Picasso & Van Gogh Works Sell In New York
$BID
Sotheby’s (NYSE:BID) sold $726.7-M of art in 2 days of fast selling in New York, works by Picasso and Van Gogh led the way.
At the Impressionist and Modern Art evening sale Thursday, the tally was $306.7-M, the 2 preceding auctions from the collection of Sotheby’s former Chairman A. Alfred Taubman helped the company reach the high total marks.
The Sotheby’s sale kicked off 10 days of semiannual auctions in New York.
Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips target more than $2.1-B in sales of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art.
The most expensive work was William Koch’s Picasso painting, “La Gommeuse,” created at the start of the artist’s “Blue Period” in Y 1901. It fetched $67.5-M, selling in the room to Doris Ammann, a Zurich-based dealer. The work had been estimated at $60-M+.
Picasso was 19 anni when he painted the nude cabaret dancer with a pale face, red lips and black curls. There’s a 2nd painting on the back of the canvas, an upside-down caricature of the artist’s friend and fellow Spaniard Pere Manach. Mr. Koch bought the work in Y 1984 for $1.7-M, at Sotheby’s in London.
The 2nd Koch painting, Claude Monet’s 1908 “Nympheas” fetched $33.9-M within the estimated range of $30-50-M. The Y 1908 canvas depicts the artist’s famous pond studded with water lilies in Giverny, France. Mr. Koch bought it for $8.4-M at Sotheby’s in New York in Y2000.
The 2nd-biggest price was for Van Gogh’s landscape of a field of wild flowers under billowing clouds (feature picture above) that fetched $54-M, at the low end of its pre-sale estimate of $50-70-M. Just 1 bidder wanted the work, which went to the telephone client of Simon Shaw, co-head of Sotheby’s worldwide Impressionist and Modern Art department.
Wednesday, Sotheby’s presented “Masterworks,” the evening auction of 77 top pieces in the Taubman collection. Reports said that “the sale lacked energy and many works fell short of the low estimates.”.
The running Taubman tally was at $420-M.
Asian buyers were present on both days.
At the Taubman sale Wednesday, they picked up the top lot, Amedeo Modigliani’s Y 1919 painting of a somber young woman in a black dress that fetched $42.8-M exceeding its pre-sale target of more than $25%, as well as paintings by Francis Bacon and Roy Lichtenstein and a bronze by Alberto Giacometti.
Thursday, Patti Wong, Sotheby Chairman of Asia, bought Picasso’s “Blue Period” pastel for $12-M on behalf of a client, as well as Van Gogh’s small portrait of a baby for $7.6-M surpassing the high estimate of $5-M.
Both works, as well as Van Gogh’s Arles landscape, were part of the 10-lot group from the Belgian collection of Louis and Evelyn Franck, 9 works sold, tallying $98.5-M, and surpassing the pre-sale estimate of $80-M.
Kazimir Malevich’s “Mystic Suprematism (Black Cross on Red Oval pictured above)” brought $37.8-M, above the low estimate of $35-M. The painting was sold by the Russian artist’s heirs, who won its return after a restitution settlement in Y 2008 with the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
Have a terrific weekend.
HeffX-LTN
Paul Ebeling
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