Sotheby’s announced that its will soon hold its first evening auction of Indian works in 12 years, a collection of 43 works from collector and dealer Amrita Jhaveri.  The upcoming auction will be exhibited in New York, London and New Delhi in advance of the sale, and will include works by Tyeb Mehta, Francis Newton Souza and Syed Haider Raza, with a total value of $7 million. “Her father and mother were also collectors and knew various artists. But I believe that these are her works.” Says Yahmini Mehta, international director of Indian and South-east Asian art at Sotheby’s. (more…)

While fine arts auctions in New York State generate total sales of $8 billion annually, many dealers and market analysts are calling foul on auction practices intended to drive up the price of works with little to no supervision of the market.  “The art world feels like the private equity market of the ’80s and the hedge funds of the ’90s,” says James R. Hedges IV, a New York collector and financier. “It’s got practically no oversight or regulation.”

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Painter Jean-Michel Basquiat’s tribute to his favorite writer, William Burroughs, titled Five Fish Series will be on the auction block at Sotheby’s February 12th Contemporary Arts sale. The work is estimated to sell from £4.25 million to £6.25 million.  “Basquiat is the blue chip artist of the moment,” said Sotheby’s contemporary specialist Alex Branczik. “He is recognised today in perhaps the same way he recognized Burroughs in the 1980s as someone who was streets ahead of his time – Basquiat is the artist who everybody wants at the moment so we have high hopes of it doing well at auction.” (more…)

On February 5th, Sotheby’s will offer Salvador Dali’s portrait of international socialite Mona Bismarck as part of their Modern Art auction.  The painting will look to follow the recent spike in auction prices for Dali’s work, and is forecasted to sell at $2.41 to $3.21 million.  Samuel Valette, a specialist at Sotheby’s, calls the estimate for “Portrait of Mrs. Harrison Williams” “a fair estimate that leaves room for excitement.” (more…)

A 1932 painting of Pablo Picasso’s mistress is expected to sell for as much as $56 million at auction next month.  Femme assise pres d’une fenetre has been placed on sale by Sotheby’s auction house, and is guaranteed to sell courtesy of a third-party, “irrevocable” bid.  The 61-lot auction on February 5th will also include works by Claude Monet and Joan Miró, among other notable surrealist and impressionist painters, and is valued at $240 million.

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Sotheby’s has reported $1.25 billion in global auction results for Contemporary Art last year, making 2012 its third most successful year in history, and the highest in history for Contemporary Art.  “The marketplace and demand for contemporary art has never been stronger or more international – of the top 20 prices achieved by Sotheby’s last year, more than half were post-war and contemporary masterworks.”  Says Sotheby’s Chairman of Contemporary Art Europe Cheyenne Westphal. (more…)

The Francis Bacon triptych Three Studies for a Self-Portrait is expected to sell for $24 million at auction next month.  The work will join paintings by Gerhard Richter and Jean-Michel Basquiat in a 56-lot auction by Sotheby’s with a minimum valuation of $101 million, based on hammer prices. (more…)

Bloomberg calculates that $594.6 million was achieved for the top ten lots  in Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art categories in 2012. This is a 44% increase from 2011. An uncertain global economic climate, the European debt crisis and impending US tax code changes all likely impacted the increase in sales. The top lot was Edvard Munch’s “The Scream”, which sold for $119.9 million, the highest price paid for a work at auction. (more…)

William Ruprecht has been appointed the Chairman of Sotheby’s Board of Directors. He will keep his post as President and Chief Executive Officer as well. The previous Chair for the past 13 years, Michael I. Sovern, will continue to serve on the board as well. Ruprecht started as an administrator in the Rugs department 32 years ago, and has since developed a strong client base in emerging international markets, grown the business’s art-related financing, private sales and online presence. (more…)

Collectors seeking iconic works at the Old Masters sales in London this week have led to uneven results: at Sotheby’s a bidder paid $47.9 million for “Head of a Young Apostle,” by Raphael; at Christie’s, only 29 out of 54 lots sold, bringing in $18.6 million, just over low estimate. “The name is not enough. It has to be a top example by an important master,” said Jonathan Green of the Richard Green Gallery in London. Additional speculation is that international, non-Western buyers are not interested in the historical subject matter from a cultural standpoint. (more…)

In a record-breaking auction, the black chalk “Head of a Young Apostle” by Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael), sold Tuesday, December 4th, 2012 for $47.8 million. This is the highest price paid for any work on paper, and the second highest for any Old Master, after Ruben’s “Massacre of the Innocents” which raised $78.2 million at Sotheby’s in 2002. The highest bidder was Natasha Mendelsohn, who bids on behalf of clients for Sotheby’s (BID) London.  (more…)

Sotheby’s Russian Art Evening sale in London on Monday, November 26th, 2012 achieved £11,471,250 ($18,386,120), within its presale estimate. The sale saw sell-through rates of 89.3% by lot and 84.3% by value, with six new artist records. (more…)

The Leopold Museum has consigned three Egon Schiele drawings with a presale estimate of $17.6 million to Sotheby’s for their London sale in February. The sale of the works will pay for a restitution settlement of a 1914 Schiele painting which the museum purchased at auction in the 50s, years after it had been looted by the Nazis. The museum has settled on payments with 3 rightful heirs of the work to keep the painting. The founder of the museum, Rudolf Leopold, felt that the institution was not subject to Austria’s restitution law; however his son arranged to settle all outstanding claims after his father passed away in 2010.  (more…)

Gallerist Cecilia Jurado of Y Gallery, NY in front of two works by Carlos Motta photo by A.M. Ekstrand for ArtObserved

Latin American week began with the Pinta art fair, which ran from November 15th – 18th, 2012, after which followed auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips de Pury & Co. Several records were broken for Latin American artists, proving that the market is still robust, especially on the high end.

Roberto Matta, Nada 1943 courtesy Sotheby’s sold for $1.82 million (more…)

Christie’s saleroom photo by ArtObserved

Christie’s Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale broke the record for the highest ever grossing Contemporary Art auction in history, totaling over $412 million in sales. The auction came on the heels of Sotheby’s Postwar & Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which broke its own record for highest-grossing auction in Sotheby’s long history ($375 million). Christie’s achieved an astounding 92% sell by lot and 93% sell by value – of the 73 lots offered only 6 failed to sell.

Records at auction were broken for Richard Diebenkorn, Jeff Koons, Richard Serra, Franz Kline, George Condo, Jean- Michel Basquiat, and Mark Grotjahn. Additionally, Jean Dubuffet, Cy Twombly and Jean-Michel Basquiat set new records for their artworks on paper. A record was set for an Alexander Calder wire sculpture at auction with Policeman, which sold for $4.2 million.

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Sotheby’s has been accused of colluding with a 10th-century Cambodian statue’s current owner to hide information about provenance. Papers were filed in United States District Court in Manhattan by Federal prosecutors alleging that the work was stolen in 1972 and that Sotheby’s had knowledge of this prior to consigning it. Sotheby’s stated that The United States attorney’s office is trying “to tar Sotheby’s with a hodgepodge of other allegations designed to create the misimpression that Sotheby’s acted deceptively in selling the statue. That is simply not true.” (more…)

Pablo Picasso, Femme à la Fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse) courtesy Sotheby’s

Christie’s Impressionist and Modern sale will commence this evening; due to the destruction from the hurricane, Sotheby’s rescheduled its Impressionist sale from November 5th to tomorrow, Thursday the 8th. Airport closures and power outages worried many that the international collecting crowd would not be able to attend. In a season that boasts over a possible billion dollars in revenue and a possible record breaking year at auction, postponement was inevitable.

Both houses are flush with important and iconic works by a plethora of leading artists such as Picasso, Monet, Kandinsky, Miro, Brancusi and Cézanne.

Wassily Kandinsky, Studie für Improvisation 8 courtesy Christie’s
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New York’s November auctions will offer several Warhol works, among them Christie’s $100 million sale of works in three separate sales from the Warhol Foundation, and at Sotheby’s two “A-plus” paintings from the “Death and Disaster” series. Concerns that an influx of Warhols on the market have lowered demand stem from weak London sales for the artist earlier this month. (more…)

Last week, a Gerhard Richter from the collection of Eric Clapton set a record as being the most expensive work by a living artist to be sold at auction. Now, Sotheby’s, who sold that painting, is offering another 1990s Richter, also called “Abstract Painting,” in its November 13th New York sale. The presale estimate is $16 million, according to the WSJ. There are 65 paintings from this series that are 6 feet or higher, with 1/3 of these large pieces in museum collections. The auction will also offer major Abstract Expressionist works, such as  Mark Rothko‘s No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) from 1954 and a 1951 Jackson Pollock drip painting.

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Grand Palais, courtesy FIAC

FIAC, or the 39th International Contemporary Art Fair, will open tomorrow (Thursday) in Paris, with a VIP preview today, with 184 galleries exhibiting at the Grand Palais, and this year utilizing the restored Salon d’Honneur as well, which lies at the center of the structure. As in past years, galleries will exhibit sculpture at the Tuilieries Garden nearby. Approximately 65,000 visitors are expected to attend.

Tuilieries Garden courtesy FIAC (more…)

Image: Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild, 1994 via Sotheby’s
Estimate: £9,000,000 – 12,000,000
Sold for: £21,321,250

Sotheby’s just concluded its evening Postwar & Contemporary sale in London on October 12th with a sale total of £44,146,350 ($70,793,087),  the highest total of the three auction houses this week.

Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild, 1994 from the collection of Eric Clapton set a record price at £21,321,250 ($34,297,363). Alongside this work, the second cover lot of the sale was Yves Klein’s RE 9-I from the artist’s most sought-after series: the Relief éponge, which sold for  £3,737,250 with premium.

Image: Yves Klein, RE 9-I, 1961 via Sotheby’s
Estimate: £2,000,000 – 3,000,000
Sold for: £3,737,250

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Peter Brant is recapitalizing his newsprint business, according to state regulatory filings, by pledging 56 artworks to the lending arm of Sotheby’s (BID), including pieces by Warhol, Richard Prince and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Other filings show a pledge by Brandt of pieces to a unit of Deutsche Bank AG, including a 1963 Warhol that could be worth as much as $35 million. (more…)

Sotheby’s announced that a Francis Bacon ‘screaming pope’ painting from 1954 will be sold at auction on Nov. 13th in New York. The work has been in a private collection for almost 40 years and the presale estimate is nearly 200 times what the owner paid, at $18-25 million. (more…)

Auction houses have reported new consignments for November sales. Two collectors, Steven A. Cohen and Douglas S. Cramer, will be consigning works for the November 14 auctions at Christies. Sotheby’s announced “a seminal group of masterworks that provide a panoramic view of Abstract Expressionism” for its November 13th sale, including Mark Rothko‘s No. 1 (Royal Red and Blue) from 1954 and a 1951 Jackson Pollock drip painting .

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