roundell got a deal when he scored Henry

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Moore’s bronze Working Model for Draped Reclining Figure, 1977-79 (est. $2-3 million), for $1,818,500. It was one of 16 lots guaranteed by Sotheby’s, which seemed steeled to letting the items under its control go for below their estimates rather than wind up with unwanted material.

Despite this flexibility, four guaranteed works failed to sell, including Henri Matisse’s striking portrait Titine Trovato en robe et chapeau, 1934 (est. $12-18 million).

“Last chance,” warned the auctioneer, Tobias Meyer, “unless somebody else bids in the room.” The silence was deafening, and the picture crashed at $8.75 million.

After the sale, Sotheby’s publicly stated that it had lost $10 million on guaranteed lots. After suffering a hit like that, the house is sure to abandon its high-risk habit of offering guarantees and retreat to its traditional role of agent, not principal.

A seismic shift was obvious in both mood and statistics.

Of the 70 lots offered, 25 failed to sell, the highest buy-in rate for a Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern evening sale since 2005. And although the whopping buyer’s premium partially disguised the lackluster tallies, the house’s total take of $196.9 million, excluding the sale charge, was a mere 46 percent of its $347.8 million low estimate.

Notwithstanding the dismal atmosphere, the auction managed to produce records, including one for the costliest picture of the season, Kasimir Malevich’s 1916 abstract masterpiece Suprematist Composition (unpublished estimate in the region of $60 million), which sold on a telephone bid taken by Roberta

Louckx for $60,002,500. There did not appear to be a contingent of Russian buyers — whose activity at auction has receded since the collapse of their stock market — vying for the piece. The picture was consigned by the artist’s heirs, to whom it was awarded after years of legal jousting with the city of Amsterdam and the Stedelijk Museum, where it had hung since 1958.

Sotheby’s guaranteed the work for an undisclosed but no doubt princely sum. The house backed this up with an “irrevocable bid,” an arrangement in which an outside person agrees to pay an undisclosed sum, plus the buyer’s premium, for the piece if no higher bids are received. To indicate the existence of this unusual arrangement in the item’s catalogue entry, Sotheby’s printed a sideways horseshoe next to its guarantee mark.

The catalogue entry accompanying another recordbreaking lot, Edvard Munch’s sensationally seductive Vampire, 1894 (unpublished estimate in excess of $30 million), included the same horseshoe symbol, which in this case the house insisted was a typo. The preview audience was abuzz with speculation that the misprint defense was covering up the defection of a third party who got cold feet. But it proved to be much ado about nothing: There was fierce competition — driven by, among others, the Russian-speaking Gagosian director Victoria Gelfand, who sat next to her boss in the salesroom — for Munch’s eerily romantic depiction of a red-tressed woman biting the neck of a subservient male victim. It ultimately went to the phone for $38,162,500.

Sotheby’s had a tougher time dispatching another guaranteed item, Edgar Degas’s emblematic Danseuse au repos, a pastel and gouache on joined panel done

around 1879 (unpublished estimate in excess of $40 million). The consignor — reportedly the takeover magnate Henry Kravis — had acquired the work at Sotheby’s London in 1999 for a then-record price of £17,601,500 ($28 million) against an estimate of £5 million to £7 million ($8-11 million). As activity palled in the subdued salesroom, Meyer made the disarming announcement that he would sell the Degas at $30 million. His words prompted another round of bids, and it sold to the phone for $37,042,500, a record for a Degas.

The market for masterpieces is alive and well, affirms the Sotheby’s vice chairman of Impressionist and modern art worldwide Emmanuel Di-Donna, but when it comes to more ordinary works, “there needs to be a readjustment of prices. It’s just a question of finding this new level.”

Two nights later, Christie’s suffered a bust with its unluckily timed and ill-conceived Modern Age auction, a stand-alone sale of two separate American singleowner collections, from the Hillman family and Alice Lawrence. The pretentiousness of the session — whose matching hardcover catalogues weighed like cement boots on a drowning market — might have worked in a frothier current, but with the Dow dropping like a stone after the U.S. presidential election, the bizarrely organized sale also sank fast.

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New York: Impressionist and Modern Art (Continued)

By Judd Tully January 1, 2009 Luckily, at least for the Christie’s bottom line, none of the Hillman works carried guarantees. The conservative group got off to a decent start, as Georges Seurat’s Maison carrée, 1882-84 (est. $800,000-1.2 million), fetched $1,082,500 from a telephone bidder. The New York gallerist Helly Nahmad was the underbidder on two pieces that performed respectably: Jean Dubuffet’s evocative Vue de Paris, quartiers résidentiels, 1944 (est. $3-4 million), which brought $3,666,500, and Giorgio de Chirico’s shadowed Composition métaphysique, 1914 (est. $6-8 million), which brought $6,130,500.

Buyers’ energy evaporated halfway through the collection, however, with its star work, Édouard Manet’s Fillette sur un banc, 1880 (est. $12-18 million), flopping under a chandelier bid of $10.5 million.

The postwar works and Art Deco objets from the chock-a-block Alice Lawrence collection — which Christie’s guaranteed across the board — did not revive enthusiasm. There were several bright spots, including the small but glowing René Magritte gouache L’Empire des lumières, 1947 (est. $2-3 million), which sold to the Long Island dealer David Benrimon for $3,544,500, and Alice Neel’s brilliant oil portrait Robert Smithson, 1962 (est. $300400,000), which shot to a record $698,500. But the most expensive offering, Mark Rothko’s dark and stormy No. 43 (Mauve), 1960 (est. $20-30 million), capsized at an imaginary bid of $16 million.

The climate improved at the various-owners sale the house held the next night. Although the overstuffed, 82-lot session ended up with the most unsold works of any evening auction since November 2000, all the

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guaranteed pieces found new homes. The cover lot, Wassily Kandinsky’s color-charged Expressionist oil and gouache Studie zu Improvisation 3, 1909 (est. $15-20 million), brought $16,882,500 from a telephone bidder.

And a new record was established for Juan Gris, whose Cubist masterpiece from 1915, Livre, pipe et verres (est. $12.5-18.5 million), was grabbed by the New York dealer Franck Giraud for $20,802,500. “I was surprised there was competition,” says Giraud, explaining that he acquired the painting for an American collector who had long coveted it. “It just shows the market is intelligent and there’s a lot of competition on the rare things.”

Relative to the economy’s dramatic downturn, the performances of the trio of evening sales was far from a rout. “There’s still a little bit of life left in the market,” says the Christie’s CEO Edward Dolman, “and I think that’s what people should be concentrating on.”

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Bleak Night at Christie’s, in Both Sales and Prices

By Carol Vogel November 5, 2008

In a hushed salesroom at Christie’s on Wednesday night, works by a wide range of artists, from Manet, Cézanne and Renoir to Rothko and de Kooning, failed to sell, and prices for things that did find buyers often went for far less than what they would have a year ago.

Early in the summer, well before the world financial picture darkened, Christie’s secured art collections from the estates of two New York philanthropists: Rita K. Hillman, who was president of the Alex Hillman Family Foundation, named for her husband, a publisher who died in 1968; and Alice Lawrence, the widow of Sylvan Lawrence, a Manhattan real estate developer who died in 1981. Since both collections center on late 19th- and 20th-century art, Christie’s decided to put the two collections together and hold a special sale that it called “The Modern Age.”

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In the case of the Lawrence property, Christie’s had given the estate a guarantee — an undisclosed sum regardless of the outcome of the sale — so the auction house could set its own reserves (that is, the undisclosed minimum prices that bidders must meet for the art to be sold). Even after those reserves were lowered, the audience barely bit.

The two collections brought a total of $47 million, less than half of its $104 million low estimate. Of the 58 lots, 17 failed to sell. (Final prices include the commission to Christie’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000, 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million, and 12 percent of the rest. Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

From a sales standpoint, estate items are usually attractive because they are perceived as fresh material that has not been on the market for years.

But in this case the works were not good enough to warrant the estimated prices, given the grim financial climate.

Of the 30 works from the Lawrence collection, the highlight was expected to be “No. 43 (Mauve),” a classic 1960 Rothko painting. The dark abstract canvas was estimated at $20 million to $30 million, far beyond the $1.5 million the couple paid for it at Sotheby’s in 1988. Mr. Burge opened the bidding at $10 million, but he had no takers. (Before the auction, experts grumbled that the painting had condition issues.)

“The estimates were from an earlier time, and the market has changed now,” said Christopher Burge, honorary chairman of Christie’s in America and the evening’s auctioneer.

Other casualties were a 1970 abstract drawing by de Kooning, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, and a 1964 crushed metal sculpture by John Chamberlain, estimated at $900,000 to $1.2 million.

One of the few works that several people were willing to reach for was Magritte’s “Empire of the Lights” (1947), a gouache of one of the artist’s most famous images — a nocturnal street scene featuring a spookily shuttered house and a brilliant blue sky with puffy white clouds. David Benrimon, a New York dealer, bought the work for $3.1 million ($3.5 million including Christie’s fees), just above its high estimate of $3 million.

Anything connected with Francis Bacon has been a hit at auction in recent years, and Christie’s was selling a portrait of George Dyer, Bacon’s companion, who committed suicide in 1971. The image was painted

by Lucian Freud in 1966. The salesroom perked up when three bidders tried for the painting, which ended up bringing its low estimate of $1.8 million, or $2 million with Christie’s commission.

The evening began with 28 paintings and works on paper from the Hillman collection. In the hope of warming up the audience, Christie’s had choreographed the sale so that several lower-priced drawings went on the block first. But that did not help. Early on, a Cézanne watercolor landscape from 1904-6, “The Cathedral at Aix From the Studio at Les Lauves,” was expected to bring $4 million to $6 million. It failed to sell. One bottom-feeder was willing to pay $2.8 million.

One work that sold for about its low estimate was Léger’s “Study for a Nude Model in the Studio,” an oil and gouache on paper from 1912. It not only was a study for a painting he completed the following year but also prefigured his iconic series “Contrast of Forms.” The black-and-white work of curves and angles sold to a telephone bidder for $2.9 million, or $3.3 million with fees, right at its low estimate.

The evening’s most expensive work turned out to be De Chirico’s “Metaphysical Composition,” from the Hillman collection, a 1914 Oil on canvas in which a bizarre assemblage of objects like a foot and an egg form a still life in an outdoor setting. The painting has a particularly distinguished past: it initially belonged to the artist’s dealer, Paul Guillaume, and after his death was owned by a succession of writers and artists including Paul Éluard. The painting had three bidders, and it sold to an unidentified telephone bidder for $5.4 million, or $6.1 million with Christie’s fees, just above its $6 million low estimate.

More expensive works had no takers, including Manet’s “Young Girl on a Bench,” an 1880 portrait of a girl with a wide-brim hat that was expected to bring $12 million to $18 million.

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Market Forces Bring Fire-Sale Prices for Christie’s “Modern Age”

By Judd Tully

November 5, 2008 NEW YORK—On a post-election night after the Dow

There were plenty of bargains for those willing to

plunged 486 points in a wave of nervous sell-offs,

make bids. “I bought exactly what I wanted,” said

Christie’s stand-alone sale of two modern art collections

London dealer Libby Howie, who acquired two

fetched less than 50 percent of pre-sale expectations.

works on paper: Pablo Picasso’s pen-and-India-ink

The house’s back-to-back auctions of the Hillman

drawing Trois Nus (August 5, 1938) for $578,500 (est.

Family and the Alice

$700,000–1,000,000) and Henri Matisse’s Le Modèle

Lawrence

for $362,500 (est. $600–900,000).

Collections

earned

an

anemic

$47,039,500,

It was an evening of price corrections, and some

against an estimate of

bottom-feeders took advantage. Long Island dealer

$102.3–149 million. The

David Benrimon acquired three significant works,

Hillman

including two bargain-basement deals: Georges

total

of

works

earned 36

Braque’s Nature morte à la corbeille de fruits for

percent unsold by lot

$842,500 (est. $1.2–1.8 million) and Joan Miró’s

and 45 percent by value,

Femme et oiseau devant le soleil for $2,154,500

while

Lawrence

(est. $2.5–3.5 million). “Tonight you had great

Collection made $18,992,500, for buy-in rates of 23

opportunities,” said the dealer. “It’s between 20

percent by lot and 55 percent by value.

and 25 percent below market value,” he added of

$28,047,000,

the

or

the works he purchased.

In total, 41 of the 58 lots offered found buyers for a

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respectable buy-in rate of 29 percent, but the majority

Benrimon’s also acquired Rene Magritte’s gouache-

of sold lots went for substantially reduced, and in some

on-paper L’Empire des lumières, for which he paid

cases fire-sale, prices.

$3,554,500 (est. $2–3 million), a record price for a

work on paper by the artist. Though this was one of the few works to exceed its estimate, the dealer speculated that six months ago, it would be have been worth $4 million.

But Christie’s lost a bundle of money, as the Alice Lawrence Collection portion of the sale, which carried an undisclosed guarantee, flopped. The 30 works from the late Connecticut-based collector and philanthropist failed to earn half of its pre-sale low estimate of $44 million. The biggest loser in that trove was Mark Rothko’s darkly beautiful No. 43 (MAUVE), measuring 91½ by 61½ inches, which died at a chandelier bid of $16 million (est. $20–30 million). Lawrence purchased the work at Sotheby’s New York in November 1988 for $1.54 million (est. $650–850,000).

The action resumes tomorrow night with the house’s 85-lot Impressionist/Modern Evening Sale, which is estimated to earn in excess of $250 million.

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Gris sets record in slow Christie’s auction

By Carol Vogel October 7, 2008

Christie’s auction of Impressionist and Modern art on Thursday was packaged for the market as it existed six months ago, but the results reflected a more cautious and often grim new reality.

It wasn’t all bad news. A richly detailed Cubist painting by Juan Gris brought a record price of nearly $21 million.

But those moments were rare in an evening overstuffed with mediocre examples by first-rate artists like Monet and Matisse. During the summer, when Christie’s experts put the sale together, they had buyers in mind for many of these works. But when the worldwide economic picture turned ugly, a large number of collectors fled the art market as they saw their wealth diminish.

Surprisingly, even with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging more than 400 points on Thursday, Americans represented 61 percent of the buyers, with Europeans (a category that includes Russians) trailing at 26 percent. And despite the drop in oil prices, Middle Eastern collectors were still buying art, making up 2 percent of the buyers.

Thursday night’s sale included a sweeping range of material, from classic, sun-dappled Impressionist

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landscapes to late, distorted Picasso nudes. In the end, the sale totaled $146.7 million, well under its low estimate of $240.7 million. Of the 82 works for sale, 36, or more than 40 percent, of the auction went unsold.

Still, the results painted a slightly more encouraging picture of the market than those on Wednesday for “The Modern Age,” Christie’s sale devoted to two estate collections.

The bidders on Thursday were controlled and careful, but Christie’s executives seemed much relieved afterward, having sold the works in which they had large financial stakes. “There’s still a great deal of money left in the art market,” said an optimistic Christopher Burge, Christie’s honorary chairman in America and the evening’s auctioneer. “But we have to look at a new, reduced price level.”

That applied even for the best works. When “Book, Pipe and Glasses,” the Juan Gris, came up, three bidders methodically went for the painting, which has a distinguished exhibition history. Two hopefuls on the telephone competed with Franck Giraud, a New York dealer. It was Giraud who took home the winning $20.8 million bid, paying above the painting’s high $18.5 million estimate. (After the sale he said he had bid on behalf of an Ame

(Final prices include the commission to Christie’s: 25 percent of the first $50,000, 20 percent of the next $50,000 to $1 million, and 12 percent of the rest.

Estimates do not reflect commissions.)

Another item that saw enthusiastic bidding was a beautifully rendered work on paper by Schiele, “Sitting Woman in Underwear, Back View,” from 1917. It had belonged to Serge Sabarsky, the New York dealer who died in 1996. Estimated to bring $700,000 to $1 million, the work sold to David Benrimon, a New York dealer, for $1.59 million.

For much of the evening, however, bidding was sluggish, and when things sold, they often just squeaked by. While there were two interested bidders for Picasso’s “Two People (Marie Thérèse Walter and Her Sister Reading),” a 1934 canvas depicting the artist’s mistress and her sister, the painting brought $16 million, or $18 million with fees, right at the low estimate.

The image on the sale catalogue’s cover, Kandinsky’s “Study for Improvisation 3,” sold at its low estimate.

A colorful 1909 canvas of a horse and rider, a forerunner of the artist’s groundbreaking abstract paintings, it brought $15 million (its low estimate), or $16.8 million including Christie’s fees.

For many works there were no takers at all. A 1947 Matisse cutout, “Two Masks (The Tomato),” that was being sold by the artist’s family was estimated at $5 million to $7 million. Despite the distinguished provenance and the vibrant work itself, it failed to sell.

The same was true for many Impressionist canvases by Monet, Pissarro and Renoir.

Giacometti sculptures have been particularly big sellers in recent years, and on Thursday the artist’s “Three Walking Men I,” conceived in 1948, was on the block. In 1999 at Sotheby’s in New York it brought $5.7 million. Christie’s estimated it would fetch $14 million to $18 million, but even with two bidders it went for only $11.5 million. Before the sale there were rumors that one contender would be the Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich, but the buyer was Robert Landau, a Montreal dealer.

“I know the market’s adjusting, but you have to get good things when you can,” Landau said after the sale. “Fortune favors the brave.”

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CONTACT INFORMATION

David Benrimon Fine Art 724 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor New York, NY 10019 +1 212 628 1600 info@benrimon.com www.benrimon.com

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724 Fifth Avenue, 8th Floor New York,10019 info@benrimon.com www.benrimon.com +1 212 628 1600