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A raw, twisted steel 1958 John Chamberlain sculpture, Nutcracker, sold for $4.8 million last night at Sotheby’s in New York. The price achieved an auction record for the artist, selling to a Gagosian Gallery representative who paid more than double the presale $1.8 million high estimate. Gagosian recently signed on the 84-year-old artist, following a two-decade partnership with Pace Gallery.

Nutcracker was the most coveted artwork on offer in a single-owner sale from the estate of Upper East Side dealer Allan Stone, who died in 2006 at the age of 74. The sale included 42 lots totaling $54.8 million, topping the $46.8 million high estimate. The lure of estate material and low estimates resulted in a healthy 93 percent of lots finding buyers.

While results were steady, the mixed quality of works on offer was more suited to a day sale than an evening sale. Nevertheless, Sotheby’s gave the Stone estate the royal auction treatment, having snatched the business away from Christie’s, where a first round of works were sold in 2007.

Stone was a compulsive buyer who…

Maurice de Vlaminck "Paysage de banlieue" sold for $22.5 million to Acquavella Galleries.

Link to read on AiA website here.

An appearance by Leonardo DiCaprio brought frisson to Christie’s staid Impressionist and Modern art auction last night. Poorly disguised under obligatory blue baseball cap and puffy black parka, DiCaprio was the evening’s hottest accessory, appearing as a sidekick of New York dealer Helly Nahmad.

The May 4 auction totaled $156 million, missing the presale projected range of $162 million to $231 million. The final tally was less than half of the $335.5 million raised a year ago on the strength of material consigned by the estate of collector Frances Brody. Without any marquee estate property this season, both Sotheby’s and Christie’s offered a grab bag of artworks, wildly ranging in quality. Sotheby’s May 3 sale bested Christie’s, fetching $170.5 million.

“There is a whiff of uncertainty left over from the past couple of years,” said dealer Andrea Crane of Gagosian Gallery. “We are looking at sales that were cobbled together. Collectors are still sitting back and determining whether this is the right time to sell.” Other market professionals agreed that shaky economic conditions kept trophies off the block. “The world is…

Picasso's "Femmes Lisant" sold at Sotheby's for $21.4M

New York’s two-week spring auction blitz got off to a lackluster start last night at Sotheby’s, as a quarter of the artworks on offer during the Impressionist and Modern art sale failed to find buyers. The sale pulled in $170.5 million, towards the low end of a $159 million to $230 million pre-sale estimate. “This was not a memorable group of artworks,” said advisor Linda Silverman. “But given the lack of quality, they did O.K.”

Surrealist works sold well, but buyers generally rejected aggressive estimates, even for artists like Picasso and Gauguin.

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The Tyler School of Art Summer Painting Intensive / Summer Sculpture Intensive (SPI/SSI) is a 7-week (June 13–July 29) immersion program for artists interested in developing their work in a challenging and supportive environment.

The SPI / SSI program is a non-credit, post-baccalaureate-style residency program suitable for BA and BFA seniors and recent graduates aiming to hone their artistic and intellectual skills, students building a portfolio for application to graduate school and professional artists seeking to strengthen their abilities and expand their outlook.

Tyler School’s SPI / SSI program seeks to give participants a foundation in concept and craft while providing students with the tools to think critically about their own practices and art in general. Week by week, group critiques, individual studio visits and critical studies seminars form the primary support to individual studio practices. Students will discuss their work in group settings and in one-on-one conversations with leading members of the contemporary art world.

The program combines intensive studio time with field and critical studies. Each student accepted to the program is given a private studio space and access to Tyler’s new fine arts building. The program also…

Andy Warhol "Mao portfolio" sold for $938,500 at Phillips de Pury & Co.

A new evening print sale held yesterday at Phillips de Pury’s swank uptown branch totaled $3.6 million, focusing on modern and contemporary works by blue chip names. Seventy-six percent of lots found buyers.

The sale’s top lot was a 1972 portfolio of ten screenprints of Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong, co-published by Leo Castelli and Multiples. The set was estimated to sell for over $600,000 and made $938, 500. The seller was an unnamed Denver based collector.

Other strong sellers included Bruce Nauman’s 1985 neon Double Poke in the Eye II, from an edition of 40, initially produced as a benefit for the New Museum. Estimated to sell for over $200,000, the Nauman brought $290,500. Ellen Gallagher’s 2002 Bouffant Pride, estimated to sell for above $20,000, sold for $32,500.

An abstract, Japanese inspired black and white 1971 Willem de Kooning lithograph, Untitled (Bather I) given by the artist to a favorite waitress at an East Hampton luncheonette, sold for $17,500, topping the $15,000 estimate. The piece was signed “To Concetta with Love.”

Earlier this week I took part in a panel discussion hosted by Christie’s on the future of art journalism, along with Eric Gibson, the WSJ‘s leisure and arts editor, and Dennis Scholl, a Miami-based collector and a vice president of the Knight Foundation.

Columbia Journalism School’s digital guru, Sree Sreenivasan kept us in line as moderator.

Scholl provided a lift  by breaking news the Knight Foundation is launching a series of grant programs for art journalism in certain regional markets where coverage has dwindled.

Other topics included the merits and shortcomings of Twitter and social media, as well as the rising popularity of news over art criticism.

A link to a video of the conversation can be found here.

Edith Halpert and some of her artists featured in Life magazine in 1952

The Terra Foundation for American Art recently donated $3.1 million to the Archives of American Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution.

Fund are slated to support digitization of the archive’s collections over the next five years. The gift also supports a new full-time position to develop educational initiatives with the collections.

The archives have so far digitized about ten percent of its holdings. The inevitable plug: I depended on the archives’ records while researching and writing Edith Halpert’s biography, The Girl with the Gallery, based on the archives’ Downtown Gallery records.

The last in a three-part series of (free) panels I’ve been moderating for the Association of Professional Art Advisors takes place Thursday, April 14 at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney from 6-8 p.m. (Cocktails included!)

We will be focusing on several of the BRIC countries, assessing commonalities and differences in these rapidly growing regions.

Esteemed panelists include:

Haro Cambusyan, Turkish video art collector

Henry Howard-Sneyd, Sotheby’s Vice Chairman of Asian Art

Sandhini Poddar, Guggenheim Assistant Curator of Asian Art

Ana Sokoloff, Latin American art advisor

RSVP: Association of Professional Art Advisors 718-788-1425 or info@artadvisors.org.

Morgan Stanley is located at 1585 Broadway, 41st floor

We would like to take a minute to thank all of our sponsors for supporting our coverage of the art world.

• Collectrium provides an application that helps users identify art works out in the world. Just snap an image of a piece and Collectrium will provide instant information about the artwork, the artist and the gallery. You can add your own notes, mark as a favorite or share it with friends.

• Dia Art Foundation will be presenting Robert Whitman’s Passport, with simultaneous performances at Riverfront Park in Beacon, NY and Alexander Kasser Theater in Montclair, NJ on Saturday, April 16 and Sunday, April 17 at 8 pm.

• NYU Steinhardt opens Part I one of their 2011 MFA Thesis Exhibition on March 29, with an opening reception from 6 to 8 pm. The initial show features David J. Merritt, Carlos Reyes, Ben Schumacher and Jo-ey Tang. Part II opens April 26.

• Tyler School of Art at Temple University hosts Summer intensive painting and sculpture courses, 7-week immersion programs for artists interested in developing their work in a challenging and

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Damien Hirst Fendi handbag

Auctioneer Christie’s, dealer Alberto Mugrabi and Fendi have teamed up to sell a batch of handbags for a good cause. The bags by big-name artists include the handiwork of Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and Tom Sachs.

The artistically modified one-of-a-kind Fendi bags are being sold online as part of Christie’s annual Bid to Save the Earth charity auction. Damien Hirst’s two bags are swaddled in swirls and dots. The dot version has already received five bids up to $5,600.

Tom Sachs has taken a less reverential approach, torching his white leather satchel to oblivion. Enoc Perez applied  hot pink tropical motifs, while Richard Prince scrawled one of his signature psychiatrist jokes across the back of an otherwise pristine white bag.

These items, plus other fashionable lots, are up for grabs on the Charity Buzz website until April 7.

Tonight Christie’s and Runway to Green’s Bid to Save the Earth event takes place in New York City, hosted by Francois-Henri Pinault – son of Christie’s owner Francois Pinault – with wife actress Salma Hayek, David and Susan Rockefeller and others.

Sale proceeds benefit environmental organizations including Oceana,…