Displaying items by tag: collector

Founder of "The Art Newspaper" Umberto Allemandi announced today that he has sold the publication to Inna Bazhenova, whom the press release labels as “the mathematician, engineer and collector.” The boon of funds from Bazhenova, who has been "The Art Newspaper" Russia’s publisher for the past two years, is expected to help the newspaper bolster its online presence.

It’s a flip-flop over an art flip. In a surprising reversal, a Dallas judge has dismissed collector Marguerite Hoffman’s lawsuit for breach of contract against finance mogul David Martinez and defunct New York gallery L&M Arts, in a case that involves a spectacular flip of a multi-million dollar Mark Rothko.

Back in 2007, Martinez paid Hoffman $19 million for the painting, then turned around just three years later and sold it at Sotheby’s for a headline-grabbing $31.4 million (in the interim, court papers say, it was kept out of sight in storage).

A widely watched lawsuit between a billionaire and top art tycoon has expanded to include one of the most private and powerful families in the art world.

Last week, a judge granted a motion by billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman to depose members of the Mugrabi family as part of a lawsuit between Perelman and art megadealer Larry Gagosian. According to people familiar with the case, the depositions are scheduled for September and could delve into the financial relationships and dealings between the Mugrabis and Gagosian.

German government-appointed experts on Friday gave the green light to the restitution of one of the most valuable artworks in the trove of late collector Cornelius Gurlitt to its American owners.

The most famous bed in contemporary art, a tangle of stained and rumpled sheets bearing expensive witness to a time of heartbreak for the artist Tracey Emin, is coming to the Tate gallery on long loan from its new owner, the German businessman and collector Count Christian Duerckheim.

Although Emin described the Tate as "the natural home" for her 1998 "My Bed," the gallery couldn't afford to bid at the recent Christie's auction where it eventually sold for £2.54m, more than twice the top pre-sale estimate.

Thought the Gurlitt saga had finally come to an end? Think again. Officials assigned to the task force charged with proofing the 1300 some works found in now-deceased collector, Cornelius Gurlitt’s Munich apartment announced on Thursday in Berlin that yet more work had recently been discovered.

Discovered three months after Gurlitt died after a long illness and several months in the spotlight thanks to his collection of potential Nazi loot, the new works include two sculptures, which experts suggest could be by Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas.

Shanghai-based art collector Liu Yiqian recently spent $36.3 million on a tiny porcelain cup with a humble chicken painted on its surface. But for many in China, the most shocking thing wasn’t the amount he paid, or the fact that he paid with an American Express card.

No, it was the fact that Mr. Liu decided to celebrate his Ming-dynasty purchase by sipping some tea from it.

The cup in question is one of China’s so-called “chicken cups,” which were forged in imperial kins and possess a particularly silky texture. Though fakes abound, only 19 genuine articles are known to exist. To art experts, they’re known as the “holy grail” of Chinese porcelains.

Their Degas is de-gone.

Two Manhattan art dealers are suing an art seller they say is responsible for losing their $3 million Degas sculpture.

In papers filed in Manhattan Federal Court, the Degas Sculpture Project and Modernism Fine Art say they struck a deal with Rose Ramey Long to sell an Edgar Degas sculpture called “The Little 14-Year-Old Dancer” earlier this year.

Long had told the businesses she was buying the works on behalf of a reputable collector who wanted to purchase it and other works they had, including paintings by Willem de Kooning and etchings by Picasso, for a total of $11 million, the suit says.

On a Saturday afternoon in Chelsea, a group of a few dozen people milled around the International Print Center New York, drinking Champagne and making small talk about the show New Prints 2014/Winter. But this wasn’t a gallery opening, nor was it an artist’s talk. Rather it was a salon by Gertrude, a new company organizing events to discuss art.

The company is named for the writer and art collector Gertrude Stein, who was well known for the gatherings of artists and writers she organized in her apartment on the Left Bank of Paris.

Representatives for Manhattan real estate mogul Aby Rosen testified last night before the Old Westbury Village planning board in an effort to gain approval for the display of a 33-foot-tall graphic statue and two other large sculptures on his historic Old Westbury estate.

Experts brought by Rosen were on hand to link the plan with the "avant-garde" history of the estate. They also promised to screen much of it from the view of neighbors.

Neighbors had complained to village officials last month after artist Damien Hirst's "The Virgin Mother" was installed on a conservation easement at the A. Conger Goodyear House, a 5.5-acre estate built in 1938 and listed in 2003 on the National Register of Historic Places.