A pair of Francis Bacon self-portraits that have been considered missing since they were painted in the mid-1970’s have been found, and are going on sale at Sotheby’s this July in London, estimated at £15 million each.  “Marlborough Fine Art kept a photographic archive and so both of these paintings appeared in a book on Bacon’s self-portraits but, apart from being reproduced in books, they’ve not been seen,” says Sotheby’s Oliver Barker. “We knew of the existence of the paintings but simply had no idea where they could be.” (more…)

The New York Times looks at the current practices of “Like-Kind Exchange” on the fine art market, a tax provision allowing collectors and art flippers to defer taxes on sales income by using proceeds to buy an even more expensive work, and the attention it’s currently receiving from tax regulators.  “If you are doing five transactions over 25 years,” says advisor Josh Baer, “each time buying something more expensive, each time you don’t pay the capital gains tax on the way. At the end of the day you are way ahead.” (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…)

Auction houses in China are pushing further into the Modern and Impressionist Markets, the South China Morning Post reports, part of an attempt at beating a sales slump that has plagued the market in recent months.  “Selling Impressionist and modern art will be great business for us, as the artworks are traditionally very highly priced,” says Hu Yanyan, president of China Guardian Auctions and China Guardian (HK) Auctions. (more…)

Online arts auction platform Auctionata has laid off more than half of its employees yesterday, Art Info reports, part of a strategy by the company to focus on cost-efficiency.  Since launching less than three years ago, the company has raised nearly $100 million in capital, including recent funding of almost $50 million. (more…)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is no longer represented by Gagosian Gallery, Artforum reports, a move which ends a partnership first started in 2008.  The organization will now look to Pace Gallery (which represented Rauschenberg later in his career), Thaddaeus Ropac, and São Paulo’s Luisa Strina for worldwide representation.   (more…)

Alfred Taubman, via Detroit Free Press

Alfred Taubman, the shopping mall developer and business mastermind who turned Sotheby’s from a private auction house to the publicly traded art market power it is today, has passed away at the age of 91.

Taubman earned his fortune during the years following World War II, re-engineering the American retail experience through his design and development of the modern shopping mall, and used his earnings to purchase Sotheby Parke Bernet for $130 million in 1983.  Within five years, Taubman had retooled its customer experience and sales strategies before taking the company public in 1988.   (more…)

The New York Times reports on the move of Christie’s Impressionist and Evening Auction for Modern Art to the second week of May, a move that crowds the market with 5 major sales in the same week.  “Fatigue may have set in by then, but it is very hard to predict,” says gallerist and former Sotheby’s exec David Nash. (more…)

A new report released by fine art insurance company Hiscox finds that an increasing number of collectors, at least 75% of those surveyed, are viewing online art sales as an investment opportunity.  “I wonder whether this change in attitude is genuine,” says Robert Read, the head of fine art at Hiscox, “or whether it is a dot.com moment where people feel they are missing out if they don’t.”

An article in Bloomberg this week notes the statement of Laurence D. Fink, head of the world’s biggest asset manager, BlackRock Inc., that contemporary art has surpassed gold as a more secure investment.  “Historically gold was a great instrument for storing of Fink said at a conference in Singapore. “Gold has lost its luster and there’s other mechanisms in which you can store wealth that are inflation-adjusted.” (more…)

A pair of bills introduced in Congress this week will look to improve artist rights and benefits regarding their works, The Art Newspaper reports.  One bill will look to push for an artist’s resale royalty in the US, bringing the country up to par with current measures being undertaken in Europe, while the second offers a tax deduction of fair market value for artists donating works to museums. Both bills have been proposed before, but have yet to be passed. (more…)

Early estimates claim that the Giacometti sculpture Looking Forward to the Past may smash its just recently set record of over $100 million next month at Christie’s Modern Sale in New York, with speculation that the work may achieve a final price of at least $130 million.  “It’s Giacometti saying: ‘Move forward! The war is behind us,’” Jussi Pylkkanen says of the work. “It’s the sculpture that symbolizes the future.” (more…)

An article in the Wall Street Journal this week notes the details and contractual clauses that accompany sales at the higher end of the art market, often in an attempt to prevent speculation.  “I don’t want to see my clients gambling at auction,” says gallerist Renato Danese. “What if the work doesn’t sell, or sells below the low estimate? That will hurt the artist in terms of current and future sales, and it will hurt my clients.”  (more…)

A Cy Twombly blackboard painting may have sold for $60 million in a private sale, Marion Maneker of the Art Market Monitor reports, taking the news from active Twombly collectors.  If confirmed, the price would come close to the record-setting sale of a similar work last year by Nicola Del Roscio, Twombly’s former assistant and head of his foundation. (more…)

With renewed diplomatic activities between Cuba and the United States this year, the Independent forecasts massive interest in this year’s Havana Biennial.  “Most of us are expecting that for the Biennial there will be an explosion of American collectors coming to buy,” says artist Mario González. “It should be a stampede.” (more…)

Sotheby’s will bolster its May 12th Contemporary Evening Auction in New York next month with a brilliant, 1954 Mark Rothko, the New York Times reports.  Untitled (Yellow and Blue), which formerly sat in the collections of both Bunny Mellon and François Pinault, is estimated to achieve between $40 and $60 million. (more…)

Next month, Christie’s will lead its May 13th contemporary auction with one of Lucian Freud’s iconic portraits of former postal worker Sue Tilley, which will carry an estimate of $30 million to $50 million.  “This will be a good test of where his market is going,” says dealer James Holland-Hibbert. “It will be interesting to see if this style of painting appeals to the buyers who support these sales. Is Freud still a big enough brand?” (more…)

An article in the New York Times notes an increasing trend towards museums deaccessioning parts of their collection in order to cover budget gaps, even in the face of staunch opposition from critics and board members.  “If you want to safeguard cultural identity, you cannot sell the best pieces of your collection,” says  Marilena Vecco, an assistant professor of cultural economics at Erasmus University in Rotterdam. “This is the challenge for all museums.” (more…)

An article in The Economist this week revisits the frequently noted boom in the art market, taking an extended perspective on the practices of private sales, institutional investment and consulting over the past thirty years.  “People buy art when they’re confident about their future wealth,” says economist Clare McAndrew. (more…)

An article in The Atlantic this past week acknowledges the 25th anniversary of the notorious Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum theft in Boston, and examines the public fascination with art heists, examining this phenomenon against the difficulty in unloading stolen works of such cultural prestige.  “The true art isn’t the stealing, it’s the selling,” says Robert Wittman, founder of the FBI’s Art Crimes division. (more…)

Roy Lichtenstein’s The Ring (Engagement) will be one of the top prizes at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Sale this May in New York, the Wall Street Journal reports, with initial estimates placing the work’s sale price at about $50 million.  That figure nearly matches Lichtenstein’s $56.1 million record set in 2013.  “I think it’s so sexy how he takes this quiet moment of a proposal and turns it into an exciting crash,” says Chicago plastics magnate Stefan Edlis, the work’s current owner. “Clearly, the woman accepted.” (more…)

Sotheby’s has announced a partnership with Drake, welcoming the rapper to partner with the auction house during an exhibition and private sale of works by black artists in the coming months.  The artist will select music to play during the exhibition, part of Sotheby’s increased focus on private sales. (more…)

Following up on the claims for serious market contention made by new chief Edward Dolman, Phillips has landed a major private collection for sale in the coming months, valued at nearly $35 million.  The works, which include a Brice Marden estimated at $8 million to $12 million, and a Ed Ruscha valued at $2 to $3 million, will be sold at the auction house’s Contemporary Evening sale in May, with some others being reserved for a special photography sale.  “They were interested in art of their time,” says advisor Allan Schwartzman, who helped build the collection. “There is a lot of abstract work and work where the imaging is involved with the natural world.” (more…)

A recent 13D filing from Mark McGwire’s Marcato Capital in the past week states that the hedge fund now holds stocks in three Sotheby’s funds amounting to about 9.5%, equivalent to Daniel Loeb’s Third Point, and requests that the company release previously withheld information around the company’s recent dealings.  “The redacted material goes to the very heart of the parties’ dispute in this litigation – the conduct and competence of Sotheby’s board of directors in adopting a poison pill,” Marcato states in its filing. (more…)