Christie’s First Open sale this September is filled with a few surprises. There’s an Oscar Murillo painting that is looking to capitalize on the recent run of record sales for the Columbian artist. A Tauba Auerbach will also be on sale along with Katya Kazakina’s find:
When Philadelphia resident Norma Ifill paid $15 for a striking brass necklace at a flea market eight years ago, she had no idea it was by Alexander Calder.
“This guy had it in a box on the ground,” Ifill said in a telephone interview. “I thought it looked so tribal. I wore it about four-five times max and every time I wore it, people always admired it. I can’t believe I had a Calder necklace all this time and had no idea.”
The necklace carries a $200-300,000 estimate in the First Open catalogue, the culmination of a long route for Ifill that began with an ad for a Calder jewelry exhibition in Philadelphia and ended with the Calder Foundation tracking the item down to a 1943 show at MoMA.
Warhol in China, $50 Million in Cars, $15 Calder: Hot Art (Bloomberg)
