16th Century Portfolio Sets Islamic Art Auction Record

"The sale price, which includes buyer's premium, eclipsed the previous Islamic art auction record set at rival auction house Christie's last year, when a 17th century Kirman "vase" carpet from Persia fetched 6.2 million pounds. ..." [Read Full Article]

Published By: Los Angeles Times
On: 04/06/11
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

 

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The Art of Bubbles: How Sotheby's Predicts the World Economy

"In fact, tracking auction records and auction house stock is one of the best ways to smell out a simmering economic crisis. "As one of the world's leading art auction houses, Sotheby's has been a beneficiary of booms in the art market," he writes in ... [Read Full Article]
Published By: The Atlantic
On: 04/05/11
Website: http://www.theatlantic.com/

 

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Auction Houses In Duel Under The Sun

"Eighteen million dollars (£11.2 million) of art and jewellery goes up for auction in Dubai this month as Bonhams and Christie's go head to head in a duel under the sun. By Colin Gleadell 12:09PM BST 05 Apr 2011 But the strategies and contents of the ..." [Read Full Article]

Published By: Telegraph.co.uk
On: 04/05/11
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

 

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Huntington to Receive $100M Bequest

$100 million-plus for Huntington will be largest cash gift in institution's history



The suspense is over. Now that the late Frances Brody’s other heirs have received their shares of her fortune, the Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens has a much clearer idea of its own windfall from the L.A. art patron’s estate: a gift expected to easily exceed $100 million.

This represents by far the largest cash gift in the history of the Huntington, which was previously $21 million from Charles and Nancy Munger in 2002. It could even surpass the original endowment created when railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington died in 1927, which is roughly $107 million if adjusted for inflation.

“A number of museums have received significant gifts when you value the art and cash donations together,” says Steven S. Koblik, president of the Huntington. “But as a pure cash gift, this has very few equivalents -- except for the founding gifts that create institutions.”

Tim Seiler, one of the directors at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, agrees. "It's an extraordinary gift, especially for the cultural sector. A $100 million gift more typically goes to a school or university, and it's often a naming gift."

The few comparables tend to come from New York. In 2005, David Rockefeller made a $100-million pledge to the Museum of Modern Art, which ranks as its largest-ever cash gift. In 2008, Leonard Lauder's art foundation gave $131 million to the Whitney Museum of American Art, also its largest.

Brody died in November 2009 at age 93, leaving behind a wealth of artwork — including Giacometti bronzes and Matisse paintings — that she had acquired with her husband, Sidney, a real-estate developer who had died more than two decades earlier. The value of this art directly affected the size of her gift to the Huntington, where she was a board member for 20 years.

This October, the institution received $15 million in cash intended by Brody to improve the botanical gardens, one of her most passionate concerns as a board member. That amount, Koblik says, was specified in her trust instrument and was not in doubt.

The mystery, rather, was how much money the Huntington would receive for also being named the estate’s sole “residual beneficiary” — the heir who is paid after all others should the estate have extra money left over. That’s when the art figured in. When the art world witnessed Christie's sell several of Brody’s masterpieces in May, led by Picasso’s “Nude, Green Leaves and Bust” for $106.5 million (which set a record as the most expensive work of art ever sold at auction), Koblik was watching with particular interest.

“It was an amazing moment,” he says. “When the Christie’s sale of the artwork proved so successful, we knew that would change the nature of our gift.” In effect, the auction created a surplus of $80 million after the other estate payouts, an amount that hit the Huntington’s bank account last week.

Brody estate trustee Robert Shuwarger says the Huntington’s final gift will consist of proceeds from selling the remaining property, including Brody’s A. Quincy Jones house in Holmby Hills. The listing price of the house, which has been on the market since May, has dropped from $24.95 million to $21 million.

“There’s also some miscellaneous property — some silver, porcelain, antiquities, things of that nature — that will be going up for sale at Christie’s,” Shuwarger says. He anticipates that most of those sales will be completed within six months.

Per Brody’s wishes, the full Huntington gift will benefit the botanical gardens, which cover 120 acres of the vast property in San Marino. According to James Folsom, director of the gardens, high-priority projects include “improving and modernizing” a water irrigation system that dates to the early 20th century and creating a “potager” or kitchen garden to complement the existing herb garden. Folsom says that these were pet projects of Brody, who loved her garden at home and, though known for her high style, was not too glamorous to get into a truck with him to drive around and shop for plants at nurseries.

Koblik adds that using the Brody money for botanical purposes frees up existing funds to address other needs, like “making staff salaries more competitive.” This does not, however, mean “quick raises,” he adds, noting the importance of resisting the natural urge “to get overexcited and spend money quickly to do everything we haven’t been able to do.”

Rather, he plans to treat the windfall “like an endowment,” to be invested in a diversified portfolio. (The Huntington’s actual endowment is about $240 million.) The plan is to spend only 5% of the value of the Brody funds over a three-year running average.

And, yes, Koblik says, this legacy-building gift more than compensates for not receiving Brody’s now-famous Picasso. “Right from the beginning of our relationship, Francie said to me, 'You’re not getting the art.' It took the discussion off the table,” he says.

“It was clear to all of us who spent time with Francie that she wanted to make a fiscal difference at the Huntington — she understood the power of this kind of gift.”

-- Jori Finkel

Photo: Frances' Brody's home, which was designed in 1950 by A. Quincy Jones. Credit: Kate Carr Photography

This article is from: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturemonster/2010/11/huntington-gift-from-frances-brody-estate-to-exceed-100-million-making-it-largest-ever-in-institutio.html

A Billion Dollars Of Art

Gold Rush for Art of the Recent Past

By SOUREN MELIKIAN

NEW YORK — Auction house executives can celebrate now that this week’s contemporary art sales are over. And buyers? That’s a trickier question.

Together, Phillips, de Pury & Company, Sotheby’s and Christie’s took in almost $750 million. World records were set everywhere. Nine for lesser known artists at Phillips, de Pury, where the $137 million it posted on Monday was the highest in its history in any field. Five at Sotheby’s on Tuesday, also for lesser known painters. Among these, Julie Mehretu, born in 1970, led with “The Seven Acts of Mercy,” which went for $2.32 million, twice her previous record.

And on Wednesday, Christie’s achieved the most significant record when Roy Lichtenstein’s 1964 “Ohhh... Alright...” soared to $42.64 million. It was followed by Alexander Calder’s $6.35 million “Red Curlicue,” a monumental stabile made in 1973 from sheet metal painted bright red.

But records fail to convey the unwavering interest in contemporary art displayed throughout the week by larger numbers of bidders than ever before.

Several prices defied imagination. Who could have predicted the $63.36 million realized on Monday at Phillips, de Pury by Andy Warhol’s “Men in Her Life?” Done in silk-screen technique, in pencil and ink, the dark black and white picture endlessly repeats a photographic image published in Life magazine in 1963. Color used to be essential for Pop Art to go through the roof; no longer.

The prices paid for prankish works by a more recent generation were no less remarkable.

The Monday sale was only in its fourth lot when a heap of candies credited to Felix Gonzalez-Torres fetched $4.56 million. True, the title of the work was not “A Heap of Candies.” It read more imaginatively “Untitled (Portrait of Marcel Brient).” The small print specified the “Ideal weight: 198 lbs (90 kg)” and recorded the date, 1992, when this work of art was executed. Most importantly, the experts noted that the candies selected by Gonzales-Torres are accompanied by a “Certificate of Authenticity.” It would thus be pointless for forgers to nip around to their local confectionery. Without the certificate, they would just have candies for sale, not art.

Issues of conservation and durability did not seem to be a consideration.

These issues are acute for the two 40-watt light bulbs also sold as a work of art by Gonzalez-Torres. Cryptically titled “Untitled (March 5th) #2,” the bulbs were assembled in 1991 as part of an edition of 20, plus two artist’s proofs. A certificate of authenticity accompanied the two bulbs. What happens when they burn out is uncertain. Current European Union regulations ban the use of tungsten bulbs. That troubling thought did not weigh heavily on the minds of bidders who pushed the work of art with a limited life span to $506,500.

The question of just how you define an original was not raised either. Works manufactured on artists’ specifications in editions of several specimens did brilliantly, even though they are repeatable.

Takashi Murakami’s “Miss ko2” was one of them. The Disney-movie-style synthetic resin fiberglass figure of a blonde waitress was “executed in 1997” in an edition of three plus one artist’s proof. But how long can the fragile materials painted in acrylic on an iron armature withstand the passage of time?

If bidders felt qualms about the soundness of such an investment, the appearances of other figures from the same edition in leading museums — the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and currently the Château de Versailles — must have reassured them. “Miss ko2” charmed her way up to $6.8 million, a world record for Murakami.

With its tongue-in-cheek humor recent contemporary art earned millions. But the bigger winners this week were New York school artists, represented by works from the early 1960s. Prolonged acclaim in the media and the museums is perceived as an insurance policy by buyers. Warhol had an encore Tuesday at Sotheby’s with “Coca Cola.” Bought at Christie’s in 1983 for a miserly $143,000, this time it went for $35.36 million.

The stars of Pop Art were greeted with an admiration reserved in earlier days for major Old Masters or Impressionists. Comic-strip style paintings by Roy Lichtenstein and his ilk had their ups and downs even in the heady months preceding the 2008 autumn financial crisis. But on Tuesday, Lichtenstein’s 1962 “Ice Cream Soda” sold for a mind-boggling $14 million. Rauschenberg’s “Exile” brought $8.03 million. Both vastly exceeded expectations.

Experts had not worked into their calculations this new interest in a period of art history, irrespective of the art itself. It has changed the game.

Even small works on a flimsy support are now eagerly sought when graced with the aura of the early 1960s. A study by John Chamberlain in painted tin, paper and fabric pasted on board brought $722,500, triple the high estimate. Warhol had acquired it from Chamberlain around 1962, further enhancing its value as an icon of art history.

Just how high contemporary art blessed with the seal of cultural history has risen may be measured by Arshile Gorky’s “Housatonic,” sold in Sotheby’s Tuesday session for $3.66 million. The drawing in ink and crayon dated 1943 was not seen as a particularly important work when it sold in 1974 for $55,000 at Sotheby Parke Bernet as part of Norton Simon’s collection of Impressionist and Modern art.

Christie’s Wednesday auction hugely amplified the trends that had emerged at Phillips, de Pury and were confirmed on a larger scale at Sotheby’s.

The works produced in the 1960s by the Fun Art movement, as it should be called, led the band. Historic Pop Art was lionized. Even more tellingly than the record-breaking Lichtenstein, the irrepressible wave of enthusiasm that drove most of the Warhols well past the high estimate was unprecedented.

Large size, a prerequisite for huge success in previous years, was no longer required. “Brillo Box (3 cents off),” a three-dimensional piece only 40 centimeters, or 16 inches, high, tripled the high estimate as it ended up at $3.05 million. At a Christie’s New York sale in November 1995 it had been bought for $43,500 by the late Robert Shapazian, whose collection was being dispersed this week by Christie’s.

Warhol’s picture “Campbell’s Soup Can (Tomato),” 40 by 50 centimeters, matched its low estimate at $9.04 million. The price of the 1962 picture will be deemed moderate only by those too young to remember the $16,500 that it went for at Christie’s in November 1981.

Hopes of such long-term profits played a part in the steep prices that were achieved on Wednesday by the more recent generation of Fun School artists.

“Balloon Flower (Blue),” a monumental imitation of a bunch of inflatable balloons was made in stainless-steel with transparent color coating between 1995 and 2000 according to the instructions of Jeff Koons. So were four others in different colors. A bidder who may have a special fondness for fun in a blue guise footed the $16.88 million bill.

The French say that the best jokes are those that are the shortest. Auctioneers must be secretly praying that there are exceptions.