The next edition of the online VIP Art Fair was announced last week for Feb. 3rd of 2012. But the sale of Gerhard Richter’s Candle painting in London last week might have a much greater effect on interest in the event. Josh Baer reminded the collecting world late last week that the painting had been on offer at the inaugural VIP Art Fair just last winter, though for a much higher €15m price. Last week’s $16m auction price was substantially lower but it also had the help of some third-party support, as Judd Tully explains:
Luckily for Christie’s and the Scandinavian collector who consigned the painting, the artist is enjoying a devoutly received retrospective now at Tate Modern, including another single-candle picture that doesn’t come close to the quality of this one. According to Outred, Richter has painted 27 candle pictures in the series, with three destroyed, seven in museums, and the rest held privately. There are 12 single-candle canvases, and the current example, with a simple white flame faintly outlined in red and set against a glowing rectangle, generated “immense interest,” the specialist said.
The painting eclipsed the previous mark by a whopping three million pounds, set when a “Kerze (Candle)” from 1983 sold at Sotheby’s London in February 2008 for £7,972,500 ($15,843,600).
