It’s not clear who will be more discomfited more by Colin Gleadell’s auction sleuthing, Tatum O’Neal or Francesco Clemente. Neither can be happy to have it revealed that 20 years have done little or nothing to improve the value of Clemente’s work on the art market or O’Neal’s investment:

Three paintings by Francesco Clemente in Sotheby’s sale last week were part of the divorce settlement between tennis star art collector John McEnroe and his former wife, actress Tatum O’Neal, back in 1994. Clemente was one of the rising art stars of the Eighties, and McEnroe bought these in the early Nineties. One, called Women and Men, cost $44,000 at auction in 1990. Billed as “property from the collection of Tatum O’Neal, Los Angeles”, two of the works sold. Women and Men fetched £27,500, or $43,500 – neither a profit nor a loss worth squabbling about.

Market News (Telegraph)