All posts tagged: Sothebys

Storied Collection of Museu de Arte Moderna’s Founder Heads to Auction

Storied Collection of Museu de Arte Moderna’s Founder Heads to Auction

Published by skeptic

On April 10, Sotheby’s Paris will hold a sale dedicated to Niomar Moniz Sodré Bittencourt, a Brazilian businesswoman and journalist and the founder of Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) in Rio de Janeiro. Bittencourt, who died in 2003, was a prodigious collector of mid-century Modernist masterpieces, including works by Alberto Giacometti, Pablo Picasso, and Max Ernst, as well as leading Brazilian artists of the era including Almir Da Silva Mavignier and Franz Krajcberg. For those unfamiliar with Bittencourt, that may soon change. Later this year, according to Sotheby’s, a biography by author Ricardo Cota will be released. Titled A Mulher que Enfrentou o Brasil (The Woman Who Faced Brazil), the book will tell how Bittencourt both shaped Brazil’s modern art scene and courageously defied the Brazilian military dictatorship of the ’60s and ’70s. Related Articles In the 1940s, while Brazil’s cultural establishment remained skeptical of modernism, Bittencourt founded the MAM with little funding and against stiff resistance. Through sheer force of will, she was able to secure support from artists and patrons across the globe, …

M. F. Husain Work Sells for .8 M. at Christie’s, Setting a Record

M. F. Husain Work Sells for $13.8 M. at Christie’s, Setting a Record

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M. F. Husain’s Untitled (Gram Yatra) sold at Christie’s for $13.8 million in New York, making it the most expensive work of modern Indian art ever publicly auctioned. That amount, which includes fees, shattered the auction house’s estimate of $2.5 million–$3.5 million and was more than four times the artist’s previous record of $3.1 million, which was set by his painting Untitled (Reincarnation) last September at Sotheby’s in London. The previous record for a modern Indian work was $7.4 million, for Amrita Sher-Gil’s The Story Teller (1937), which sold in September 2023 in Mumbai. (S. H. Raza’s 1959 painting Kallisté, which sold last March at Sotheby’s for $5.6 million, was given an estimate of $2 million–$3 million—the highest price ever put on a modern Indian artwork at auction, a spokesperson for that house said.) Related Articles The Husain record was mintedduring Christie’s sale for South Asian modern and contemporary art, a category which continues to garner momentum despite a fragmented art market. The 1954 painting, which is nearly 14 feet long, was a consignment 13 …

Could Talks Between Sotheby’s and Pace Gallery Signal a New Era for the Art Market?

Could Talks Between Sotheby’s and Pace Gallery Signal a New Era for the Art Market?

Published by skeptic

Sotheby’s and Pace Gallery are currently negotiating over a deal that would see the auction house make a significant investment in the mega-gallery. While nothing has been inked yet, and the details appear to be very much in flux, a source close to the negotiations told ARTnews that it was not an acquisition, but a “joint venture between Pace and Sotheby’s that will be multifaceted and has many elements. Let’s call it a ‘new model.’” The news, while potentially momentous, is not entirely unexpected for those in the industry. Rumors have swirled for weeks that Pace has been in talks with Sotheby’s about either a major investment, a merger, or even an outright acquisition.  Related Articles Such a deal would come at a time when the art market is sluggish. Throughout last year art dealers have spoken about tough market conditions and a shaky financial climate. Pace has a large overhead, sources said. In addition to branches around the world, the gallery has an eight-story, 75,000 square foot headquarters on 25th Street in Chelsea. Opened …

2024 Contemporary Art Market Had More Transactions But Fewer M+ Lots

2024 Contemporary Art Market Had More Transactions But Fewer $1M+ Lots

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In the 2023–24 financial year, as global art sales returned to pre-pandemic levels, there were fewer auction records but far more lower-priced transactions, according to a new report. Additionally, that report said, there were far fewer works available in a category known as Ultra-Contemporary, which refers to art of the past couple decades, much of it by young artists. Even Trump’s implemented new tariffs this year, buyers were already becoming more sensitive about pricing and more selective about purchasing. This resulted in slower activity, according to the latest report on the global contemporary art market by the database Artprice. Related Articles “Spending has been particularly reduced in Hong Kong, where activity, which has rivaled that of New York for several years, is experiencing a sharp contraction,” the report states. “Artists under 40 are therefore currently more difficult to sell than their elders.” Artprice‘s report states that the art market’s worldwide earnings in 2024 totaled $1.89 billion. There were 132,000 successful transactions, with a sell-through rate of 65 percent. The contemporary art category rose to account …

Christie’s Midseason Doubleheader Nets Strong Result of 7.8 M.

Christie’s Midseason Doubleheader Nets Strong Result of $167.8 M.

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At times, it can feel like auction house specialists are part of a cult whose mantra is, ““High-quality, well-priced, fresh-to-market artworks will always sell.” On Wednesday, in London, Christie’s Tessa Lord was the latest to adopt the cliché after the auction house’s 20th/21st Century evening sale generated a respectable £82.1 million, on a high estimate of £93 million. Immediately following, Christie’s held its annual “The Art of the Surreal” sale, which smashed the high estimate of £38.98 million, generating over £48 million. That brought the night’s total to £130.1 million Related Articles “One of the defining characteristics of [mid-season auctions] is that collectors will always respond well to fresh-to-the-market material that is well priced and high quality,” Lord, the house’s head of post-war and contemporary art in London, told ARTnews. In this case, Lord’s assessment was appropriate. 61 percent of the sale’s 51 lots had never been sold at auction before. (At Sotheby’s equivalent sale Tuesday, over half of the lots also had never hit the block before.) 94 percent of works sold by lot, …

National Endowment for the Arts Scraps Challenge America Grant Program

National Endowment for the Arts Scraps Challenge America Grant Program

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To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. The Headlines NEA NIXES GRANT. In the latest anti-DEI news, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) has cancelled its Challenge America arts grant program for 2026, reports Hyperallergic. The 2001-founded program awards $10,000 for arts initiatives targeting “underserved communities,” including those with limited access to mental health services. New requirements for the grant also recently stated that recipients must certify they will not use the money to “promote gender ideology.” The cancelation “sends a message to corporate donors that they should reconsider their grant-making,” observed Robert Kesten, executive director of Stonewall National Museum, Archives, and Library. He added that most of the museum’s corporate donors have “vanished” since the new Trump policies. “That has been the biggest surprise, just how fast corporate and foundation America has closed its doors and is reducing the size and scope of the public conversation on important issues,” he added. UNCLEAR FUTURE FOR FEARLESS GIRL. In a related story, Artnet News reports that the “fate” of the Fearless Girl sculpture …

Saunders Collection of Old Masters Poised for Landmark Sale at Sotheby’s

Saunders Collection of Old Masters Poised for Landmark Sale at Sotheby’s

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This May, Sotheby’s New York will hold an auction for a collection of Old Master paintings, assembled over decades by Jordan and Thomas A. Saunders III. Estimated between $80 million and $120 million, the sale could set a new benchmark for Old Masters auctions. The collection, consisting of 60 paintings spanning the 16th to early 19th centuries, includes works from across Europe, ranging from German Renaissance pieces to Dutch, Flemish, Italian, Spanish, and French masterpieces. Among the highlights are exceptional still-life paintings by Jan Davidsz. De Heem and Luis Meléndez, portraiture by Sir Thomas Lawrence and Frans Hals, and a landscape by Francesco Guardi. Related Articles The Saunders began collecting Old Masters works in the late 1990s, guided by George Wachter, Sotheby’s chairman and co-worldwide head of Old Master paintings. The couple approached their acquisitions with decisiveness, Wachter told ARTnews, often flying around the world to acquire a picture and frequently altering travel plans to seize fleeting opportunities. Parts of the collection have been exhibited in top institutions like the Art institute of Chicago, National Gallery of …

Sotheby’s to Open Fine Dining Restaurant in New Headquarters

Sotheby’s to Open Fine Dining Restaurant in New Headquarters

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Roman and Williams, the design studio and hospitality group behind Soho’s La Mercerie, will partner with auction house Sotheby’s to open a yet-to-be-named fine dining restaurant in the Breuer Building. In 2023, Sotheby’s announced it would make the storied Brutalist building at 945 Madison Avenue its new headquarters. The building, once the long-time home of the Whitney Museum of American Art, was officially sold to Sotheby’s for $100 million late last year, shortly after the house closed a $1 billion investment deal with the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund ADQ. Related Articles La Mercerie, with its open kitchen, elegant design, and impeccable French menu has become a Soho staple since it opened in 2018. In 2023, the restaurant was listed on the New York Times Best 100 Restaurants list and, last year, it was one of seven restaurants listed as the “Best Restaurants to See and Be Seen in New York City” by the Michelin Guide. The new restaurant will likely occupy the space formerly held by Estela and Café Altro Paradiso mastermind Ignacio Mattos’s Flora Bar inside the Met Breuer museum. (Both the …

Christie’s and Sotheby’s Try to Wrangle the Leonard Riggio Estate

Christie’s and Sotheby’s Try to Wrangle the Leonard Riggio Estate

Published by skeptic

The secondary market today is driven by two things: quality and prestige. Often those two things are tied together; after all, the most well respected collectors are usually those with the best collections. When such marquee collectors die, it’s inevitable that Christie’s and Sotheby’s try to outmanuever each other for the estates’ business, as seems to be the case right now over the collection of Barnes and Noble co-founder and former ARTnews Top 200 collector Leonard Riggio, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the negotiations. Riggio, who passed away in August 2024, was a profound collector of the Minimalists and a driving force behind the establishment of Dia:Beacon in Upstate New York. It’s almost impossible to avoid mentioning that among the treasures Riggio kept at his Bridgehampton home was Richard Serra’s 300-ton steel sculpture Sidewinder (1999), which was visible from space thanks to Google Earth satellites.  Related Articles Among the more than 20 sculptures that graced the lawn of Riggio’s Hamptons estate were Willem de Kooning’s bronze sculpture Seated Woman (1969–81), Mark di Suvero’s Caramba (1984–90), Black Standing Nana (1993-1994) by Niki de Saint …

Architect Paul Rudolph’s Walker Guesthouse For Sale for M.

Architect Paul Rudolph’s Walker Guesthouse For Sale for $2M.

Published by skeptic

The Walker Guesthouse, a mid-century structure designed by architect Paul Rudolph, is now on the market for a cool $2 million, if the right buyer has the space for it. Brown Harris Stevens has listed the one-bedroom, one-bathroom modernist structure, describing the guesthouse as “a monumental work of radical design and masterful skill,” “one of the most important architectural designs of the twentieth century (by one of its most influential architects),” and a “ground-breaking work of art.” The 24-foot cube was built in 1952 on Sanibel Island, Florida. The lightweight pavilion is made of wood, steel, and glass. Its iconic feature consisted of a rigging system of pulleys and seven red counterweights. These controlled a dozen giant shutters and gave the home an adjustable, multifunctional exterior. Related Articles The Walker Guesthouse was commissioned by Walter W. Walker, the grandson of the Minnesota lumber baron T.B. Walker and the art collector who established the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The home stayed within the Walker family until 2019, when it sold in a Sotheby’s design auction …