The Master, Judd Tully, went to Phillips Design auction yesterday to see what fate might befall the Marc Newson works being sold to satisfy the debt of–as Tully so aptly describes him–“disgraced Internet entrepreneur Halsey Minor”:

Of the ten Newsons offered (among them two rare prototypes), six sold for a rather anemic $686,300, a poor showing for work by the superstar but safely within the $600,000-915,000 estimate Phillips had attached to the works. “Obviously, it was disappointing,” said Phillips de Pury design head Alexander Payne immediately after the sale, referring to two of the unsold Newsons, Event Horizon and a lot containing his Black Hole tables, which failed to find any bidders. “It was a little difficult to digest this quantity of Newson works.” […]

Only eight works cracked the six-figure mark, topped by the cover lot, Marc Newson’s 1987 Pod of Drawers (est. $300-500,000), which sold at the tail end of the session with barely a soul in the audience to an anonymous telephone bidder for $350,500. […]

The Newson last sold at auction at Christie’s New York in May 2007 for a then record of $1,048,000 to design dealers Sebastian Barquet, who subsequently sold the piece to Minor. The newly, drastically reduced price for the fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin core and blind-riveted sheet aluminum skin objet makes it the eleventh-most-expensive Newson sold at auction

Marc Newsons Falter at Lackluster Phillips Design Auction (ArtInfo.com)