Woe to the Stevie’s. Who knew that an errant elbow would send a colossal art deal into the crapper?
Looked to me like a fight for bragging rights. Two of the biggest “Look at me! I can spend obscene amounts of money on art!” collectors—hotelier Steve Wynn and hedge funder Steven Cohen—appeared ready to best Ronald […]
He was rejected from art school. He declared some of this century’s most important artists “degenerate.” Oh, and….he was the architect of one of the most heinous campaigns of ethnic genocide in world history. So of course a collection of Adolph Hitler’s watercolors should sell for nearly a quarter-million dollars, right?
Last week in the […]
We all dream of it: finding a sweet little treasure at a flea market or tag sale, only to discover that its monetary value is far beyond what we paid.
Lightning struck two days in a row last week, at Bonhams in London. First, a pair of collectors scored a coup with a diminutive piece […]
My jaw is still dragging on the floor from when Andreas Gursky’s supersized, 1999 photograph of bargain-store shelves sold for $2.2 million at Sotheby’s this May. Why would anyone nearly quadruple his record price ($611,000) from only four years ago? Call me a fuddy duddy, but I’m thinking that the dust of art history hasn’t […]
Is it an ethereal 14th-century masterpiece or a clumsy 19th-century fake? Pull up a ringside seat, folks. They’re duking it out over a Duccio.
Art world Cassandra James Beck was back up on his bully pulpit this week. As you might remember, the Columbia University professor gained notoriety a few years back as the most vociferous […]
At a time when the realm of antiquities is in need of some good news… Aphrodite finally regains her head after at least fifty years.
About three months ago, a headless marble figure of Aphrodite was consigned to Sotheby’s Antiquities sale by Mrs. Lawrence Copley Thaw Sr. of New York City. The figure, which is […]
Move over, Picasso.
The New York Times reported this morning that Gustave Klimt’s 1907 portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, wife of a Jewish sugar industrialist, Viennese art circle hostess extraordinaire and possible lover of Klimt, has sold privately for $135 million, becoming the highest price ever paid for a painting. The record was previously held by […]
Shannon’s
William Trost Richards, Mountain Lake, 1861
estimate: $60,000–$80,000
realized: $215,000
“You can have anything you find in there, dear,” said the woman’s mother as the younger woman sifted through her closet. The daughter pulled out a picture, mounted in a crappy frame, and brought it to Shannon’s in Greenwich, Conn. Although it appeared to be unsigned, auctioneer Gene […]
NEW YORK - The blockbuster art deal reportedly went down at the racetrack in Mumbai late last summer. Holding the checkbook: Guru Swarup Srivastava, a millionaire iron-ore exporter who admitted to knowing nothing about art, except that he was drawn to its potential for a “quick investment return.” Making the pitch: India’s renowned artist-filmmaker Maqbool […]
