Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu Couché sells at Christie’s, via Rae Wang for Art Observed

Dashing through a 34-lot auction in style, Christie’s has entered the November auction week in impressive style, bringing a flurry of sales during its curated “The Artist’s Muse” auction tonight that saw several world records fall, and achieved an impressive tally of over $491 million for the evening, especially considering the 10 lots that failed to sell.

Amedeo Modigliani, Nu Couché (1917-18), via Christie’s (more…)

Balthus, Untitled (1990 – 2000) ©Harumi Klossowska de Rola.  Courtesy Gagosian Gallery

Inaugurating a new ground-floor gallery at 976 Madison Avenue, Gagosian presents The Last Studies, a never before seen exhibition and the gallery’s first partnering with the Estate of Balthus – on display until December 21.

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Balthus, Thérése (1938), Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Currently on view through January 12, 2014 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art is the controversially titled show, Balthus: Cats and Girls – Paintings and Provocations.  Amassing 35 paintings and 40 never before displayed ink drawings, this thematic exhibition, curated by Sabine Rewald, flirts with the notorious ambiguity surrounding Balthus’ treatment of young girls, offering neither an overt accusation of erotic context, nor securing his innocence. (more…)

As exhibitions of Balthus prepare to open in New York, critic Jerry Saltz writes on the history of one of the artist’s more sordid works, The Guitar Lesson.  Only exhibited once in 1977, the work has moved through the back channels of the art world in the past 40 years, finally coming to rest in the collection of shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos.  “I don’t love Balthus’s work, but I grant that all parts of the best examples are charged with something wild, almost half-human, some sleeping need, rage, frustration, and restraint. What makes the banishment of The Guitar Lesson so bitter isn’t only that MoMA came this close to owning a second take on the blatant sexuality of Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”  Saltz writes. (more…)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is preparing for its first retrospective in thirty years on the work of Balthasar Klossowski de Rola, better known as Balthus.  In anticipation, the Wall Street Journal has published a short series of stories about the artist, as related by his daughter, Harumi.  “He thought you should know what’s been done before, to have respect for all masters, to know how to make your own colors, and he frequently complained that nowadays people don’t really learn the tradition. He also complained that there was too much ego, that it was not about what you make with work but more about who you are.”  She said. (more…)

Picasso’s Portrait d’Angel Fernandez de Soto sold to an anonymous telephone bidder for £34,761,250 – the 2nd highest price for a work of art sold by Christie’s in London (est. £30-40million)

Last night Christie’s held London’s biggest ever art auction when 46 Impressionist and Modern works racked up £153 million ($227 million), but the total was off from the pre-sale estimate of £164-231 million. While nearly quadrupling the anemic $60.4 million brought in by Christie’s at the same sale last June, tonight’s results suggest that while the art market may have recovered, pricing points are still a moving target. The sale was dominated by UK and European bidding – that includes Russia and former Eastern Bloc countries – which bought 55 percent of the lots sold, the U.S. accounted for 40 percent, and Asia for the remaining five percent. The sale saw only 46 of the 62 lots on offer sell, for a buy-in rate of 25 percent by lot and just 26 percent by value. Eight lots sold for over five million pounds and 31 broke the million-pound mark (37 works sold over $ 1million).

More text, images and related links after the jump…
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