Home Tags Posts tagged with "christie"

christie

0

More than $1 billion worth of art will come under the hammer in New York’s autumn art auctions, which start later.

Highlights of the four nights of sales include works by Picasso, Monet, Rothko and Andy Warhol.

Officials from the auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s have described the current art market as “exuberant”.

Earlier this year Edvard Munch’s The Scream set a new auction record for art when it sold for $120 million.

Experts have said there is little chance of that record being surpassed but expect Claude Monet’s Nympheas and Mark Rothko’s No1 (Royal Red and Blue) to be sold for about $50 million.

Brooke Lampley, Christie’s head of Impressionist and Modern Art, ascribed the inflationary bubble in the art world to growing demand.

“Participation in our major sales is more global than ever, with buyers from growing markets in South America, Asia and the Middle East,” she said.

The company’s Americas chairman, Marc Porter, said the high quality of lots at Christie’s Post-Impressionist and Contemporary auctions was in part due to what he called “discretionary sellers” – collectors who decide to realize their assets.

More than $1 billion worth of art will come under the hammer in New York's autumn art auctions

More than $1 billion worth of art will come under the hammer in New York’s autumn art auctions

Analysts have said rising prices for the rarest works have encouraged owners to offer prized possessions for sale.

With new buyers from China, Russia and Qatar willing to pay what it takes to secure iconic works, the prices at auction have risen sharply.

But some experts have warned the disparity between art values and the broader economy cannot continue and that while the most coveted works are rising in value, other sectors of the art market are less buoyant.

The four nights of sales at Sotheby’s and Christie’s get under way later with Christie’s Impressionist and Modern Sale. Its highlight is expected to be Monet’s Nympheas.

On Thursday Sotheby’s will belatedly stage its own Impressionist auction. The sale has been delayed for three days because of the damage caused to New York and its infrastructure by Hurricane Sandy.

Among the 68 lots there is much interest in Pablo Picasso’s Still Life with Tulips, painted in 1932 in under three hours.

This disguised portrait of his mistress, Marie Therese Walter, fetched $28.6 million when it was last sold in 2000. Its estimate this time round is between $35 million and $50 million.

Next week the two auction houses stage their contemporary sales, where works include Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled 1981. Its sale could set a new record for the painter.

Basquiat rose from being an obscure graffiti artist in New York to become one of the city’s most lionized artists before his death of a heroin overdose in 1988.

Most expensive works sold at auction

The Scream by Edvard Munch – $120 million , May 2012

Nude, Green Leaves and Bust by Pablo Picasso – $106 million, April 2010

L’Homme qui Marche by Alberto Giacometti – $104 million, January 2010

Boy with a Pipe by Pablo Picasso – $104 m, May 2004

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II by Gustav Klimt – $88 million, November 2006

 

A rare watercolor artwork of Paul Cezanne missing since 1953 is expected to sell for as much as $20 million at auction in May, Christie’s said on Tuesday.

The late 19th-century work on paper is one of Paul Cezanne’s preparatory studies for his seminal Card Players series of five paintings, “Joueurs des cartes”.

Its whereabouts had been unknown for decades until it re-emerged from the collection of a doctor in Texas. The auction house found the drawing when it was working with the estate of Dr. Heinz Eichenwald, who died at his Dallas  home in September at the age of 85.

“They were very private people,” Christie’s president Marc Porter said, adding the work had been in the family for eight decades.

“The art was for their enjoyment rather than for public display. It was not hidden away in the house, it was enjoyed. But it wasn’t as important for their social position as it was for them,” Marc Porter said.

The late 19th-century work on paper is one of Paul Cezanne's preparatory studies for his seminal Card Players series of five paintings

The late 19th-century work on paper is one of Paul Cezanne's preparatory studies for his seminal Card Players series of five paintings

In 2011, the catalog of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition of Paul Cezanne’s Card Players listed the work as “whereabouts unknown”.

Sharon Kim, Christie’s international director of Impressionist and modern art, said it had been feared the work had been lost to history by collectors and scholars.

When a Cezanne watercolor was mentioned in the estate Christie’s was intrigued.

“We checked and found it fit the description of the <<whereabouts unknown>> piece and knew this was really likely it,” Sharon Kim said.

The study is most closely linked to the two-figure version of the Card Players series at the Musee D’Orsay in Paris.

“You can see the immediacy in the work, like the D’Orsay’s. He’s working through the process of how he’s going to execute this on canvas,” Sharon Kim explained, adding that it looks like it was painted yesterday.

“The colors were astonishing,” she added.

The doctor’s estate was aware of the work’s importance but astounded by it estimated value.

Paul Cezanne's painting Two Card Players is said to have been sold for $250 million

Paul Cezanne's painting Two Card Players is said to have been sold for $250 million

It is thought Heinz Eichenwald’s parents brought the drawing with them to the U.S. when they fled the Nazi occupation of Europe. The deceased doctor was a keen art enthusiast and collector, and it is expected there will be many more items to feature in the Christie’s sales.

Heinz Eichenwald is said to have “transformed medical care for children across north Texas and around the world for more than 40 years”, according to The Dallas Morning News.

Christie’s estimates the work will sell for up to $20 million. It will be the first time in a decade that the leading highlight of its sale of Impressionist and Modern Art has been a work on paper.

The work will be exhibited in Geneva in April before a New York showing ahead of the May 1 sale.

Earlier this week, Sotheby’s announced a find of its own, a painting by the pioneering female artist Tamara de Lempicka, which is expected to fetch nearly $5 million at auction.

A West Coast construction company owner had the work in his home for years before being advised it might be a Lempicka.