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Degas tops, Picasso flops at lukewarm Christie's sale
New York Times / November 4th, 2009
It was a thin sale of Impressionist and modern art, with just 40 works on offer and prices that fell below estimates. Christie's sale totaled $65.6 million, but had been estimated to bring at least $68.6 million. About 42 percent of the buyers were Europeans. The star was an 1896 Degas pastel of ...
Obama enlists famous names for arts committee
Boston Globe 2 / November 3rd, 2009
The White House has enticed "Sex and the City" star Sarah Jessica Parker, Forest Whitaker, Edward Norton, and others from Hollywood and beyond to help push President Barack Obama's arts initiatives. The 25 new members of the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities also includes famed ...
Oilman's heirs fight MFA, Houston over $500 million estate
Bloomberg / November 3rd, 2009
Alfred C. Glassell Jr., founder of Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Co., intended to leave about half of his $500 million estate to the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and his will should be honored, a lawyer for the museum said. Curry Glassell, the oilman’s 52-year-old daughter, is ...
Anglo-Saxon hoard on show in London as another trove found
Reuters / November 3rd, 2009
The most important treasure trove found in Britain for decades went on display in London on Tuesday, the same day that another discovery valued at a million pounds ($1.6 million) was reported found in Scotland. Four Iron Age gold neckbands were discovered in a Scottish field, just as the British ...
Peter Brant's pricey "Puppy" maintenance and alimony
Connecticut Post / November 3rd, 2009
"Puppy," a supersized sculpture by Jeff Koons, adorns the 53-acre Greenwich, Conn., estate of the Magazine Antiques owner Peter Brant. He pays maintenance of the sculpture of between $75,000 and $100,000 a year. Such are the sordid details emerging from the divorce case of Brant and his wife, ...
A Bavarian Throne and Other Must-haves: Monumental furniture stars at Red Baron's Nov. auction
Luxist / November 2nd, 2009
This magnificent black walnut two-seated throne with pierce-carved armrests was once installed in a Bavarian castle. The piece was chosen to go in what would have been the most expensive residence in the United States, the Pinnacle, a 53,000-sq.-ft. home to be built in the Yellowstone Club in ...
Egyptian Art Deco in Ohio: Backyard sculpture fetches $118,000 at auction
Cleveland Plain Dealer / November 2nd, 2009
On Oct. 25, the Cleveland Auction Co. in Tremont, Ohio, sold a 4-foot tall garden statue for $100,000 – plus an $18,000 commission for the auctioneer. The piece, a woman carrying a water vessel, was created in Paris in 1931 by Egyptian sculptor Mahmoud Mokhtar (1891-1934), known as the father of ...
On the Block: Traditional Offerings, Bargain Prices
New York Times / November 2nd, 2009
The images splashed across the pages of this fall’s auction catalogs are as familiar as they are telling: Degas dancers and Pissarro landscapes; Picasso portraits and Warhol dollar bills. All are well-known works by tried-and-true artists carrying estimates as low as sellers are willing to go. ...
Failed Bank Provenance Boosts Auction: Lehman Bros. collection sells out
Wall Street Journal / November 2nd, 2009
Call it the Lehman premium: The first in a series of auctions at Freeman's, expected to bring in around $750,000, brought in a surprising $1.34 million, with all 238 lots of modern and contemporary art finding buyers. The star of the failed bank's art assets was a late-period Roy Lichtenstein ...
A Distant Bauhaus Star: Margarete Heymann was ahead of her time
New York Times Art / November 1st, 2009
Margarete Heymann was a gifted ceramicist who had a falling out with the director of the Bauhaus school and now is largely ignored in the influential 20th century design school’s “official’' history. Her work was original, functional, very beautiful and remarkably advanced for its time. The ...
Closet Clean-up: Lost Warhol self-portrait may fetch $1 million
AP / November 1st, 2009
On Nov. 11, Sotheby's is auctioning a self-portrait by Andy Warhol that was recently found after being forgotten in a closet in New York City for more than 40 years. The painting belongs to Cathy Naso. She was 17 years old when she got a part-time job as a receptionist at Warhol's Factory. Two ...
A Revelation: The letters of Vincent Van Gogh
Telegraph / November 1st, 2009
Van Gogh’s 800 letters to his brother Theo take us to a place where even the most detailed biography can’t go. A newly translated, fully annotated and copiously illustrated edition has been in preparation for 15 years. Beautifully produced by Thames & Hudson in six volumes (and free ...
Shine On: New Versailles exhibit reflects Sun King's glory
Cape Cod Times 2 / November 1st, 2009
Hundreds of long-dispersed portraits, sculptures and tapestries celebrating Louis XIV have returned to Versailles. The exhibit "Louis XIV: The Man and the King" gives visitors the 17th-century ruler in all his varied incarnations. A massive oil painting shows the cherub-faced child who ascended ...
Discovery: $900 painting at Kentucky antiques shop somewhat undervalued
Kentucky.com / October 29th, 2009
Dr. Jim Huffman waffled whether to put down $900 for a painting he liked at a Lexington, Kentucky, antique store. The ophthalmologist finally bought it and then sent the work to an art restorer. A cleaning revealed the artist's signature: Robert Scott Duncanson, a noted 19th-century artist who ...
Art Wars: Singapore vs. Hong Kong
Wall Street Journal / October 29th, 2009
Among the trophies of a war between Singapore and Hong Kong: an ancient Chinese imperial throne worth US$11 million which set an auction record in Hong Kong recently. Longtime rivals in trade and finance, Hong Kong and Singapore are vying to become Asia's regional arts hub, part of a strategy to ...
American Charmer: Folk artist Grandma Moses on the block in Nov.
Citizen Times / October 29th, 2009
Just in time for the holidays, "Grandmother's House We Go,” by self-taught artist Grandma Moses (Anna Mary Robertson Moses, New York and Virginia, 1860-1961), is up for sale at North Carolina's Brunk Auctions on Nov. 14. Her 1940 painting depicts a family in a horse-drawn sleigh crossing a bridge ...
Destination City: Explore Savannah's historic homes, squares and gardens
MSNBC / October 29th, 2009
Founded in 1733, Savannah, Georgia, originally had 24 squares. It's a remarkable feat of preservation that 22 are still in existence. Surrounded by stately homes and beautiful gardens, they form the heart of a two-and-a-half-square-mile historic district with more than 2,000 historic or ...
Museums Spared: Irish terrorists had targeted art repositories
Telegraph / October 28th, 2009
A recently released "death list" of prominent people and places, compiled in 1975 by the radical group known as the Balcombe Street terrorists, was found in an IRA safe house in London. After the arrest of some of the group's members, their target list was sealed for 36 years. Among the 96 places ...
On the Rise: MoMA gets 82-story tower approved
Associated Press / October 28th, 2009
The Museum of Modern Art's proposal for a Jean Nouvel-designed skyscraper has cleared its final hurdle. The New York City Council voted Wednesday to approve the plan for a 1000-foot mixed-use tower on West 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth avenues. The museum will gain approximately 40,000 ...
'Roadshow' Surprise: Sinatra letter sings to tune of $15,000
New York Post / October 28th, 2009
An appearance on PBS' "Antiques Road show" made a Chicago great-grandmother glad she held on to a 1976 letter written by Frank Sinatra. A bellicose Sinatra wrote the letter to Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko when Royko criticized one of his concerts, saying he had an entourage of flunkies ...