Displaying items by tag: Auction

Billionaire art patron and philanthropist Elaine Wynn, famous for her record-breaking purchase of a $142 million Francis Bacon triptych at Christie's, has expensive tastes. After all, she can afford it—Forbes estimated her current net worth as $1.52 billion.

In a recent interview with the New York Times, Ms. Wynn discusses her first reaction to seeing the Bacon work as "gobsmacked," and decided to bid well above the $85 million estimate.

There was a Calder sculpture on a tabletop, a Calder on a bookcase, and a Calder mobile hung from the ceiling.

When there was no room left to hang the Picasso or Matisse drawings in the Kahns’ Riverside Drive home on the Upper West Side, the couple stacked artworks on the floor, against the wall.

Over five decades, the Kahns — Arthur, a successful dentist, and his wife, Anita — built an art collection that seemed to fill every inch of their Manhattan apartment, initially a two-bedroom that grew as they combined it with the apartment next door.

At least seven of Warhol’s works were displayed throughout Ina Ginsburg’s Washington home, a veritable museum of the artist’s finest inspirations. But it is not just the art that took one’s breath away—it was Ginsburg herself. Warhol, her good friend, singled her out years ago, and even chose her as the Washington editor of his Interview magazine.

Ina Ginsburg’s life and legacy were forever changed by her close relationship with the Pop artist and provocateur Andy Warhol.

Sotheby’s, the New York-based auctioneer of art and collectibles, reported a 13 percent decrease in second-quarter profit that fell below analyst expectations because of a change in the sales calendar and a loss on a painting sold during the period.

Net income was $67.6 million, or 96 cents a share, in the quarter ended June 30, compared with $77.6 million, or $1.11, in the same period last year, Sotheby’s said Friday. The company was expected to report earnings of $1.22 a share, according to the average of five analysts in a Bloomberg survey.

A rare medieval panel by Italian artist Giovanni de Rimini has been saved for the nation thanks to a donation from a US businessman and philanthropist.

Scenes From the Lives of the Virgin and Other Saints, painted around 1300-1305, was in the Duke of Northumberland's Alnwick Castle collection until 2014.

It was then sold at auction and a temporary export bar was put in place.

An art expert has spotted a painting valued at up to £1m, which was once sold to help fund Nelson Mandela’s legal defense, being used as a noticeboard in a London flat.

The painting, Arab in Black, a 1939 work by Irma Stern – regarded as South Africa’s leading artist, whose works have recently been soaring in value – was recognised by Hannah O’Leary, a specialist in South African art at Bonhams auction house, during a valuation visit to the flat.

Legendary modernist architect Marcel Breuer designed one of his most striking residential properties, the Stillman House, in idyllic Litchfield, Connecticut. Constructed between 1950 and 1953, the estate was the first of four that Breuer devised for Rufus and Leslie Stillman, who sold it to the current owners in 2009. The 2.8-acre property, which has since been meticulously restored with the aid of archival photographs, will be offered in Wright’s “Design Masterworks” auction on November 19.

Though the art market continues to post huge gains, six-month figures released by Christie’s today show at $4.5 billion a flat line and close to virtual tie for what the market leader firm achieved for the same period in 2014. That jumbo figure includes both auction and private sales, the latter contributing $515 million to the overall tally, substantially down from $828.2 million achieved for the same period in 2014.

A flea market find may mean a big payout for a Texas man. Ray Riley believes that the canvas he picked up for a mere $90 earlier this year is an authentic Sigmar Polke painting.

Polke has had a resurgence over the past few years, with a retrospective of his work at MoMA this past year and a new record for his work set at auction in May this year when it sold for $27.1 million at Sotheby's New York (prior to that, the record was $9.2 million, set in 2011).

Sotheby’s has set a new auction record for a work on paper by Frederic, Lord Leighton during its July 15 Victorian, Pre-Raphaelite & British Impressionist Art sale in London, selling a study for the artist’s “Flaming June” to an American collector for £167,000 against an estimate of £40,000-60,000.

The pencil and white chalk study is the only head study for the artist’s famous “Flaming June” masterpiece. It was rediscovered hanging discreetly on a bedroom wall at West Horsley Place, a 400-acre Surrey estate, by Sotheby’s Victorian Art specialist Simon Toll.