Brancusi Correction: Yesterday, we made reference to the consignors of the Brancusi sculpture at Christie’s the night before having paid a price for their guarantee. Then we referenced the $187,500 the guarantor received. Several experts on guarantees, including Mitchell Zuckerman, the advisor who worked on the Brancusi guarantee, got in touch to point out that the consignors did not sacrifice the $187,500. That money comes from the auction house’s premium. We regret getting carried away with the rhetorical construction. …
Bonhams Sets Wojciech Fangor Record of $492k: Bonhams had several strong prices in its sale of Contemporary art including the cover lot of Wojciech Fangor‘s M77 from 1968. Other strong prices were Alex Katz‘s Ada in Spain which was sold for $287,500. Alfred Jensen‘s Doric Order from 1962 made $212,500. Sean Scully‘s early 1972-73 Green Light was sold for $200k. In an earlier sale, James Ensor‘s Nos deux portraits made $396,500. …
Dorotheum Contemporary Results: The Vienna auction house held its sales this week too:
- Two versions of Lucio Fontana‘s famous “Concetto Spaziale” from the 1960s changed owners for 552,000 and 539,800 euros. Art from Germany was represented, among other pieces, with an abstract work by Hans Hartung. 15 telephone bidders vied for the painting, which raised far above the estimated value to 186,000 euros. After the success of Fernando Botero (€393,400) at the Modern Art auction, another work by a South American-born artist demonstrated his strength on the art market at Dorotheum, the following day (May 16). At the Contemporary Art auction, the three-dimensional wall object “Untitled (Escritura)” by Jesús Rafael Soto from the collection of artist Gianni Colombo, reached 491,000 euros. An untitled work by abstract expressionist Philip Guston came to a tremendous 470,860 euros. After Dorotheum set the world record for Emilio Vedova last year, they set further benchmarks for its market value, with 430,000 and 234,800 euros respectively for two of the artist’s works. …
Artcurial Holds $1m Supreme Auction: About two thirds of the items were from cult streetwear brand Supreme in Artcurial’s CREAM auction which made €850k, the New York Times said this about it:
- The brainchild of Artcurial, an auction house generally known for its fine art, furniture and design sales, this was “C.R.E.A.M: — Cash Rules Everything Around Me” — billed as the first street culture auction by a traditional auction house. Titled after the Wu-Tang Clan’s 1993 single, and coming at a time when the three decade-long dialogue between New York’s underground scene and the worlds of contemporary art, fashion and design appears to have reached a fever pitch, the event on Wednesday night proved a major hit: 94 percent of the lots eventually sold, and final totals doubled the global pre-sale estimate, reaching 850,681 euros, or $1 million.