Richard Prince’s nurse paintings rose with the art bubble and fell with it. The highest price was over $8 million, subsequent sales have gone as low as under $2 million. Granted there’s a wide range of sizes and great variation in quality. Halsey Minor’s creditors must be gratified that he bought one with a good provenance (Steven Cohen) and an art adviser with a fondness for the work. Lindsay Pollock and Katya Kazakina report on Bloomberg:
Titled “Nurse in Hollywood #4,” the 2004 canvas depicting a Grace Kelly look-alike, had a high presale estimate of $7 million. […]
The painting went to an unidentified phone bidder, who faced bidding competition in the room from Sandy Heller, an art adviser for Cohen and others.
The Chelsea-based auctioneer of contemporary art and design offered 22 lots from Minor’s collection during its evening sale, of which 19 sold.
The Minor section brought in $21.05 million, which will go toward a $21.6 million judgment obtained by ML Private Finance, a Bank of America affiliate, on a delinquent loan to Minor. The entire auction is expected to take in as much as $48.4 million.
Sexy Nurse by Richard Prince Sells for $6.5 Million in New York (Bloomberg)
