Author Archives: Kelly Devine Thomas

There was good news all around at the Impressionist and modern art evening sales held at Christie’s and Sotheby’s May 2-3.
A 1941 painting, Dora Maar au chat, by Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), fetched an astounding $95.2 million at Sotheby’s, nearly twice its low estimate of $50 million and the second-
highest price ever achieved for an artwork at auction. Sotheby’s May 3 evening sale brought in a celebratory $207.5 million, exceeding Christie’s impressive $180.2 million total the night before. Read More

Thomas Krens, director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, recently held discussions about opening Guggenheim museums in Abu Dhabi and Moscow, ARTnewsletter has learned. According to an informed source, Abu Dhabi representatives have made a $2 million deposit to the foundation in connection with their talks. Read More

With a survey of Robert Rauschenberg’s revolutionary “combines”—the term he gave to his hybrid paintings and sculptures—on view at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (through April 2), the art world has been reiterating the Jasper Johns observation that Rauschenberg is the artist who has invented the most since Pablo Picasso. Read More

Curators Judith Goldman and Trevor Fairbrother have been appointed to the Andy Warhol Authentication Board, New York. The board has come under fire in recent years for the rejection of works its members believe were not directly made or supervised by Warhol. Read More

Christie’s and Sotheby’s presented strong Impressionist and modern evening sales on Nov. 1-2, bringing in nearly $300 million combined and selling 110, or 89 percent, of the 123 works on offer.
Christie’s rang up a mid-estimate $160.9 million—its highest sale total since the market peak of the late 1980s—with 58, or 92 percent, of 63 lots selling. Sotheby’s brought in $130 million, outperforming its high estimate of $125 million and selling 52, or 86.7 percent, of 60 lots on offer. Read More

Last May Marion True, former antiquities curator at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, was charged with conspiring to purchase illegally excavated antiquities (see ANL, 10/11/05). In the wake of her indictment, Italian investigators are seeking to locate additional art objects, believed to be stolen, that are now owned by the Getty, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and other U.S. museums. Read More

Marion True, Ph.D., curator of antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, who is being prosecuted in Italy for allegedly conspiring to purchase illegally excavated antiquities, has resigned (see ANL, 8/30/05). The museum reportedly has agreed to return three of the contested objects to Italy. Read More

ARTnewsletter has learned that hedge-fund billionaire Steven A. Cohen paid about $120 million for two works owned by Las Vegas hotel and casino mogul Stephen A. Wynn, according to informed sources. Cohen’s purchase of the two paintings—Vincent van Gogh’s Peasant Woman Against a Background of Wheat, 1890, and Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian painting Bathers, 1902—took place in late August or early September, sources say. None of the parties involved in the transaction would comment on the sale. Read More