It’s not really a news story, but Bloomberg wants to remind us that Bernard Arnault hasn’t lost his commitment to art even while the banks may be losing theirs:

The billionaire chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA is pressing ahead with plans for a 100 million-euro ($140 million) art foundation. [ . . . ] “If French billionaires want to make museums, even it’s for their own glory, I’m all in favor, especially if the public benefits,” says Didier Rykner, an art historian who [ . . .] led a petition against the Louvre Museum’s future offshoot in Abu Dhabi.

Since 1991, LVMH has sponsored more than 30 major exhibitions, including on Cezanne, Chardin, turn-of-the-century Vienna, and Giacometti. In New York, LVMH backed “Richard Serra Sculpture: Forty Years” at the Museum of Modern Art last year. In China, it supported an exhibition of French Impressionist Masters in 2004-5 and it is staging a Beijing show on Chinese artists inspired by Christian Dior fashions. By 2010 or 2011, the Louis Vuitton Foundation in western Paris will open to present LVMH’s own collection and hold one-off shows. [ . . . ]

The foundation will be located on a 1,000 square-kilometer patch inside the Jardin d’acclimatation, in Paris’s Bois de Boulogne, where a bowling alley stood. Shaped like a cluster of translucent, wind-blown sails, it will be run by Suzanne Page, who previously ran the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

LVMH’s Arnault Plans Museum as Companies Review Arts Spending (Bloomberg)

November Sales to Feature Cubist Arlequin

The auction houses are making the most today’s masterpiece market. Big names from the most recognizable moments in art history sell well. That’s brought some great Impressionist, Modern and Expressionist art to the auction block. This morning, Sotheby’s announces that it has a 1909 Picasso that hasn’t been exhibited for 40 years to sell. Arlequin is estimated at $30 million and will be in the November 3rd sale at Sotheby’s.

Carol Vogel covers the announcement and reminds us that Yves Saint Laurent’s collection, to be sold by Christie’s in Paris next year, has a Picasso Cubist work from closer to the peak of the movement in 1914.

WWD also has the Picasso that is expected to make $59 million. The sale will be held in Paris:

While Bergé acknowledged Paris is not the best market for such a sale, the city was chose because the works belong to two Frenchmen, who made their fortunes in France. Another motivation is to remind the world the French art market does exist.

Faced with a choice between selling the estimated $300-$400 million collection or donating it to a museum, Bergé chose to sell because:

“I believe in the circulation of works of art,” he said.

Sotheby’s Arlequin Press Release

Inside Art: Two Picassos (New York Times)

Yves Saint Laurent Artworks Could Net $440 Million (WWD)

Was Sotheby’s the Favorite to Win the YSL Collection?

Pinault Steps In and Wins the Contest for Christie’s.

What Will This Do for the Paris Auction Market?

London’s First Post gives us the back story on Christie’s not-so-surprising success in getting the YSL art collection to sell in Paris in the Winter of 2009. The Independent confirms that Sotheby’s was close to a deal and values the collection at more than $500 million, making it the largest single owner sale ever. Those who have seen the collection describe it as “a room full of masterpieces.”

Reuters adds this quote from YSL’s dealer:

Antique dealer Alexis Kugel, who told Le Figaro his relation with the collectors was the closest a dealer could have with his clients, said: “For Yves Saint Laurent art was a vital need, indispensable for his inspiration, like water to survive. It soothed his depressive character.”

The Times tries to pour cold water over the whole affair by turning it into an important market test–which it will be–and using a bitchy quote from Godfrey Barker: “We now learn that Saint Laurent moved stealthily to become one of the biggest buyers in the most overpriced sector of the art market - paintings from 1900-25, which cost £5m to £25m each,” said Godfrey Barker, an art-market expert. Read the rest of this entry »