The Times Toots Its Horn: Given the multiple layers and contradictory claims revealed after the New York Times identified Prince Bader as the bidder on the $450m Leonardo, the newspaper’s story detailing their search for the buyer left many readers scratching their heads. Was the revelation the result of the paper’s prowess in the art market? Or another chess move in the increasingly complex situation in the gulf?
Either way, the paper boasts that it has “learned the list of candidates capable of plunking down more than $100 million on a painting.” Many will remember that three years ago Brett Gorvy said he kept a list of 141 names who could spend more than $50m on a painting. That list, Gorvy said, had new names all of the time. …
Salvator Dalí Catalogue Raisonné Completed: Catalan News takes price in the completion of the Dali catalogue: “After seventeen years of research, the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation has finished work on the surrealist artist’s Catalogue Raisonné, including a total of 1000 of his pictoral works, 320 of which are in the hands of the institution. The project also documents 36 missing pieces, as well as 9 that were destroyed.” …
Art Basel in Miami Beach Sales Report: … It’s finally finished, our complete list of all the reported sales from Art Basel in Miami Beach. …
Show Us Your … : The New York Times has been running regular Friday feature called “Show Us Your Walls,” the replacement to the Inside Art column where it used to chronicle the art trade, for more than a year now. In this week’s installment, the column finds a collector pursuing a clever, personal strategy to collect big names at small prices in an interesting and seemingly successful way. Here’s collector Rick Friedman on his touchstone, Jackson Pollock:
- “It was a 1940 painting auctioned at Christie’s. It’s colorful, with yellow, green and red anthropomorphic figures. It pops. Since then I’ve acquired five more Pollocks on paper.” …
Rybolovlev Has a Good Use for His Leonardo Profits: The Real Deal reports that the Russian tycoon got the go ahead from the Greek government to develop the island of Skorpios, previously owned by Aristotle Onnasis, as a luxury restort. Rybolovlev bought the island in 2013 for $120m.…
Remembering Australian Art Dealer Ray Hughes: The Australian’s Christopher Allen remembers the Sydney art dealer who died at 72 last week: “Hughes was a larger-than-life character who affected loud suits and even louder ties, deliberately flouting the conventions expected either of traditional or contemporary art dealers. In private, he was thoughtful and perceptive, but he liked to disguise this beneath a veneer of brashness.”