Sarah Thornton zeroed in on the Mugrabi family while at Christie’s the other night reporting for ArtForum:
The Mugrabi family had better luck. They consigned Warhol’s 1984 red and turquoise Michael Jackson, which sold for $812,500 to diamond dealer Laurence Graff, who was sitting in the front row as he always does. “The image is very sharp, and the colors are beautiful,” explained Graff. “I had dinners with Michael. It’s a good memento.” Christie’s Amy Cappellazzo quipped that it was important that the painting depicted the pop star from “his Thriller period, which everyone knows is his best.”
Meanwhile, Lio Malca, a cousin of the Mugrabis, had consigned an intensely expressive 1982 drawing by Basquiat, which, after fierce competition, sold for $3.1 million, a world auction record for a work on paper by the artist.
Doig Days (ArtForum)
