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Barney Ebsworth’s $300m Collection of American Art Debuts at Christie’s Paris

September 5, 2018 by Marion Maneker

Travel entrepreneur and art collector Barney Ebsworth built one of the leading collections of American art in private hands. He estimated that his collection had only one other rival in private hands. Among his great prizes were two of Georgia O’Keeffe’s best abstract works.

One he acquired at auction from the sale of the influential American art dealer Edith Halpert’s collection. The sale piqued O’Keeffe’s interest. Halpert had shown her work earlier in the century. The aged artist wanted to meet the man who bought Black, White and Blue.

Ebsworth declined her first few invitations to come to New Mexico. Finally, Ebsworth, who preferred to buy the work of artists who were no longer living so he didn’t have to engage with the artists, made the trek. The two hit it off. For many years after that, Ebsworth and O’Keeffe sought each other’s advice and counsel. Ebsworth was eventually called upon to mediate between the notoriously difficult artist and her long-time dealer.

Because O’Keeffe respected Ebsworth so much, she eventually sold him one of her other ‘best’ abstract works from her own holdings, Music—Pink and Blue I. Those two works might have fetched nine figure sums. Instead, they’ve been donated to museums. Black, White and Blue went to the National Gallery in Washington, along with Charles Sheeler’s Classic Landscape. The Seattle Museum got Music—Pink and Blue I and Marsden Hartley’s Painting No. 49, Berlin.

Such is the quality of the Ebsworth collection that even without those two extraordinary works, Christie’s has plenty of firepower to launch the collection. One of the lessons of Christie’s last few successes, the Leonardo and the Rockefeller Collection, has been global appeal of Western art and the need to bring that art to various cities around the world to cultivate unexpected collectors.

Today, Christie’s launches the Ebsworth collection with 11 works unveiled in Paris. From now until the end of October, the collection will travel to New York, Hong Kong, London, San Francisco and Los Angeles. In November there will be a single-owner day and evening sale of the works.

Christie’s estimates the collection will yield $300m. Rumors in the art market suggest Christie’s has guaranteed the family trust that figure. Among the eleven works touring are a Jackson Pollock estimated in the region of $50m, a Willem de Kooning Woman estimated in the region of $60m, and Edward Hopper’s Chop Suey which is estimated in the region of $70m.

Ebsworth claimed he was offered $60m for Chop Suey in the 1990s. That’s 20+ years ago and before the steep climb in international art prices. Then, again, tastes change; artists go out of fashion. Those three works with an aggregate estimate of $180m may be set to attract bidders. Ebsworth had a few other very significant works that have not been announced here.

Christie’s may be holding some of those works for later sales. Or the works might be family favorites still held by the family trust. The two works we don’t see either on the list of donations or announced for viewing in Paris are by artists with particularly active and advancing markets. We’ll be keeping our eye out for them.

In the meantime, here’s Christie’s release for the Paris show:Continue Reading

Sotheby’s Has 90 Works on Paper from Spielvogels with $40-60m Estimate for November

September 28, 2017 by Marion Maneker

Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Ambassador Carl Spielvogel are selling their collection of 90 works on paper (above from left to right: Magritte, Rothko, Pollock, Lichtenstein, and Johns) ranging from Degas, Matisse, Braque and Miró to Pollock, Newman, Rothko, Twombly, Lichtenstein and Freud. The entire collection is estimated at between $40 to $60m and will be sold across multiple sales:

Works featured in the Contemporary Art Evening Auction include

  • an example of Mark Rothko’s mature work, created just two years prior to his tragic death in 1970, which is estimated at $5/7 million.
  • a Pollock that shows him working through a major stylistic development in 1951 (estimate $3/4 million)
  • an incredible group of seven works by Jasper Johns that includes examples of his numbers and flag (well-timed with the current RA show + recent catalogue raisonné)
  • five drawings by Lichtenstein that correspond directly with major oils

Works featured in the Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale:

  • a Degas scene of three dancers from 1889 through to a 1970s Picasso nude
  • 5 works by Picasso crossing his career from 1901 to 1971, led by a scene from 1935 that foreshadows the compositional arrangement that would ultimately manifest in Guernica two years later (estimate $1.5/2.5 million)
  • a Magritte gouache at $2/3 million

Fake Pollock’s $15m Profit & Other Tales of the Glafira Rosales Trove

February 22, 2012 by Marion Maneker

The New York Times is having a blast with the continuing court case involving Knoedler, Pierre La Grange and the disputed works of art sold by Knoedler and acquired from Glafira Rosales. In a story that will appear on the front page of the Arts section this Sunday, Patricia Cohen explains why Freedman took such a risk with these undocumented works (read the full story to get a better understanding of the forces at play in the whole controversy):

So, confronted with paintings that lacked documentation, that could theoretically have been painted, as one lawyer put it, “in Ms. Rosales’s garage,” Ms. Freedman said she focused on what really mattered, the quality of the works themselves.

And they were extraordinary, Ms. Freedman declared. She enlisted several experts to check her own impressions of the Rothkos, Pollocks, Barnett Newmans, Clyfford Stills and other works that Ms. Rosales supplied. Claude Cernuschi, for example, the author of a book on Pollock, attested to the authenticity of a small painting signed “J. Pollock” and called “Untitled 1950.” The National Gallery of Art, where an authoritative compendium of Rothko’s works on paper — known as the catalogue raisonné — was being assembled, wrote that two of the Rothkos looked genuine.Continue Reading

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