If there’s a competition for the coverage of an art auction, Judd Tully won last night’s contest with his Artinfo.com report on the action at Christie’s. He started with a little scene setting:
Hollywood leading man Leonardo DiCaprio was watching the action disguised in a baseball cap and hoodie, seated next to Helly Nahmad throughout the proceedings, as if at center court at a Knicks‘ game.
He homed in on the only interesting news about the continuing strength in the Surrealist market:
“I think the market is strong for good material,” said San Francisco dealer Rowland Weinstein, who snared two Surrealist works, Yves Tanguy‘s “Entends Tu” from 1937 for $2,098,500 (est. $1-1,5 million) and Paul Delvaux‘s “Le Passage a Niveau,” a 48-by-48-inch cityscape composition from 1961 for $1,538,500 (est. $600-800,0000).
[…] Max Ernst‘s jungle-like habitat “La Joie de Vivre” from 1936 sold to New York dealerJohn Cavaliero for $902,500 (est. $500-800,000). Cavaliero also snagged Joan Miro‘s bawdy gouache-and-pencil-on-cardboard 1938 scene “Le Numero de Music-Hall” for $458,500 (est. $300-400,000).
And tallied the returns for Steven Cohen on the Vlaminck sale of $22,482,500 which he says the collector bought “at Christie’s New York in May 1994 for $6,822,500.”
Katya Kazakina says Steven Cohen bought his Vlaminck from Acquavella and sold it back to them again through Christie’s:
“For Vlaminck it’s a pretty key composition,” said Michael Findlay, director at Acquavella Galleries in New York, before the sale. “It couldn’t be a better date, it couldn’t be better colors.” The seller bought the work from Acquavella in 2002 and according to Christie’s, Acquavella bought it back last night.
Kelly Crow in the Wall Street Journal:
A current exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art exploring artists’ depictions of open windows may have given a boost to Matisse’s cherry blossom-colored “Open Window” from 1911, a view of his seaside studio in Collioure looking southwest toward the Pyrenees mountains beyond. A private European collector paid $15.7 million for it, over its $12 million high estimate.
Big Risks Bore Fruit at Christie’s $156 Million Impressionist and Modern Art Sale (Artinfo.com)
Cohen’s Landscape Sells for Record $22.5 Million at Christie’s (Bloomberg)
Christie’s $156M Sale Falls Short of Forecast (Wall Street Journal)
