Art Market Monitor

Global Coverage ~ Unique Analysis

  • AMMpro
  • AMM Fantasy Collecting Game
  • Podcast
  • Contact Us

Crystal Bridges Museum’s $150m Haul Includes Johns, Bourgeois, Cornell & Ghada Amer

June 3, 2015 by Marion Maneker

The New York Times says Crystal Bridges spent $150m on art last year. Several of the purchases have been announced but a combination of announcements and auction sleuthing reveal these additional works:

Jasper Johns’s renowned “Flag” painting from 1983, which the museum bought at Sotheby’s in November for $36 million (outlasting three other ardent bidders), and four works by Louise Bourgeois, including her monumental bronze, steel and marble spider sculpture “Maman.” The Bourgeois purchases, concluded in December 2014, together are worth an estimated $35 million to $40 million. […]

Crystal Bridges has made smaller purchases that remain unannounced, including a painting by Ghada Amer, according to her dealer, Cheim & Read. At the auction where “Flag” was sold, the anonymous bidder who bought the Johns — now identified as Ms. Walton — also won Mark Rothko’s “No. 21 (Red, Brown, Black and Orange)” for nearly $45 million; a marble-and-steel Bourgeois sculpture titled “Distant Figures” for $1.8 million; and a Joseph Cornell box, “Untitled (Palais de Cristal)” for $665,000. Only the Cornell has so far gone into the museum’s collection, officials there said, but Ms. Walton has in the past indicated that she will give much of her own collection to the museum eventually. She declined to be interviewed.

Source: Crystal Bridges Museum to Announce Major Purchases – NYTimes.com

More from Art Market Monitor

  • Joan of ArtJoan of Art
  • Tell me again, is it Urban Art, Street Art or Graffiti? Toronto in debate. Tell me again, is it Urban Art, Street Art or Graffiti? Toronto in debate.
  • Will Fisher Collection Leave SF?Will Fisher Collection Leave SF?
  • The Greatest Challenge to the Middle Market, Allowing Outsiders AccessThe Greatest Challenge to the Middle Market, Allowing Outsiders Access
  • Madoura Sale = $8.08mMadoura Sale = $8.08m
  • Artelligence Podcast: NY Contemporary Art SalesArtelligence Podcast: NY Contemporary Art Sales

Filed Under: General

About Marion Maneker

Want to get Art Market Monitor‘s posts sent to you in our email? Sign up below by clicking on the Subscribe button.

Top Posts

  • Keith Haring’s 1989 Retrospect Comes to Sotheby’s London Prints Sale
  • British Modernists Draw Deep Bidding in Christie's $42 M. London Sales
  • Tony Podesta's Secret Art Buying
  • Four of Picasso's Women Valued at $28m Come to Christie's from Rose-Walters Collection
  • Roy Lichtenstein’s Top Ten Auction Prices
  • $10 M. Picasso Portrait Unseen for Decades to Sell at Bonhams
  • Norman Rockwell's Not Gay. But Is He a Great Artist?
  • How to Chant Like an Auctioneer
  • Matthew Wong, Joy Labinjo, Vaughn Spann to Star in Phillips’s ‘New Now’ Sale
  • Collection of Texas Heiress Anne Marion Expected to Fetch $150 M. at Sotheby’s
  • About Us/ Contact
  • Podcast
  • AMMpro
  • Newsletter
  • FAQ

twitterfacebooksoundcloud
Privacy Policy
Terms & Conditions
California Privacy Rights
Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Advertise on Art Market Monitor