Displaying items by tag: Huguette Clark

A Manhattan judge has ruled in favor of Mount Sinai Beth Israel, allowing the hospital to keep $4 million in donations, including an Édouard Manet painting, given by the late heiress Huguette Clark. Her relatives had sued, claiming Clark was manipulated into giving away her fortune.

Clark spent the last two decades of her life at Beth Israel. After an operation in 1992, she opted to remain under the institution's care, rather than returning home. She died in 2011, at 104 years old.

The reclusive heiress Huguette Clark sold her first painting Wednesday, three years after her death at 104. She did okay, too, with two paintings of Fifth Avenue (as seen from a window of her Manhattan mansion) each going for $19,000 at a Christie’s auction in New York.

A self-portrait of the artist holding a palette went for $13,000, and Clark’s work titled “Cereus, night blooming cactus” fetched $6,000, our colleague Melinda Henneberger reports.

At least four descendants of Huguette’s father, billionaire copper baron and Montana senator William A. Clark, were among those bidding.

Auction houses expect to sell as much as $2.3 billion of art in New York this month as billionaires from China to Brazil compete for trophy works by Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso and Jeff Koons in a surging market.

Two weeks of semiannual sales of Impressionist, modern, postwar and contemporary art at Christie’s, Sotheby’s (BID) and Phillips begin May 6, with online bidding as early as today. Their combined sales target represents a 77 percent increase from estimates for a similar round of auctions a year ago.

This spring, Christie’s will sell approximately 400 items from the collection of Huguette Clark, a reclusive copper heiress. The auction house has revealed that the trove includes Claude Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’, which has not been exhibited publicly since 1926 and is expected to fetch between $25 million and $35 million, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s ‘Young Women Playing Badminton,’ which is expected to bring between $10 million and $15 million.

Clark’s collection also includes musical instruments, Gilded Age furniture and rare books. The trove will be divided among two sales -- one on May 6 that will include the Monet and Renoir paintings, and another on June 18. The entire collection is expected to fetch more than $50 million. Before the sales, highlights from Clark’s holdings will go on view at Christie’s London and then at various locations throughout Asia.

Clark was the daughter of U.S. senator and copper tycoon, William A. Clark. Beginning in 1930, she led a largely reclusive life and when she passed away in 2011, she left behind an estate worth nearly $300 million. The proceeds from the upcoming sales will go to the estate, which will most likely be distributed between art institutions and distant relatives.

This spring, Huguette Clark’s collection of musical instruments, Gilded Age furniture and rare books will be sold at Christie’s. The trove of approximately 400 objects is expected to bring over $50 million and will be divided among two sales in May and June. Before the auction in New York, highlights from the collection will go on view at Christie’s London and then at various locations throughout Asia.

Huguette was the daughter of U.S. Senator and copper tycoon, William A. Clark. Beginning in 1930, Huguette led a largely reclusive life and when she passed away in 2011, she left behind an estate worth nearly $300 million. The proceeds from the upcoming auction will go to the estate, which will most likely be distributed between art institutions and distant relatives.

In 2012, 17 pieces of jewelry from Clark’s collection were sold at Christie’s including a rare pink 9-carat diamond that fetched approximately $21 million, nearly twice its pre-sale estimate.

Paintings by Renoir, John Singer Sargent and William Merritt Chase that have long been held in private hands will be the centerpieces of a new museum in Santa Barbara.

Basic instructions for the museum were revealed Wednesday in the last will and testament of art collector Huguette Clark, who died at age 104 last month in New York. The daughter of U.S. Senator William A. Clark, she had a 42-room apartment on Fifth Avenue full of art, books and musical instruments at the time of her death.