Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

The Sculls & the Art Market

April 15, 2010 by Marion Maneker

Roberta Smith gives a little history on the Scull collection and its relationship to the modern art market in her review of the Acquavella show:

All told, this exhibition conveys an amazing appetite and instinct for the new, the next new and the next new after that. These impulses propelled Robert Scull, and his wife, Ethel, through one of the greatest, most influential shopping sprees in postwar American art. It came to a screeching halt in the fall of 1973, with an auction at Sotheby Parke Bernet, as Sotheby’s was then called, two blocks north of the Whitney Museum.

That auction, “The Collection of Robert C. Scull,” was the first of contemporary American art by a single seller. Its 50 lots of mostly Pop Art brought in $2.2 million (about $10.8 million in 2010 dollars), just above the high estimate, along with stunning evidence that the value of 1960s art would rise exponentially. It was immediately seen as a fall from grace for the Sculls — nouveaux riches cashing in — and the New York art world too.

It supposedly gave birth to what many think of as the mercenary art market of today. Actually, things were pretty quiet for the rest of the 1970s, and the Sculls had already shocked certain quarters of the art world in 1965 by auctioning more than 20 Abstract Expressionist paintings in order to buy Pop Art. (At the time, Mark Rothko took it as further depressing evidence that his “moment” — barely a decade old — had already passed.)

Appetite for the New and the Next New (New York Times)

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Who Was Buying in Hong Kong?Who Was Buying in Hong Kong?
  • The Top of the Impressionist & Modern Market, 2007-18The Top of the Impressionist & Modern Market, 2007-18
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game for May SalesAMM Fantasy Collecting Game for May Sales
  • Artelligence: Alexander Calder (and Others)Artelligence: Alexander Calder (and Others)
  • Christie’s Aims for Yves Klein Record with FC1Christie’s Aims for Yves Klein Record with FC1
  • The Press Loves a Good Instagram StoryThe Press Loves a Good Instagram Story

Filed Under: Collectors

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Rare Photo Album by Dutch Street Photographer Bought at Auction by Rijksmuseum
  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • Sotheby’s Offers Pop-Culture Memorabilia, from Nike to Yeezy, in New Series
  • Christie's Announces $70m Picasso Self Portrait
  • David Hockney's $20m Pacific Coast Highway & Santa Monica
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Christie's to Sell $12m Yves Klein to Benefit The Water Academy
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor