Sotheby’s is looking to break the record for the most expensive art auction in London this week, with an Impressionist and modern sale expected to top £203 million.  “The forthcoming sale offers a rich range of highly desirable works, including those that rank among the finest by Manet, Degas, Klimt, Malevich, Gauguin and Miro,” says Helena Newman, global go-chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art department. (more…)

An article in Bloomberg this week traces the path of stolen art from theft through to sale, accounting for the variations in strategy by thieves for maximizing returns on what are often considered unsellable works.  “Sometimes people don’t even recognize that the art’s gone missing” says Bonnie Magness-Gardiner, head of the FBI’s art-theft program. “It could be in a storage facility, or in the basement of someone’s house, and it can often be years before anyone notices it’s gone.”  (more…)

The New York Post quotes an unnamed source disclosing that the mystery buyer of the record setting, $179 Million Pablo Picasso several weeks ago in New York is former Qatari Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.  “The painting almost certainly will not go on public display in Qatar because of the nudity, even though it is a cubist work,” the source says. (more…)

The MAK Vienna has purchased artist Harm van den Dorpel’s Event Listeners screen-saver work with Bitcoins, making it the first museum in the world to use the digitally-centered currency.  The work will be shown at this year’s inaugural Vienna Biennale, running June 11 to October 4. (more…)

The New York Post details the intrigue and deception surrounding dealer Yves Bouvier’s arrest this past month in Monaco.  Bouvier recently sold an Amedeo Modigliani, Nude on a Blue Cushion, for hedge fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen to Dmitry Rybolovlev, allegedly charging the Russian $118 million when Cohen had only received $93.5 million from the sale, sparking an investigation that ultimately led to his arrest.   (more…)

MoMA has acquired the iconic Jasper Johns’s work Painted Bronze, a work that has sat in the Philadelphia Museum of Art for three decades, and which was purchased recently by collectors Henry and Marie-Josée Kravis.  Kravis, who serves as MoMA’s Board President, gifted the work shortly after purchase directly from the artist’s personal collection.  “It’s not easy to convince someone who’s kept something for himself for more than 50 years,” says dealer Matthew Marks. “It’s a big deal for him, emotionally. And one can imagine all the people over all the years who have asked, all the institutions, all the collectors who have been told no, since I was a kid.”

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The Corning Glass Museum in Upstate New York has reportedly acquired a number of contemporary art works heavily relying on glass as part of its new $64 million wing construction.  Works from Roni Horn, Klaus Moje, Ayala Serfaty, Jeroen Verhoeven and Fred Wilson will be included in the new space, among others. (more…)

Russian entrepreneur, mathematician, engineer and collector, Inna Bazhenova has purchased the Art Newspaper, with the intent of helping in the development of the site’s online offering.  “The quality of its journalism and scholarship are outstanding and its excellent coverage of international art news is vital in our global environment,” she said in a statement. “I want to reassure you that The Art Newspaper will retain complete editorial independence, now and for as long as I own it. My aim is to invest in it so that it may remain as good as it is today.” (more…)

Billionaire Leon Black, the owner of Phaidon Press and the recent buyer of Artspace, has purchased the $50 million former home of the Knoedler Gallery on the Upper East Side, a 17,000-square-foot Italian Renaissance-style home at 19 East 70th Street that was last inhabited by London developer Christian Candy.  (more…)

The Wall Street Journal reports on one man’s repeated attempts to authenticate a work he believes is a Mark Rothko. Douglas Himmelfarb purchased the painting in 1987 for $319.50, but has had many problems with authenticating the work, as a number of experts refused to confirm the work’s authenticity.  “I think I had a little too much braggadocio after I found the painting,” Himmelfarb says. “Maybe that’s part of the problem. I thought, ‘This is great, and I did it.'” (more…)

The 2013 edition of Art Review’s annual Power 100 is out, documenting the most powerful players in the art world today, with Sheikha Mayassa bint Hamad Al Thani, the head of Qatar’s powerful Museum Authority, taking the number one position.  Al Thani has rocketed up the list in past years, especially after paying a reported $250 million for one of Cézanne’s The Card Players in 2012, and after considering her government’s rumored $1 billion budget for acquisitions.  The top spots on the list are rounded off by David Zwirner at #2, Iwan Wirth at #3, Larry Gagosian at #4, and Serpentine  co-directors Hans Ulrich Obrist and Julia Peyton-Jones sharing the #5 spot.   (more…)

Over 40 years, Herbert and Dorothy Vogel built up a collection of some of the most significant contemporary artworks of the post-war contemporary era, paid for on meager working class salaries as a postal worker and librarian.  By the time of Herbert’s death last year, the couple had amassed a collection well over 4,000 works, half of which they set about donating to 50 institutions in each of the fifty states.  A new film by director Megumi Sasaki, titled Herb and Dorothy 50×50, will be released soon, the second film to focus on the story of the couple’s love for art, and the process of donation to museums across the country. (more…)

Artist Jan Mostaert’s painting Discovery of America, depicting a group of Spanish soldiers aiming cannons at an indigenous group of people, has been purchased by the Rijksmuseum.  Previously owned by Marei von Saher, the work had been taken from her father in law, dealer Jacques Goudstikker, by the Nazis during World War II, and was returned to von Saher in 2006.  “It’s a picture that a lot of people were interested in both in North and South America because of it being such an important historical picture,” said dealer Hugo Nathan, “but Mostaert is arguably the most important early Dutch painter, as opposed to being a Flemish master, and the Rijksmuseum was always hoping to secure it for the Dutch nation.” (more…)

Pablo Picasso, Le Rêve (1932)

Hedge fund manager and notable collector Steven A. Cohen, who has just settled two insider-trading lawsuits with the government, has just purchased Picasso’s Le Rêve for $155 Million.  The exchange, between Cohen and Las Vegas Hotel Mogul Steve Wynn, is estimated to be the largest price ever paid for a work of art by an American collector. The sale of Le Rêve, Picasso’s 1932 portrait of a sleeping woman, had previously been discussed between Wynn and Cohen, particularly in 2006, when the sale was canceled after Wynn accidentally thrust his elbow through the piece, causing a 6-inch tear.  “Steve has wanted that painting for a long time. The timing of the sale is just a coincidence.”  Said an unnamed source.

Steven A Cohen, via Patrick McMullan

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