Roy Lichtenstein's record busting "Ohhh...Alright..." fetched $42.6M at Christie's from seller Steve Wynn

Bloomberg story here.

Roy Lichtenstein’s 1964 painting of a pouting redhead sold for an artist record $42.6 million last night at Christie’s International in New York, as buyers stuck with 1960s pop art to sustain a market recovery.

Lichtenstein’s Ohhh…Alright… soared past his previous auction peak of $16.3 million, to help the closely held auctioneer reach $272.9 million in sales for the evening, its biggest total in the category since May 2008 and nearly four times last year’s result. The tally brings the sum for the three-night autumn series of postwar art auctions, including sales by rivals Phillips de Pury & Co. and Sotheby’s, to $632 million, almost triple the $216 million a year ago.

“The patient has made a full recovery,” said New York art adviser Stefano Basilico. “Not that we are back to 2007, to those crazy levels but we are back to healthy, good shape.”

The two-hour, 75-lot sale left collectors complaining about the long evening, but that didn’t hurt results as 93 percent of lots found buyers. Auction records tumbled for six artists, including abstract painter Mark Grotjahn,…

Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle at Sotheby's press preview. © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

Bloomberg story here.

Andy Warhol’s painting of a Coca- Cola bottle sold for $35.4 million at Sotheby’s yesterday, making the artist the star of New York’s contemporary art auctions for two nights running as the market recovers slowly from a slump.

While eight bidders vied for the 7-foot-tall Warhol, they failed to reproduce the drama at rival Phillips de Pury & Co. a day earlier, when another 1962 Warhol, of actress Elizabeth Taylor, sold for $63 million.

“It was not frothy,” said dealer Harry Blain after the $222.5 million sale, the largest in the category since May 2008. “It was good, solid, considered buying, nothing outlandish.”

Author James Frey, fashion designer Valentino Garavani and Michael Dell’s money manager, Glenn Fuhrman, were at the front of the saleroom as 91 percent of the 54 lots found buyers. Five artist auction records were set, including Julie Mehretu and Larry Rivers, helping the total rise just above the $214.5 million presale high estimate, which does not include commissions.

A year ago, Sotheby’s contemporary sale tallied $134 million. “It was incredibly strong considering that we are…

Andy Warhol's 1962 "Men in Her Life" sold at Phillips de Pury for $63M. Photo: Courtesy Phillips

Link to Bloomberg story here.

Andy Warhol’s blotchy 1962 black-and- white painting of serially married movie star Elizabeth Taylor sold for $63.4 million last night at Phillips de Pury & Co. in New York, the second-highest price for the artist at auction.

Warhol’s Men in Her Life helped the Russian-backed auction house record its highest total, $137 million, as 52 of the 59 lots offered found buyers. Nine artists achieved auction records including Cindy Sherman, Felix Gonzalez-Torres and Rudolf Stingel.

The seven-foot-tall Warhol, based on a photo from Life magazine depicting a demure Taylor with third husband Mike Todd and future husband Eddie Fisher, had been estimated to sell for around $40 million, a tag some dealers said before the sale was ambitious. The price soared past the estimate in a battle between two telephone bidders.

“Two people wanted it — as simple as that,” said New York dealer Christophe Van de Weghe. “What a great way to kick off the week.”

Phillips’s sale begins a trio of contemporary art auctions that are a benchmark for the industry’s recovery from last year’s slump. Sotheby’s…

Sotheby's Tobias Meyer with Warhol Coke bottle, (est. $20M-$25M). © Photo: Lindsay Pollock

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

The fall auction previews opened last week at  Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Warhol was ubiquitous. Early browsers included dealer Nicholas Acquavella, art banker Andy Augenblick, collector Ellen Stern and Yale University Art Gallery director Jock Reynolds.

The Impressionist and modern sales pivoted on a few choice works.  At Sotheby’s, the biggest catch was Amedeo Modigliani’s 1917 painting, Nude Sitting on a Divan (The Beautiful Roman Woman). The sensuous nude perches, legs crossed, on a plush red settee. She is flush in all the right places. The work set an auction record for Modigliani the last time it was up for auction in 1999, selling for $16.7 million. This time around it made $69 million.

Over at Christie’s…The four clear cut  standouts came from Henry Kravis–including Juan Gris’s 1913 Cubist, Violon et guitare.

This week contemporary art sells.

Collector Steve Wynn is dispensing with his 1964 Lichtenstein comic classic Ohhh…Alright... at Christie’s contemporary sale. Christie’s nabbed a string of estates, including Dennis Hopper, Robert Shapazian and Max Palevsky.

The contemporary sections burst with Pop. Examples of Abstract Expressionism are…

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema's "The Finding of Moses" sold for $35.9 million. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

Following an eight minute bidding battle, Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema’s cinematic The Finding of Moses sold for a record-setting $35.9 million this afternoon at Sotheby’s. The estimate was $3 million to $5 million. The anonymous buyer bid by phone.

The painting once belonged to Allen Funt, creator of the popular prank show Candid Camera. His collection of works by Alma-Tadema were exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1973, according to Sotheby’s.

The price paid for the large-scale depiction of the rescue of young Moses (the baby tucked in a basket) by the movie-star gorgeous Pharaoh’s daughter is a new benchmark for the 19th century classicist. Alma-Tadema’s previous auction record was set by the same canvas when it sold in 1995 for $2.8 million. The artist took two years to complete the work.

The painting sold during Sotheby’s 19th century European sale which tallied $61.5 million, with 73% of the 82 lots finding buyers.

Italian portrait painter Giovanni Boldini achieved an auction record as well. His Portrait of Giovinetta Errazuriz sold for $6.8 million, nearly four times its high estimate of…

Entry to Tom Ford's store via New York Magazine

You might not expect Mr. Cool fashion designer Tom Ford to sell an eight-foot tall aluminum 1965 Lucio Fontana, worth an estimated $500,000 to $800,000, in Philadelphia, but he evidently is.

One of the highlights of Freeman’s Nov. 7 modern and contemporary auction (besides a wad of Neuberger Berman booty) is lot 362, a slashed “Concetto Spaziale,” which once hung in the entrance to Ford’s plush Madison Avenue salon, alongside a Claude Lalanne crocodile table, beaver rugs and other costly accoutrement.

The work was acquired from Gagosian, according to Freeman’s catalog. (Freeman’s does not identify Ford as the seller, but photos of the store found on the web make this abundantly clear).

In 2007, Ford played Freudian art historian told IHT fashion reporter Suzy Menkes that his Fontana represents a vagina. Read that gem here.

Ford is no auction amateur. In May he sold a nine-foot tall 1965 purple Andy Warhol fright wig self-portrait for $32.6 million at Sotheby’s.

Greene and Greene desk and chair, selling at Sotheby's on Dec. 16, est. $4 million. Photo: Courtesy Sotheby's

By Mackie Healy, Art Market Views Contributor

A Standard Oil heir’s Greene & Greene wooden desk and chair, slated to fetch around $4 million, headlines Sotheby’s Important 20th Century Design sale on Dec. 16.

The Asian-influenced desk and chair hail from Pratt House, also known as Casa Barranca after the river that runs through the property, the final structure in architects Charles and Henry Greene’s five-part Ultimate Bungalow series.

The 4,300 square foot Southern California home was designed in 1909 as a winter home for Charles M. Pratt, according to Sotheby’s.  Pratt’s father was a co-founder of Standard Oil. The desk was custom-designed for the living room by cabinet maker Peter Hall.

The desk features hand-carved inlays of a gnarled oak tree in the bas-relief, a design is inspired by the Ojai valley landscape. The drawer pulls are accented with silver.

The desk sold previously at Christie’s in 1985 for $220,000, according to Artnet, an auction record for Greene & Greene which held for nearly 15 years. That sale was criticized by architectural preservationists, who believed the disassembling of the house’s furniture compromised the integrity of…

Link to Bloomberg story here.

Henri Matisse’s life-size bronze of a woman’s back sold for $48.8 million, an auction record for the artist, as Christie’s International’s New York Impressionist and modern art sale sustained a recovery from last year’s recession.

As collector and SAC Capital Advisors LP Founder Steven A. Cohen watched from a sky box, last night’s two-hour auction totaled $231.4 million with commissions, slightly above Christie’s $198.3 million low estimate, which doesn’t include the buyers’ premiums. The result was triple Christie’s year-ago tally of $74.2 million.

Dealers said the sale was strong for quality items, with 80 percent of the 84 lots finding buyers, similar to the previous night’s sale at Sotheby’s, which totaled $227.6 million, led by a $69 million Amedeo Modigliani nude.

“We are in a happier place,” said New York dealer Maxwell Davidson IV, after the sale. “There is not as much doom and gloom. If there’s quality, you can sell it.”

Davidson bought a $1.4 million pink Wassily Kandinsky watercolor and a blue Picasso watercolor for $818,500.

The Matisse, from an edition of 10, was conceived in 1930 and cast…

Picasso's 1921 so-called "Homme et Femme," which sold at Sotheby's on Nov. 2 for $5.3 million.

Evidently two pairs of breasts weren’t a dead give away.

Sotheby’s sold Picasso’s 1921 pastel semi-cubist drawing of two figures titled Homme et Femme last night for $5.3 million. The catalog declares the work was completed soon after the birth of Picasso’s first son when all was harmonious with wife Olga.

A cataloguer writes: “The present work is a rare instance of Picasso returning his focus to the male-female couple in this intense period of familial redefinition.”

Not so fast, according to art critic and scholar Phyllis Tuchman, who suspects that the work is actually two seated women, not a man and a women.

For one thing there is matter of dome-like breasts on both figures. Next, both appear to have flowing coiffures.

Tuchman also explained there is a related, fairly famous 1920 painting at the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen in Dusseldorf of two female nudes.

Tuchman says the title, Homme et Femme,  probably dates to 1951 when Christian Zervos wrote the catalog raisonne, working from a black and white reproduction, which may have obscured the work-or at least the breasts.

Sotheby’s, evidently clued in to Picasso’s renderings of female pairs in…

Record setting Modigliani nude

Link to Bloomberg story here.

An Amedeo Modigliani 1917 nude sold for $68.96 million, a record for the artist, helping Sotheby’s reach its highest total for a New York Impressionist and modern art sale since May 2008.

The auction tallied $227.6 million with commissions, below Sotheby’s top estimate of $266 million, which doesn’t include the buyers’ premiums. That reflected a sober mood in the room brimming with cautious dealers and collectors. A quarter of the offerings failed to sell, including works by Francis Picabia, Joan Miro and Henri Matisse.

“The sale was strong in areas, and weak where it should be,” said London dealer Alan Hobart of Pyms Gallery, who bought Henri Matisse’s bronze Deux Negresses, for $8.5 million on behalf of a client.

Modigliani’s Nu Assis sur un Divan (La Belle Romaine) was offered early in the 61-lot sale, the first of the two-week New York autumn season. Five phone bidders vied for the work, described in the catalog as a “post-coital rendering.”

“It really set a benchmark,” said dealer David Nash of Mitchell-Innes & Nash. The artist’s previous record was…