Christie’s have announced for their May sales the first time one of Jeff Koons complex and exacting Play-Doh works have come to the market. A star attraction at his Whitney retrospective (Bill Bell Jr. loaned his edition of the work to the museum show), Play-Doh is ten feet high. It is constructed twenty-seven pieces of painted aluminum, exactly replicating a mound of Play-Doh made by his son. Koons has said of the work that he wanted to capture the exact moment before person tears the play-doh apart. The edition of five Play-Dohs took 20 years to realize in the manner Koons found acceptable. Over the course of the work’s production, the cost of fabrication soared. If the seller gets the $20m Christie’s is hoping for (and initial reactions to the estimate is that it is conservative) , there may not be much profit in it for him or her.

• Jeff Koons, Play-Doh polychromed aluminum, 124 x 152 1/4 x 137 in. Executed in 1994-2014. This work is one of five unique versions. Estimate is in the region of $20million

The sculpture will be on view in New York for Classics Week (April 13-18); during the Post-War and Contemporary Evening Sale select highlights view concurrent with our exhibition for our Rockefeller Sale (April 28- May 5th); and during 20 Century week leading up to the auction (May 12-17th).

Christie’s is looking for 5x appreciation on Jeff Koons’s Jim Beam train over 10 years. A version of this work sold in 2004 at Christie’s (pictured) for $5.4m. Next month, they’re going back to the well with hopes of making $25m:

Stefan Edlis, a celebrated Chicago collector and retired plastics executive, is also parting with a valuable Koons sculpture next month. On May 13, Christie’s is selling “Jim Beam J. B. Turner Train,” a 1986 stainless-steel train nine and a half feet long filled with bourbon. Mr. Koons saw a plastic and porcelain version of the train in the window of a liquor store and cast it in steel. The train was part of “Luxury and Degradation,” an exhibition at International With Monument Gallery in SoHo that examined shallowness, excess and the dangers of luxury in the high-flying 1980s.

An Auctioneer Comes Back to the Business (NYTimes.com)

Public Relations or works for sale? It’s hard to discern which motive drives Jeff Koons’s decision to loan three of his Old Master works to the Parisian Tableau art fair to be held in the Palais de la Bourse November 4-8 this year. Judging from the publicist’s copy, Koons wants to be admired for his taste in French painters:

Jupiter and Antiope or Venus and Satyr by Nicolas Poussin (1584-1665), Young girl holding two puppies by Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732-1806) and Femme nue or Woman with a Parrot by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) are the three alluring works that were selected from Jeff Koons’ collection to show in Paris.

Like many avant-garde artists, Koons aspires to emulate the standards of the Old Masters and has always deeply engaged with the history of art.  Born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955, he painted copies of Old Masters and sold them in his father’s furniture store before studying art at Baltimore and Chicago.  He has collected throughout his professional life and, while he has always bought the work of high-profile contemporary artists, more recently he has focused on Old Master and 19^th century works.  As with these three ravishing paintings, many of the works in Koons’ collection share a preoccupation with the female body and sexuality which is often seen in his own work.

Koons Loans Paris Tableau Press Release